Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an
Speaker 3: amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal.
Speaker 2: Lots of things going on here in the world. So
Speaker 2: we've got some updates with regard to the markets and
Speaker 2: China in particular, saying that hey, we're not anywhere close
Speaker 2: to a deal. There aren't even talks going on so
Speaker 2: as of seven fifty six right now, futures are down,
Speaker 2: so we'll get into all of that. We've also got
Speaker 2: Jeff Stein joining with the very latest with regards to
Speaker 2: the economic prospects and the trade war. We're also taking
Speaker 2: a deep dive into Trump's plummeting approval ratings, specifically with
Speaker 2: regard to some of the groups that he had really
Speaker 2: improved his performance among. We're talking about young men, we're
Speaker 2: talking about Latinos, how they are feeling about all of this,
Speaker 2: and significantly, how much tariffs are really weighing on his
Speaker 2: economic approval at this point. We're going to have an
Speaker 2: update on the very latest with regard to Ukraine where
Speaker 2: the potential peace talks are. There a lot of moving
Speaker 2: parts there, so break that down for you. We're also
Speaker 2: taking a look at the continued crackdown on quote unquote
Speaker 2: anti Semitism, Jordan Peterson entering the debate and Dave Smith
Speaker 2: weighing in and responding to that, so that'll be an
Speaker 2: interesting one. We've got a bunch of updates for you
Speaker 2: with regard to the Trump administration's deportations and use of
Speaker 2: the Alien Enemies Act. One thing that we wanted to
Speaker 2: take a look at this morning is ICE held a
Speaker 2: US citizen for ten days wrongly in detention, and they've
Speaker 2: now been caught and called out for just blatantly lying
Speaker 2: about the chain of events there. So we'll dig into that,
Speaker 2: and we're going to be joined also by Abdula El Sayed.
Speaker 2: He is running for Senate in the state of Michigan
Speaker 2: and he is the first major candidate to receive Bernie
Speaker 2: Sanders endorsement. That is going to be a heated primary.
Speaker 2: Abdelah Sayad comes from the left of the party. He
Speaker 2: has said what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide.
Speaker 2: He is for medicare for all, so really interesting to
Speaker 2: check in with him and see how his campaign is
Speaker 2: getting off to here in the early days.
Speaker 1: That's right, We're going to talk to him.
Speaker 3: And he's also got a pro Israel opponent who's already
Speaker 3: in the race, so it'll be interesting to see how
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 2: She gets a lot of APAC money, Hailey Stevens.
Speaker 1: So many people are saying, can.
Speaker 4: An interesting matchup there in Michigan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're just looking literally at the numbers, that's right. Yes,
Speaker 3: Before we get to that, thank you to everybody who
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Speaker 1: To a friend. So there we go. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and get to tariffs.
Speaker 3: As Crystal said, there has been some major movement Donald Trump, well,
Speaker 3: it appeared originally he was blinking on China. He's blinking again,
Speaker 3: but the Chinese may not be being very receptive to
Speaker 3: that blink. Here was some of the comments that he
Speaker 3: made in the Oval office. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: I think most of them will, and I think we're
Speaker 5: going to treat him very fairly well guarded. Were you
Speaker 5: worried about what the one hundred and forty five percent
Speaker 5: tariffs were doing too small businesses there at the US
Speaker 5: that why you're bringing in No, no, no, I haven't
Speaker 5: brought it down. I haven't brought it so one hundred
Speaker 5: and forty five I haven't brought it down. I said,
Speaker 5: it's a high tariff. It is a high tear, but
Speaker 5: I haven't brought it down. It basically means China's not
Speaker 5: doing any business with us, essentially, because it's a very
Speaker 5: high number. So when you add that to the price
Speaker 5: of a product, you know a lot of those products
Speaker 5: aren't going to sell. But Johina's not doing any business.
Speaker 5: They were doing they were doing one point one trillion dollars.
Speaker 5: Think of the one point one trillion dollars, you know
Speaker 5: what that is. And it was just very unfair to us,
Speaker 5: and we were doing very little, relatively very little with them.
Speaker 5: It was a one side and very one sided.
Speaker 1: But we get along.
Speaker 5: I get along very well with presidency, and I hope
Speaker 5: we can make a deal. Otherwise, we'll set a price
Speaker 5: and hopefully they'll come here and they'll contribute, and if
Speaker 5: they don't, that's okay.
Speaker 3: Otherwise they'll set a price. We'll see about that though,
Speaker 3: and what that price is. Let's get in some indications
Speaker 3: to put this up there on the screen. Major discussions
Speaker 3: inside of the White House quote to cut levies by
Speaker 3: half in some cases, though Trump has yet to make
Speaker 3: a final decision, the Trump administration is considering actually unilaterally
Speaker 3: slashing its steep tariffs on Chinese imports, in some cases
Speaker 3: almost by half, some fifty or sixty five percent, and
Speaker 3: the administration is also considering a tiered approach similar to
Speaker 3: one proposed by the House Committee on China late last year.
Speaker 3: Thirty five percent levees for items at the US deems
Speaker 3: not a threat to national security, one hundred percent for
Speaker 3: those deemed strategic interests. Perhaps the most important thing in
Speaker 3: this is actually that the quote the bill would propose
Speaker 3: phasing in these levees over a five year period, which
Speaker 3: would mean basically a complete change in the way that
Speaker 3: these tariffs are being implemented. From fifty to sixty five percent.
Speaker 3: It would instead be a phase in period. Another way
Speaker 3: to describe that would be something that maybe you could
Speaker 3: have done from the very beginning without igniting massive market
Speaker 3: turmoil chaos, dropping freight traffic by some sixty to eighty
Speaker 3: five percent. You know, Crystal, It's interesting. It appears that
Speaker 3: one of the things that really forced Trump's hand on
Speaker 3: this was a meeting with the CEOs of Target and
Speaker 3: Walmart where they told him, in no uncertain terms, sir,
Speaker 3: if you do not have a change to the status quo,
Speaker 3: we will have shortages on shelves in two weeks time,
Speaker 3: and that in one month to two months time you
Speaker 3: will see full blown price increase as well as massive
Speaker 3: empty shells all across the country. And I think it
Speaker 3: was then that it set in for Trump what he
Speaker 3: actually had instituted and had done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there even if today we get the announcement okay,
Speaker 2: forget it, we're rolling it all back, We're not doing
Speaker 2: this at all, there will still be very significant reverberating impacts.
Speaker 4: And you know, we all.
Speaker 2: Got kind of a lesson in this during COVID the
Speaker 2: way that a disruption does not You can't just snap
Speaker 2: your fingers and Okay, we're back to normal now and
Speaker 2: everything flows the way that it used to. So I
Speaker 2: was digging into some like transport and logistics Twitter this morning,
Speaker 2: and they were talking about the fact that it takes
Speaker 2: about thirty days to ship from China to la It's
Speaker 2: about forty five to Houston, it's about fifty five.
Speaker 4: To New York.
Speaker 2: So if you do the math on when Liberation Day
Speaker 2: started and when you're really going to have the you know,
Speaker 2: noticeable impacts in terms of what is coming in from China.
Speaker 2: Talking about the beginning of May. That's a week away
Speaker 2: where you're really going to start to see this show
Speaker 2: up in la first, and then you know, rippling across
Speaker 2: the country. Like I said, even if there's a rollback,
Speaker 2: you are going to have significant problems and it is
Speaker 2: going to take a while to untangle things.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That is before we even talk about the fact that
Speaker 2: China's out saying hey, there are no deal talks and
Speaker 2: if they want to talk, okay, that's fine, but we
Speaker 2: are not going to unilaterally submit to your bullying. And
Speaker 2: it seems like, you know, just to recap the sort
Speaker 2: of Trump administration position. First Trump comes out and says
Speaker 2: that it's not going to be one forty five. One
Speaker 2: forty five is very high. We're going to do something different,
Speaker 2: and that's the real signal of okay, they're completely backing
Speaker 2: off of this. Then you got Scott Bessen out saying, well,
Speaker 2: we haven't really you know, he didn't say we're backing
Speaker 2: off the tariffs right now. Now you have this indication
Speaker 2: from China that there are not talks that are ongoing.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of question marks about whether in fact they're going to
Speaker 2: move off this position in the immediate term, because it
Speaker 2: feels like the Trump administration soager is trying to get
Speaker 2: some sort of face saving capitulation from China, and China
Speaker 2: doesn't seem particularly willing to want to give them that.
Speaker 2: So we're at a bit of an impath right now,
Speaker 2: and it is totally unclear whether we are moving off
Speaker 2: of these extraordinarily high rates anytime soon exactly.
Speaker 3: And let's put the next one, please up on the screen.
Speaker 3: This was from Scott Beston, who immediately actually walked.
Speaker 1: Back of the Wall Street Journal report.
