Speaker 1: This is the US Report with James Morrow. Good evening
Speaker 1: and welcome to the program. Coming up tonight the great
Speaker 1: tariff debate. Will they make America great again or just
Speaker 1: break America's alliances? We'll find out the method in the madness.
Speaker 1: Plus Trump's staffers take a poke around in the White
Speaker 1: House and discover Joe Biden's fake over an office and
Speaker 1: a very special guest laptop from Hell Off the Miranda
Speaker 1: Devine joins me right here on the program. But first,
Speaker 1: we are now a little over fifty days into the
Speaker 1: Trump presidency, mark two, and after a month of absolutely
Speaker 1: frenetic wins, Donald Trump's enemies are finally starting to lean
Speaker 1: their shoulders into the job of opposition. Only in typical
Speaker 1: progressive fashion. They're doing opposing Trump to make things, not
Speaker 1: to make things better. They're simply having tantrums to try
Speaker 1: and mess things up up by, for example, torching Tesla
Speaker 1: charging stations to attack one of the businesses belonging to
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, who is in charge of the Trump's administration's
Speaker 1: efforts to cut government waste, as well as by occupying
Speaker 1: the lobby of Trump Tower to protest the deportation of
Speaker 1: a Hamas supporting university student who helped lead the illegal
Speaker 1: occupation of Columbia University, which last year saw on Jewish
Speaker 1: students harassed and prevented from going to class in the
Speaker 1: name of a free Palestine, and her protesters issue calls
Speaker 1: to quote, bring the Intifada home. Charming. Oh, and they're
Speaker 1: also doing this, and this may be my favorite thing
Speaker 1: that the Democrats are doing, which they once said was
Speaker 1: the worst thing in the world that ever could happen. Namely,
Speaker 1: they're threatening to shut down the US government by not
Speaker 1: passing a continuing budget resolution. Ooh, yes, the Democrats have
Speaker 1: been playing chicken all week with this. Here's Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 2: But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution
Speaker 2: without any input, any input from congressional Democrats. Because of that,
Speaker 2: Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to
Speaker 2: invoke cloture on the House.
Speaker 3: We r.
Speaker 1: Democrats for government shutdowns. How funny. Meanwhile, I can remember
Speaker 1: when old Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren said the government shutdowns were
Speaker 1: bad and continuing resolutions to keep the money flowing should
Speaker 1: be passed.
Speaker 4: The least we can do.
Speaker 5: The bare minimum that we can do would be to
Speaker 5: pass a continuing resolution to keep the doors open and
Speaker 5: the lights on.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 1: But you see there's a crucial difference. That footage is
Speaker 1: back from twenty thirteen when Barack Obama, a Democrat, was
Speaker 1: in power. Well, we're at it. Here's Democrats under Jack
Speaker 1: read another now, all in favor of shutting down the
Speaker 1: US government.
Speaker 6: Government shutdown at any duration would harm hardworking Americans and
Speaker 6: our economy. Shutdowns cost tax pays billions of dollars per week.
Speaker 1: They coused businesses money.
Speaker 6: They could even cause a downgrade to the nation's credit rating.
Speaker 1: Again, that was back in twenty twenty three, when, of
Speaker 1: course Joe Biden, hey has anyone heard from that guy recently?
Speaker 1: Was still the president. Well, the Dems took it all
Speaker 1: the way to the wall here. But incredibly, and against
Speaker 1: all predictions, Chuck Schumer tonight flagged Democrats that he would
Speaker 1: vote for the Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown.
Speaker 1: It was a rare moment of sense, and perhaps it
Speaker 1: was driven by the fact that Trump's head of the
Speaker 1: Office of Management and Budget would have then been in
Speaker 1: charge of what got shut down and what didn't, and
Speaker 1: they didn't want that. But broadly, I think it's becoming
Speaker 1: clear what is going on here. The left in the
Speaker 1: United States is doing what they always do when they're losing.
Speaker 1: They are going for a strategy of maximum chaos, you know,
Speaker 1: crash out the government, occupy buildings, torch enemy businesses, and
Speaker 1: you know what. In a lot of ways, it's sort
Speaker 1: of a replay of the last Trump administration, when the
Speaker 1: strategy was again to use the death of George Floyd
Speaker 1: to create racial chaos across the country, with Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter and Antifa torching downtowns from coast to coast. And
Speaker 1: the Trump administration at that point was also of course
Speaker 1: held hostage by bogus law fare and investigations, and of
Speaker 1: course let's not forget that the left also had the
Speaker 1: pandemic response to play with. And of course, five years on,
Speaker 1: we know how bogus and political so much of that
Speaker 1: turned out to be. So the big issue, not just
Speaker 1: in the US and around the world have rounded on
Speaker 1: tariffs now and a general experts that the rest of
Speaker 1: the world stopped free riding, particularly when it comes to
Speaker 1: defense on Uncle Sam's credit card. Let's have a listen
Speaker 1: to what Trump had to say about all this a
Speaker 1: few hours ago, and then I think we need to
Speaker 1: talk about why he's going down this particular path.
Speaker 7: We've been ripped off for years, and we're not going
Speaker 7: to be ripped off anymore now.
Speaker 8: I'm not going to bend at all.
Speaker 7: Aluminum or steel or cars, We're not going to bend.
Speaker 7: We've been ripped off as a country for many, many years.
Speaker 7: We've been subjected to costs that we shouldn't be subjected to.
Speaker 1: And it's not just trade, it is also defense, particularly
Speaker 1: when it comes to NATO.
