WEBVTT - The U.S. Report | 31 October 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:06.160 This is the US Report with James Morrow. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.920 Good evening and welcome to the program. Here's what's coming 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.760 up tonight. Kamala Harris hits the road and it's too 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.080 much for even our ABC mom Doddie Madness in New 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.919 York City. But is there hope? The Radical socialist is 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.840 going to go down in flames? And third term? What 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.240 third term? Inside the greatest troll of the Trump presidency. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.440 But first I'm going to get to the latest on 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.919 the government shutdown in a moment and how it is 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.320 backfiring politically on Democrats. But first I want to talk 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.760 about the ongoing civil war within the Democrat Party and 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.599 how once fringe radicals are winning the battle for the 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:52.560 soul of America's left, with huge implications for next year's 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:57.360 midterm elections. Now as evidence of just how bonkers some 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:02.000 on the left have got, have a look at this. 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.800 This is a woman called Jennifer Welch. She's a left 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:09.679 wing podcaster, very popular, and she is also now openly 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:15.120 calling for violence against conservatives. Indeed, she thinks these threats 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.600 are the solutions to the left woes. Have a look. 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:22.880 Finally, if you think the Zorn thing is happening, just 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.760 in New York. And you think people are waking up 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.039 only in New York City, You're mistaken. Look at this 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.119 clip of a wine mom at the No King's March. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:33.720 Play the clip. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.360 The word's name was Charlie Kirk. 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.319 Maam, yeah, him is horrible, horrible. Charlie Kirk is horrible. Yes, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.000 I'm glad he's not here. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:43.319 You're glad he's dead. 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:43.839 Yes? 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:46.480 Why would you say something like that matter? 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.800 He was horrible on the campuses the college campus is 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:51.240 horrible person. 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.720 You know what I do the exact same thing. Would 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.240 you be glad if I would die? 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:57.600 Maybe I'd have to think about it. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.440 You should be ashamed of yourself, ashamed of yourself. My 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.520 friend just said she'd be happy if I died. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.520 So listen, at Democratic Establishment. You can either jump on 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.760 board with this or we're coming after you in the 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.600 same way that we come after Maga period. 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.119 You know, I've often joked on this show about how 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.160 the left wants the right dead, But you know what, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.600 I don't think they're kidding. And there was more advice 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.040 from her for the Democrat political establishment. 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.040 Kudos to Bernie, to aoc, to Zoron and that woman 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.920 out in somewhere Middle America saying Charlie Kirk, he was 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.640 a racist, he was a piece. There are so many 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.840 more of us than there are of them. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.200 Now, Okay, you can say, sure, fine, this is just 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.040 one woman ranting into a podcast mic. She bought an 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.839 office works. But guess what she shows us. She represents 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.480 where that party is going, and it's causing a huge 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.800 split within the Democrats. Now, I'll tell you about a 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.560 fascinating report on a new website called Welcome Stack, which 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.280 seems to be run by more centrist Democrats who are 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.520 worried about where their party is going and whether it 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.040 will ever be electable again. Here's a bit of a 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.400 video they put up analyzing their plight. 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.280 But as the influence of advocacy groups grew largely through 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.720 social media, Democrats moved left fast. In Congress, support for 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.160 progressive bills like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.960 and student loan det cancelation more than doubled. Comparing the 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.560 Democratic platform in twenty twelve to twenty twenty four reveals 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.600 a sharp leftward shift and an abandonment of the working 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.160 class focus that drove the party's success. 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.360 Indeed, as far as that Democrat Party platform goes, well, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.000 they weren't kidding now in twenty twelve, these were the 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:59.120 first sentences of the Democrat Party platform. Quote. Today our 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.160 economy is ohing again, al kenda is weaker than at 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.560 any points as nine to eleven, and our manufacturing sector 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.960 is growing for the first time in more than a decade. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:11.320 But there is more we need to do, and so 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.640 we come together to continue what we started. Now, that 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.839 was the Democrats in twenty twelve sounds very normal, very 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:25.120 Middle America, very dare I say electable, And indeed they 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.960 were because that was the year that Barack Obama was reelected. