Speaker 1: That Jane Weber Podcast is presented by Creative Planning, helping
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Speaker 1: at a time. That Jane Weber Podcast is a production
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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the j Weber Podcast. Today we'll
Speaker 2: talk about how the economy has improved by nearly every
Speaker 2: measure over the last fourteen months, and I'm finding it
Speaker 2: harder and harder to believe that most Americans aren't noticing,
Speaker 2: which is of course the claim from the left wing media. Also,
Speaker 2: the military action against Iran was never going to end
Speaker 2: cleanly and we shouldn't expect it to. And some thoughts
Speaker 2: on Scott Pelley, a pompous pretender who I believe really
Speaker 2: just wanted to retire but decided to make himself the
Speaker 2: story and pretend that he's the last honestalist in America
Speaker 2: as he goes out. But first producer, extraordinary, Gregory John.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you to give me a ratio,
Speaker 2: you know, one in five, one and ten, one in
Speaker 2: twenty roughly, how many Americans do you think carry a
Speaker 2: concealed weapon for protection pretty much every day or base
Speaker 2: sickly whenever they leave the house.
Speaker 3: It got to be a low like one two percent.
Speaker 2: One two percent, Yeah, it's more like A new survey
Speaker 2: of a thousand Americans says it's more like thirteen percent.
Speaker 2: It's about one in ten. Wow, they say one in
Speaker 2: ten Americans, about thirteen percent say they routinely are packing
Speaker 2: heat as they go about their daily lives. I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, one to two percent would be low, but
Speaker 2: I would have thought maybe seven eight. So it's a
Speaker 2: double that that number doesn't really surprise me all that much.
Speaker 2: This one does. According to the same survey, nearly one
Speaker 2: in three people, nearly one in three say they carry
Speaker 2: sometimes or somewhat regularly. Thirty percent of the people in
Speaker 2: this country, or at least in this survey conducted last month,
Speaker 2: it was one thousand people say they carry a fire
Speaker 2: firearm at times.
Speaker 4: I have a I have a nephew that lives in
Speaker 4: San Antonio, Texas, and he carries all the time. We
Speaker 4: were down there a couple of summers ago, and yeah,
Speaker 4: he's packing.
Speaker 3: We go to the.
Speaker 4: Restaurant and everywhere we went, we went, we saw that,
Speaker 4: we went in the caves, he's still packing.
Speaker 2: Is he carrying openly? Can you see the guy, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can see it openly. Yeah, well, I have a
Speaker 2: few people that carry concealed and do it regularly. They
Speaker 2: won't leave the house without their wallet, their keys, their gun.
Speaker 2: But this kind of these stats make it. I think
Speaker 2: it's safe to say that basically, anytime you're in a
Speaker 2: crowd or at a larger event, it means there are
Speaker 2: at least a few people around you who are carrying guns.
Speaker 2: With the normalization of carry laws as they are, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is something now that the vast majority of us
Speaker 2: simply never think about. But presumably at church, at the mall,
Speaker 2: out for dinner, at that kid's soccer game, in the
Speaker 2: public park, whatever, you're sitting near and around people who
Speaker 2: are packing some heat. So does that make you feel
Speaker 2: more or less safe?
Speaker 4: It makes me feel more safe because I know that
Speaker 4: these people most likely have gone through training and don't
Speaker 4: have the mindset a lot of these these thugs do.
Speaker 2: And be with you. These stats, I think prove that
Speaker 2: it's not about the gun, it's about the people who
Speaker 2: are carrying them or and or using them. These are
Speaker 2: people who are concerned about their own safety and you know,
Speaker 2: public safety in general. There, I'm with you. It kind
Speaker 2: of is good for me, reassuring to me that, well,
Speaker 2: if something really goes down in this venue or whatever,
Speaker 2: and the off chance that it would, you might have
Speaker 2: some people able to respond with like force. But you
Speaker 2: know what the average lefty Karen or Kevin's response would be,
Speaker 2: They just be mortified at this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you don't carry.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I haven't had a gun since we moved down here
Speaker 4: from up north, and that's like nineteen ninety. I left
Speaker 4: all my guns up north because Dorothy didn't want him
Speaker 4: around the kids, and then just never never got round
Speaker 4: to It's funny that you bring this up, because we
Speaker 4: were just talking about this about a month ago. It'saying,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe we should buy a gun just to
Speaker 4: keep in the house.
Speaker 3: I don't know if i'd.
Speaker 2: Carry, though i'd carry occasionally. I don't carry all the time,
Speaker 2: but I do carry occasionally, and I will and I'll
Speaker 2: do something that people say you shouldn't do when I'll
Speaker 2: just sort of put one in the car if I'm
Speaker 2: going in a place where I think that I think
Speaker 2: might be sketchy. But John Lott is this famous name
Speaker 2: when it comes to guns and crime research, and he's
Speaker 2: linking this tower to the lower crime rates that we're seeing.
Speaker 2: I'd really question that. Though crime seems to have dip
Speaker 2: since Trump got back into office and voter and some
Speaker 2: of these cities replace their woke DA's and demand that
Speaker 2: they do better. But there's no obvious correlation between people
Speaker 2: carrying guns for protection and lower crime rates. I think
Speaker 2: these same people were probably carrying in the Biden era too, right,
Speaker 2: So it's not like Trump got back into office in
Speaker 2: the third of the country said Okay, strap them up,
Speaker 2: I'm a regular gun carrier now. In fact, this pollster
Speaker 2: says thirty percent. That thirty percent figure is only up
Speaker 2: about six percent since the last survey, So I don't
Speaker 2: see the race and connection connection to dip in crime.
Speaker 2: But it is interesting to know that more than one
Speaker 2: in ten Americans now say they don't leave the house
Speaker 2: without their wallet, their keys, and their side arm. Also,
Speaker 2: they say about a third of the geographic area of
Speaker 2: the country is now working under constitutional carry, which means
Speaker 2: they don't even need a license or a permit to carry.
Speaker 4: You know, I was going to ask you, and I
Speaker 4: never did ask you this, what would be an appropriate
Speaker 4: gun for me to buy?
Speaker 2: Boy, that's a complicated question. It really kind of depends
Speaker 2: what you want, just small for protection. I like glocks myself, Okay,
Speaker 2: I like something with better than revolvers. Some people carry
Speaker 2: revolvers well that depending on the size, either five or
Speaker 2: six bullets. I would rather have a few more than
Speaker 2: that if something, if I really need them. But you
Speaker 2: should look at the smaller clocks.
Speaker 3: Okay, Dorothy, the Father's Day just around the corner.
Speaker 2: I would also point out before we move on here,
Speaker 2: none of the anti gun crowds predictions have come true. Remember,
Speaker 2: it's going to be like the Wild West in America
Speaker 2: if we start to legalize concealed carry or open carry.
Speaker 2: These are Americans who've decided they're carrying concealed just for
Speaker 2: some peace of mind, and the Wild West has not
Speaker 2: been the result. So i'd point that out. But now
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Speaker 2: Planning dot Com. Your team awaits paid for by Creative
Speaker 2: Planning and SEC registered investment advisor. The speaker's statements are
Speaker 2: not an endorsement of the firm. My segment about how
Speaker 2: Pride events have crumbled over the last few years was
Speaker 2: a popular one, and I was explaining that the members
Speaker 2: of the Alphabet Army finally overplayed their hand with all
Speaker 2: the multiple genders transgender stuff, a movement that started out
Speaker 2: as gays and lesbians demanding equal rights or to be
Speaker 2: included in political conversations, has turned into a militant and
Speaker 2: socially poisonous freak show. This is a few decades later,
Speaker 2: most reasonable people are rejecting it. Coming after our kids
Speaker 2: with drag shows and trying to twist their adolescent minds
Speaker 2: with gender treatments and gender reassignment surgeries was simply too
Speaker 2: much for most reasonable people to find reasonable or continue
Speaker 2: to support it has a lesbian on Acts named Cynthia
Speaker 2: Holt posting something that I will clean up a bit
Speaker 2: as a lesbian woman, I bleeping hate Pride Month with
Speaker 2: every fiber of my being. He says, it makes us
Speaker 2: look like absolute crap. The entire LGB has been hijacked
Speaker 2: by groomers, men in cheap wigs with toilet paper tits, freaks,
Speaker 2: duct taping their peanuts to their butts, pedophiles, fetish weirdos,
Speaker 2: and every other kind of gross filth parading down the street.