Speaker 3: He said that Trump has not made any unilateral offer
Speaker 3: to cut tariffs, but let's just be very clear. If
Speaker 3: there is any back down from one point forty five
Speaker 3: for where things are right now.
Speaker 1: It would be a unilateral cut.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons though, that they're constantly trying to
Speaker 3: juice the markets is because they we see.
Speaker 1: The riding on the wall.
Speaker 3: We had bond yields almost go up to five percent
Speaker 3: just two days ago. It's come down slightly from there,
Speaker 3: but there has been and I repeat, there has been
Speaker 3: no negotiation with the Chinese. In fact, the Chinese are
Speaker 3: the ones who are making that very clear. Let's go
Speaker 3: ahead and put this video up on the screen. This
Speaker 3: was a video that was released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Speaker 3: They say, we have said from Taiwan, tariff and trade
Speaker 3: wars have no winners. Protectionism leads nowhere. To decouple is
Speaker 3: to self alienate. They continue, this tariff war is launched
Speaker 3: by the United States. We have made it very clear
Speaker 3: that China does not look for a war, but neither
Speaker 3: are we afraid of it. We will fight. If fight,
Speaker 3: we must. Our doors are open if the US wants
Speaker 3: to talk. If a negotiated solution is truly what the
Speaker 3: US wants, it should stop threatening and blackmailing China and
Speaker 3: seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit. So
Speaker 3: to keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure,
Speaker 3: they say, is stort.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for the subtitle.
Speaker 3: It's not the right way to deal with China and
Speaker 3: it simply will not work. So that was an important
Speaker 3: speech there given in Beijing by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Speaker 3: and it indicates everything that I've also even heard from
Speaker 3: behind the scenes, where you know this idea that there
Speaker 3: are major talks happening like there were, let's say, with
Speaker 3: the Japanese. It's just not reality, the only thing that
Speaker 3: is currently open in dialogue with China is routine diplomatic
Speaker 3: you know, routine like diplomatic talk, nothing.
Speaker 1: To do with tariff or de escalation.
Speaker 3: There has been only you know what, one phone call
Speaker 3: with President Shihinping and with President Trump the Secretary of
Speaker 3: Best end. There's been no high level meeting there that
Speaker 3: has happened. There's been no foreign exchange on the tariffs.
Speaker 3: And in fact, it's the Trump administration now realizing truly
Speaker 3: for the first time, what this is all going to
Speaker 3: look like. I want to point everybody to an interview
Speaker 3: that actually just came out this morning by a guy
Speaker 3: named David wu and actually he was the former analyst
Speaker 3: over at Bank of America, just a Trump supporter, somebody
Speaker 3: who's supported not only Donald Trump but even renegotiation of trade.
Speaker 3: Something he warns of in his latest episode is that
Speaker 3: you are going to see widespread disruption. Like you said,
Speaker 3: even if you back off today with shortages in shelves,
Speaker 3: price increases that will hit in the next two week,
Speaker 3: two month period. All of this is unavoidable, even if
Speaker 3: there was a capitulation tomorrow, which does not seem very likely.
Speaker 3: And the really astounding part of all of this, and
Speaker 3: this does, I guess speak to the wisdom of the
Speaker 3: stock market, is that the reason why I have been
Speaker 3: paying attention here to the market is because of how
Speaker 3: much of leading and a real time indicator of what
Speaker 3: the future is expected to look like. And when you
Speaker 3: saw all of the retailers that are so heavily reliant
Speaker 3: on China and we see the freight traffic numbers just
Speaker 3: absolutely plunge, let's you know, I mean you said you
Speaker 3: dug into the numbers. Let's really underscore for people what
Speaker 3: a sixty percent drop in freight traffic means, Like that
Speaker 3: is insane. That means that all of the routine just
Speaker 3: in time deliveries that people rely on are done. I
Speaker 3: mean the inventory the way that this could be a
Speaker 3: whole podcast of itself, in the way that justin time
Speaker 3: delivery and inventory cost has basically moved it to the
Speaker 3: US businesses. They don't want to pay to be able
Speaker 3: to house a lot of the things they're taking up
Speaker 3: space to cost them, rant to cost them all these
Speaker 3: other things. So they rely on these just in time
Speaker 3: very very nimble supply chains, which are great for efficiency
Speaker 3: but terrible for being autonomous. Well, we didn't really change
Speaker 3: a lot of that after COVID. In fact, we got
Speaker 3: became more reliant on the Chinese. Our trade deficit went up.
Speaker 3: Now you may say, yeah, let's do something about it.
Speaker 3: I agree, but guess what. It costs a lot of
Speaker 3: money coming from the United States government to be able
Speaker 3: to incentivize any of that, and we don't see a
Speaker 3: single dollar that has yet been appropriated for any of
Speaker 3: those purposes.
Speaker 1: So this is about as bad as it gets.
Speaker 3: And that's something that I appointing people to the David
Speaker 3: wu podcast because he is someone who supported the administration
Speaker 3: and supports many of the goals of the administration. He says,
Speaker 3: you cannot point to a single a single triumph economically
Speaker 3: from the Trump administration, from its stated agenda, from doze
Speaker 3: huts to the trade war and his disapproval. These are
Speaker 3: serious people, you know, serious people actually want to see
Speaker 3: many of the things that Trump allegedly says that he
Speaker 3: wants to do and says that it's not happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, Steve Bannon, you and I were both sharing
Speaker 2: in our DMS the Steve Bannon clip where he's like, hey, Doge,
Speaker 2: what happened you know, he's saying, we need an audit
Speaker 2: of DOGE, which is hilarious.
Speaker 4: It's like, thinkgel Dave weigeltweeted.
Speaker 2: You need a Department of Government efficiency monitoring the Department
Speaker 2: of Government and efficiency. But you know, he's basically acknowledging
Speaker 2: the thing that you claimed you were doing you completely
Speaker 2: failed at. And where's any sort of pentagon cuts, where's
Speaker 2: any sort of actual fraud? Like, okay, you canceled. This
Speaker 2: is now my word's not his. Okay, you canceled some
Speaker 2: programs that like you didn't like because of their ideological
Speaker 2: valance or at least your sense of their ideological balance.
Speaker 2: But by any metric, even the metrics they set out,
Speaker 2: even with their phony inflated numbers, total and complete.
Speaker 4: Failure and but real destruction.
Speaker 2: And I mean it's kind of similar here with tariffs,
Speaker 2: total and complete failure, but real catastrophic destruction. And when
Speaker 2: you're talking about supply chains, you're talking about what are
Speaker 2: the prices they're going to be, what's going to even
Speaker 2: be available to consumers, what's going to be on the shelves,
Speaker 2: and you're talking about jobs. I mean, just if you
Speaker 2: taking the consumer side of it out of it, all together.
Speaker 2: You know, the trucking industry is massive. Trucking, that's one
Speaker 2: of the top jobs for non college educated men.
Speaker 4: That's going to take a huge hit. All of the
Speaker 4: people that.
Speaker 2: Work at the ports and make sure that your goods
Speaker 2: are unloaded and brought to the stores. I mean, all
Speaker 2: of that is going to take a huge hit. Not
Speaker 2: to mention we covered yesterday, we already have If one
Speaker 2: of the supposed goals is to increase US manufacturing, you
Speaker 2: already have so many US manufacturers, including Stilantis, including two
Speaker 2: hundred year old paper mill that's having to shut its doors.
Speaker 2: They're already saying, hey, we have to do lay like
Speaker 2: forget about investing more, we actually need to cut back now.
Speaker 2: Some of these companies use any excuse to lay off people.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that's some of what is going on
Speaker 2: right now, but it's also a real estimate of the
Speaker 2: fact that the business climate has turned sour because of
Speaker 2: an intentional plan by the Trump administration. And just one
Speaker 2: more note on China, can put a five up on
Speaker 2: the screen here.
Speaker 4: This is another indication that.
Speaker 2: You know, if the US was like okay, well, some
Speaker 2: of these countries are going to have to pick between
Speaker 2: US and China. The writing is increasingly on the wall
Speaker 2: what direction they're leaning. The European parliaments a final stages
Speaker 2: of talks with China to remove sanctions on lawmakers. So
Speaker 2: just an indication of like thawing of relations there that
Speaker 2: could open the door to more direct negotiations between Europe
Speaker 2: and China and you know, improve trade relationships there as well.
Speaker 2: But I do think China's role here is really important.
Speaker 2: You know, they sort of set the tone of hey,
Speaker 2: we're not falling in line here, we're not capitulating to
Speaker 2: this bully. We are going to hold the line. We're
Speaker 2: going to you know, we're going to retaliate. And they said, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're retaliated to a certain point.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's all we're going to do, and we're going to
Speaker 2: wait and see what the US does. I think if
Speaker 2: they had capitulated and offered concessions pretty quickly, I think
Speaker 2: you would have seen a lot of countries around the
Speaker 2: world likely to follow suit and also feel like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: if China can't stand up to them, like, what chance
Speaker 2: do we have? And so I do think that China's
Speaker 2: posture is part of the reason why as of today,
Speaker 2: you know, eight twelve in the morning, April twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: we have zero deals that have been you know, that
Speaker 2: have been finalized, that are are crafted, that are anywhere
Speaker 2: near some sort of final state.
