Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2: Yfi Handle Here it is a Taco Tuesday, March fourth.
Speaker 2: As we continue with the show Big Day Today, the
Speaker 2: President is going to be speaking tonight in a under
Speaker 2: with a joint session of Congress and the Supreme Court
Speaker 2: and just everybody under one building in one building, and
Speaker 2: it's going to be fireworks, guaranteed. He's going to talk
Speaker 2: about his first couple of months in office and then
Speaker 2: what's going to happen coming up in the future. Also,
Speaker 2: a part of what's controversy is Trump has cut off
Speaker 2: a the Ukraine done as of right now, so a
Speaker 2: lot going on now. Tariffs are a big story because
Speaker 2: at midnight the tariffs started, and the tariffs to Mexico
Speaker 2: and Canada twenty five percent. I'm going to that later
Speaker 2: or maybe even tomorrow. What I want to do is
Speaker 2: talk about what's happening with China, because that's a different story.
Speaker 2: China immediately retaliated. Tariffs against China kick in at midnight.
Speaker 2: Tariffs against the United States from China kicked in at midnight. Well,
Speaker 2: actually it's going to come in March tenth. But it
Speaker 2: was announced that the retaliation. Retaliatory tariffs are coming in immediately.
Speaker 2: So we had what ten days, seven days, and the
Speaker 2: move targets some of the top exports of US has
Speaker 2: to China, soybeans, meat, green grains. Do you know that
Speaker 2: China is the largest importer of American dairy, American farming goods, grains.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just a huge market. Tariff tariff tariff.
Speaker 2: American farmers are not going to be happy. Trump said
Speaker 2: he didn't expect Beijing to retaliate too much, and that's
Speaker 2: a quote because earlier tariffs the two countries sort of
Speaker 2: did a tick for tat, but it was not crazy war.
Speaker 1: It is now crazy war.
Speaker 2: Fifteen US companies right off the bat were placed on
Speaker 2: a list that doesn't let them import goods that can
Speaker 2: be used for military purposes. Another ten American companies, big
Speaker 2: ones are barred completely from trading with or investing in China.
Speaker 2: I mean, a trade war is happening, and we knew it.
Speaker 1: We knew it, So okay, and there's there's a method
Speaker 1: to the madness.
Speaker 2: Because Trump pads said one of the reasons or the
Speaker 2: reason he wants the trade war to happen and start
Speaker 2: throwing tariffs actually two reasons. One is because of the
Speaker 2: balance of payments we export, we import a lot more
Speaker 2: from those countries than we export, and that never does
Speaker 2: a country any good. And the other one is fentanyl
Speaker 2: and legal immigration. That's why in Mexico and Canada. Boy,
Speaker 2: there's a story there I want to share with you.
Speaker 2: China said, you know what, any any war, tara war,
Speaker 2: trade war, any kind of war.
Speaker 1: We're going balls to the wall.
Speaker 2: And China, as you know, is the largest or I'm
Speaker 2: telling you largest market for American products for a by
Speaker 2: a long shot.
Speaker 1: Last year, China imported twenty.
Speaker 2: Billion dollars in soybeans and corn and cotton and other
Speaker 2: US farm products. One of the big ones is sorghum.
Speaker 2: So anybody know what sorghum is? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I mean, what do you use sorghum for? Okay, it's
Speaker 2: kind of grain. But it's kind of fun talking about
Speaker 2: it because no one knows. And a great quote from
Speaker 2: Xiu Feng, the director of the Institute of International Studies
Speaker 2: at Nanjing University, quote, Trump is swinging his tariff stick
Speaker 2: harder and harder in Chinese.
Speaker 1: He talked about Trump.
Speaker 2: Swinging his ying Jing and you can look that up
Speaker 2: on the internet.
Speaker 1: What a ying Jing is.
Speaker 2: So the quote swinging his tariff stick isn't quite what
Speaker 2: the Chinese said, but it's kind of fun. So the
Speaker 2: leaders of Canada in Mexico held talks with the US
Speaker 2: trying to reach some kind of an agreement.
Speaker 1: G and Trump.
Speaker 2: No conversations whatsoever. I mean, it is simply, here are
Speaker 2: the tariffs. Here are the retaliatory tariffs. Here are the
Speaker 2: companies that we are not going to allow even to
Speaker 2: deal with US.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: During his first term, Trump did place tariffs on Chinese
Speaker 2: products to try to reduce that trade surplus that China
Speaker 2: has with the US, and that started a tit for
Speaker 2: tat trade war.