Speaker 2: She says, real gay, lesbian and bisexual people want nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the circus. We just want to be
Speaker 2: left alone. The LGB community condemns these degenerates and every
Speaker 2: organization pandering to them. These sentiments stood out to me
Speaker 2: because it's the sort of thing that gay and lesbian
Speaker 2: listeners to my radio show would share with me or
Speaker 2: email me every June or nearly every Pride month. I
Speaker 2: did a conservative talk show for decades, and over those decades,
Speaker 2: I had gay and lesbian listeners tell me this exact
Speaker 2: same sort of thing that the Alphabet movement does not represent.
Speaker 2: Most gays and lesbians. Most gays and lesbians want to
Speaker 2: be seen as regular people who have all the same
Speaker 2: sorts of interests and feelings and hopes as the rest
Speaker 2: of us, and simply don't want to be vilified or
Speaker 2: shut out of society because of who they find sexually
Speaker 2: attractive or choose to love. And yet this group of
Speaker 2: people are never quoted or given any media attention because
Speaker 2: their comments on the movement don't fit the left wing narrative.
Speaker 2: So I thought i'd pass that along. As another follow up,
Speaker 2: I'd point you to a Gallup pole that seems to
Speaker 2: verify the points that I was making on the last podcast.
Speaker 2: This year's Gallup poll finds support for the so called
Speaker 2: LGBTQ plus issues sliding backward. Polsters are calling this a
Speaker 2: cultural shift, the average gay or lesbian would probably call
Speaker 2: it proof that the perverts and the trans bullies have
Speaker 2: ruined their brand. But Gallup found while a majority of
Speaker 2: Americans still support legal same sex marriage that's about sixty
Speaker 2: five percent, that figures dropped six percentage points from its
Speaker 2: peak in twenty twenty two and twenty three. Meanwhile, moral
Speaker 2: acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships has dipped to sixty
Speaker 2: two percent, which Gallup says is the lowest point since
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. Public acceptance of gender transition has experienced an
Speaker 2: even steeper decline over the last five years.
Speaker 3: They say.
Speaker 2: As of today, just thirty eight percent of Americans believe
Speaker 2: changing one's gender is morally acceptable, down eight points since
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, and a fifty seven percent majority view
Speaker 2: it as morally wrong. Wow. This cultural shift is largely
Speaker 2: driven by Republicans and in Independence, they say, while Democrats
Speaker 2: views on these issues have remained steady. Also interesting, on
Speaker 2: attitudes towards same sex marriage among Republicans, support for legal
Speaker 2: same sex marriage has plummeted to thirty seven percent, down
Speaker 2: from fifty five percent majorities recorded in twenty twenty one
Speaker 2: and twenty two. That is a significant decline. Independent attitudes
Speaker 2: on gay marriage also saw a six point drop to
Speaker 2: sixty seven percent. Gallup says. Another stark contrast is seen
Speaker 2: on the issue of gender transition. Just five percent of
Speaker 2: Republicans view changing one's gender as morally acceptable, compared to
Speaker 2: forty two percent of Independence and sixty percent of Democrats.
Speaker 2: I'd point to those stats as some of the most
Speaker 2: revealing out of the entire batch. Let's step back when
Speaker 2: asked whether changing genders is quote morally acceptable. Now we're
Speaker 2: dealing on the morality plane here, not whether it should
Speaker 2: be legal or normalized or encouraged, or do you support
Speaker 2: gender transitioning. This is on the question of is changing
Speaker 2: your gender moral? A whopping fifty eight percent of independence
Speaker 2: say no, and even forty percent of Democrats say no.
Speaker 2: That is interesting and is so called enlightened age. When
Speaker 2: it comes to how society should treat alphabet people and
Speaker 2: gender issues, sixty percent of moderates and forty percent of
Speaker 2: Democrats considered gender transitioning immoral. Now that's interesting, and it
Speaker 2: might explain why there's such a backlash to the trans
Speaker 2: bullying and the they them wars and the pronoun bullying
Speaker 2: when the leftists who launched the effort clearly thought they'd
Speaker 2: have most Americans on their side. In short, this helps
Speaker 2: explain the backlash to so called Pride Month and Pride
Speaker 2: events over the last several years. The trans and gender
Speaker 2: rights bullies absolutely co opted the movement and turned it
Speaker 2: into an unappealing campaign that was nearly impossible for any
Speaker 2: well meaning American to support. This poll also suggests that
Speaker 2: our poster on AXSS correct the entire gay movement has
Speaker 2: been hijacked by freaks and groomers that most decent people
Speaker 2: can't support even when they're asked to. Interesting next topic
Speaker 2: the American economy, which by every measure really does seem
Speaker 2: to be roaring now, even if the average American is
Speaker 2: telling polsters they don't really feel it or see it.
Speaker 2: I'm finding this increasingly interesting and increasingly hard to believe,
Speaker 2: because by nearly every measure, and certainly based on every
Speaker 2: monthly governmental report, this Trump economy is really humming along.
Speaker 2: And yes, gas prices have lifted the overall measure of
Speaker 2: inflation higher. Some prices of some items at the grocery
Speaker 2: store continue to creep up, but wages are starting to
Speaker 2: outpace the cost of living again. Paychecks are growing, the
Speaker 2: markets are on an incredible run. Layoffs are now rare. Heck,
Speaker 2: this week we learn that the number of job openings
Speaker 2: the country has is soaring again. There are suddenly around
Speaker 2: seven point six million job openings in America, folks. That's
Speaker 2: the highest number of job openings in nearly three years,
Speaker 2: and it's evidence that companies are starting to hire again
Speaker 2: and the demand for workers has intensified. Moreover, the biggest
Speaker 2: chunk of new jobs available is in the manufacturing sector,
Speaker 2: meaning they're likely better paying jobs that actually add to
Speaker 2: a productive economy instead of jobs in government that only
Speaker 2: drain tax payers and drain the economy, or even in
Speaker 2: lower paying sector jobs like hospitality or retail. Folks, there
Speaker 2: are nearly half a million job openings and manufacturing as
Speaker 2: of now. That's great, this is good stuff. This is
Speaker 2: all good news. It had economic guru Larry Cudlow talking
Speaker 2: about this with his panel members, which included Stephen Moore.
Speaker 2: Both Cudlow and Moore have been advisors to President Trump
Speaker 2: and they helped create Trump's fantastic first term economy. They're
Speaker 2: now beside themselves that according to the rest of the
Speaker 2: news media, no one can see the incredible improvement in
Speaker 2: this economy over the last year or so.
Speaker 5: I think the policy outlook is yes, it's very very positive. Yes,
Speaker 5: But I just think it's interesting to me, as Steve Moore,
Speaker 5: that rampant pessimism which is promoted by the media, promoted
Speaker 5: by Democrats maybe some Republicans, because all prices have jumped up,
Speaker 5: they bumped up temperate, but the numbers don't bear that out.
Speaker 5: And you know, business is in very good profitable shape
Speaker 5: with lower taxes and deregulation. But look at the numbers,
Speaker 5: Steve Moore, that's the point. People don't take the time
Speaker 5: to look at the numbers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well we're blowing away the rest of the world too, Larry.
Speaker 6: We're growing faster than everybody else. And look at our
Speaker 6: stock market compared to China. We are winning because of Trump,
Speaker 6: andoviis no question about it. I would just add two
Speaker 6: points to what Arthur Laffer just said, and that you
Speaker 6: just said. The investment numbers. I just love those, Larry.