Speaker 4: We have zero.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to do what ninety deals in ninety days
Speaker 2: were at zero. So on every level, whether it's you know,
Speaker 2: the manufacturing job loss, whether it's the you know, the
Speaker 2: treasury yields going up instead of down that was another
Speaker 2: supposed goal here, or whether it's the idea of crafting
Speaker 2: all of these deals around the world. On every single level,
Speaker 2: even by their own stated metrics, this thing has.
Speaker 3: Failed, right, And you know, I actually think their Japan
Speaker 3: was also a major leading indicator because this is a
Speaker 3: critical US ally and for them, they come to America
Speaker 3: and they're like, Okay, what do you guys want And
Speaker 3: they're like, well, what are you offering?
Speaker 1: They're like, but what do you want?
Speaker 3: And for them to go home and then for their
Speaker 3: prime minister. So I've come to understand a little bit
Speaker 3: more about this. The Japanese prime minister was a little
Speaker 3: bit on shaky ground. What he is now doing is
Speaker 3: actually standing up to Trump and the United States in
Speaker 3: parliament to shore up his political standing in the party
Speaker 3: and to basically have a nationalist rally around the flag
Speaker 3: where people are not going to capitulate to what they
Speaker 3: see as capricious US.
Speaker 1: Behavior and demands.
Speaker 3: At the very same time, are willing in this case
Speaker 3: to deal with what they see as this serious Chinese.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind, these countries hate each other, but for
Speaker 3: them it's about money, it's about seriousness, and for them,
Speaker 3: they don't see a current path forward with the administration
Speaker 3: which is realistic.
Speaker 1: I also just got this.
Speaker 3: This is this new statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry,
Speaker 3: literally just this morning. They say Beijing is now telling
Speaker 3: the United States you must completely cancel all unilateral tariff
Speaker 3: measures if it wants trade talks. The strongest comments yet
Speaker 3: from the Foreign ministry. Beijing says there are no economic
Speaker 3: and trade negotiations between China and the United States. That's
Speaker 3: confirming what I was saying earlier. Despite some recent signs
Speaker 3: of softening on the issue. They say this is not
Speaker 3: sustainable and there must They say that unilateral tariff measures
Speaker 3: were initiated by the United States. If the US truly
Speaker 3: wants to solve the problem, it must completely cancel all
Speaker 3: measures against China and find a way to resolve differences
Speaker 3: through equal dialogue. So you can see exactly there they're saying, no,
Speaker 3: we don't care anything that you say. Nothing is on
Speaker 3: the table, no communications, no high level talks.
Speaker 1: Cancel them or so be it.
Speaker 3: And you know the reason why I think they're on
Speaker 3: stronger ground is they've been preparing this is going to
Speaker 3: be very relating to our Ukraine conversation. They have prepared
Speaker 3: for this for twenty years and they have especially prepared
Speaker 3: for this in the last five And then what they
Speaker 3: saw after the COVID crisis is look, they can read
Speaker 3: a poll. They could see how Americans were really upset
Speaker 3: about the you know, the Wuhan lab and about the virus.
Speaker 3: They were preparing for any sort of decoupling. And so they,
Speaker 3: you know, with the one Belt, one Road initiative and
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty five plan from China over the last decade,
Speaker 3: have invested massive amounts of money into the domestics supply chain.
Speaker 3: Then they actually got to battle test what it looks
Speaker 3: like when the Western financial system decouples from another country
Speaker 3: which previously had lots of ties, called Russia. And they
Speaker 3: got to sit there and observe the entire global financial system,
Speaker 3: how it interacts.
Speaker 1: And what it does.
Speaker 3: And in that period, they've now had years to build alternatives.
Speaker 3: They've had the Brick Conference, they've shored up the yond,
Speaker 3: They've made sure that they can go all around the
Speaker 3: world for bilateral negotiations and make sure that at least
Speaker 3: in their hemisphere that they can stand strong. They have
Speaker 3: enough capital reserves and domestic supply chain to be able
Speaker 3: to pump into the economy. Their population is frothing at
Speaker 3: the mouth right now against the United States. The Chinese
Speaker 3: censors are basically allowing anything critical of the US to
Speaker 3: go massively viral inside of the country. And again all
Speaker 3: of this is directed specifically at us. They are very prepared,
Speaker 3: much stronger than we are right now, for any sort
Speaker 3: of preparation of a long term trade war. And you
Speaker 3: don't just think about here the visage of empty shelves
Speaker 3: in the United States of America and what that mean.
Speaker 3: You know, for people remember the gas crisis. That's truly
Speaker 3: what destroyed Jimmy Carter. Chaos, That's what it all feels like.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, no, that's right.
Speaker 2: And I mean also just like on a human level,
Speaker 2: if you're China, and you're looking at our leadership and
Speaker 2: the way they're making decisions, you know, with this preposterous
Speaker 2: chart that doesn't make any sense and throwing tariffs on
Speaker 2: penguins and you know Lesotho, and I mean it's just
Speaker 2: idiocy from the start. Then you're reading the reporting about
Speaker 2: how this is no four D chess. Trump was arm
Speaker 2: twisted by basically like a plot between Bessett and Lutnik,
Speaker 2: while Peter Navarro was on the other side of the
Speaker 2: building to change his mind on this, Like you just
Speaker 2: have to look at what's going on and say, these
Speaker 2: people are not serious, Like they're not serious. They don't
Speaker 2: have a plan, they don't have a strategy. It is
Speaker 2: just as dumb as it looks to be on the surface.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I feel pretty good in my you know,
Speaker 2: head to head matchup against this like clown car of
Speaker 2: buffoons and sycophants. So I think there's you know, some
Speaker 2: of that as well, and I think we are It
Speaker 2: is very unclear how this ultimately gets resolved with China
Speaker 2: because when they say, look, you take the tariffs off
Speaker 2: and we can talk, I think they mean it. I mean,
Speaker 2: they have been very sort of steadfast in their positioning
Speaker 2: and your right to point to Russia as really a
Speaker 2: you know, test run for what this could look like
Speaker 2: and how it will ultimately go. And it's not that
Speaker 2: Russia didn't suffer any consequences from the all out financial
Speaker 2: war that we wage on them. And it's not like
Speaker 2: our relationship with Russia is you know, the same, were
Speaker 2: as extensive as our relationship with China. But they got
Speaker 2: to have a kind of a dry run and have
Speaker 2: to feel fairly solid in their position. And it is ironic, Sager,
Speaker 2: to your point, this is a separate apart from China.
Speaker 2: But the Canadians have their elections next week, and Trump
Speaker 2: has really revived liberalism around the world.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, He's actually shored up a lot of the forces
Speaker 3: that he would hate, so like liberal internationalism is actually
Speaker 3: arguably stronger than ever, which is compan well, you know,
Speaker 3: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. All right,
Speaker 3: we've got Jeff Stein standing by to break down some
Speaker 3: more of this, specifically Powell and Trump's backing down on
Speaker 3: firing him.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it.
Speaker 3: Joining us now is Jeff Stein of the Washington Post,
Speaker 3: great friend of the show, to talk about his latest
Speaker 3: reporting and some of the developments on Trump's tariffs. Good
Speaker 3: to see you, Jeff, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6: Hey, my bud, You're always happy to be on.
Speaker 3: All right, So Secretary Scott Bessen, seemingly the quote voice
Speaker 3: of reason, at least according to Wall Street, in the room,
Speaker 3: giving some new comments about how he wants to be
Speaker 3: clear that America First does not mean America alone. A
Speaker 3: little bit different than some of the things he said previously.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen, and we're going to get your
Speaker 3: reaction this morning.
Speaker 7: I will explain how they can provide that leadership to
Speaker 7: build safer, stronger, and more prosperous economies all around the world.
Speaker 7: I wish to invite my international counterparts to join us
Speaker 7: in working toward these goals. On this point, I wish
Speaker 7: to be clear, America First does not mean America alone.
Speaker 7: To the contrary, it is a call for deeper collaboration
Speaker 7: and mutual respect among trade partners. Far from stepping back.
Speaker 8: America First seeks to expand US leadership and international institutions
Speaker 8: like the IMF and the World Banks by embracing a
Speaker 8: stronger leadership role. America First seeks to restore fairness to
Speaker 8: the international economics system.
Speaker 1: So, Jeff, what do you make of those comments in the.