Speaker 7: When I first went to NATO, my first meeting, I
Speaker 7: noticed that very few people were paying, and if they were,
Speaker 7: they weren't paying their fair share. There were only seven
Speaker 7: countries that were paying what they were supposed to be paying,
Speaker 7: which was yeah, I could be if it was, but
Speaker 7: there were just very few countries that were paying. And
Speaker 7: even the paying it was at two percent, which is
Speaker 7: too low. It should be higher, it should be quite
Speaker 7: a bit higher. But get Poland, and I remember Poland
Speaker 7: was actually paying a little bit more than there was
Speaker 7: a US to which was very impressed with. And they've
Speaker 7: been actually terrific in some of the others, but most
Speaker 7: of them weren't paying, or they were paying very little,
Speaker 7: and I didn't think it was appropriate to bring it
Speaker 7: up there, but I said, it's going to be brought
Speaker 7: up at my next meeting, and my next meeting. The
Speaker 7: first meeting, you want to give me a little break.
Speaker 7: The second meeting it began, and I was able to
Speaker 7: raise hundreds of billions of dollars. I just said, we're
Speaker 7: not going to be involved with you if you're not
Speaker 7: going to pay.
Speaker 1: So listen closely to what Trump is saying. The headlines
Speaker 1: out there are telling you that Trump wants to break
Speaker 1: the NATO alliance. But if you listen to what Trump says,
Speaker 1: he actually just wants European governments, who have bankrupted themselves
Speaker 1: on social welfare and open borders and can barely field
Speaker 1: an army. He wants them to muscle up, especially because
Speaker 1: if Russia is the threat they all say it is, well,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't they so In short, Trump thinks, yes, the
Speaker 1: US has been taken advantage of, both by liberal trade
Speaker 1: policies and by other nations free riding on the American
Speaker 1: defense budget. But I believe there is something more going
Speaker 1: on here, something that gets lost in all the noise
Speaker 1: of the media outrage. In fact, this is not chaos.
Speaker 1: There is actually a plan, and it may be a
Speaker 1: plan that a lot of people don't like, but it
Speaker 1: is a plan. When Donald Trump took the oath of
Speaker 1: office in January, every light in the economic cockpit would
Speaker 1: have been flashing red. Sometime this year or maybe next.
Speaker 1: The interest, the mere interest payments on the US federal
Speaker 1: debt are going to hit one trillion dollars a year year,
Speaker 1: one trillion. And this will have come out of a
Speaker 1: Democrat administration that saw probably ten million illegals stream into
Speaker 1: the country, screwing down wages and an ongoing decline in
Speaker 1: manufacturing jobs. To Trump, as businessman, this all was unsustainable.
Speaker 1: It's a red alert for one thing. He's thinking, how
Speaker 1: do you pay for all of this debt? How do
Speaker 1: you pay it off? Tariffs, of course, are one of
Speaker 1: the only leaders the president has that he can directly
Speaker 1: pull here. And the thought of burdening the American taxpayer
Speaker 1: with further higher income taxes, well that's out of the question.
Speaker 1: But beyond debt, the loss of manufacturing capability. To Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: that means weakness. Remember it was American industry that won
Speaker 1: World War Two, and of course the loss of manufacturing
Speaker 1: also means the loss of dignity for the American worker.
Speaker 1: This is why his message resonated through all those swing
Speaker 1: states again in twenty twenty four that had been devastated
Speaker 1: by official orthodox neoliberal policy when it comes to free trade.
Speaker 1: And that is why I think that as much as
Speaker 1: we can deplore tariffs on a country like Australia an
Speaker 1: Allies stealed an aluminum aluminium, we also have to understand
Speaker 1: that in the White House they look at Australia as
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale. I mean, think what happened here. We
Speaker 1: reformed our tariff situation under Hawk and Kating, we got
Speaker 1: rid of protectionism, and for a long time the economy thrived.
Speaker 1: That was great, But then two things happened. We believed
Speaker 1: that we could change the weather by making energy more expensive,
Speaker 1: and we opened the doors to cheap labor from overseas,
Speaker 1: deflating wages while making housing unaffordable. And now it's not
Speaker 1: unusual to hear the words Australia and Argentina, at least
Speaker 1: in its premal a form together in the same sentence,
Speaker 1: for reasons that go beyond they're being close to one another.
Speaker 1: In an alphabetical list of countries. Green policies the same
Speaker 1: the Democrats want of the US have made energy too
Speaker 1: expensive to manufacture and provide manufacturing jobs, while Australians have
Speaker 1: to work ever harder to make a living and pay
Speaker 1: the bills. In Harvard University's ranking of Economic Complexity, which
Speaker 1: compares the complexity of products and services produced by various countries,
Speaker 1: Australia's ranking has declined from fifty third in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: five to one hundred and second in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: sandwiched in between Senegal and Yemen. Now, Donald Trump he
Speaker 1: wants America to avoid that face fate, and that's why
Speaker 1: tarifs to protect industry. That's why drill, baby, drill, and
Speaker 1: that's why he wants strong borders. Now, the left, which
Speaker 1: is so angry about all of this, thinks working class
Speaker 1: jobs are icky doing business with China. They hate cheap energy,
Speaker 1: but they adore the diversity in cheap labor that is
Speaker 1: brought in by open borders. So go ahead and deplore
Speaker 1: Trump's tariffs. But don't for a second think that what
Speaker 1: is going on is quote unquote chaotic. Well, joining me
Speaker 1: now is someone you will be well familiar with. You know,
Speaker 1: her from her columns and news breaking in The New
Speaker 1: York Post, for her books Laptop from Hell and The
Speaker 1: Big Guy, How a President and his Son sold Out America,
Speaker 1: as well as for her regular spots on Fox News,
Speaker 1: and of course for being the woman who broke the
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story. Welcome for the first time to
Speaker 1: the USh Report, my great friend, Brandon Vine. Brandon, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the program, and I want to start with your
Speaker 1: latest column of The New York Post where you break
Speaker 1: through all the nonsense going on around the anti Elon Muskin,
Speaker 1: anti Doge sentiment. You're right that the public isn't buying
Speaker 1: the relentlessly anti Musk, anti dose propaganda according to the
Speaker 1: recent polls, with a CBS you go of poll last
Speaker 1: week saying that was so positive about them that CNN
Speaker 1: pollmeister Harry Entin declared it shocking because it showed a
Speaker 1: majority of Americans support what Doge is doing. Tell us
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 5: Having me, James, Yes, Look, you would think from the
Speaker 5: relentless media assassination or character assassination at least of Elon Musk,
Speaker 5: that he was doing something vastly unpopular, and in fact,
Speaker 5: the polls show that despite the media attacks, what DOGE
Speaker 5: is doing cutting government spending and Elon Musk himself are
Speaker 5: still popular with a majority of Americans, a slim majority,
Speaker 5: but you know, looking at fifty two to fifty three
Speaker 5: percent in that CBS poll, there was another poll that
Speaker 5: also showed that Americans were by bigger majorities. I think
Speaker 5: it was like fifty nine percent thought that it was
Speaker 5: good to cut this waste and fraud in government. And look,
Speaker 5: it's not as if Elon Musk is not incredibly transparent.