Speaker 6: I mean, we've never seen such an investment boom in
Speaker 6: this country maybe ever going on. And the's sircond one
Speaker 6: is is you know, at unleashed posterity. We're monitoring each
Speaker 6: month the Census Bureau numbers on what's happened to family income.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you.
Speaker 1: The scoop on this.
Speaker 6: So we just did the April numbers. Since Trump came
Speaker 6: into office in the second term, above inflation, the average
Speaker 6: family has three dollars more of income. So even this
Speaker 6: affordability crisis is kind of overrated. People have more disposable
Speaker 6: income today than ever yeap.
Speaker 2: People have more disposal income now than they did under
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, certainly, and every governmental and private sector measure
Speaker 2: is proving it. And yet in today's media, everything's got
Speaker 2: to be terrible news, even if they have to lie
Speaker 2: about it. In fact, Larry Kudlow went on to make
Speaker 2: a point that today's news media is just an arm
Speaker 2: of today's America hating left. It's one thing to have
Speaker 2: me saying these same things as a regional influencer. They're
Speaker 2: going to sound familiar, But to hear Cudlow say them
Speaker 2: this bluntly at a national media level is fun to see.
Speaker 2: Cudlow said, everything's got always got to be terrible for
Speaker 2: today's liberal and they have their priorities really out of whack.
Speaker 5: Today's Democrats don't mind Nazi tattoos. They want the southern
Speaker 5: border to be open. Everything's always about racism or DEI
Speaker 5: cashless bail, biological men and women's sports, arrest violent fouons
Speaker 5: and then put them back out on This reads radical
Speaker 5: abortion on demand and virtually no place for God in religion.
Speaker 5: For some reason, these left wing Democratic Jacobins have completely
Speaker 5: lost touch with working class folks, working class folks of
Speaker 5: all colors, of all shapes, of all sizes, which is
Speaker 5: why Donald Trump has whooped them two out of the
Speaker 5: last three elections, maybe three out of the last three elections.
Speaker 2: I love that last suggestion by Cudlough that Trump might
Speaker 2: have actually won in twenty twenty. That's what he's referring to.
Speaker 2: But when it comes to the economy, any honest examination
Speaker 2: of the question are you voters better off than you
Speaker 2: were four years ago? Has got to conclude yeah, you are.
Speaker 2: Clay Travis posted some stats from twenty twenty two, which was,
Speaker 2: of course, Joe Biden's midterm. In June of twenty two,
Speaker 2: gas prices averaged over five dollars a gallon. Inflation was
Speaker 2: nine point one percent, the murder rate was six people
Speaker 2: per one hundred thousand. The S and P five hundred
Speaker 2: was at thirty six seventy five. Four years later, you
Speaker 2: have gas cheaper, inflation is roughly three three and a
Speaker 2: half percent, the murder rate is down to four people
Speaker 2: per one hundred thousand, and the S and P five
Speaker 2: hundred is at seventy six hundred. That's more than double
Speaker 2: four years ago. Those stats represent real progress. The editors
Speaker 2: of Issues and Insights also looked back and say, let's
Speaker 2: turn the dial back to June of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden had been occupying the White House for a year.
Speaker 3: And a half.
Speaker 2: Democrats controlled Congress. They handed him his two trillion dollar
Speaker 2: bill back better spending extravaganza, and the economy had more
Speaker 2: than recovered the ground it lost from COVID lockdowns. The
Speaker 2: country should have been booming instead nine point one percent
Speaker 2: inflation and stagnation, they say. In twenty twenty two, real
Speaker 2: hourly wages were falling. Four years later, workers' incomes have
Speaker 2: climbed out of that Biden hole, and wages are up
Speaker 2: two percent, and unlike twenty twenty two, they're going up,
Speaker 2: not down, so they're continuing to go up, they say.
Speaker 2: The latest jobs data shows that there are six million
Speaker 2: more private sector jobs today than there were a year ago.
Speaker 2: That's the good news. The better news is that there
Speaker 2: are one hundred and ninety thousand fewer federal workers than
Speaker 2: there were in twenty twenty two. In April twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: the border patrol quote encountered two hundred and thirty four
Speaker 2: thousand illegal border crossers, and of course they released almost
Speaker 2: all of them into the US. In April of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six. Four years later, now they encountered about thirteen thousand,
Speaker 2: and none were led into the country under Trump's administration.
Speaker 2: These editors say the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at
Speaker 2: about thirty three thousand at the end of May of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two and was moving sideways. This year, it's
Speaker 2: at fifty one thousand. That's an increase of fifty six percent,
Speaker 2: and it's been climbing for most of Trump's second term.
Speaker 2: And they say, despite all the hue and cry over
Speaker 2: gas prices, they're almost identical to where they were in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, and I would note trending downward. Yeah,
Speaker 2: gas prices are something the Democrats are glombed on too,
Speaker 2: and they're going to try to flog right through the
Speaker 2: elections because they're one of the few negatives that they
Speaker 2: can actually spin and make sound terrible to the average voter.
Speaker 2: They're also, frankly one of the few negatives when it
Speaker 2: comes to the Trump economy. Over the last fourteen months,
Speaker 2: Trump had gas price down to about two dollars and
Speaker 2: forty cents a gallon until he decided we needed to
Speaker 2: deal with Iran. We couldn't delay anymore because they're so
Speaker 2: close to creating a nuclear bomb. And so it was
Speaker 2: the Iran war that had gas prices skyrocketing back up
Speaker 2: to about four to sixty a gallon on average before
Speaker 2: they've started to slide back down again now, So the
Speaker 2: honest caveat on gas prices has got to be Trump
Speaker 2: and his team new gas prices were going to jump again,
Speaker 2: but they had to do the hard work of eliminating
Speaker 2: the Iranian nuclear threat. Now they have, and prices are
Speaker 2: already coming down again. And so if voters really want
Speaker 2: to hold a grudge against Trump and Republicans for that,
Speaker 2: it's kind of silly. But of course the Democrats will
Speaker 2: spin and lie as much as they can on that
Speaker 2: one because it's the one economic attack they think they
Speaker 2: can get voters to believe and get angry about. And yes,
Speaker 2: as these editors continue, there are still soft spots in
Speaker 2: the labor market, sure, but the economic turnaround that was
Speaker 2: so desperately needed after Biden trashed up things has begun,
Speaker 2: In fact, just fourteen months later. It's well under way.
Speaker 2: If you're upset about that, you're really being foolish. I
Speaker 2: agree with these editors at Issues and Insights as they
Speaker 2: conclude we have always maintained that climbing out of the
Speaker 2: Biden hole would be an arduous journey. And while we'd
Speaker 2: argue that Trump could be doing a better job of
Speaker 2: communicating as wins and staying focused on issues that every
Speaker 2: day Americans care about, who's willing to claim that they're
Speaker 2: better off in twenty twenty two than they are now.
Speaker 2: So the question voters need to start asking themselves is
Speaker 2: do they really want to hand control of anything back
Speaker 2: to the Democrats, knowing the misery they caused four years ago.
Speaker 2: The answer to that should obviously be no. And if
Speaker 2: we had an honest media, one that was both cataloging
Speaker 2: the economic wins that we've been seeing in this new
Speaker 2: era of Trump as they've occurred, and as also honestly
Speaker 2: asking and answering that question for voters, is this country
Speaker 2: better off economically than it was under Joe Biden? If
Speaker 2: today's news media was doing their jobs as any past
Speaker 2: era of news editors and reporters would have been more fairly,
Speaker 2: the majority of the American people and Fall voters would
Speaker 2: already know that there's no reason to vote Democrat in
Speaker 2: Fall and put these clowns back in charge. You'd actually
Speaker 2: be a dope to do so if your own paycheck
Speaker 2: and cost of living are at all important to you.
Speaker 2: The truth is things are going good in America right now,
Speaker 2: and that Trump and his team have rather quickly turned
Speaker 2: Biden's terrible economy around with more growth and prosperity on
Speaker 2: the horizon. I just hope more of the message gets
Speaker 2: out before people start to early vote in September. You
Speaker 2: are listening to the Jayweber podcast. The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: had a fun blurb on Elon Musk, and since only
Speaker 2: a small sliver of people read The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 2: I thought I'd pass it along to my podcast listeners.