Speaker 3: Wake of you know, reciprocal, reciprocal, unilateral tariffs put upon
Speaker 3: the entire world taken off, the posture through which this
Speaker 3: has all happened in some pretty acrimonious negotiations.
Speaker 1: You know, how does that fit with a lot of
Speaker 1: the reporting that you have from behind the scenes.
Speaker 9: I thought it was funny that Charaty used that phrase
Speaker 9: because Pratish Secretary Jenet Yellen definitely no mega person, and
Speaker 9: twenty twenty one said quote America first must not mean
Speaker 9: America alone, which is almost exactly what.
Speaker 6: The current puritary said.
Speaker 9: I don't know if they realized that they had, you know,
Speaker 9: that's something almost exactly what their produce is or headsetter apposed.
Speaker 9: Just a coincidence, I think to your point, there have
Speaker 9: been a number of very high profile fights in the
Speaker 9: last sort of two or three weeks over the scope
Speaker 9: of the tariff policy. And whereas previously Peter Navarro, who
Speaker 9: is the you know, uber hawk who wants more and
Speaker 9: more and more confrontation, more and more trade barriers, more
Speaker 9: conflict with our international economic allies, has was initially sort
Speaker 9: of carrying the day in the initial round of tariff debates,
Speaker 9: Vessant is actually sort of on the ascendants, and you
Speaker 9: can really see that in sort of the tone and
Speaker 9: the message he's conveying there, which is so contrary to
Speaker 9: the actions that the White House was taking just a
Speaker 9: few weeks ago. I mean, we imposed unilateral tariffs on
Speaker 9: every country, essentially dozens and dozens of countries over seventy
Speaker 9: I think was the final number. And essence here is
Speaker 9: trying to unicate that, you know, that is not necessarily
Speaker 9: the way of the future, that what Navarro's success it
Speaker 9: was in the early days of the trade war may
Speaker 9: not last forever. Of course, the problems we can discuss
Speaker 9: is that Navarro, that's uber hawk, you know, right next
Speaker 9: to Trump at all times, is still, you know, just
Speaker 9: just a breath away from power in the sense that
Speaker 9: you know, anytime Trump wants him or is feeling an
Speaker 9: impulse to hit another country with high tariffs, he can
Speaker 9: just call Peter or just invite him into the Oval.
Speaker 9: And so there's there's a real dissonance here between the
Speaker 9: messages from Navarro and the messages from Vesson. Vestn't as
Speaker 9: all the sort of palace intrigue reporting shows, and as
Speaker 9: our reporting shows as.
Speaker 6: Well, has had the upper hand in a range.
Speaker 9: Of sort of policy debates in the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 9: and so I think that's being reflected in this public
Speaker 9: communication as well, where he's feeling inboldened to say things
Speaker 9: like the clip you played, got it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hilarious after it. Not only the
Speaker 2: way they've approached the trade war. I mean a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, Trump said something like we shouldn't even have
Speaker 2: supply lines right, like literally everything we're gonna have like
Speaker 2: this North Korea style, fully autarcic economy. And you have
Speaker 2: not only that, you've got threatening war against Denmark and
Speaker 2: Canada and Mexico and Iran and all these countries around
Speaker 2: the world. Jade Vance going to Europe and lecturing them
Speaker 2: about free speech, and then you know, coming here and
Speaker 2: cracking down on college students who dare to say anything
Speaker 2: that they don't like about Israel. So you've had this
Speaker 2: incredibly adversarial approach around the world, and that rhetoric is
Speaker 2: still coming from Trump in a lot of ways. I
Speaker 2: mean just yesterday evening he did this you know, Oval
Speaker 2: office press a veil and was still calling Trudeau the
Speaker 2: Governor of Canada, we can go ahead and take a
Speaker 2: listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 10: Trudeau like, well, Governor Trudeau affectionately, I asked him, why
Speaker 10: are we spending two hundred billion dollars to support Canada?
Speaker 10: It's a subsidized Candida, And he was unable to answer
Speaker 10: the question.
Speaker 6: I mean, why are we doing that? And I have
Speaker 6: to be honest.
Speaker 10: As a state, it works great as a nation, considering
Speaker 10: the fact that most of the nation, you know, ninety
Speaker 10: five percent of Canada. What they do is they buy
Speaker 10: from us and they sell to us. They sell to
Speaker 10: us if we didn't buy their oil, if we didn't
Speaker 10: buy the and we don't need their oil, more oil
Speaker 10: than anyone. But we don't need their oil, we don't
Speaker 10: need their level, we don't need their cars, we don't
Speaker 10: need anything. So I said, why are we doing this?
Speaker 5: Why are we.
Speaker 10: Spending two hundred billion dollars? It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: So you still have Trump saying things like that. You also,
Speaker 2: I just saw Japan says, hey, we're not going to
Speaker 2: be part of any trade block that seeks to isolate
Speaker 2: China because our trade with China is too important. So
Speaker 2: in some ways, even if besant is, you know, in
Speaker 2: the driver's seat right now. I feel like the damage
Speaker 2: is already done with the way that this administration has
Speaker 2: conducted itself, you know, globally, and also with the type
Speaker 2: of rhetoric that Trump still embraces and still clearly is
Speaker 2: like where his heart actually is at.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, I think the fundamental problem for them
Speaker 9: here in some ways that destn't and to some degree,
Speaker 9: Trump have clearly been totally spoofed by what happened, not
Speaker 9: really even primarily in the back market, about what happened
Speaker 9: in the bond market, which threatened to raise borrowing costs
Speaker 9: for tens of millions of Americans, a sudden economic shock
Speaker 9: which would be sort of visible and devastating and immediate,
Speaker 9: and for vest In clearly the goal of the last
Speaker 9: few weeks after the Liberation Day Tariffs had to turn
Speaker 9: down the temperature to kind of get people to sort
Speaker 9: of like step back from the brink, to relax a
Speaker 9: little bit, so we can get had a breathing room
Speaker 9: for the economy, because he will be blamed if you know,
Speaker 9: this is the most catastrophic self inflicted economic you know,
Speaker 9: leadership in American history, which if the US just drove
Speaker 9: off the cliff into a recession. Many people wouldn't, you know,
Speaker 9: legitimately say they had done. But remember obviously that Trump's
Speaker 9: entire sort of worldview is that you need to maintain
Speaker 9: maximal leverage over other people at all times, and that's
Speaker 9: how you get what you want. You sort of control them,
Speaker 9: you insult them, you make them think that you're kind
Speaker 9: of crazy, and who knows what you're going to do next.
Speaker 9: So it's this sprinksmanship that is, you know, core to
Speaker 9: what Donald Trump has been saying about human nature, really
Speaker 9: like about the fundamental relations between people for decades, and
Speaker 9: that sense goal of turning down the temperature is just
Speaker 9: fundamentally incompatible with Trumpt's strategy of maintaining maximal brinksmanship through
Speaker 9: this style that you were alluding to, and it produces this,
Speaker 9: you know, as I said, in extreme dissonance between the
Speaker 9: president and his top economic advisor.
Speaker 6: You know, I met yesterday with the.
Speaker 9: Head of of you know, the economic team for a
Speaker 9: foreign country. And it's a kind of meaning like as
Speaker 9: a reporter, you're like excited to like hear what they're hearing,
Speaker 9: Like what message are they getting from Treasury or Commerce
Speaker 9: or the White House, and then you know, I can
Speaker 9: use that to like report on what's happening. And then
Speaker 9: I get to the meeting, and instead of them telling
Speaker 9: like me like what they're hearing, all they want to
Speaker 9: do is ask me what I'm hearing. And they're asking me,
Speaker 9: like when can we get a deal? And I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 9: I asked you that question, like you're supposed to tell me.
Speaker 9: And it reflects like the fact that nobody knows, like
Speaker 9: even I get the sense that the trunk people like
Speaker 9: Bunk themselves know exactly what the president wants.
Speaker 6: And in the absence of that knowledge.
Speaker 9: It's really really hard to like prevent an economic collapse
Speaker 9: because I mean, I don't want to be too dramatic here,
Speaker 9: but like that there are real risks that the uncertainty
Speaker 9: that they're causing will push us into a recession where
Speaker 9: a lot of people get hurt. And even if that
Speaker 9: doesn't happen, it seems quite good they're raising the risks, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Jeff.
Speaker 3: At the same time, one of the like more maximal
Speaker 3: things that Trump had signaled was that he was going
Speaker 3: to fire Jerome Powell. You though, let's put aaight please
Speaker 3: up on the screen. You have some reporting from behind
Speaker 3: the scenes about how some of his top aides told
Speaker 3: him to tone down the attacks on Valley. Seems to
Speaker 3: have listened. He said, Okay, I'm not going to fire him.