Speaker 5: He's set up a Doge website, and you can look
Speaker 5: on there as I did yesterday and find all manner
Speaker 5: of sort of waste and just wanton abuse of taxpayers money,
Speaker 5: millions and millions, tens of millions going to just fraudulent
Speaker 5: DEI programs. We know about USAID paying for sort of
Speaker 5: DEI musicals in Ireland and drag Queen story time in
Speaker 5: a very conservative Catholic countries in South America. You know
Speaker 5: what the purpose of it was is, we don't really know,
Speaker 5: but it looks pretty nefarious. This looks like it was
Speaker 5: a slush for the CIA to affect regime change and
Speaker 5: sort of soft power in various countries that it was
Speaker 5: trying to infiltrate, but also it was a slush fund
Speaker 5: for the Democrats, and yeah, they're pet projects.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think, you know, we're seeing them
Speaker 1: so angry about this because if you look at the screen,
Speaker 1: I've showed some footage of them in a New York
Speaker 1: Tesla showroom where they are you know, they've occupied the
Speaker 1: showroom and they're chanting. And there's been plenty of other
Speaker 1: things we've seen where they've burned Tesla charging stations, burned dealerships,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Now I've heard that a Democrat
Speaker 1: fundraising group called Act Blue, and maybe even George Soros
Speaker 1: have some ties here. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well Act Blue before the election, that was the
Speaker 5: main fundraising sort of cutout or flow through for small
Speaker 5: figure donations to Kamala Harris. And it turns out that
Speaker 5: a lot of those small donations were fraudulent. It looks
Speaker 5: like money laundering where you have someone who gives a
Speaker 5: lot of money and then it gets parceled out to
Speaker 5: these straw donors. And the Republicans had an inquiry into that,
Speaker 5: and just since the election, we've had I think seven
Speaker 5: senior executives at Act Blue have resigned because the spotlight
Speaker 5: is shining on their activities and this is against the law.
Speaker 5: You can't be circumventing US electoral law by parceling up
Speaker 5: large sums of money into fake, tiny sums of money.
Speaker 5: But that seems to be what they were doing. That
Speaker 5: investigation is still in its infancy, but I think it
Speaker 5: did enough to crimp Camelo's style a little bit during
Speaker 5: the election campaign, not that it stopped her wasting fast
Speaker 5: sums of stupid billionaire do money like Reid Hoffmann.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I want to shift gears here, Rand and
Speaker 1: talk too about the other big story here this week,
Speaker 1: and that is tariffs, which are making huge news here
Speaker 1: in Australia as well. Child Trump has confirmed and Carolyn
Speaker 1: Levitt has confirmed that the White House will not be
Speaker 1: granting exemptions to countries, saying that if they want to
Speaker 1: be exempted, they should consider moving steel manufacturing here. Well,
Speaker 1: Australia already does have some steel manufacturing in the US
Speaker 1: through Blue Scope. But what is the logic here of
Speaker 1: the tariffs? Does Trump think he can bring back manufacturing
Speaker 1: through these or is this really about a new way
Speaker 1: to raise money to pay off the monstrous debt that
Speaker 1: sees America heading for a fiscal cliff or is it
Speaker 1: a combination of both.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's maybe even a three or four
Speaker 5: prong strategy. He does love tariffs, but he uses them
Speaker 5: as a sort of a weapon and a bargaining tool,
Speaker 5: and he also sees I think quite rightly he talks
Speaker 5: about reciprocal tariffs. He wants to threaten countries that tariff
Speaker 5: America with their own tariffs reciprocal payback tariffs, with the
Speaker 5: aim that both sides actually drop their tariffs all together.
Speaker 5: And so that's why you have you know, otherwise sort
Speaker 5: of blue blood free traders like Steven Moore actually saying, well,
Speaker 5: you know, there may be method in the president's madness.
Speaker 5: And certainly, you know, I mean, the stock market has
Speaker 5: had a couple of bad weeks and a lot of
Speaker 5: people are looking at their retirement funds and cringing and
Speaker 5: getting upset and starting to go wobbly on Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: But I just think that he you know, he showed
Speaker 5: during his first term that he was willing to do
Speaker 5: unorthodox things, including with the economy, and it worked really well.