Speaker 2: This comes up because Elon Musk is going to be
Speaker 2: the world's first trillionaire. The expectation is that this will
Speaker 2: come after the initial public offering for SpaceX, because, as
Speaker 2: it is, Musk's net worth is estimated to be about
Speaker 2: nine hundred and seventy billion dollars nine hundred and seventy billion,
Speaker 2: holy cow. So he only needs to see his wealth
Speaker 2: increase by another thirty billion dollars and he hits one trillion.
Speaker 2: Sounds weird to speak in terms of only thirty billion,
Speaker 2: but when we're talking about these sorts of numbers. It's fit,
Speaker 2: it fits, it's accurate, and given how difficult it is
Speaker 2: to even understand what a trillion dollars is for the
Speaker 2: average person, it starts to sound like fake money. The
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal estimates that Elon Musk, over the course
Speaker 2: of his career, has made about one thousand dollars per
Speaker 2: second nine hundred and ninety two dollars per second. More accurately,
Speaker 2: Musk's wealth includes SpaceX, which is valued at about five
Speaker 2: hundred and forty billion dollars, his Stakes and Tesla, of course,
Speaker 2: they're worth about one hundred and seventy billion, and he
Speaker 2: also has another one hundred and fifty billion dollars in
Speaker 2: stock options to those companies that he could exercise at anytime.
Speaker 2: Then there's the cutting edge boring company which drills tunnels
Speaker 2: that's five billion. Oh, the brain implant firm that he
Speaker 2: founded that's worth about one hundred billion. Then you've got
Speaker 2: to toss in the properties that he owns, personal assets
Speaker 2: like his plane, et cetera. You get to about nine
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy billion dollars. To put this into perspective,
Speaker 2: the next richest guy in the US is Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 2: who is worth about two hundred and seventy six billion dollars.
Speaker 2: So imagine Elon Musk is so rich, he is so
Speaker 2: far ahead of any other wealth giant on this planet
Speaker 2: that he could buy out the next guy on the
Speaker 2: list three times over easily. Working the math another way,
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal says that Musk has made about
Speaker 2: three point six million dollars per hour for the last
Speaker 2: thirty one years. He's made about fifty nine thousand dollars
Speaker 2: per minute, or three point six million an hour. And
Speaker 2: obviously he wasn't making that much early in his efforts.
Speaker 2: But this is the average over the course of his
Speaker 2: working adult life. By the way, that works out to
Speaker 2: about eighty five million dollars a day. If you want
Speaker 2: that figure. Elon Musk makes about eighty five million dollars
Speaker 2: a day, two point six billion per month, thirty one
Speaker 2: billion per year. And so, as the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: article points out, it would take the average American who
Speaker 2: makes about eighty four thousand dollars a year currently, it
Speaker 2: would take the average American eleven million years to match
Speaker 2: Musk's current wealth. That is mind boggling, unfathomable. That's how
Speaker 2: rich Elon Musk is One of the thoughts that I
Speaker 2: had on this was Elon Musk is proving that you
Speaker 2: really can't hit a point at which money's irrelevant. He's
Speaker 2: the perfect person to really prove that, or display that. Musk,
Speaker 2: by all appearances, is a pretty average guy who doesn't
Speaker 2: put much importance in all the money that he has.
Speaker 3: He's not like.
Speaker 2: Bezos or Gates or Zuckerberg, who've shown off how rich
Speaker 2: they are by buying half billion dollar yachts building half
Speaker 2: billion dollar homes. They're all so rich that they have
Speaker 2: clearly by now figured out that there's only so much
Speaker 2: you can spend your money on, and that no amount
Speaker 2: of money makes you infallible or untouchable or immortal, which
Speaker 2: led to the other thought I had. Musk's level of
Speaker 2: wealth is proving the cliche you still can't take it
Speaker 2: with you is true. He and all these other very
Speaker 2: very rich men are still all going to die someday.
Speaker 2: In fact, in every era there seems to have been
Speaker 2: at least some sliver of wealthy people who were chasing immortality,
Speaker 2: trying to find ways to extend their lives or make
Speaker 2: themselves immortal. None have yet. They've tried sleeping in cryogenics
Speaker 2: and blood doping, gene manipulation, they've all still died. In fact,
Speaker 2: Elon Musk has said more than once that he's convinced
Speaker 2: at some point humans will be able to essentially download
Speaker 2: their consciousness into a computer hard drive, and that would
Speaker 2: be at least a form of immortality. We've all seen
Speaker 2: science fiction movies in which that's the plot. Some dead
Speaker 2: villain's brain is downloaded into some other person's body, or
Speaker 2: some blank that was lab grown. Musk would probably tell
Speaker 2: you we're closer to that first step of downloading someone's
Speaker 2: consciousness onto a hard drive than you'd think, But at
Speaker 2: least in this age, you still can't do it, and
Speaker 2: you still can't take it with you. Whether it's ten
Speaker 2: bucks or a trillion dollars, money is useless to you
Speaker 2: when you're dead. This Wall Street Journal story has a
Speaker 2: list of things you could buy with Musk's current nine
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy billion dollars. You could buy two point
Speaker 2: four million houses in the US using the average price
Speaker 2: of a house. You could buy thirty two NFL teams
Speaker 2: and every NBA team. You could buy a fleet of
Speaker 2: over ten thousand Gulf Stream jets and pay for five
Speaker 2: years of their operating costs and one finals when adjusted
Speaker 2: for inflation, Elon Musk is wealthier than even John D.
Speaker 2: Rockefeller was in his day, easily. This means that even
Speaker 2: before SpaceX goes public or Musk hits a trillion dollars
Speaker 2: of wealth this moment in history, already Elon Musk ranks
Speaker 2: as the richest American who has ever lived. That's the
Speaker 2: sort of thing that I think is too good to
Speaker 2: stay behind a firewall in the Wall Street Journal website,
Speaker 2: so I thought i'd share it with you now to
Speaker 2: longtime CBS anchor in Sixty Minutes hack Scott Pelly being
Speaker 2: fired after going on an explosive rant against the network's
Speaker 2: new news chiefs. This is fun. This has been the
Speaker 2: talk of social media over the last few days, and
Speaker 2: it probably proves that social media isn't real life. I
Speaker 2: don't know who actually watches sixty Minutes anymore, or who
Speaker 2: knows who Scott Pelly even is. If you're going to
Speaker 2: pull the average American, I don't think they know. But
Speaker 2: it's been all over social media, and my takes on
Speaker 2: Scott Pelly included. First, he's always struck me, as Ted Baxter,
Speaker 2: a parody of a newsman. Pelly is clearly playing a
Speaker 2: role when he's in front of the camera. I assume
Speaker 2: he's a big fake, and he acts and sounds completely
Speaker 2: different off here. I've always assumed that he's a less
Speaker 2: funny Ted Baxter, the fraud of a newsman that Ted
Speaker 2: Knight played on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And yes,
Speaker 2: I think Pelly is that fake, even if he's not
Speaker 2: that much of an idiot. My second take on Pelly's
Speaker 2: firing is, and this is a complete guess, but I
Speaker 2: just think what I think. I think he just wanted
Speaker 2: to retire, but being the self aggrandizing, performative jackass that
Speaker 2: he has always been, he decided to go down in
Speaker 2: a blaze of glory and pretend that he was taking
Speaker 2: a stand and defending journalism as a whole and defending
Speaker 2: his journalistic integrity individually. This is what I think motivated
Speaker 2: his insane performance in that all staff meeting earlier this week.
Speaker 2: This was all ego. Trust me, that much is for certain.