Speaker 1: But that is nothing nothing like what's going to be
Speaker 1: happening now, not even close.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons that Jingping did not go
Speaker 2: crazy is because he's looking at an economy that's not
Speaker 2: doing well, and he is looking at the balance of trade,
Speaker 2: which he needs desperately. Now none of that matters because
Speaker 2: the declaration of war has been made, and instead of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump stopping inflation day one, you're going to see
Speaker 2: prices because of tariffs go through the roof. Now, Trump
Speaker 2: argues and it's a legitimate argument that if you put
Speaker 2: high tariffs and you make it very expensive for countries
Speaker 2: or to import, actually it's very expensive for countries export.
Speaker 2: Actually it's very expensive for countries to import. That's where
Speaker 2: the tariffs goes. And he said those countries are paying
Speaker 2: the tariff.
Speaker 1: That's a croc.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you who pays the tariff. It's American consumer
Speaker 2: and American manufacturers.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: The rest of it. When he says, oh, that's just
Speaker 2: not true, it's just, oh, what a shocker.
Speaker 1: Not true. And so long term, Trump is right.
Speaker 2: If products from countries like Canada are exorbitantly expensive, United
Speaker 2: States manufacturer is going to go. It's cheaper, makes more
Speaker 2: sense to build a factory here, and higher American workers
Speaker 2: make sense. However, Trump is two months in. He announced
Speaker 2: the tariffs this morning or yesterday. He decided they were
Speaker 2: going to go full blasts.
Speaker 1: And we didn't even know that because he had said
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe it won't be twenty five percent,
Speaker 2: maybe it won't be twenty percent against China, and then
Speaker 2: throughout the day he said, yes, there will be Okay,
Speaker 2: so he announces it takes twenty four hours to announce
Speaker 2: a tariff, and high tariffs means that in the long run,
Speaker 2: American workers are going to benefit because the factories are
Speaker 2: going to manufacture. Here's what I want you to do
Speaker 2: is build an American factory in twenty four hours, or
Speaker 2: build an American factory in I don't know, six months.
Speaker 1: A year. Can't be done.
Speaker 2: And so instead of I'm going to kill inflation, I'm
Speaker 2: going to deal with inflation day one.
Speaker 1: Now it's yep.
Speaker 2: Americans are going to suffer, but it's going to be
Speaker 2: for the long term. By the way, inflation and it's
Speaker 2: going to hit. I guarantee you is not inflation. It's
Speaker 2: the Biden inflation. Keep that in mind. You will hear
Speaker 2: that over and over again. And if the economy, because
Speaker 2: of tariff and tariffs and other economic moves, if the
Speaker 2: economy goes south, I promise you it will be the
Speaker 2: Biden administration that caused all this. One hundred percent. You're
Speaker 2: going to hear some of that. I don't know, you might. Oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about this one for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Tonight is going to be the presidential speech, a kind
Speaker 2: of state of the Union.
Speaker 1: Presidents give this when they want to.
Speaker 2: In front of Congress, and I'm going to talk about
Speaker 2: right now. Another big story is the White House announced
Speaker 2: stopping military aid to Ukraine, cutting it off at least
Speaker 2: for the foreseeable future, penning an agreement with Ukraine and
Speaker 2: a peace deal.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot, a lot of complicated.
Speaker 2: So tonight we're going to see the President and he's
Speaker 2: going to report on the state of the nation and
Speaker 2: that's in quotes, and boy, what a level of fury
Speaker 2: among the Democrats because everybody knows what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's just to the extent we don't know that. And
Speaker 1: this is going to be pretty rare. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's ever happened quite like this. Among Republicans.
Speaker 2: It's gone everywhere from fervent support whatever the President does,
Speaker 2: we back him up to anxious deference. I don't want
Speaker 2: to get in the way of the president, you know
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And you're going to see an
Speaker 2: encounter between the Democrats and the President tonight.
Speaker 1: Some Democrats say they're going to boycott the address.
Speaker 2: Others say, oh, they're going to attend, and they're going
Speaker 2: to show how happy they are with this speech.
Speaker 1: Tonight tonight.
Speaker 2: Well, one former Democratic congressman said this will be nothing
Speaker 2: more than Trump television spectacle. For him, this is just
Speaker 2: the highest level of television visibility. It'll be geared a
Speaker 2: spectacle and not a substance of view. Trump is a
Speaker 2: television guy. I mean, he is a master of what
Speaker 2: he does. No one else comes close. I mean, okay's this.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen at the Republican Convention, he said, I
Speaker 2: alone can fix it. That is the complete demise of
Speaker 2: America under Joe Biden. That it was America's never been
Speaker 2: in a worse position.