Speaker 3: I never had any plans to do so. So what's
Speaker 3: going on behind that? Because I feel like his decision
Speaker 3: making around the FED is important for us trying and
Speaker 3: at least understand his mindset with respect to tariffs or
Speaker 3: any of these other big things that he says.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's a tricky story because is you know, for months,
Speaker 9: I've been hearing you know that people who were talking
Speaker 9: to Trump, were talking to people who are close to
Speaker 9: Trump that he's been sort of saying, uh, like, how
Speaker 9: we should get rid of him.
Speaker 6: I don't really like what he's doing.
Speaker 9: And it's really hard to gauge the seriousness of that because,
Speaker 9: you know, I'm just like kind of grousing about how
Speaker 9: he doesn't like what Powell's up to.
Speaker 6: It's really different.
Speaker 9: Than like drawing up the plan and like hitting the
Speaker 9: big red button. What is clear is that over the
Speaker 9: last you know, I guess. On Monday, the Wall Street
Speaker 9: Journal reported on the rumors that we've been hearing as
Speaker 9: well for a long time, which is that Trump was
Speaker 9: talking about this, and in response to that Wall Street
Speaker 9: Ternel story, the markets tank.
Speaker 6: And so after that sort of.
Speaker 9: As that process was unfolding, the people who have been
Speaker 9: most concerned about the markets within the administration, maybe not
Speaker 9: Minister of the most concerned, but among the most concerns
Speaker 9: Better Secretary Vestment and Common Secretary Cowver Nick went to
Speaker 9: the President and said, you know, a you know, we
Speaker 9: don't think that this might even be legal. So Trump
Speaker 9: could fire Powell, but then you could still remain there,
Speaker 9: so you would kind of get the worst of both worlds,
Speaker 9: and that the market, you know, would be really destabilized.
Speaker 9: I think the way someone put it to me was
Speaker 9: basically that you know, if they fire, if you fire Powell,
Speaker 9: mister president, like we cannot maintain all these fights simultaneously.
Speaker 9: Like let's pick our battles a little bit. How is
Speaker 9: going to be gone anyway, I think in late twenty twenty.
Speaker 6: Six, So just hold off on that for now.
Speaker 9: Doesn't mean that Trump wasn't sort of grousing about the potential,
Speaker 9: but that suggests, you know, as you're suggesting Sacker, that
Speaker 9: there's there's a uh recognition here that they can't be
Speaker 9: fighting all battles simultaneously at all times. I guess that
Speaker 9: was redundant, but but there's a limit to how much
Speaker 9: they can fight. And I feel like that, you know,
Speaker 9: is a comforting thing. But how much have they already done?
Speaker 9: And how much is this genie out of the bottle?
Speaker 9: I don't know if you guys have been seeing some
Speaker 9: of the shipping data, you know, given bookings found sixty
Speaker 9: percent between the quest of China. Consumer confidence now at
Speaker 9: its second lowest level in the last nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 9: So we're in this weird place right now where the
Speaker 9: hard economic data jobs and inflation and GDP are still
Speaker 9: looking totally.
Speaker 6: Fine for the most part.
Speaker 9: But it's this like soft data that measures that's sort
Speaker 9: of like more real and more in real time. But
Speaker 9: it's not as as macro and sweeping that looked that
Speaker 9: is flashing red.
Speaker 6: And I think the White House is very aware of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what is your assessment of that, Jeff,
Speaker 2: How much even if this is something Soccer and I
Speaker 2: were just talking about, even if they back away from
Speaker 2: everything now, how much damage has already been done? I've
Speaker 2: seen the comparison Joe Wisentheal and others making the comparison
Speaker 2: to basically like the COVID disruptions that led to inflation,
Speaker 2: that led to shortes that took so long to untangle.
Speaker 2: It's not like you can just snap your fingers and
Speaker 2: unsnarl all of these things.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I've been kind of like referred to it as
Speaker 9: the yly e coyote economy, and the sense that like
Speaker 9: we run off a cliff and we are we have
Speaker 9: not looked down yet, Like we just don't know what
Speaker 9: is beneath us. Because as I was sort of trying
Speaker 9: to say, like the most important economic data is pretty delayed,
Speaker 9: which is frustrating for.
Speaker 6: Reporters to get a good sense of what's happening.
Speaker 9: I think, you know, there are reasons to think, you know,
Speaker 9: that it won't be you know, nearly as bad as
Speaker 9: two and eight or twenty twenty. Trade is hugely important
Speaker 9: to the US economy, but it's you know, fifteen percent
Speaker 9: of the economy is important to double it. Another fifteen
Speaker 9: percent is exports. That's thirty twenty five percent. You know,
Speaker 9: most of the tariffs on other countries have been pulled back,
Speaker 9: but it's really the China question that is the most
Speaker 9: significant right now. Then again, they've exempted electronics, so maybe
Speaker 9: that will sort of bail them out a little bit.
Speaker 9: We have a story at scoop this morning about rare
Speaker 9: earth metals which don't ask me to name them because
Speaker 9: I couldn't, but they're sort of crucial component parts for
Speaker 9: semis and the defense industry and a huge range of
Speaker 9: healthcare functions.
Speaker 6: Companies are telling.
Speaker 9: Us that they're on sort of their last reserve the
Speaker 9: next month or so, and China has cut those off.
Speaker 9: That China has essentially a choke hold on this on
Speaker 9: these rare earths, or rather the processing of these rare earths,
Speaker 9: but just as well might as well be the production event,
Speaker 9: and that show point by China. It's a really really
Speaker 9: serious potential blow to the US economy, which the Chinese
Speaker 9: know and are are full well exploiting. So I think,
Speaker 9: you know, given some of the soccer tone from Trump
Speaker 9: in the last few days, it it is quite likely
Speaker 9: that the White House is looking at economic data that
Speaker 9: is really not good.
Speaker 6: And you know, it's.
Speaker 9: A cliche, but like economics is extremely psychological. If I
Speaker 9: think that you're not making a purchase, then I'm going
Speaker 9: to wait for the price to go down, which means
Speaker 9: I'm not buying, which means the guy across the street
Speaker 9: will also not buy because he'll wait for the price
Speaker 9: to come down, and that's pretty soon.
Speaker 6: How you have a really serious downturn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, grim stuff.
Speaker 3: But we always appreciate your reporting, Jeff, thank you, Hey,
Speaker 3: my pleasure, thanks for having on guys.
Speaker 2: So as all of this unfolds, with the trade war
Speaker 2: and the anti Semitism quote unquote crackdown and the Alien
Speaker 2: Enemies Act and the court battles, we thought we would
Speaker 2: check in with how Trump is doing in general in
Speaker 2: the polls, but specifically with some of the groups where
Speaker 2: he really made gains viz. A VI his own past performance,
Speaker 2: but also Republican Party performance with some of these key
Speaker 2: demographs groups. And some of these numbers are really really notable.
Speaker 2: Let's put this first one up on the screen, probably
Speaker 2: the most stunning, given how well Trump performed with young men.
Speaker 2: We have a new Harvard Youth poll and his disapproval
Speaker 2: with young men is now at fifty nine percent. Forty
Speaker 2: percent say that they are worse off now under Trump,
Speaker 2: that is versus twenty nine percent only that say they
Speaker 2: are better off. Forty seven percent, so almost a majority
Speaker 2: say that Trump will hurt the economy. And just back
Speaker 2: in January, sixty two percent actually approved of Trump on
Speaker 2: the economy. So, Sager, you know, we can look at
Speaker 2: the election results and how he really outperformed with this
Speaker 2: group visa VI previous Republicans and vs V his own
Speaker 2: performance in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty. And we can
Speaker 2: also look at the way this group felt about him
Speaker 2: coming into the administration. There was a lot of hope
Speaker 2: that you know, we'd be a great president for business
Speaker 2: and he would help them economically. And you know, there
Speaker 2: were some cultural alignments there as well. And just as
Speaker 2: quickly as he won some of these folks over, it
Speaker 2: seems like they have soured and are unhappy. I have
Speaker 2: to think that the trade war is just a gigantic
Speaker 2: part of that trade war.
Speaker 3: Is massive, and so really when you dig into a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff, you can actually see in the
Speaker 3: minute groups. Keep in mind, this is the Pew research,
Speaker 3: you know, the actual demographic pole, which is pretty good
Speaker 3: in terms of its substance. I mean, I will obviously
Speaker 3: give the caveat polls et cetera. With Trump have not
Speaker 3: always been all that accurate. But I actually do think
Speaker 3: that on demographics like young men and on latinos, those
Speaker 3: were accurately captured in twenty twenty four, and a lot
Speaker 3: of them fit with the global data that we saw
Speaker 3: coming out. Now when we think again about the kind
Speaker 3: of the where things are headed across the globe, economic concerns,
Speaker 3: and broadly also around media, environment and top issues, a
Speaker 3: lot of this would track. So let's put the next
Speaker 3: one up on the screen, because we can dig even further,
Speaker 3: I think into it. What you see here is a
Speaker 3: similar sharp dropoff of approval amongst Hispanics. In the Pew
Speaker 3: Research poll, twenty seven percent approved, seventy two percent disapprove.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean I.