Speaker 2: Pelly wouldn't have done this if he wouldn't have planned
Speaker 2: it first, correct, And so what we can say is
Speaker 2: that part of this is certainly intentional. What his motivations
Speaker 2: were more questionable. Did he really think he could speak
Speaker 2: to the CBS execs that way and survive it? Or
Speaker 2: after thirty seven years and at the age of sixty eight,
Speaker 2: was Pelly looking to go out in a blaze of
Speaker 2: glory and hope to go down in history as the
Speaker 2: last real journalist in a rapidly changing world. Put me
Speaker 2: down for that second option.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: I would bet anyone that Pelly really just wanted to
Speaker 2: retire but saw a chance to go out in a
Speaker 2: blaze of glory and hey, there is a way to
Speaker 2: test whether I'm correct. Does Scott Pelly feel the need
Speaker 2: to turn around and start some podcast like Megan Kelly
Speaker 2: and Tucker or Mark Helprin did Is he going to
Speaker 2: be another one of these media figures who either quits
Speaker 2: or gets fired from a larger media company only to
Speaker 2: feel that he needs to start some sort of sub
Speaker 2: stack or start his own podcast and continue his work.
Speaker 2: Or is this essentially the last we see of Scott Pelley.
Speaker 2: Does he maybe pop up on a few Sunday shows
Speaker 2: or as part of some other network's election coverage, but
Speaker 2: otherwise disappear. That would be the litmus test. This is
Speaker 2: a sort of move that would indicate to me that
Speaker 2: he really just wanted to retire, or whether he really
Speaker 2: did think he could just speak to CBS execs this
Speaker 2: way because he has a contract. But either way, he
Speaker 2: goes down as a guy who has fired from CBS twice.
Speaker 2: As John Podharitz pointed out, quote, this is the second
Speaker 2: time Scott Pelley has been fired by CBS. The last
Speaker 2: time was for being a lousy anchorman. This time it
Speaker 2: was for being a performative jerk. And he didn't say jerk,
Speaker 2: he used a word that rhymes with trick. But I've
Speaker 2: decided to keep my podcast relatively clean because I assume
Speaker 2: all sorts of people will be listening to it in
Speaker 2: the car or in the house with little ears around.
Speaker 2: I might be a little looser with the language on
Speaker 2: the podcast now that I no longer have to meet
Speaker 2: FCC requirements for over the year content, but I'll keep
Speaker 2: it relatively clean for you. This explosion of emotion and
Speaker 2: invective by Pelly was directed at a guy named Nick Bilton,
Speaker 2: who has been hired as the new top producer of
Speaker 2: sixty Minutes, and in that rant, Pelly trashed the woman
Speaker 2: who hired him Bari Weez. This is the relatively new
Speaker 2: head of the CBS News product overall, and he told
Speaker 2: Bilton right to his face that he had no resume
Speaker 2: or qualifications for producing sixty minutes. He accused Wes of
Speaker 2: quote murdering the show and told Bilton that he was
Speaker 2: basically a bad joke with no qualifications. And so is
Speaker 2: Pelly so arrogant and foolish that he thought he could
Speaker 2: speak to management that way and get away with it?
Speaker 2: Or was he trying to get himself fired? I would
Speaker 2: opt for trying to get fired. You might be asking yourself, well,
Speaker 2: who would want to go out that way or who
Speaker 2: would want to put a stain on his career right
Speaker 2: at the end of it this way? My answer would
Speaker 2: be because Pelly is not seeing this as a stain
Speaker 2: on his career or his reputation. He's seeing it as
Speaker 2: a capper on his career and reputation. He was the
Speaker 2: last great, honest, unbiased, fair journalist. In his mind, Scott
Speaker 2: Pelley is one of the last great journalists standing who
Speaker 2: spoke truth to power and stood up for the institution
Speaker 2: right until the bitter end. As a former journalist myself
Speaker 2: and knowing how most guys like Pelly view themselves in
Speaker 2: that profession. I can guarantee you that that's how Pelly
Speaker 2: views this week's events. In fact, one good hint here
Speaker 2: is how Pelly portrayed himself at his time at CBS,
Speaker 2: acting as if he had seen combat. Did you see this?
Speaker 2: The statement Pelly put out right after his firing is
Speaker 2: mockable quote. I have been in combat in Afghanistan. I've
Speaker 2: been in combat in Iraq. I've been in the war
Speaker 2: zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the
Speaker 2: happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 2: Scott Pelly has not been in combat. He's been a
Speaker 2: reporter working in war zones, sure, and there's an amount
Speaker 2: of risk in romance that comes with that, but not
Speaker 2: much in the modern times. In today's war zones, the
Speaker 2: risk to reporters is very low. And I can tell
Speaker 2: you for certain that Scott Pelly was never anywhere near
Speaker 2: the fighting or in any real risk. Pelly might have
Speaker 2: been two Afghanistan and Ukraine while they were at war,
Speaker 2: but he wasn't embedded with any troops. He and his
Speaker 2: cameraman and producers were at a comfortable hotel in Kiev,
Speaker 2: filing reports once a day or once a week, and
Speaker 2: for Pelly to portray himself as having been in combat
Speaker 2: isn't only disingenuous, it's insulting to those who have seen
Speaker 2: actual combat, including war reporters in past wars that were
Speaker 2: embedded with troops and were on front lines with nothing
Speaker 2: except for their camera and their notepad. This isn't really
Speaker 2: stolen valor because Pelly isn't pretending to have served a
Speaker 2: military role, but it's still a form of stolen valor
Speaker 2: to suggest that he put his life at risk on
Speaker 2: behalf of journalism and informing the American people. That's nonsense.
Speaker 2: Helly put out a longer statement about half a day
Speaker 2: later and included a few things that were also suspect
Speaker 2: in that letter, including a claim that this new management
Speaker 2: team at CBS told him to put false facts and
Speaker 2: intentional biases into his stories now that they're in charge.
Speaker 2: That's nonsense. It's clearly belooney, and based on what other
Speaker 2: CBS employees who are close to Pelly and close to
Speaker 2: these projects are saying, they're verifying that most people don't
Speaker 2: know that it's really the producers and writers and all
Speaker 2: sorts of people behind the scenes who put together the
Speaker 2: stories that Scott Pelly voices. He or Leslie Stall. Sure,
Speaker 2: they might sit down and do a live interview to
Speaker 2: get some tape on a couple of interview subjects, but
Speaker 2: it's people behind the scenes that are doing all the
Speaker 2: hard work. Scott Pelley is basically the face of that
Speaker 2: story and the script reader that's it. In fact, it
Speaker 2: sounds like the behind the scenes. CBS employees are pretty
Speaker 2: split on the question of what Pelly did here and
Speaker 2: whether it's helpful. As one CBS insider put it, quote,
Speaker 2: what did he accomplish? He embarrassed the company in leadership.
Speaker 2: Worse than that, Pelly confirmed for the non crazy majority
Speaker 2: of the country that legacy journalists are narcissistic megalomaniacs with
Speaker 2: a wildly overinflated sense of their own importance. That's true,
Speaker 2: that is what Pelly did. And maybe his fellow arrogant,
Speaker 2: self important newspeople who are working at the big networks
Speaker 2: along with him think that Pelly did a bold and
Speaker 2: courageous thing here, But the rest of America thinks he
Speaker 2: looks like a Putts. Oh, and then there's the chance
Speaker 2: that Pelly's explosion was really just over a suggestion that
Speaker 2: his new boss had made that they'd all be working harder. Honestly,
Speaker 2: those who were in the meeting said that Pelly seemed
Speaker 2: to really get upset after this new guy, Nick Bill
Speaker 2: said that based on the size of the staff and
Speaker 2: the new era of streaming, they would be producing more content.
Speaker 2: Bilton said, basically, what all new bosses say, we can
Speaker 2: do better. I'm going to ask you to work a
Speaker 2: little harder. We can generate more product and have more success.