Speaker 1: In his first.
Speaker 2: Inaugural, he vowed to stop quote American carnage. In a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three speech, he said to his audience, I
Speaker 2: am your retribution. In January's inaugural, he said he has
Speaker 2: been tested and challenged more than any president in our
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty year history. And I guess parentheses
Speaker 2: you say, including Lincoln close parentheses. Oh, I didn't say that,
Speaker 2: but you tell me the most of any president in
Speaker 2: our two hundred and fifty year history.
Speaker 1: And I didn't think it was going to go that far.
Speaker 2: I knew the evangelical said this, but I didn't think
Speaker 2: Trump was going to go that far, but he did.
Speaker 2: When he talked about surviving the assassination attempt, thank goodness
Speaker 2: he did survive it. That's just what we need, another
Speaker 2: dead president. He said, I was saved by God to
Speaker 2: make America great again.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a bad shot.
Speaker 2: It wasn't that the shot just missed and killed the
Speaker 2: guy behind him, that firefighter. God is the one that
Speaker 2: moved the bullet a little bit to.
Speaker 1: The left, so it only got his ear.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, he's just done some weird things. In his
Speaker 2: twenty twenty inaugural or his first address he to the nation,
Speaker 2: he stopped in the middle of it and awarded the
Speaker 2: Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh right in the
Speaker 2: middle of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's never been done. Now.
Speaker 2: Rush was diagnosed with lung cancer. Didn't know how long
Speaker 2: he was going to live. So yeah, but he could
Speaker 2: have waited until after the inaugurals, after the speech.
Speaker 1: How about waiting ten minutes until you finish it up. Nope.
Speaker 2: And during the inaugural he surprised the military family that
Speaker 2: year by announcing their husband and father was home from Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: and huge applause from the congress people, the senator in
Speaker 2: the audience, and chants of USA USA. This is from
Speaker 2: the congress people and the senators as this guy entered
Speaker 2: the auditorium.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is going to be fascinating if nothing else.
Speaker 2: And we'll see how far he goes, and then I'll
Speaker 2: tell you why it's going to be a complete fiasco.
Speaker 2: It used to be that State of the Union dress
Speaker 2: were pretty solemn occasions. You had a Democratic president, and
Speaker 2: of course the Democrats would stand up and applaud.
Speaker 1: The Republicans would not get up. We have a Republican president.
Speaker 2: The Republicans stand up and cheer, and they do whatever
Speaker 2: just they actually applaud and give a standing kind of ovation,
Speaker 2: and the Democrats sit down. So it goes along party lines. Well,
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, Barack Obama addresses Congress and lays
Speaker 2: out detail of a bonnet Obamacare, and he says that
Speaker 2: undocumented immigrants would not benefit from the plan. Representative Joe
Speaker 2: Wilson from South Carolina Republican screamed.
Speaker 1: Out, you lie.
Speaker 2: Well, that opened the floodgates. And of course, my favorite
Speaker 2: congress Person, Marjorie Taylor Green, who came in the second
Speaker 2: time out with a make America great red hat.
Speaker 1: And just I mean, how do you beat that? Right?
Speaker 2: And just started screaming and heckling President Biden.
Speaker 1: Now are the Democrats going to go that far?
Speaker 2: I don't know how many Marjorie Taylor Greens there are
Speaker 2: in Congress, I will tell you. And she's still a
Speaker 2: congress person. Every time Trump says something, she will jump
Speaker 2: up and down and scream and you will see be
Speaker 2: a spectr. I think that's fair to say. And it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter what Trump says. There is nothing that he
Speaker 2: has proposed that the Republican Congress and Senate basically has
Speaker 2: not backed up. Nothing even undoing programs and bureaucracies that
Speaker 2: Congress put into place and voted on and funded. And
Speaker 2: I am going to make a prognostication. And this is
Speaker 2: an if, and it's not going to happen. If Trump
Speaker 2: were to stand up and say during my term, I
Speaker 2: propose dissolving Congress or taking away all the power that
Speaker 2: Congress has, how many Republicans would be standing up and cheering?
Speaker 1: How many? Not all of them, but enough. I mean, it's.