Speaker 3: Should always put the caveat that there are many people
Speaker 3: who support Trump and or voted for him who actually
Speaker 3: disapproved of him, which is kind of an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 3: But considering that he's at least as far as we know,
Speaker 3: not going to be on the ballot again, the reason
Speaker 3: why I think that we should at least look here
Speaker 3: is that the dropoff and constituency can tell us a
Speaker 3: little bit about the issues that we are seeing can
Speaker 3: contribute to this. So one of them is deportation and immigration.
Speaker 3: There's just no question if you ask people, especially issue
Speaker 3: by issue, what they approve most of of Trump. Even
Speaker 3: within immigration, it's about quote, border security, and it's about
Speaker 3: the drop off.
Speaker 1: In the number of border crossings.
Speaker 3: But when you start to get into El Salvador and
Speaker 3: specifically the Obrego Garcia case, you start to see this
Speaker 3: twenty seven to seventy two stuff begin to show up.
Speaker 3: Same on the young men, you know that you flagged.
Speaker 3: The reason why I think that one is more important
Speaker 3: is that young men and young women right now, and
Speaker 3: we're going to get to this in a little bit,
Speaker 3: are facing a absolutely devastating economic situation where you have
Speaker 3: high interest rates and now you have a frozen economy,
Speaker 3: especially at a hiring level. So one of the things
Speaker 3: that I have heard privately from so many people who
Speaker 3: work in the Fortune five hundred is we have a
Speaker 3: de facto hiring freeze across the entire company.
Speaker 1: That's really devastating.
Speaker 3: Because it's April twenty fourth, as you and I are
Speaker 3: recording this right now, which means two three weeks from now,
Speaker 3: we have so many kids who are graduating from college
Speaker 3: and graduating from high school. Well that's exactly when you
Speaker 3: enter the job market. I mean, this is basically akin
Speaker 3: to graduating in two thousand and nine, and so now
Speaker 3: they really are facing a frozen employment and or lower wages,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe less bonuses, which means that you're gonna
Speaker 3: have less money, less earning power, and you still face
Speaker 3: a very high cost of living in many of these
Speaker 3: different places. So that type of economic procarity I think
Speaker 3: is really starting to set in for a lot of
Speaker 3: the younger guys in particular, who saw a lot of
Speaker 3: dissatisfaction you know, with Biden and felt like they really
Speaker 3: their concerns weren't being looked at. And I think in
Speaker 3: this particular case, they're beginning to see the exact same thing.
Speaker 3: Same with the stocks. I mean, you know, we've talked
Speaker 3: about this. It's funny to make fun of. It's funny
Speaker 3: to talk about, like, oh, crypto, what did Kamma says,
Speaker 3: like crypto is a black mail issue or something, But
Speaker 3: like I do think it's undeniable that it is something
Speaker 3: that young people look at or we've got a cattail
Speaker 3: there in our in our it's undeniable that they're younger
Speaker 3: guys in particular, if we look at the robin Hood
Speaker 3: phenomenon and things like that are paying attention if not,
Speaker 3: and or equity owners. And you've seen massive, you know,
Speaker 3: correction in the stock market, almost down by fifteen sixteen
Speaker 3: percent from the all time high in November after Trump
Speaker 3: was elected. So there is just no question that there
Speaker 3: has been both a shift in terms of quote the vibe,
Speaker 3: which you know warned about at the time. I mean,
Speaker 3: so you can live and die by it, but really
Speaker 3: at a material level, you're seeing the reduction. People can
Speaker 3: see the riding on the wall, and they're beginning to
Speaker 3: express their dissatisfaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt about it. And
Speaker 2: I just think about the experience of millennials graduating into
Speaker 2: the Great Recession and the way that that that combined
Speaker 2: with the Iraq War, shaped the politics of the millennial generation.
Speaker 2: Millennials are you know, one of the most left wing
Speaker 2: generations in American history, and you know, there, I think
Speaker 2: gen Z was really up for grabs. And I would say,
Speaker 2: you know, my sense of this generation is they're not
Speaker 2: enamored with either party. Let's be honest, Democrats have a
Speaker 2: lot of work to do if they're going to affirmatively
Speaker 2: win over young men, because it's one thing for young
Speaker 2: men to say, you, now this Trump thing, this doesn't
Speaker 2: really working out the way that I wanted to it too,
Speaker 2: it's another thing to say, like, okay, but this other
Speaker 2: party is offering something that is superior and that you know,
Speaker 2: is appealing to me and my life, and I think
Speaker 2: is going to is going to sorry the cattle, misspell,
Speaker 2: going to actually improve my material circumstance. So you know,
Speaker 2: this is far from a victory done deal for Democrats,
Speaker 2: but it just shows you, Sager, these groups are up
Speaker 2: for grabs. You know, people are not autumatized.
Speaker 4: I do there.
Speaker 2: Look, there are people who are highly polarized, and they're
Speaker 2: voting for Trump it doesn't matter what he does, or
Speaker 2: voting for the Republicans or voting for the Democrats, no
Speaker 2: matter what come hell or high water. But I think
Speaker 2: one of the major failures of political scientists over the
Speaker 2: past I don't know, since I've been following politics, has
Speaker 2: been to underestimate how much people genuinely can shift over
Speaker 2: you know, one election cycle, two election cycles, a couple
Speaker 2: of presidential terms.
Speaker 4: It is remarkable.
Speaker 2: And so I think with Latinos, they felt like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I was doing better economically in the first Trump administration,
Speaker 2: Let's give this guy another shot. We'd seen the numbers
Speaker 2: creeping up. We'd seen the sort of realignment in general
Speaker 2: where non college educated voters because of cultural issues as
Speaker 2: well as this sense that Trump's the businessman and will
Speaker 2: do better economically, had been shifting along ideological lines. But
Speaker 2: none of that is set in stone. You know, all
Speaker 2: of it can be unraveled. And so for Democrats, the
Speaker 2: nightmare scenario was always that, Okay, you're going to lose
Speaker 2: the young generation, and you're going to lose if you
Speaker 2: continue to lose working class voters, non college educated voters
Speaker 2: across demographic groups, and you really have this full realignment,
Speaker 2: you're done. Your permanent minority party. And so Trump has
Speaker 2: created an opportunity, you know, with the trade war in particular,
Speaker 2: where unlike the Great Recession, where sort of both parties
Speaker 2: had some blood on their hands in terms of creating
Speaker 2: that economic climate, and there was some bipartisan blamed to
Speaker 2: go around, etc. With this, and it's really clear cut.
Speaker 2: If you're graduating high school, if you're graduating college into
Speaker 2: the climate, you know exactly where to lay the blame
Speaker 2: at this point. And you know, we've also got we
Speaker 2: can put up some of these additional numbers from Q
Speaker 2: research that just shows the way that his numbers are
Speaker 2: declining on issues across the board. So even on his
Speaker 2: best issue, which is immigration, even there he is underwater
Speaker 2: on the question of make good decisions about immigration policy,
Speaker 2: and that's his strongest one. Then you've got you know,
Speaker 2: negotiate favorable trade agreements, not doing well, handle public health emergency,
Speaker 2: god forbid, make good decisions about economic policy. He's ten
Speaker 2: points underwater on that. I mean, you know, these are
Speaker 2: extraordinary things for Trump, where economics has always been his
Speaker 2: strong suit. And make good decisions about foreign policy. We'll
Speaker 2: talk more about that in the Ukraine block, but you
Speaker 2: know he's significantly underwater there as well. And then on
Speaker 2: just basic competence. We can put the next piece up
Speaker 2: on the screen. You can see the different demographic groups
Speaker 2: and their headline. Here is his approval rating is underwater
Speaker 2: among most groups. Basically only Republicans and Trump voters are
Speaker 2: the ones who remain largely positive. And this is where
Speaker 2: you can see, you know, that number with regard to Hispanics.
Speaker 2: You can see where black voters are, you can see
Speaker 2: where men are, where women are, where each age group is.
Speaker 2: The age group that he continues to do the best
Speaker 2: with is basically like gen Z gen X rather I guess,
Speaker 2: but even there he is still underwater. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot. I mean, I wouldn't even say warning
Speaker 2: signs at this point. It's just really clear that the
Speaker 2: trade war in particular has been devastating for him, and
Speaker 2: even on the issues where he was previously strongest, which
Speaker 2: would certainly be immigration, because of the way that he has,
Speaker 2: you know, the way he's gone about this and then
Speaker 2: just like undeniably awful and cruel and also do process
Speaker 2: undermining direction that he has taken. Even there, people are saying,
Speaker 2: you know what, this is not this is not what
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 3: Look, I mean I think it really comes down to
Speaker 3: chaos and process, and this is where having people who
Speaker 3: are competent and smart matters, you know, in not doing things.