Speaker 2: That's what seemed to set off Pelly as much as anything,
Speaker 2: according to people in those meetings. Well, consider it, Scott
Speaker 2: Pelley sixty eight. He's been coasting along for a decade
Speaker 2: or more, doing one story a week if that, and
Speaker 2: getting paid millions of dollars a year to do it. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: right at the end of his career, and when he's
Speaker 2: really been enjoying this coast, this great glide path for
Speaker 2: years where he's not working hard but he's making all
Speaker 2: sorts of money. Now it's coming to an end. Of course,
Speaker 2: he'd be upset. That's one of the things that has
Speaker 2: me thinking Pelly really just wanted to retire. He had
Speaker 2: worked himself into a great position at CBS in which
Speaker 2: he was making a huge amount of money for doing
Speaker 2: virtually no work. This is similar to an agent, college professor,
Speaker 2: or a brilliant brain surgeon. You have these professions in which,
Speaker 2: at your oldest and your wisest, you have the most value,
Speaker 2: so you can make the most money. Institutions will pay
Speaker 2: you a lot to do very little work. This is
Speaker 2: the position Scott Kelly and Leslie Stall and these other
Speaker 2: ancient CBS hacks had worked themselves into. And suddenly management
Speaker 2: changes at the top, and they're demanding more of you.
Speaker 2: Right when you want to do less work. Management's outlining
Speaker 2: an energetic new era that's being launched, and you're a
Speaker 2: fossil from the old era. No no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 2: I don't want to work harder. Suddenly retirement looks pretty good.
Speaker 2: So this is my theory. Pelly wanted no part of
Speaker 2: helping to launch some energetic new era of journalism and
Speaker 2: storytelling blah blah blah blah blah, and he formulated his
Speaker 2: own way to go out. In fact, I can virtually
Speaker 2: guarantee you that's what really went on here in Pelly's head.
Speaker 2: So we'll wait a few days in a few weeks,
Speaker 2: we'll see if the Pelly podcast is announced, because by god,
Speaker 2: Scott Pelly still has a fire in his belly for
Speaker 2: good stories, or we'll see if he's done and we
Speaker 2: never really see much of Scott Pelly again. I'm guessing
Speaker 2: it's going to be that second option. Listeners seem to
Speaker 2: enjoy my segment about how President Trump is beautifying and
Speaker 2: restoring our nation's capital and how he would be getting
Speaker 2: bipartisan praise for it in any other political era, and
Speaker 2: as a follow up, I just wanted to pass along
Speaker 2: some new stats that I ran across that aren't likely
Speaker 2: to get much attention in the mainstream news media. According
Speaker 2: to the Department of Interior, just up to this point
Speaker 2: in the Trump restoration effort, the Trump administration has restored
Speaker 2: twenty two fountains and cleaned up twenty eight statues, as
Speaker 2: well as removed hundreds of instances of graffiti. They've restored
Speaker 2: several public ponds around d C, and of course are
Speaker 2: very close to completing the restoration of the massive reflective
Speaker 2: pool between the Capitol and the Washington Monument and also
Speaker 2: included in this list from Interior rat proofing DC's trash
Speaker 2: cans and clearing out a few homeless encampments from federal grounds.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic. And as Doug Bergham and Donald Trump have
Speaker 2: both been saying, decay is a choice, the Democrats are
Speaker 2: allowing and even seem to be encouraging the decay in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. In in our big cities, we shouldn't have
Speaker 2: to put up with it. And by the Trump White
Speaker 2: House's reckoning, decline was a choice, but not anymore. That
Speaker 2: was posted on a White House account along with this line.
Speaker 2: In just fourteen months, potus has restored our nation's capital,
Speaker 2: making it both safe and beautiful. And Trump really has
Speaker 2: That isn't one of these Trumpian boasts that is sometimes
Speaker 2: inflated or overblown in its characterization. Washington really is far
Speaker 2: more safe and now more beautiful than it was when
Speaker 2: Joe Biden left office, and really, for the first time
Speaker 2: after decades of decline, and I'll just emphasize again, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump didn't even run on cleaning up Washington DC. Cleaning
Speaker 2: up DC wasn't among the top priorities that Trump and
Speaker 2: Republicans were touting in twenty twenty four as they ran
Speaker 2: for office. Lowering crime was, yes, but Trump wasn't promising
Speaker 2: to restore the fountains and the monuments in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: He never mentioned the reflecting pool. This is just an
Speaker 2: effort that Trump decided to take on as a personal
Speaker 2: project once he got back into office and after seeing
Speaker 2: the sort of neglect indicay that had been allowed to
Speaker 2: happen under past presidents and congresses. So good for Trump.
Speaker 2: I have zero doubt that after he's out of office
Speaker 2: and some time has passed, only then will people on
Speaker 2: both sides of the isle and their media outlet's admit
Speaker 2: Trump did a good thing here, and it will happen,
Speaker 2: but it could take years. The passage of time normally
Speaker 2: has nearly everyone admitting to a simple truth at some point.
Speaker 2: Two great examples are after the Clinton's left office, everyone
Speaker 2: on the Democrats side of the aisle could immediately flip
Speaker 2: and tell you how awful they were and in truth,
Speaker 2: how terrible their scandals were for the party in the country.
Speaker 2: Another good example, now that the Bidens are out of
Speaker 2: office and their political careers are clearly over now already
Speaker 2: the truth about what corrupt liars they have always been
Speaker 2: is starting to be acknowledged.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 2: It says something that the harshest criticisms related to Jill
Speaker 2: Biden's new book and how she's trying to rewrite history
Speaker 2: are coming from her own side of the aisle. The
Speaker 2: average American doesn't care about her book. They're not going
Speaker 2: to read it. They're not really paying attention to what's
Speaker 2: going on in Washington. But over the last week or so,
Speaker 2: Washington d C has been obsessed with how the Bidens
Speaker 2: are going to try to redeem themselves with one last
Speaker 2: rush of lies in book form. Now it's the talk
Speaker 2: of the DC insiders and elites, and they're nearly all
Speaker 2: Democrats and legacy media members who are obsessing over this
Speaker 2: because now they feel like they can tell the truth.
Speaker 2: Joe and Joe Biden have always been scumbags. They've always
Speaker 2: been corrupt. They ran a corrupt, pay to play family
Speaker 2: enterprise for decades, and DC insiders knew it. A lot
Speaker 2: of DC insiders were running some sort of pay for
Speaker 2: play or corruption scheme. But when the level of the
Speaker 2: Biden family corruption was really exposed, they were shocked that
Speaker 2: the Bidens were managing to collect millions and millions of
Speaker 2: dollars doing this. Anyone listening to Mark Helpern's podcast should
Speaker 2: note how cavalierly they're all now on the left admitting
Speaker 2: that Biden Inc. Was a corrupt and perhaps criminal enterprise,
Speaker 2: and we can admit it. Now they're admitting the Bidens
Speaker 2: are broke. They can't send Hunter and Jim around to
Speaker 2: extort money out of people and foreign country reason collect
Speaker 2: bribes for the family anymore. History will get this right eventually,
Speaker 2: and this is a good point to transition to the
Speaker 2: next topic, because history will eventually get this right too.
Speaker 2: The fact that Donald Trump and Benjamin netanyahuo did a stunning,
Speaker 2: heroic and historically unique thing by wiping out the military
Speaker 2: of another major or foreign country in a matter of
Speaker 2: days and solving a forty or fifty year global problem
Speaker 2: and terror threat with virtually no loss of life and
Speaker 2: no wider warfare. This is another thing that in any
Speaker 2: other political era would have been marvelous and celebrated in
Speaker 2: a bipartisan manner. But because it's Trump, and because it's
Speaker 2: this hyperpartisan in bitter era, we're getting very different and
Speaker 2: very unfair coverage out of the leftist media. President Trump
Speaker 2: and his team have delivered an incredible military victory over
Speaker 2: in Iran and it's one that can't be taken away
Speaker 2: or explained away by Trump's political enemies, but they sure
Speaker 2: are trying hard to do that by obsessing over some
Speaker 2: quote peace deal that, in truth, Trump and Israel don't need.
Speaker 2: For months now, the actors involved and the Trump hate
Speaker 2: media have been obsessing over getting some sort of official
Speaker 2: deal in place that allows Trump to withdraw our military
Speaker 2: from the region and cleanly walk away. But that's not
Speaker 2: going to happen because it's not a realistic expectation. And
Speaker 2: I've been telling you this since my first podcast in April.