Speaker 2: Gotten completely crazy. Well, I said, you know, we're in
Speaker 2: for a wa and it's just I've never seen. You've
Speaker 2: never seen anything like this. Pundits have never seen anything
Speaker 2: like this. Experts who have looked at government for fifty
Speaker 2: years have never seen anything like this. There's nothing in
Speaker 2: history of the United States that has occurred like this tomorrow,
Speaker 2: you bet we'll talk about it, Okay, local news. And
Speaker 2: that has to do with Mayor Karen Bass, of.
Speaker 1: Course firing the fire chief Crowley. And it is what's
Speaker 1: her first.
Speaker 2: Name, by the way, I kind of forget what her
Speaker 2: first name is.
Speaker 1: In any case, this is Christian Crowley. Okay, thank you.
Speaker 2: This is a situation where Karen Bass shows her great
Speaker 2: skill as a politician shows number one, she either is
Speaker 2: a liar or completely incompetent, or probably I think more truthfully,
Speaker 2: has a staff that is completely incompetent. And she is
Speaker 2: not blaming her staff. So this has to do with
Speaker 2: a Palises fire. Karen Bass, who had promised not to
Speaker 2: leave Los Angeles if she became mayors on an airplane
Speaker 2: and the inauguration of Ghana's new president.
Speaker 1: She's there.
Speaker 2: She had a thing about Africa, just kept on. She's
Speaker 2: been there like dozens of times. So now comes the
Speaker 2: National Weather Service issuing dire warnings about what was coming,
Speaker 2: the weather conditions, and it just got more dire and
Speaker 2: more dire, and it got to the point where the
Speaker 2: National Weather Service ended up saying it's going to be catastrophic.
Speaker 2: It is going to be life threatening. It's one of
Speaker 2: those weather conditions that if there is a fire, which
Speaker 2: of course inevitably there always is, it's going to be devastating.
Speaker 1: They were absolutely right. Ten thousand homes, sixteen thousand structures.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Karen Bass is in Ghana now.
Speaker 2: She says she never got the warning and the reason
Speaker 2: she's firing Crowley, Kristen Crowley, is because Kristen Carowley didn't
Speaker 2: call her.
Speaker 1: Crowley did not make the phone call to her.
Speaker 2: Okay, how about the dozens of emails that went to
Speaker 2: the mayor's staff. Dozens and not just one person. We're
Speaker 2: talking maybe half a dozen, maybe ten. We don't know
Speaker 2: the actual number that got that information. And Karen Bass
Speaker 2: said they didn't give it to me. It's Crowley's fault
Speaker 2: because Crowley didn't call me directly. And by the way,
Speaker 2: is that what happens does a fire chief is protocol,
Speaker 2: The fire chief calls the mayor, not a chance. It's
Speaker 2: done through emails its warnings by the National Weather Service.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, the city has its own organization,
Speaker 2: the Emergency Management Department, that also sent emails to Bass's office.
Speaker 2: And Bass said, never, never, my staff never gave me
Speaker 2: the warning. Okay, let's give her the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: My staff never gave me the warning. Wouldn't you think
Speaker 2: she would instantly fire every single person on her staff
Speaker 2: that received the warning and didn't do anything about it,
Speaker 2: not giving it to the mayor for example.
Speaker 1: And you're not going to see that. And she is saying, not.
Speaker 2: My fault, dog ate the homework. She's the one at fault.
Speaker 2: She's the one that ate the homework, Kristin Crowley, and
Speaker 2: that's why I fired her. By the way Kristin Crowley
Speaker 2: is appealing, the mayor has the absolute authority to fire
Speaker 2: any department head.
Speaker 1: Because the department has worked for the mayor.
Speaker 2: They were not elected, they're selected by the mayor and
Speaker 2: city council approves, but it's protocol that may hires his
Speaker 2: or her own people. Now within the city charter, anybody
Speaker 2: who is fired. Apartment head is fired has the right
Speaker 2: to appeal to the city Council, who can override that firing,
Speaker 2: and that's precisely what's happening in the vote is coming
Speaker 2: down today. Is probably going to be reinstated. Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: There's no chance. The mayor has too many supporters in
Speaker 2: the city council. This is all politics. You don't go
Speaker 2: against the mayor. And virtually all of the council people
Speaker 2: are a Democrat.
Speaker 1: She's a Democrat. You don't screw with a democratic mayor.
Speaker 2: You know. Now, I may have voted to not reinstate,
Speaker 2: and the sole reason is there has to be a
Speaker 2: relationship between department heads and the mayor has to be
Speaker 2: and if she gets reinstated, you can imagine the antagonism
Speaker 2: between the two going forward.