Speaker 5: So he's been in office for less than two months,
Speaker 5: you know, I think Americans should give him the benefit
Speaker 5: of the doubt. As for Australia, I mean, I think
Speaker 5: it's really unfortunate. Donald Trump has said to me, unbidden
Speaker 5: by any sort of questions from me, that Australia is
Speaker 5: unusual among all the countries of the world because it
Speaker 5: doesn't have a trade deficit with the US, and so
Speaker 5: by rights it should have been granted some sort of
Speaker 5: exemptions under his reciprocal tariff sort of mindset, and certainly
Speaker 5: in his first term with Joe Hockey as the ambassador,
Speaker 5: who was very well embedded with the Trump camp. And
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people don't know, but during
Speaker 5: that sort of summer of love in twenty twenty especially,
Speaker 5: I say that sarcastically when the riots were happening, but
Speaker 5: also earlier than that, when DC Washington, DC became a
Speaker 5: very hostile environment for anybody from the Trump administration. They'd
Speaker 5: be spat on in restaurants.
Speaker 8: Would refuse to serve them, etc.
Speaker 5: Joe Hockey opened up the Australian Embassy, which is a
Speaker 5: beautiful a sort of a state with the only grass
Speaker 5: tennis court in town. It has a swimming pool, the
Speaker 5: huge terrorists where he likes to have Ossie style barbecues
Speaker 5: and he was a very generous host during that time.
Speaker 5: When I said generous, and I don't think he was
Speaker 5: wasting Australian taxpayer money.
Speaker 8: It was just.
Speaker 5: Sausages and things. But certainly with his time he invited
Speaker 5: these people there, and I think he also played golf
Speaker 5: with Donald Trump, so he really ingratiated himself and I
Speaker 5: think that went a long way to Australia getting exemptions.
Speaker 5: Malcolm Turnbull also, I know a lot of Sky viewers
Speaker 5: don't like him, but I think he was very sure
Speaker 5: flooded with Trump when he came. I went with him
Speaker 5: on that trip to meet Trump for the first time
Speaker 5: when he was Prime Minister. So between the two of them,
Speaker 5: they pretty much wrangled the Trump administration into a positive
Speaker 5: view with a very obvious sort of diplomacy effort. Whereas
Speaker 5: now when you've got Alban Easy and Kevin they're just
Speaker 5: about invisible, and they're also haunted by their previous negative
Speaker 5: criticism about Donald Trump, really rancid criticism. So I'm not
Speaker 5: sure that Australia is really being well served now.
Speaker 1: Miranda, I've got to show you some hilarious footage that
Speaker 1: has been revealed of the fake Oval office that President
Speaker 1: Biden used during his term, the stage set up in
Speaker 1: an auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office building. Well, it
Speaker 1: basically confirms everything we kind of thought about what was
Speaker 1: going on about Joe Biden and that he was fine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: his whole presidency was basically shot in this kind of
Speaker 1: Truman Show movie stoedio. What do you make of it?
Speaker 5: Yes, well, look, we knew that that was a fake
Speaker 5: Oval office, and I guess now that we've been or
Speaker 5: some reporters have been allowed to go and check it out,
Speaker 5: it's pretty clear why it was like that, because it
Speaker 5: was a sort of an easy set with a huge
Speaker 5: teleprompter that Joe Biden could squint at and try to read.
Speaker 5: I guess that was the reason for it. You know,
Speaker 5: his whole his entire first election campaign and then his
Speaker 5: presidency was like the Truman Show. It was fake. Although
Speaker 5: I noticed lately people are sort of letting him off
Speaker 5: the hook and saying, oh, you know, he signed everything
Speaker 5: with an auto pen, so obviously his staff were really
Speaker 5: running the country. I don't think that's correct, And I've
Speaker 5: spoken to people who were in meetings with him and
Speaker 5: just observed him. He had good days and he had
Speaker 5: bad days. He had good hours and he had bad hours.
Speaker 5: But he was well and truly running the agenda when
Speaker 5: he had his sort of cognitive periods when he was
Speaker 5: sort of full steam ahead maybe or half a steam ahead,
Speaker 5: sort of vaguely compassmentus. And you know, you could see
Speaker 5: him when he was I mean, he did the State
Speaker 5: of the Union, he did a few press conferences.
Speaker 1: When he was on.
Speaker 5: He was the old Joe Biden, who was just a
Speaker 5: really repellent character, very dishonest, corrupt, and just a pathological
Speaker 5: liar and really a malevolent character who demonized the other side.
Speaker 5: He didn't just treat his political opponents as opponents, He
Speaker 5: really viciously hated them and tried to sick half the
Speaker 5: country into hating them. And he really was a very
Speaker 5: divisive president. So I think he was fully aware of
Speaker 5: what he was doing. He was fully aware that he
Speaker 5: was pardoning Hunter Biden and his whole family and a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of really rancid killers. And he was also
Speaker 5: know being listened. He was listened to by his generals,
Speaker 5: by his cabinet members. You know, for instance, with the
Speaker 5: pull out from Afghanistan that was such a disaster. He
Speaker 5: was the one running the show there. They listened to
Speaker 5: him with disastrous consequences.
Speaker 1: And Mariana, finally, before I let you go, I've got
Speaker 1: to ask you about the story that Hunter Biden is
Speaker 1: out of money and he can't continue when he was
Speaker 1: laptop related lawsuits. Very quickly, he just tell us a
Speaker 1: quick summary of what's happened here to Hunter whose laptop story,
Speaker 1: of course, you brought to the world. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, Hunter Biden, now that his father's out of office,
Speaker 5: is crying poor. He's been suing everybody. Willie Nilly in
Speaker 5: one of his lawsuits against Marco Polo and Garrett Zigler,
Speaker 5: he wants to drop because he says, he just no
Speaker 5: one's buying his paintings anymore, and no one's buying his
Speaker 5: book anymore. And he puts that down to defamation against him.