Speaker 2: The truth is, we don't need a deal with Iran
Speaker 2: because these Iranian mulas and politicians never ever live up
Speaker 2: to deals. They've never lived up to a past deal
Speaker 2: they've ever made with the West. Dealing with the Iranian
Speaker 2: regime is useless. We either need regime change or we
Speaker 2: need to simply keep them boxed in until their economy
Speaker 2: completely collapses and they're no longer a threat to anyone
Speaker 2: outside of their own borders. If these mullas remain in place,
Speaker 2: that's how Trump has to handle this. This is what
Speaker 2: needs to occur here, and if that means that gas
Speaker 2: prices come down a little bit more slowly as the
Speaker 2: global markets shift away from oil out of the Persian
Speaker 2: Gulf even more, well, then so be it. But the
Speaker 2: price of gas is already coming down, and ironmous evil
Speaker 2: Mullas are still pinned in. So what actually needs to
Speaker 2: change when it comes to deal with Iran? From America's perspective?
Speaker 2: In truth, we don't need some sort of clean but
Speaker 2: fraudulent deal between Trump and the Mullas to end this
Speaker 2: and make everyone feel better about it. We don't need
Speaker 2: a deal with Iran. Why go back to some false
Speaker 2: Obama esque deal that means nothing? Why even empower the
Speaker 2: current batch of Iranian leaders with a deal? As David
Speaker 2: Harsanyi correctly points out over at the Washington Examiner, the
Speaker 2: fact that democrats and isolationists have successfully demoralized the American
Speaker 2: public doesn't change the fact that the US and Israel
Speaker 2: decapitated leadership and institutional knowledge within the Iranian regime, set
Speaker 2: back its nuclear program vastly, to grade its ballistic missile capabilities,
Speaker 2: and stunted its ability to prop up proxy militias. He says,
Speaker 2: Iran will never be in a weaker position. We will
Speaker 2: never have more leverage if clerics refuse to strike a
Speaker 2: suitable deal while their economy is being pounded by a
Speaker 2: US blockade. What in the history of the regime makes
Speaker 2: anyone believe they'll be more amenable when given an economic lifeline.
Speaker 2: Correct Harsanyi crystallizes things when he says, in the long term,
Speaker 2: clerics believe they can eke out survival until a Democrat
Speaker 2: or a non interventionist Republican becomes president in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: In the short term, they're counting on the president not
Speaker 2: having the courage to resume widespread military engagement. Iran understands
Speaker 2: that American domestic patience is negatively correlated to high gas prices.
Speaker 2: They understand that Trump is under political pressure with the
Speaker 2: midtern elections coming, etc. But what they don't realize, and
Speaker 2: what most DC insiders and so called experts don't realize,
Speaker 2: is that Trump doesn't really need a deal. President Trump
Speaker 2: shouldn't be stepping in to save any more Husbalah leaders
Speaker 2: from Israel's wrath. For example, Trump should be encouraging Netanyaho
Speaker 2: to go ahead and deal with Hasbellah. As long as
Speaker 2: we're doing this and so long as Iran's leaders refuse
Speaker 2: to capitulate that would be the smarter way to play this,
Speaker 2: and as for oil prices, launch an even more overt
Speaker 2: campaign globally to get the other oil producing countries to
Speaker 2: pump more and ship more. It's not like Iran's level
Speaker 2: of production can't be replaced. Trump and his team are
Speaker 2: making few simple demands. They should insist Iran agree to
Speaker 2: those before any pressure is relieved on them, and that
Speaker 2: includes turning over all enriched uranium and ending its nuclear
Speaker 2: and missile programs permanently period. It should also be forced
Speaker 2: to end any funding or assistance to the groups like
Speaker 2: Hesbellah and Hamas and the Huthis which they've been using
Speaker 2: as their proxies for spreading Islamist terrorism in the Middle
Speaker 2: East and globally. Until or unless Iran agrees to those
Speaker 2: there should be no talk of any sort of deal
Speaker 2: that eases the pressure on Iran and has the US
Speaker 2: ending our current ability to strike back at them militarily
Speaker 2: as they continue to throw little tantrums. Because the bottom
Speaker 2: line has to be as long as Iran's regime has
Speaker 2: the ability to create a nuclear bomb within a matter
Speaker 2: of weeks or months and deliver it via a missile,
Speaker 2: this conflict can't be resolved. No, that's the bottom line
Speaker 2: that the leftists, their accomplices in the media, and their
Speaker 2: accomplices on Capitol Hill are intentionally deciding to ignore so
Speaker 2: they can make up stories about Trump's weakness here and
Speaker 2: how this war has actually made Muran Moore power powerful.
Speaker 2: That's the most idiotic narrative out of a number of
Speaker 2: idiotic narratives that the Trump haters have come up with
Speaker 2: over the last few months. And sadly, most Americans didn't
Speaker 2: hear or see any of Marco Rubio's performance this week
Speaker 2: in front of a panel of theater kid Democrat senators
Speaker 2: who thought they could call him in front of their
Speaker 2: panel in order to try to embarrass him and mock
Speaker 2: this president. I hope that at least some of you
Speaker 2: saw some of this. I have a two minute clip
Speaker 2: here of Secretary of State Rubia reacting to Senator Corey Booker,
Speaker 2: who trotted out this foolish claim that we've only made
Speaker 2: Iran stronger.
Speaker 3: And now we're begging to get back into a deal
Speaker 3: that you all trashed in the first place.
Speaker 7: There's no one begging.
Speaker 3: Clearly, this is sen Booker. Booker times up want to
Speaker 3: as fines.
Speaker 7: Because they go to the heart of the matter. No
Speaker 7: one's begging for anything here. The Iranians might be begging
Speaker 7: because there are economies losing hundreds and millions of dollars
Speaker 7: a day that they are losing. Understand, Iran had street
Speaker 7: protests going on before all of this started.
Speaker 3: All of those factors.
Speaker 7: Economic factors in Iran are far worse today than they
Speaker 7: were six months ago when those protests were happening. They
Speaker 7: have hyperinflation, their currency is completely devalued. They're struggling to
Speaker 7: make payroll for their government workers. Iran is in a
Speaker 7: very serious situation. And if it was up to the
Speaker 7: political class there, and I understand everybody there is sort
Speaker 7: of radical in some way, but if it was up
Speaker 7: to the people that actually like go to elections and
Speaker 7: wear the suits and you see on TV, they probably
Speaker 7: make a deal tomorrow. It's the issue they're facing is
Speaker 7: that the supreme leader in the IRGC corps are a
Speaker 7: little bit more immune from those pressures until they can
Speaker 7: be convinced otherwise. And I think that's the direction that
Speaker 7: they're moving in because the reality, I don't know where
Speaker 7: you're getting this perception that Iran is stronger Iran has
Speaker 7: no navy left. They've lost the substantial percentage of their
Speaker 7: defense industrial base that Iran has lost a substantial percentage
Speaker 7: of their missile launchers, and their economy is far worse
Speaker 7: today and I mean far worse today than it was
Speaker 7: six to nine months ago, and they are looking at
Speaker 7: hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction costs just to
Speaker 7: get to where they.
Speaker 2: Were drua you keep telling, Rubio alludes to one of
Speaker 2: the biggest challenges here. Iran's leadership has been so fractured
Speaker 2: that it's still not clear who's in charge or who
Speaker 2: we'd be making a peace deal with. As he said,
Speaker 2: if it was up to the politicians who are pretend
Speaker 2: elected to office over there, the deal would already be done.
Speaker 2: But it's really up to the evil mullows and the
Speaker 2: leaders of the so called Revolutionary Guard, the military wing
Speaker 2: of that regime, and they're the ones still hiding in
Speaker 2: the shadows and refusing to give up because they want
Speaker 2: to remain in power over that country and its people.