Speaker 1: Okay, wait a second.
Speaker 3: Now, you say that Trump only wants people who are
Speaker 3: lockstep with him, right, but not about relationships and people
Speaker 3: he trusts. But with Mayor Bass, you say it's about
Speaker 3: relationships and people they trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, but she inherited Crowley and what normally
Speaker 2: happens with a mayor coming in these positions are not political.
Speaker 2: What Trump has done is he hires for department heads.
Speaker 2: That is, when you're talking about cabinet positions, those are political.
Speaker 2: That's a political. Hiring a fire chief is not political.
Speaker 2: By the way, do you have any idea whether whether
Speaker 2: Crowley is a Democrat or a Republican.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: She's a political scapegoat now, well said that's her party.
Speaker 2: She's a political scapegoat, not even political, because I don't
Speaker 2: think politics have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: It's just Karen.
Speaker 2: Bass covering her ass, which should have third degree burns
Speaker 2: on it personally, okay or done. We'll see what happens today. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's what's going on. And I don't know why people
Speaker 2: are so upset. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post twelve
Speaker 2: years ago, and he said when he bought it he
Speaker 2: is not going to turn the paper into his personal mouthpiece.
Speaker 1: The values of the Post did not need changing. He said,
Speaker 1: we will.
Speaker 2: Remain our duty, will remain to the readers and not
Speaker 2: to the private interests of its owners.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, he posts on x now.
Speaker 2: That there's an overhaul of the opinion section, and it's
Speaker 2: going to be limited to these two concepts, or it's
Speaker 2: least going to be biased towards the two concepts personal
Speaker 2: liberties and free markets, and all kinds of fireworks came
Speaker 2: as a result of that, the Post opinion editor resigns.
Speaker 2: And here is the interpretation is that this is about
Speaker 2: Don Trump. This is about Donald Trump, right, and Bezos
Speaker 2: is bending the neee.
Speaker 1: But I have a question.
Speaker 2: Papers are biased anyway, aren't they. They endorse candidates, The
Speaker 2: editorial board endorsees. As a matter of fact, I don't
Speaker 2: even know if it's the editorial board. It's the official
Speaker 2: position of a paper that endorses candidates. Now, usually it's
Speaker 2: because of experience or it doesn't matter. The point is
Speaker 2: is that they do it anyway. And Bezos is saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, we're going to change the quote independence
Speaker 2: of the editorial board. But it's his paper, and he
Speaker 2: is going out of his way to say this is
Speaker 2: going to be the opinion section. Now that's very important
Speaker 2: that he has told us it's the opinion section. And
Speaker 2: why can't his paper give his opinion if we all
Speaker 2: know that it's his opinion.
Speaker 1: Where's the fault here?
Speaker 2: There's something about this that I don't understand because usually
Speaker 2: the opinion and official position of the paper is the
Speaker 2: editorial board, and there should be a firewall between what
Speaker 2: the editorial board does.
Speaker 1: Maybe they throw around all.
Speaker 2: Kinds of ideas and then in the end they agree
Speaker 2: or a majority of the board agrees, they're going to
Speaker 2: go in a certain political political view. Well, you know
Speaker 2: the La Times did that with our new publisher. You know,
Speaker 2: he decided he was going to spin it and not
Speaker 2: go the way of quote all independence. But you know,
Speaker 2: in the end, in the end, I think the papers,
Speaker 2: all the papers have an absolute duty to be as
Speaker 2: objective as possible with the news, much like Amy has
Speaker 2: the duty to be as objective as she popped Ussibly,
Speaker 2: can news departments have to I can be as biased
Speaker 2: as I.
Speaker 1: Want because I'm not the news.
Speaker 2: The editorial portion of the paper can be as biased
Speaker 2: as it wants because it's not the news.
Speaker 1: The only thing I ask is.
Speaker 2: That the paper differentiate between the two. That's the difference,
Speaker 2: and not take. Oh here's a question, by the way,
Speaker 2: and it just occurred to me, is you've got the
Speaker 2: president what he says is always news, and he talks
Speaker 2: about all the accusations against him as fake news. Does
Speaker 2: the paper publish the accusation that it's news is fake news?
Speaker 2: I guess it has to, doesn't it? The president said?
Speaker 2: The president claims. The president's position is I don't have
Speaker 2: a problem with that, and a lot of people do.
Speaker 2: KFI am six point you've been listening to The Bill
Speaker 2: Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am
Speaker 2: to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: app