Speaker 5: How no one thinks that he's a great guy anymore,
Speaker 5: completely failing to understand that now that his father's out
Speaker 5: of office, he actually doesn't have any influence to pedal.
Speaker 5: And so I think he's heading off to South Africa,
Speaker 5: the homeland of his new bride, Newish bride for about
Speaker 5: three months to hide out. He was supposed to do
Speaker 5: a deposition this week, and we'll see what the judge
Speaker 5: has to say about whether he can get away with
Speaker 5: not paying a couple of hundred thousand dollars in legal
Speaker 5: bills that he wants to get out of because he's
Speaker 5: so much. He also claimed that he's that he was
Speaker 5: affected by the fires, the wildfires in Los Angeles. He
Speaker 5: lives in a rental that was untouched by the fire,
Speaker 5: So that's another sort of hunter by tooltail.
Speaker 1: Brandy, you gotta love the hunter Biden. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why anybody doesn't want to buy his finger paintings anymore.
Speaker 1: Who knows anyway, Brandon A Vine, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me on the US Report. Well don't go
Speaker 1: anywhere because after the break, we've got former Trump advisor
Speaker 1: Christian Witten and he's going to talk a lot more
Speaker 1: about what's going on behind the scenes of the new
Speaker 1: Trump White House. But first, this is absolutely hilarious to me.
Speaker 1: You know how celebrities always threatened to leave the United
Speaker 1: States whenever a Republican wins the the White House, Well
Speaker 1: we finally found one who's followed through on it. Rosie o'donald. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. The comedian, if that's not too generous a
Speaker 1: word here, has skipped town to get out from under
Speaker 1: the thumb of MAGA. Have a listen to what happened
Speaker 1: when a reporter at the White House failed up the
Speaker 1: Irish PM, who was in town for talks with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump about his country's newest resident.
Speaker 2: Why in the world would you let Rosie o'donnald move
Speaker 2: to our le Just go a lower your happiness, love,
Speaker 2: thank you?
Speaker 9: I like that question.
Speaker 7: Do you know who she is?
Speaker 8: You better?
Speaker 7: You better not.
Speaker 1: Tell you what If the Irish PM didn't know who
Speaker 1: Rosie was before, he sure will soon, just in time
Speaker 1: for Saint Patrick's Day, Faith and mcgora. A lots more
Speaker 1: US report coming up, including more of just what's going
Speaker 1: on with those tariffs. In a tick, welcome back to
Speaker 1: the program. Christian Witten joins me in a moment, but
Speaker 1: before I bring him in, I wanted to cover off
Speaker 1: on something that we didn't have time to talk about
Speaker 1: last week and which no one else has really picked
Speaker 1: up on. And I know it is really early, really
Speaker 1: early to be thinking about the twenty twenty eight presidential election,
Speaker 1: but I also think We need to be alive to
Speaker 1: moves that are already happening because they are going to
Speaker 1: shape not just that race, but the next four years.
Speaker 1: And here's my advice. Keep an eye on California Governor
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom. I mean a close eye, a close eye,
Speaker 1: like he was hanging around your cutlery drawer waiting for
Speaker 1: you to go to the bathroom. That's how close you
Speaker 1: need to watch him. And here's why I say this.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom has started a podcast. Okay, fine, but guess
Speaker 1: what he's inviting on conservatives with who he is sometimes yes, agreeing,
Speaker 1: we're giving ground to take a look at this. Here's
Speaker 1: a little bit of Gavin Newsom talking to MAGA influencer
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk about the issue of transgender competitors in women's sport.
Speaker 10: It's like, you right now should come out and be like,
Speaker 10: you know what, the young man who's about to win
Speaker 10: the state championship in the long jump in female sports,
Speaker 10: that that shouldn't happen. You as the governor should step
Speaker 10: out and say.
Speaker 1: No, no.
Speaker 10: And I appreciate and like, would you do something like that,
Speaker 10: would you say no men in female sports?
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's an issue of fairness.
Speaker 6: I completely agree with you on that it is an
Speaker 6: issue affair, So it's deeply you.
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting? Because of course, transgender participation in sports
Speaker 1: was one of those eighty twenty issues where the Democrats
Speaker 1: lost big time to Trump. And here's a little bit
Speaker 1: of Newsom walking away from the term LATINX, the LATINX
Speaker 1: stuff that.
Speaker 5: By the way, now, one person ever in my office
Speaker 5: has ever used the word LATINX.
Speaker 1: So can we finally put that to bad?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 1: But where did that even know? More LATINX?
Speaker 8: Everybody well just didn't even know where it came from.
Speaker 8: And like, what are people talking about?
Speaker 1: Well, look, he literally set it himself plenty of times previously.
Speaker 1: But who cares. You can see what he's doing here.
Speaker 1: He's walking away from all these woke positions. That's because
Speaker 1: Newsome is a slippery character. And don't be surprised if
Speaker 1: he keeps doing this to triangulate against the most radical
Speaker 1: elements of his party to set himself up as a
Speaker 1: sensible centrist ready to take on whomever Donald Trump appoints
Speaker 1: as his successor in twenty twenty eight. You heard it
Speaker 1: here first. Well, I'm thrown now to be joined by
Speaker 1: former Donald Trump senior advisor Christian Witten. Christian, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for coming back on the US report. Hey, somebody
Speaker 1: else we do hear a lot about. Is Tom Homan?
Speaker 1: The borders are who's been doing I think a pretty
Speaker 1: good job about keeping the border secure to the point
Speaker 1: now where we have seen the crossings across a Darien gap,
Speaker 1: which is one of the ways that people come up
Speaker 1: into the United States. Good to basically zero. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, some people aren't agreeing with him. Have
Speaker 1: a look at Tom Holman slamming the governor of New York,
Speaker 1: Kathy Hokele.