Speaker 2: We have another instance here in which the left wing
Speaker 2: accomplices in the US and global news media are pretending
Speaker 2: to not know what America is even asking for here,
Speaker 2: what are even Trump's demands? They keep asking, They keep
Speaker 2: asking this even though Trump, Rubio and Nettanna, who have
Speaker 2: made those demands clear. It reminds me of the Bush
Speaker 2: era when President Bush went into Iraq and he would
Speaker 2: answer the same question three times a week, only to
Speaker 2: have the Democrats and their media whores insist we still
Speaker 2: have no idea what the President's trying to accomplish here.
Speaker 2: The point of this war is still unclear. What's his mission?
Speaker 2: What's Bush calling a victory? President Bush couldn't have been
Speaker 2: more clear when the Trump era President Trump could be clearer.
Speaker 2: But it's not like he hasn't repeatedly said what we're
Speaker 2: after here. Give up the nuclear dust, end your nuclear
Speaker 2: in ballistic programs, stop funding terror, and stop harassing or
Speaker 2: blackmailing ships floating through the Strait of Hormuz. This is
Speaker 2: what we're demanding, and Secretary Rubio made that clear again
Speaker 2: this week in front of that Senate panel. Rubio said
Speaker 2: Step one is getting Iran to reopen the Strait of
Speaker 2: Hormuz and end their harassment of commercial ships. Only after
Speaker 2: they agree to that will negotiators move to Phase two
Speaker 2: or issue too, which is getting Iran to give up
Speaker 2: its existing stockpiles of enriched uranium, because as long as
Speaker 2: they have that stuff, it's at least feasible that Iran
Speaker 2: could resume an effort to create a nuclear bomb in
Speaker 2: short order weeks or months, if they just organized it
Speaker 2: correctly and kept it hidden. Then phases three and four
Speaker 2: are presumably ending any ability for Iran to deliver that
Speaker 2: nuclear bomb via a warhead on a missile, etc. But
Speaker 2: none of this is going to happen quickly. You know.
Speaker 2: One thing being missed here and intentionally by the Trump
Speaker 2: hating media is that any compliance of a deal is
Speaker 2: going to take an extended period of time. Turning over
Speaker 2: the stockpiles verifying programs have been ended, Any compliance of
Speaker 2: a deal is going to take time and require a
Speaker 2: large amount of monitoring and verification if we're going to
Speaker 2: ever ensure the Mullas are forced to honor any deal
Speaker 2: they make, and so either way, this doesn't end quickly.
Speaker 2: I know it's not just the Democrats and Trump haters
Speaker 2: in their mouthpieces who want this war wrapped up cleanly
Speaker 2: and quickly. All sorts of Trump supporters and average Americans
Speaker 2: do too. Yep, but it's not going to happen quickly
Speaker 2: or cleanly, at least not if Donald Trump. It really
Speaker 2: is a different sort of president who refuses to do
Speaker 2: what Barack Obama did and only pretend that he's actually
Speaker 2: accomplished something here, or pretend he has dealt with Iran.
Speaker 2: Obama and John Carey were only pretending. Trump, with his
Speaker 2: military actions here, has already proven he's not screwing around.
Speaker 2: He genuinely finally wants to deal with a dangerous and
Speaker 2: belligerent Iran, and in that regard, he and BB have
Speaker 2: already dealt a few devastating blows and made the globe safer.
Speaker 2: But there isn't going to be a neat and tidy
Speaker 2: end to this ung as the evil and lying Mullas
Speaker 2: are involved. No, a regime change would be a clear
Speaker 2: and definitive end to this. But any genuine deal made
Speaker 2: with the same evil Mullas and West hating religious zelots
Speaker 2: in charge now won't. No, then there's the possibility that
Speaker 2: regime change still occurs due to an internal uprising. Secretary
Speaker 2: Rubio wasn't lying when he said Iran's economy is in
Speaker 2: desperate shape. Inflation was high even before the military strikes
Speaker 2: and It's now hit the highest levels in eighty years
Speaker 2: in that country, highest levels since World War II. In May,
Speaker 2: the annual inflation rate in Iran hits seventy seven point
Speaker 2: two percent. Economic problems have been a source of considerable
Speaker 2: civil unrest obviously inside that country, and skyrocketing costs could
Speaker 2: lead to even more protests. And so as long as
Speaker 2: no agreement is reached, Iran's economy, which is based heavily
Speaker 2: on oil sales, is going to remain under the stranglehold
Speaker 2: of this US blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. There's
Speaker 2: a reason that the Mullas have been ordering thousands of
Speaker 2: Iranians jailed and killed over the last few months. They're
Speaker 2: trying to ensure that any dissidents are dealt with quickly
Speaker 2: before any larger internal opposition can organize. It would be
Speaker 2: silly to ease up on our western pressure points now
Speaker 2: and give them all his more breathing room. And Trump
Speaker 2: knows that the way that Iran survives this is with
Speaker 2: delay and deception. And Trump needs to make it clear
Speaker 2: he has three more years in office, and you can't
Speaker 2: outlast me, and you can't deceive me. As Victor Davis
Speaker 2: Hansen says, Iran is unlikely to ever abandon its pursuit
Speaker 2: of the bomb voluntarily. He says, as such, the Iranian
Speaker 2: regime has never viewed negotiations as a path leading to
Speaker 2: an ultimate deal. At best, the regimes supposedly elected government
Speaker 2: plays good cop, while the bad cop, theocratic henchman, periodically
Speaker 2: violate whatever understandings have been reached with the Western world.
Speaker 2: So yeah, of course, these talks aren't going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2: As Victor Davis Hanson also correctly states, Iran does not
Speaker 2: necessarily regard overwhelming military defeat on the battlefield as a
Speaker 2: strategic loss. The regime believes its own advantage lies in
Speaker 2: the long term and beyond the battlefield itself. For nearly
Speaker 2: half a century, this wicked regime has revived through propaganda,
Speaker 2: blood curdling threats, slaughtering civilians at home and abroad, terrorist
Speaker 2: proxies and clients, and a mastery of the internal policies
Speaker 2: of its adversaries, especially the US and Europe. Hanson says
Speaker 2: Iran's leaders are like the crazy assailant on the subway
Speaker 2: who feels he can do anything he wishes, since most
Speaker 2: people either fear his antics or won't wish to stoop
Speaker 2: to his level to stop him, and so Hanson concludes,
Speaker 2: the more left leaning American presidents like Clinton, Obama and
Speaker 2: Biden they reached out to dialogue and normalized with Iran,
Speaker 2: and the more Iranians lothe those presidents for being weak,
Speaker 2: he correctly says magnanimity. They interpret his weakness to be exploited.
Speaker 2: Never is kindness to be siprocated, and so it is
Speaker 2: that playing field that Trump and Rubio need to navigate.
Speaker 2: This isn't one country's dignitaries dealing with another country's dignitaries.
Speaker 2: This is closer to a group of orderlies at a
Speaker 2: metal hospital trying to deal with a group of metal
Speaker 2: patients who have now taken over the TV room. How
Speaker 2: are we going to get these lunatics in line and
Speaker 2: back to their rooms? What can we bribe them with
Speaker 2: or promise them? Because we can't rationalize with them. That's
Speaker 2: a better analogy. Obama and John Carey wanted to befriend
Speaker 2: Iran's mulla's and mainstream them into global society. Trump and
Speaker 2: Rubyo know the Iranians are dangerous metal patients who will
Speaker 2: only respond to threats or bribes. You can either calm
Speaker 2: down and cooperate and have your pudding, or you can
Speaker 2: keep throwing your tantrum and lose your ice cream after
Speaker 2: dinner tonight too. That's who Trump's team is negotiating with here,
Speaker 2: a dangerous cuckoo's nest of deranged but crafty individuals. And
Speaker 2: of course Americans just want gas to be under three
Speaker 2: dollars a gallon again, and Republican strategists and candidates want
Speaker 2: to see that before Labor Day. That only increases the
Speaker 2: pressures that Trump and Ruby are dealing with. But I'm
Speaker 2: telling you they don't need to deal with Iran. Any
Speaker 2: deal would be useless anyway.
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