Speaker 3: And I mean, we're going to talk about this ice
Speaker 3: thing later on. It's like they just lie, like they
Speaker 3: just lie about stuff, They make things that they have
Speaker 3: no confidence in the process. And then going forward, can
Speaker 3: any serious person who is defending any of this really
Speaker 3: come back and say, well, the government says, it's like,
Speaker 3: that's a joke, right, And it's one where it tells
Speaker 3: you that many people who are casual observers and may
Speaker 3: even support these things in principle, have very little confidence
Speaker 3: and faith in the credibility of what the President and
Speaker 3: the administration says. From immigration and trade, which again are
Speaker 3: two issues where he usually does pretty well, I do
Speaker 3: want to highlight this before up on the screen.
Speaker 1: This was a huge recession indicator to me.
Speaker 3: Is quote, the competition to get into law school right
Speaker 3: now is brutal. It's the exact same thing that happened
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine. I'm comparing it also to
Speaker 3: Georgetown University here in Washington, which has received literally more
Speaker 3: applications ever than in its entire existence. Just this year,
Speaker 3: number of applications also to the other two hundred law
Speaker 3: schools up by over twenty percent. The reason why is
Speaker 3: that a lot of students facing the job market that
Speaker 3: I just described, say well, maybe I'll just go into
Speaker 3: law school for three years and hope that things are better.
Speaker 1: I would definitely caution a lot of people to do that.
Speaker 3: With the rise of AI and with two hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in debt that you might have on your sheet,
Speaker 3: but that was one we're just looking at that.
Speaker 1: I was like, hmm, there's something going on here.
Speaker 3: It's very clear about the lack of faith that people
Speaker 3: have in the job market, especially for people who are
Speaker 3: credentialed graduating from college.
Speaker 1: You also found this. This is amazing. This is an old.
Speaker 3: School BuzzFeed style article which now has recession indicators that
Speaker 3: people are noticing. Are we look, this is not one
Speaker 3: hundred percent serious, but it is actually really funny.
Speaker 1: So they put together these twenty three subtle ones.
Speaker 3: One was five dollars blackjack tables at the Aria in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas. Plumbers showing up on time, Italian sandwich shops
Speaker 3: and prime locations, struggling, more students in the master's and
Speaker 3: PhD programs in law school, companies moving overseas, real estate,
Speaker 3: ghost towns, a lack of botox, empty strip clubs, big lottery.
Speaker 4: Jacklut it's got to be a big one, the empty
Speaker 4: strip club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they made that whole movie about it, Hustlers that
Speaker 3: the Jalo movie. It's actually a great movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, about two thousand and nine, big lottery jackpots, fixeder
Speaker 3: cars on Facebook, used guitar surplus, home cooked lunches, owners
Speaker 3: sold cars, a lack of work, injuries, availability at the vet,
Speaker 3: big company cost reductions, advertising to people who have already
Speaker 3: bought something, short fast food lines, card collections on sale,
Speaker 3: parking at Costco where there's plenty of parking on a Saturday,
Speaker 3: loan denials, declined payments, and finally the direct tariff effect,
Speaker 3: which is increased prices.
Speaker 1: Now take all of that.
Speaker 3: For my own personal anecdote is talking to my barber
Speaker 3: and he says people are waiting longer in between haircuts
Speaker 3: to come, and usually they would do every three weeks.
Speaker 1: Now they're waiting five.
Speaker 3: And he was like, man, I can already tell you
Speaker 3: we're seeing a reduction across the board and are a
Speaker 3: number of customers.
Speaker 1: So take for that what you will.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, all these little signs like they do
Speaker 2: add up. Listen, I haven't been to Costco in a
Speaker 2: little while. If I show up at Costco on a
Speaker 2: Saturday and that parking lot is MCI, I'm gonna know
Speaker 2: some shit is going down.
Speaker 4: There is no doubt about it whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Even in a recession, I would not dare go to
Speaker 3: Costco on a Saturday that's the absolute worst time to go.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all of these, all of these are signs.
Speaker 3: People people are, you know, picking up on it the
Speaker 3: equities market, perhaps talking to people at work dealing with
Speaker 3: their industry. If you're a trucker and you start to
Speaker 3: see the number of freight that's come in go down,
Speaker 3: you know what that means for you, which means what
Speaker 3: you start to save cash if you have some rack up,
Speaker 3: some credit card debt. We're seeing the credit card debt
Speaker 3: reach highs. Credit card companies are warning Wall Street saying
Speaker 3: that we are seeing delinquency rise across the board. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of a lot of things you could
Speaker 3: see right there. All right, let's go ahead and get
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: So go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well I was just going to say, I, well, number one,
Speaker 2: I'm at war with my cat over here. But number two,
Speaker 2: I saw a survey that found a majority of Americans
Speaker 2: say that their personal financial situation is getting worse, and
Speaker 2: that is actually a higher We didn't even have a
Speaker 2: majority saying that like during the Great Recession. So outside
Speaker 2: of the goofy like you know, the strip club or whatever,
Speaker 2: we have a lot of real indicators that people consumers
Speaker 2: are pulling back, that people are worried, and that businesses
Speaker 2: are pulling them back, and that layoffs are beginning. And
Speaker 2: you know, so if you think things look politically ugly
Speaker 2: for Trump right now, not that that's the most important thing,
Speaker 2: but they're going to get worse.
Speaker 3: At the same time, there's been some major movement with
Speaker 3: respect to Ukraine. President Trump and his team signaling that
Speaker 3: the next two weeks is a critical period for Russia
Speaker 3: and for Ukraine to come towards a peace deal that's
Speaker 3: been outlined by the administration. The Vice President on the
Speaker 3: ground in India actually gave him out line with respect
Speaker 3: to the administration's position.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 11: We've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians
Speaker 11: and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either
Speaker 11: say yes or for the United States to walk away
Speaker 11: from this process. I think that we've put together a
Speaker 11: very fair proposal. We're going to see if the Europeans,
Speaker 11: the Russians, and the Ukrainians are ultimately able to get
Speaker 11: this thing over the finish line.
Speaker 8: Again.
Speaker 11: I feel pretty optimistic about it. I think everybody has
Speaker 11: been negotiating in good faith, but it's now time. I
Speaker 11: think to take, if not the final step, one of
Speaker 11: the final steps, which is at a broad level, the
Speaker 11: party saying we're going to stop the killing, We're going
Speaker 11: to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to
Speaker 11: where they are today, and we're going to actually put
Speaker 11: in place the kind of long term diplomatic settlement that
Speaker 11: hopefully will lead to long term piece.
Speaker 3: Just to clarify, so you want the current lines of
Speaker 3: war in the war and you create to remain the
Speaker 3: same under your proposal.
Speaker 11: No, no, I didn't say that. What I said is
Speaker 11: the current line somewhere close to them is where you're ultimately,
Speaker 11: I think, going to draw the new line in the conflict. Now,
Speaker 11: of course that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are
Speaker 11: both going to have to give up some of the
Speaker 11: territory they currently own. There's going to have to be
Speaker 11: some territorial swaps.
Speaker 3: So that was ahead of what is now even further developments.
Speaker 3: Let's put this next part please up on the screen.
Speaker 1: C three.
Speaker 3: This was an initial reaction from the President after some
Speaker 3: statements by Zelenski. Now, specifically, what Zelenski and Trump here
Speaker 3: are sparring around is the US potential de facto recognition
Speaker 3: of Crimea and specifically also the Ukrainian uh basically acceptance
Speaker 3: of that. So quote talks and the war in Ukraine
Speaker 3: are stalled, leaving Trump frustrated and blaming Zelensky for failing
Speaker 3: to accept. A peace plan of meeting Wednesday in London
Speaker 3: that was billed as a make or break moment for
Speaker 3: the talks fizzled after the Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Speaker 3: and Steve Witkoff just cancel their plans to attend. This
Speaker 3: was after Zelenski pushed back against a proposal for a
Speaker 3: peace deal that Washington would de facto recognize the Russian
Speaker 3: sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia has occupied since
Speaker 3: two thousand and fourteen. Trump criticized Zelenski for his comments,
Speaker 3: pointing out that Ukraine itself was being asked to recognize
Speaker 3: Crimea as Russian. It is quote inflammatory statements like Zelenski's
Speaker 3: that make it so difficult to settle this war. Trump
Speaker 3: said in one of his truth social posts, I should
Speaker 3: know Zelensky. Interestingly enough, it hasn't aired yet, Crystal, but
Speaker 3: he did sit down with Ben Shapiro recently. The interview
Speaker 3: will air I think sometime today. So I'm actually curious
Speaker 3: to see what the guy has to say. He did
Speaker 3: admit that the Oval Office meeting did not go well
Speaker 3: for him and for Ukraine. But what this does show
Speaker 3: us is that Trump is in a very difficult position.