Speaker 11: Here, let's talk about your governor. Your governor who stayed
Speaker 11: on national TV after NYPD were assaulted by illegal and
Speaker 11: gang members. You had a woman burned alive by Illiguanta subway.
Speaker 11: Your governor stands in national TIEV. I think criminal alien
Speaker 11: should be deported. What's one of the first things she'd do?
Speaker 11: She goes on New York City and tires to fire
Speaker 11: the mayor who wants to help me find public safety threats.
Speaker 1: Christian, this was one of the big issues that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump won on, and I love Tom Holman's passion. What
Speaker 1: do you think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's great. I think that people will
Speaker 4: react to it. Well, he's great as sort of you know,
Speaker 4: a new not top cop. I don't know who America's
Speaker 4: top cop is, but we've had this sort of absence
Speaker 4: of a law and order figure and he's really feeling it,
Speaker 4: I think quite well. And he has a really easy
Speaker 4: opposition because Hockle is clueless on this. You know, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump was basically run out of of New York. They
Speaker 4: prosecuted him there on a bunch of phony, blooney things.
Speaker 8: He became a.
Speaker 4: Resident of Florida, he could just say via condos, enjoy
Speaker 4: the urban decay.
Speaker 8: But he is still in New Yorker.
Speaker 4: He was born there, born in Queens, and he really
Speaker 4: wants to help the city. It is America's financial capital.
Speaker 4: And you know, against the will essentially of the governor,
Speaker 4: who is clueless. But you have a mayor of New
Speaker 4: York City, you actually should be more liberal than the
Speaker 4: governor who saying, yeah, we could use federal help in
Speaker 4: getting these illegal immigrants criminals under control. And so that's
Speaker 4: what's happening, and he's cooperating. I Hoka would be very
Speaker 4: smart just to go along with it.
Speaker 8: Because New York.
Speaker 4: I don't think he'll ever be a Republican state, but
Speaker 4: it's not going to be as left as it was.
Speaker 8: If Trump succeeds in controlling crime.
Speaker 1: Well, I take you right, Christian and knowing New York
Speaker 1: very well as I do, and that pledge he made
Speaker 1: to make the cities great and the city's clean, the
Speaker 1: city is safe again, I think this is a big
Speaker 1: part of it. Hey, before I let you go, I
Speaker 1: want to have a little chat here about tariffs.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: We spoke about them earlier in the show, and there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of national negative reaction to them, particularly
Speaker 1: here in Australia, but I want to find out what's
Speaker 1: going on in the United States. How are Americans feeling
Speaker 1: about the Donald Trump plan to put tariffs on imported
Speaker 1: goods steel and aluminium in particular. But now it looks
Speaker 1: like there's a trade war kicking off of the EU
Speaker 1: and even champagne could be more expensive.
Speaker 8: That's right again, these are sort of good opponents to have.
Speaker 4: As your previous guest mentioned, Australia actually as a trade
Speaker 4: deficit with the United States, so I don't think Trump
Speaker 4: is particularly interested in putting tariffs on Australia.
Speaker 8: And also just the Pacific defense angle.
Speaker 4: But you know Europe, I think he's disappointed with them
Speaker 4: over Ukraine over there free loading, over their unfair tariffs
Speaker 4: on US farmers, the French easy targets. So the EU
Speaker 4: put a tariff on American made whiskey, slapping back with
Speaker 4: the two hundred percent tariff on French made wine, actually
Speaker 4: wine made anywhere in the EU.
Speaker 8: I'll bet they buckle.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the French and the Italians are
Speaker 4: going to go screaming to Brussels and say we have
Speaker 4: to give and we have to do something. So so
Speaker 4: far the terriff haven't affected people's lives. They've just been
Speaker 4: a very useful tool to get Canada and Mexico and
Speaker 4: other governments like that to pay attention to Trump on
Speaker 4: illegal immigration in fence.
Speaker 8: And all the stock market's dropping.
Speaker 4: Voters don't actually blame the president for short term fluctuations
Speaker 4: in the market if long term there is a spike
Speaker 4: in prices, but I don't think we're really going to
Speaker 4: see that happen. There is the question of how often
Speaker 4: Trump can threaten tariffs and then sort of when the
Speaker 4: other country backs down back away. I think eventually he
Speaker 4: does want higher systemic tariffs.
Speaker 8: On Mexico in the EU, but we'll have to wait
Speaker 8: and see about that.
Speaker 1: Well, can you just give us maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of insight before you go here into what the thinking is,
Speaker 1: because you know, if Trump keeps hitting that tariff button
Speaker 1: as you suggest, it will become less effective and it
Speaker 1: will also cause a lot of uncertainty in the markets.
Speaker 1: We're heading into a period of great global instability. You know.
Speaker 1: We know the United States wants to pivot to China.
Speaker 1: Is there a danger though, that he winds up alienating
Speaker 1: economically and diplomatically countries that he wants on their side
Speaker 1: as he pivots towards the specific and towards this you know,
Speaker 1: contest with China, which he does see as a real
Speaker 1: peer competitor to the United States.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think that's come up so far. You know,
Speaker 4: the problem is Europe is pretty much useless against China.
Speaker 4: I'm sure they'll sort of rhetorically be on our side
Speaker 4: if we had to fight. In contrast to Australia, which
Speaker 4: has fought with United States in every war since World
Speaker 4: War Two, even the sort of unfortunate ones. You've always
Speaker 4: been there, and I same with you know other countries
Speaker 4: that would be affected with steeling aluminum tariffs across the board.