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:33.960 But fast forward twelve years to twenty twenty four, and 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.720 this report notes that the official Democrat Party platform, the 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.320 one by the way that Joe Biden and then Kamala 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:47.279 Harris ran on, opened like this quote the Democratic National Committee, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.080 which is to acknowledge that we gather together to state 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.520 our values on lands that have been stewarded through many 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.800 centuries by the ancestors and descendants of tribal nations who 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:03.120 have been here since time immemorial. Unquote phew, And it 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:09.479 took four full paragraphs of this turgent undergraduate nonsense to 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.240 get to anything recognizable as a policy platform in twenty 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:18.080 twenty four. And within that too, was a massive decline 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.520 over that time in the frequency of words between the 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:26.320 two platforms they used to describe things people cared about. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:31.440 According to this analysis, between those two platforms, references to 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.080 jobs went down forty seven percent, mentions the economy went 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.200 down forty eight percent, the middle class down seventy nine percent, 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:44.280 the nation seventeen percent, in America down six percent. Meanwhile, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:51.120 the term father or fathers disappeared entirely from the platform, 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.200 down one hundred percent. And guess what took their place? 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.960 The bag Increases were seen in references to race, climate, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:04.839 gunsl GBTQY, plus the word hate, equity, and of course, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:11.960 my favorite, environmental justice. Not surprisingly, this took place over 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.640 a period when there was a huge drop in patriotism 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.720 amongst Democrats. Sets up blue lines the bottom of your 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.320 screen where thirty six percent, just thirty six percent, one 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.880 third say they are proud to be an American versus Republicans. 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:31.799 That's the top red line ninety two percent. Now Andrew 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.200 Cuomo he is the Democrat turned independent candidate for New 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.320 York City Mayor. He built the cat on this problem 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:39.400 a couple of days ago. 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.200 The truth is there's a quiet civil war going on 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.040 in the Democratic Party right now. You have an extreme left, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:54.799 radical left. Bernie Sanders AOC Mamdani is just the banner 0:06:54.880 --> 0:07:00.880 carrier for that movement versus the mainstream moderate Democrats. They 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:02.880 now call me moderate. They used to call me liberal. 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.599 Now I'm a moderate because the whole party shifted. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.560 Look guess what Andrew Cuomo is right, And if the 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:15.800 Democrats continued down this radical path of hating America, not 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:20.040 wanting to talk about the economy, obsessing over identity politics, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.760 still well, they may win in New York City, where 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.320 that sort of thing is fashionable, but they've got no 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.440 future nationally. And that's great news for Trump and MAGA 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.440 and the Republicans. But maybe I'm just gonna put it 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.120 out there. Maybe this actually is the real threat to 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.680 democracy that they keep warning about, and that is not 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:53.400 having an opposition worthy of the name. Now we'll start 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.360 talking to some of our guests in a moment, But 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:57.800 also we need to talk about this government shutdown which 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.400 is dragging on and on and is seeing now air 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:05.360 traffic controllers furloughed. That's bad and welfare benefits due to 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.080 be cut off from the first of November. Democrats thought 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.520 they were on to a winner with this strategy, withholding 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.120 the votes needed in the Senate to pass a continuing 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:20.680 resolution essentially supply in Australian terms. But guess what, not 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.000 so much. It's not working out for them. 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.920 Yeah, you might think, given that the Republicans are in 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:27.440 charge of both the House and the Senate, that a 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.920 government shutdown might actually hurt the Republican brand, but in 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:32.320 fact it hasn't. 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:33.640 If anything, it's been. 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.400 Helped a little bit. Take a look here the shift 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.360 in net popularity versus pre shutdown among the g When 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.400 we're looking at the Republican Party overall, that brand actually 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.240 up two points. That's within the margin of verrap but 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.600 clearly it hasn't dropped. Come over this side of the screen, 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.559 look at the net approval ratings for Republicans in Congress. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.240 It's actually up five points since pre shutdown. So what 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.920 we're seeing here is the Republican brand in Congress has 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:56.920 actually improved. 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:03.400 Somewhat, and not even CNN's Jake Tapper. Jake Tapper is 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.119 buying the Democrats' excuses. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.760 This is a choice by the White House. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.760 This is also and this is also a choice by 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.400 Senate Democrats to not vote open the government. 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:15.040 Yes, it is. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.080 I understand why they're doing it. 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.480 They're doing it because they want Medicaid funds restored. 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.040 They're doing it because they want Obamacare premiums to be 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:24.960 extended past the end of the year. 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:26.280 I understand the reason. 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.560 Tapper and Americans have woken up to the fact that 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:36.240 Democrats are using the pain of ordinary Americans for political gain, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.319 and they're happy to see people on so called snap 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.440 food benefits go hungry in the process. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:46.280 Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.160 Frankly, this is our only moment of leverage, and although 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.360 a very unpleasant tool to use. 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.520 Their only leverage. Did you hear that letting people go 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.120 hungry to apply political pressure to Republicans so they can 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.840 get their wish list, which includes, by the way, giving 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:12.280 taxpayer funded healthcare to illegal aliens. It's really unpleasant behavior, sure, 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.840 but I think it's also for everybody else a real 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:24.720 moment of clarity. Joining me now is Guy news Washington 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:30.079 analyst Analyse Nielsen Annalys. Welcome to the program. Well, lots 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.400 of news happening on the international front. President Trump met 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.839 with his Chinese Counterpartjesian Ping yesterday in Busan, South Korea, 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.400 and the pair announced a historic Well I know, if 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.400 it's a trade deal or a trade agreement or a 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.360 trade hey, let's not have this fight now, Annalise, what 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.080 do we know about what has been agreed so far? 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.760 Well, look, nothing in writing. And so I think what 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.240 you said at the end there, let's not fight now, 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.040 is pretty much where we're at. But that is a 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.440 development of sorts because this has been looming over America 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.040 for some time. We've already seen a lot of flow 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.760 on effects, quite a few flow on effects, I should say, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.800 from the tariffs coming in earlier this year, and they 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.760 were supposed to be more coming in November first. So 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.200 this is at least a daytont It shows that they 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.840 do want to work together, and it shows that Donald 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.000 Trump really does just want to replicate what he did 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.200 the first time around, and he's aware how significant it 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.600 would be if things were cut off from China. More significantly, 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.800 American consumers do rely on so much from China and 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.520 it would be a real hit to their quality of 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:43.439 life if it was taken away from them. There's a 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.080 big chunk of the American population that says they're happy 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.680 to do that because they want to support American made 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.080 they want to support American jobs. But a lot of 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.720 people will feel that hurt. And that's obviously something Donald 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.120 Trump just doesn't want to put into play right now. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.400 And I think also with him just making that truth 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.800 social post about saying that it's going to be the 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:07.640 two gi meeting, that that's really elevating the US and 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.200 China to being those two big superpowers, and so I 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:11.559 think that was a message to the rest of the 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:12.240 world as well. 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:14.839 Yeah, no, I agree with that completely. But one of 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.320 the things that I thought was very interesting too is 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.480 that there seems to be at the moment a one 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.280 year time limit on this that Jijinping has said, Well, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.800 we're going to kick out any sort of restraints on 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.640 rare earth minerals exports for a year. At the same time, 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.160 you're going to have allowances for soybean farmers in the 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.480 US to get that access to Chinese markets a year 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.040 from now is the midterm elections? Is this about trying 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:42.400 to delay any economic pain coming from a trade war 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.760 with China until after those midterms? Because of course Donald 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.439 Trump wants to hold the Congress, and if he doesn't, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:55.840 then his whole agenda could be crueled twelve months from now. 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.120 Look, that would be very much front of mine. Donald 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.080 Trump doesn't want to lose control of Congress. It's already 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:03.840 they're having a hard enough time as it is with 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.800 the government shut down continuing. But I think for those 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.040 who watched the last time around, they've been saying, look, 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.280 the deals they made last time fell apart within a 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.720 matter of months at best, and so there is every 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.960 chance that this could fall apart. I think with the 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:24.360 critical minerals piece of it, the advantage is still there 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.640 for China at this point in time. They own most 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:29.640 of the critical minerals that we want in the world, 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.280 and they own ninety percent of the processing. And even 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.480 with all the money that we've now said is going 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.040 to be put online for Australia to be processing and 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.240 cultivating rare earth minerals selling to the US and the 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.640 US buying from Australia, we still rely on Chinese processing. 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.080 So I think this is just them keeping their own 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.400 side of the Ledger in balance for the time being 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.480 and saying we'll work with you, but they're still not 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:56.240 giving away much yet. And the other thing we didn't 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.640 hear about was what's happening with this TikTok sale. They've 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.720 said that the Chinese have approved for the part to 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.560 be spun off to be owned by the US. But 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.839 that's a big deal here as well. We saw some 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.120 really intense lobbying about that, and so there's a lot 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.600 of goodwill, it seems like from this first meeting, but 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:13.800 not a lot of detail yet. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.200 Well, it seems to me, you know, that for as 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.400 much as there's rhetoric around decoupling the economies of these 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.160 two nations, the two g superpowers, I guess you'd say, 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.280 they seem to be getting more and more enmeshed, whether 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.280 it's about who processes whose rare earth, who sells agricultural 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:36.520 products to whom? Is commerce potentially the great sort of 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:41.760 engine that could head off a hotter conflict between the 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.400 US and China. I e. Neither nation can really afford 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.280 to go to war with one another them because they 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:48.360 need the other too much. 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:54.160 Absolutely, And what we're looking at is when we've been 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.400 talking about the rising tensions politically between the US and China, 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.000 the thing we always talk about is especially in Australia. 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:06.640 As China's ambitions to annex Taiwan. The only thing really 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:11.720 stopping that is semiconductors, and the US knows that they've tried, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.840 and they don't know how to make the semiconductors the 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.960 way the Taiwanese do. The Chinese know the same, and 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.080 so that's very valuable in between. And that's of course 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.160 also influenced by rare earth minerals. And I think there's 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:26.680 also just this element from the US that they just 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.000 don't want to be involved in overseas conflicts. We see 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.080 Trump relish in stopping overseas conflicts. He says he's solved 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:35.920 seven out of the eight wars on his watch, and 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.680 he's got just Ukraine and Russia left. And so there 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:40.920 would be zero appetite for the US to have to 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.320 get involved if China wanted to annex Taiwan. I know, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.040 at a retail level in politics in America, no one 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.960 would be very excited about that. And so I think 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.320 they've all just realized what the cards that they have 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.360 are on the table. And if Donald Trump is going 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.120 to take a hit for the economy, you're right, he 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:58.440 wouldn't want to do it. Before midterms. He'd probably want 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.000 to do it on his way out, but he also 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:01.800 wants to lay on a high this time. I think 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.240 that's still smarting for him from last time around. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.000 No, I think that's right. He finally before I let 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.280 you go, though, you know, for all the talk of 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.760 peace and amity and doing business together, the President also 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.880 announced before his meeting with Jijinping that the US Department 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.160 of War is to immediately begin testing nuclear weapons on 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:27.000 an equal basis with other nuclear powers. Now this seemed, 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.360 you know, at first, made huge headlines. Oh my gosh, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:31.360 they're gonna be having you know, mushroom clouds in the 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.520 desert again. Well not so much. But tell us about 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.800 this and what the aim of this particular bit of 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:38.360 I guess you'd call it saber rattling? 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:38.800 Is here? 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.240 Who is this targeting? Is it aimed at? Putin is 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:46.360 named g What's what's the audience for this message? 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.360 Well, it did seem to come right after the Russians 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:54.600 announced that they conducted their own tests. They've developed nuclear 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:00.520 missiles that can go underwater to target coastal towns. Where 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.720 we are in Washington, DC isn't all that far away 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.600 from the coast if we're going to start talking about nukes. 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.320 So I think there was just that, well, if he's 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.400 going to flex his muscles, I'm going to flex mine. 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.080 It doesn't make a ton of sense if you're not 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.720 actually testing new technology. And so without them saying we've 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.200 developed something new we're going to try out, it really 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.520 does seem like it's you show me mine, I'll show 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:25.240 you yours kind of one upping. And this is the 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.679 Trump approach. He says he has peace through strength and 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.600 he doesn't want to look weak. That has worked before. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.000 But I don't know how popular it's going to be 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:35.960 testing nukes. They haven't done it in the US in 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.960 thirty years, and I was reading that apparently the only 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.000 state where they can actually do it logistically is Nevada, 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.520 which is something of a swing state. And so I 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.879 don't know if Trump put into that too close to 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.720 midterms either. It's really far out in the desert, but 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.080 apparently it could shake some buildings in Las Vegas, So 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.640 I don't know if that would be all that popular. 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:56.800 I don't know. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.960 The old days, back in the fifties and sixties, you know, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.440 they used to have atomic parties at the Las Vegas casinos, 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.240 and you could sit on the roof of the big 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.560 hotels and watch the mushroom clouds. Go analyze, Niels. We're 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:08.919 gonna have to leave with there. Thank you so much 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:14.119 for your time, Thank you well. Joining me now is 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.080 former White House Chief of Staff and senior advisor of 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.879 Bondai Partners, Mick mulvaney. Mick, thanks for joining me. I 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.040 want to talk about the government shutdown in a moment, 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.520 but before we do that, I do want to get 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.360 your thoughts on this latest trip of Donald Trump through 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.680 North Asia. You were, of course there on that famous 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.320 delegation when Donald Trump met with Kim Jong un in 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.520 North Korea. No such meeting this time. But what do 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.560 you make of the deal that he cut he seems 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.640 to have cut with Jijinping to avert a trade war. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.360 Is this piece in our time or is it more 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.040 worryingly piece in our time? 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.320 Yeah, James, And I gotta tell you, I was watching 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.040 the watching the events this week, just expecting him to 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.520 sort of magically show up at the DMZ again just 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.000 like he did back in two thousand and nine. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:00.359 Team. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:05.080 Disappointingly, it didn't happen. I'm sort of looking at the deal. 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.840 I guess if that's the word we can use for it. 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.240 It's not really an agreement. It's certainly not a formal agreement. 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.959 It's a daytant. Essentially, what's gonna happen is the Chinese 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.199 have agreed not to put limitations on rarers for the 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.879 next year. We've agreed to cut back on the terrafs 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:21.719 for a period of time. It's sort of a day tan. 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.600 This is I encourage people to look at this sort 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:26.680 of similarly to the way we looked at the relationship 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.879 we had with the Soviet Union back during the Cold War. 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.600 This is more of a cold piece and there's now 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.680 a Dayton and they'll end up, you know, trying to 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.320 continue the conversation. And that's why I think there's tremendous 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.679 value here. It's not peace in our time. It's not 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:42.760 the end of the discussion, but at least it's the 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.480 beginning of the discussion, and it sounds like things are 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.000 moving in the right direction. It's always important, James, always 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.960 important when you've got two leaders like this, that if 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:54.720 one of them picks up the phone to call the 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.040 other one, the other one answers the phone, and I 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.760 think they reaffirmed here on this visit that that what 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:01.920 happen that if Trump needs to talk to she or 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.240 vice versa, the communications will continue. I think that's that's 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:06.520 unambiguously a good thing. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.760 That's absolutely a good thing. That it's when there's not 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.680 communication that real crises can occur. But you've got two 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:17.359 very different systems here, and both want to be the 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:22.320 dominant superpower. Is this pushing down the road some sort 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.679 of eventual conflict or do you think it will just 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:26.960 you know, I know it's a long way to sort 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.919 of be projecting, but are we looking at decades of 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.199 kind of hotter and colder cold war with China, just 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.720 as we did in the twentieth century see that with 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:37.639 the Soviet Union. 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:40.639 You know, there's a school of thought here on the 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.320 right especially that says or believes there, or at least 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.720 argues that military confrontation with China is inevitable in the 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:49.160 next ten, fifteen, twenty years. 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:50.240 I don't buy it. 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:52.520 One of the reasons I sort of like the Detante 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.280 and I consider it to be a huge success is 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.320 that it starts to buy the time to figure out 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.119 a way to get along, to figure out a wa 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.800 to sort of allow the Chinese to pursue their national interests, 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.439 allow us to pursue ours without negatively impacting our friends 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.760 in the larger say, global economy, global stability, et cetera. 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.000 Keep in mind, China has become very very wealthy, very 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.040 very fast. It is a communist nation, so it doesn't 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.360 function the way that Australia and the US does. It's 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.119 not in that first tier of nations. How often have 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.920 we talked about this? Can you imagine what the world 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.959 would have said if Australia had kept information about COVID 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.200 so private like the Chinese did. It would never happen 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.240 in a democracy, doesn't happen in first tier countries, and 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.720 China is not there yet, but maybe this and other 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.560 things over the course of the next years they can 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:43.119 get there. So look, and anytime you can put off 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.840 a trade war, it's a good thing. But anybody who 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:48.840 can predict the future is probably just rolling the dice. 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:51.440 Yeah, I no trade wars as well as hot wars. 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.000 Hey tell you also, who is not getting along right now? 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.040