Speaker 8: Like India, Brazil, China.
Speaker 4: Obviously China's You know, we're not going to be upset
Speaker 4: if they're upset. Trump is determined to bring back some manufacturing.
Speaker 4: It doesn't mean we want to go back to in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventies or sixties economy.
Speaker 8: We have shifted to.
Speaker 4: Largely as service is focused and heavily financialized economy. But
Speaker 4: twisting the needleback somewhat, you know some of the things
Speaker 4: that Vice President Vance wrote in.
Speaker 8: His book Hillbilly Elegy about the.
Speaker 4: Decline of manufacturing and the psychological impact.
Speaker 8: Trump really does believe that tariff's.
Speaker 1: And I do too.
Speaker 4: And if you look at American history, there were times
Speaker 4: when tariffs were too high, like Undersmooth Holly during the Depression,
Speaker 4: But from when George Washington was president through most of
Speaker 4: our history and tariffs were higher than they are now.
Speaker 1: Well, exactly right. I always tell people go back and
Speaker 1: read about William McKinley. He was a tariff guy. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Christian Witten, thank you so much for your time. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I think we've had enough dub and gloom and tariff talk.
Speaker 1: How about a little good news. Remember way back in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty when Black Lives Matter and Antifa held a
Speaker 1: three day insurrection outside the White House and were rewarded
Speaker 1: with this bit of street art, which became known as
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, d C. Well, guess
Speaker 1: what that's all over now, Black Lives Matter Plaza is gone.
Speaker 1: Check out this footage. Oh and by the way, after
Speaker 1: Trump threatened to withhold funding to the Washington DC City government,
Speaker 1: they've also start started cleaning up homeless encampments. Having been
Speaker 1: to the US capital a number of times in recent years,
Speaker 1: I can tell you that is a sort of cleaning
Speaker 1: up Washington really needs stick around, because we've got Brianna
Speaker 1: Liveman after the break. Hey, welcome back to the program. Well,
Speaker 1: joining me now is Brianna Liveman, elections correspondent for the Federalist. Brianna,
Speaker 1: thanks so much. Coming on the US report. I want
Speaker 1: to start with some stunning revelations. And I mean this
Speaker 1: seems like something out of a movie. But apparently our
Speaker 1: friends at the US Agency for International Development, which is
Speaker 1: of course that group that's been putting all of that
Speaker 1: money into aid organizations and foreign AID, but also into
Speaker 1: opposition newspapers in friendly countries and doing all sorts of
Speaker 1: things like funding you know, I don't know, transgender basket weaving,
Speaker 1: gabond and things like that. Well, they've been instructing employees
Speaker 1: to shred and even burn classified documents. Tell us about this.
Speaker 12: Yeah, this is very interesting. The New York Times day
Speaker 12: pretty thorough a report on this. But apparently workers are
Speaker 12: being instructed to, like you said, shred and burn classified documents,
Speaker 12: and there are efforts to stop them because some people
Speaker 12: are saying, well, what are those documents?
Speaker 3: What's being contained in the documents?
Speaker 12: And I think the larger point here is we have
Speaker 12: spent the past few years, or I should say the
Speaker 12: left has spent the past few years going after Donald
Speaker 12: Trump for classified documents, right, that was the biggest scandal,
Speaker 12: And now you have people who are burning classified documents allegedly.
Speaker 3: It makes people say, what is on those documents?
Speaker 12: And why don't you want the American people to know
Speaker 12: what's being burned?
Speaker 3: Or why are you hiding this information?
Speaker 1: Well, what do you suspect might be in some of
Speaker 1: these documents? Because I think some of the most interesting
Speaker 1: things that USAID might have been up to involve, you know,
Speaker 1: political and interference. Not just far and aid like giving
Speaker 1: out vaccines or AIDS medication and things like that, but
Speaker 1: going out and funding opposition newspapers, funding opposition parties, and
Speaker 1: interfering in democracies that we're supposedly friends with.
Speaker 12: Yeah, well, the United States does have a pretty long
Speaker 12: history of interfering in other countries' elections their political business.
Speaker 12: And I think for most Americans who are actually welcoming
Speaker 12: this idea of slashing us AID and all this international funding,
Speaker 12: we are only more resolute in our position when we
Speaker 12: hear that these documents are being burned, because if they
Speaker 12: were on the up and up, if USAID was doing
Speaker 12: what it's supposed to be doing and it wasn't being nefarious,
Speaker 12: they would have no reason to hide anything or to
Speaker 12: burn or shred things. So this only bolsters Donald Trump's
Speaker 12: efforts to downsize the federal government and to stop wasteful spending.
Speaker 1: Hey, Nebran, I want to move on to another story
Speaker 1: that's been breaking in the last couple of days. I
Speaker 1: spoke a little bit earlier about this with Brandon de Vine,
Speaker 1: but I want to get your take on it. There's
Speaker 1: an auto pen which is a thing that basically automatically
Speaker 1: signs documents, and apparently the Conservative Heritage Foundation has found
Speaker 1: that dozens and dozens of executive orders and other documents
Speaker 1: signed by former President Joe Biden were actually authorized with
Speaker 1: identical autopen signatures, including things that were signed when he
Speaker 1: was apparently off on vacation, which he was for about
Speaker 1: two thirds of his presidency. Does this raise any questions
Speaker 1: to you about who was in charge during the Biden presidency?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely.
Speaker 12: You know, we have seen from reporting Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 12: New York Times that there was essentially the secret cohort
Speaker 12: of people who were running the Biden administration. Joe Biden
Speaker 12: was delegating authority to non elected officials.
Speaker 3: He was not doing the duties he was elected to do.
Speaker 12: And when we talk about this autopen, he who controls
Speaker 12: the pen clearly controls the entire country. And it's one
Speaker 12: thing for a president to use an autopen here or there,
Speaker 12: but to have a pattern of using it for numerous documents,
Speaker 12: including numerous pardons. It makes you wonder why was Joe
Speaker 12: Biden unable to do that? And of course we know
Speaker 12: the answer. This man was incognitive. There's a good chance
Speaker 12: he didn't know what was being put in front of him.
Speaker 12: He probably didn't even know that something was in front
Speaker 12: of him. They probably never gave it to him, right,
Speaker 12: But there has to be some serious accountability. We cannot
Speaker 12: let democrats fall to the wayside when they had four
Speaker 12: years of unelected bureaucrats running this country, and we're supposed
Speaker 12: to say that's okay.
Speaker 1: Hey, speaking of unelected bureaucrats, let's move over to our
Speaker 1: friends at the Environmental Protection Agency, the ultimate sort of
Speaker 1: unelected bureaucracy running people's lives, where new boss Lee Zelden
Speaker 1: has signaled the most consequential day of deregulation in American
Speaker 1: history after the agency announced that it is going to
Speaker 1: roll back a series of environmental regulations, including rules on pollution,
Speaker 1: col fire, power plants, climate change, but most notably, electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: Is the ev Mandate dead in America? Brionna Lyman?
Speaker 3: It should be.
Speaker 12: And you know, every time I see Lee Zelden do
Speaker 12: things like this, I'm always a little bit hurt. He
Speaker 12: was almost our gu in New York and he would
Speaker 12: have done a terrific job here. But when people like
Speaker 12: to talk about climate change, they don't understand that first
Speaker 12: and foremost Americans' actions on climate change really are a
Speaker 12: drop in the bucket because China is responsible for a
Speaker 12: third of the world's emissions, right carbon emissions, And so
Speaker 12: even if we take all the most extreme measures at
Speaker 12: the left wants, it is being offset by China, by India,
Speaker 12: by countries who do not follow the same sets that
Speaker 12: we do. So why should we burden American manufacturers and
Speaker 12: Americans who just you know, want to run a certain
Speaker 12: amount of water from their showerhead or when they flush
Speaker 12: their toilet when that's not actually making real change. And
Speaker 12: I trust that lee Zelden is making appropriate cuts where
Speaker 12: it's needed and leaving in the you know, the things
Speaker 12: that everybody can kind of come to the same page
Speaker 12: and agree on.
Speaker 1: And Brianna, I mean, you know, I wish we had
Speaker 1: a lee Zelden here in Australia because you can't convince
Speaker 1: people here that our emissions don't make any difference. Loud,
Speaker 1: they're our power builds are through the roof. But you know,
Speaker 1: all the subjects of electric vehicles, I see everybody going out,
Speaker 1: all these lefties going out and torching teslas and protesting
Speaker 1: against tesla's. Is it funny to you and ironic that
Speaker 1: these teslas were supposed to be the thing that saved
Speaker 1: the planet, but now that their owner has gone the
Speaker 1: other way, well, it kind of reveals to me that
Speaker 1: really it's not about the environment, it's about control.
Speaker 12: What do you think, absolutely, you know, if if electric
Speaker 12: vehicles were going to do so much bring so much
Speaker 12: benefit to our environment, they would not be torching and
Speaker 12: you know, releasing all these fumes into this country. And
Speaker 12: I think it's unfortunate what's happening with Tesla because what
Speaker 12: the left is trying to do is they are trying
Speaker 12: to normalize political violence and teach Americans that political violence
Speaker 12: is the same as First Amendment protected free speech and
Speaker 12: protests because.
Speaker 3: They want to legitimize us.
Speaker 12: They want to desensitize Americans to political violence against Republicans,
Speaker 12: and it's been part of a very years long effort
Speaker 12: that they've waged.
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, Breonna Lyman, thank you as always for joining
Speaker 1: me on the US Report. Now, don't go anywhere, because
Speaker 1: of course only in America is next. But first, do
Speaker 1: you remember Rosa Deloro. Sure, she's the eighty two year
Speaker 1: old California representative who sat through Trump's address to Congress
Speaker 1: last week looking like a Scooby Doo villain who'd just
Speaker 1: been unmasked. Anyway, to prove to the world that she's
Speaker 1: actually more hip than hip replacement, her staff just posted
Speaker 1: this video hyping her style well convinced me. I guess
Speaker 1: Only in America is next. Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 1: and now it's time for a little segment we like
Speaker 1: to call only in America. Okay, just a warning if
Speaker 1: you've got any kiddies in the room, this could get
Speaker 1: a little spooky. Know who am I kidding? It's just
Speaker 1: played Ridicus. In the following clip, meet an online witch
Speaker 1: who says that witches spells are no longer working on
Speaker 1: Trump because he's protected by something called an agrigor, and
Speaker 1: instead all the witches need to go out and cast
Speaker 1: their spells against Elon musk instead.
Speaker 9: The witches who practice the craft and are really disappointed
Speaker 9: that nothing works on the Orange Palpatine because he is
Speaker 9: protected by an aggrigor. I want to make sure that
Speaker 9: you know that even though he is protected by an
Speaker 9: agregar who's never really worked for him anymore if you
Speaker 9: ask me, but Ilinia Muskrat and the coachboy doesn't have
Speaker 9: Edrigors and the Palpatinees. Egregor will not protect this attitude.
Speaker 9: You know what to do now, all right?
Speaker 1: Good see. You know, if Trump's America was really the
Speaker 1: fascist theocracy they say it is, they'd be burning witches,
Speaker 1: letting them make dumb TikTok videos in their cars. Go
Speaker 1: read The Crucible, lady, and you I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Bye bye,