Speaker 3: You have Zelensky Parwai couldn't be solved in twenty four
Speaker 3: hours right before before he took office. Zelenski here, he
Speaker 3: won't even say that he's going to accept Russian occupation
Speaker 3: of Crimea, which has been the status quo for eleven
Speaker 3: years now. Russia also is not necessarily accepting a ceasefire.
Speaker 3: In fact, just this morning, let's put this please up
Speaker 3: on the screen, the Trump truth quote, I am not
Speaker 3: happy with Russian strikes on Kiev. Not necessary, very bad timing,
Speaker 3: Vladimir stop. Five thousand soldiers a week, are dying. Let's
Speaker 3: get the peace steel done. In fact, despite all of
Speaker 3: his peace deeal talk, Russia actually greenlit air strikes on
Speaker 3: the capitol in Ukraine for the first time apparently in
Speaker 3: many months. I mean, what that does tell us is
Speaker 3: that the Russians both are not necessarily accepting the credibility
Speaker 3: of this so called like US peace steal come forward.
Speaker 3: The Ukrainians as well, seem, in my opinion, very naively
Speaker 3: to believe that the Europeans will be able to prop
Speaker 3: them up for a continuing war.
Speaker 1: It's just not reality.
Speaker 3: I mean, over sixty or seventy percent of their military
Speaker 3: aid comes directly from the United States. European aid is
Speaker 3: like humanitarian and economic, that's nothing whenever it comes to
Speaker 3: actual guns and to weapons. So the two tides actually
Speaker 3: seem more irreconcilable than ever. And you know, one of
Speaker 3: the things that I've really been thinking about, Crystal is
Speaker 3: that because this is such a titanic foreign policy effort
Speaker 3: in and of itself, the administration cannot put the due
Speaker 3: amount of attention that it needs to when the Secretary
Speaker 3: of State and Steve Wikoff are also dealing with of
Speaker 3: ceasefire you know, potential cease firing, Gaza negotiations there, you know,
Speaker 3: negotiating ninety odd trade deals across the world. And so
Speaker 3: with their lack of attention everywhere, it creates a vacuum
Speaker 3: through which there's not enough seriousness. There's also not enough attention,
Speaker 3: i would say, from US policymakers around this, and in
Speaker 3: the absence of that, you're actually going to have the
Speaker 3: worst of all worlds, which is an intransigent Ukraine and
Speaker 3: an intransigent Russia, which would actually mean more conflict and
Speaker 3: would potentially drive us even further into the brink. If
Speaker 3: the Russians feel that they can get away with something,
Speaker 3: you know, potentially really crazy with Trump's attention elsewhere, same
Speaker 3: with the Ukrainians, they may say, screw it, this is
Speaker 3: our very last effort. You know here right now, we're
Speaker 3: going to go all in and next who knows, you
Speaker 3: know what kind of situation that would.
Speaker 1: Put us in.
Speaker 3: So the chaos and the uncertainty within this even though look,
Speaker 3: I think people who watch the show, no, I think
Speaker 3: this piece deal is eminently reasonable for the Ukrainians because
Speaker 3: they don't have another choice. The other choice is to
Speaker 3: continue to fight and to die, which they literally cannot
Speaker 3: do without US supporter weapons.
Speaker 1: It's not good for us. I don't think it's particularly
Speaker 1: good for them.
Speaker 3: But the problem for US is it seems that we're
Speaker 3: not actually putting the amount of hard work and detail
Speaker 3: to be able to enforce or bring about something like this,
Speaker 3: and there's a massive vacuum of uncertainty, and within that
Speaker 3: there's actually a lot of danger that we can see
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 4: No doubt about it.
Speaker 2: And we all know, we've all seen the way that
Speaker 2: these conflicts can just sort of be put on the
Speaker 2: back burner and drag on in definitely, and I think
Speaker 2: we're really in danger of that right now, because increasingly
Speaker 2: that'll be the easiest option, and certainly for the weapons makers,
Speaker 2: that's the most profitable option. So there are plenty of
Speaker 2: interests that would be happy to see, you know, no
Speaker 2: peace deal come together and just sort of like continue
Speaker 2: the status quo in perpetuity. And you know, there's there's
Speaker 2: political risks here for Trump as well, because while him
Speaker 2: attempting to pull together a peace deal is very popular,
Speaker 2: the idea of pushing Ukraine, whether we want to admit
Speaker 2: it or not, the idea of pushing Ukraine to give
Speaker 2: up territory is very unpopular. So winding down these wars
Speaker 2: is always a very difficult political position, something that I
Speaker 2: think Trump himself has demonstrated some understanding of, and so
Speaker 2: that cuts against really pushing for a peace deal here
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The thing that is really just shows how far apart
Speaker 2: the two parties are is the resistance from Zelenski and
Speaker 2: Ukraine to even consider the acknowledgment of Crimea at this point.
Speaker 2: I mean, Russia had taken over Crimea even before this
Speaker 2: current war. And so if you aren't even willing to
Speaker 2: consider that or put that on the table, like what
Speaker 2: are you going to do about Dunboss, let alone the
Speaker 2: other Russian conditions which really may be above and beyond
Speaker 2: what the Ukrainians would be willing to accept, things like
Speaker 2: you know, we're not going to allow any sort of
Speaker 2: peacekeeping force within the country, whether it's NATO or whether
Speaker 2: it's the EU or anyone else. We're not going to
Speaker 2: accept that. Certainly, NATO membership has to be off the table.
Speaker 2: I mean think that's just like an absolute given at
Speaker 2: this point. But it doesn't seem like either party is
Speaker 2: really interested in these sort of significant concessions that would
Speaker 2: need to be made, and Russia striking Kiev, I mean
Speaker 2: that is that sense as big of a signal as
Speaker 2: anything else of like, listen, we can keep going. We
Speaker 2: you know, we're in have the upper hand here, and
Speaker 2: we don't particularly feel the need to bend to any
Speaker 2: of these terms or get anything less than what would
Speaker 2: be ideal.
Speaker 3: In our view, right, And then that's the difficulty of
Speaker 3: this that you also pointed to Trump by negatively polarizing
Speaker 3: himself on everything, has probably made the Democrats, who probably
Speaker 3: just learned about Ukraine after their Oval Office meeting, more
Speaker 3: dug in than ever, which you're exactly right. I mean, look,
Speaker 3: America has this extremely naive belief that we can just
Speaker 3: be the great policeman of the world and we can
Speaker 3: just prevent all of this territorial acquisition in Ukraine, a
Speaker 3: country which we have no treaty obligation to, which doesn't
Speaker 3: matter to us literally at all, not even a democracy.
Speaker 3: I've heard, you know, everyone's heard my spiel. Now at
Speaker 3: this point it doesn't matter. The truth is is that
Speaker 3: a peace deal would not likely be popular because again,
Speaker 3: you have a lot of boomers who still have some
Speaker 3: Cold War style mentality where they're like, oh, that's just
Speaker 3: completely unacceptable. Why they have such an emotional attachment to
Speaker 3: this conflict I will never understand. But the point is
Speaker 3: is that what we are trying to do, it was
Speaker 3: already on shaky ish ground. Now obviously Americans had mostly
Speaker 3: come around to military you know, stopping military aid to Ukraine,
Speaker 3: or we're roughly in a place where they thought we
Speaker 3: had given too much It's a different thing though to
Speaker 3: actually see actual de facto Russian occupation, and you have
Speaker 3: to be very sensitive in the way that you handle that.
Speaker 3: And right now we don't really see. The other thing
Speaker 3: that the administration has said is oh, we're just going
Speaker 3: to walk away from this, and it's like, well, what
Speaker 3: does that mean, because if you were going to walk
Speaker 3: away from these quote peace deal, that would actually be
Speaker 3: good for Ukraine in fact, because for them already right
Speaker 3: now the weapons.
Speaker 1: Continue to flow.
Speaker 3: When we quote walk away, what we would really be
Speaker 3: walking away from is diplomatic negotiation and pushing for the
Speaker 3: settlement with Russia. If we just walk away and the
Speaker 3: status quo maintains and Ukraine continues to get the weapons
Speaker 3: shipments every single month, and the battle lines continue to
Speaker 3: go and it's just a protracted and a long conflict.
Speaker 3: And then saying for the Russians, if we walk away,
Speaker 3: they also get to continue.
Speaker 1: They're slow march forward.
Speaker 3: So I don't yet see a true incentive for negotiation
Speaker 3: that's been put on either side. I mean, look again,
Speaker 3: let's underscore the Ukrainians are delusional if they can't even
Speaker 3: accept you know, crimea Russian occupation of crimea for at
Speaker 3: a de facto level, not even an official level. What
Speaker 3: the hell else are we even doing here after over
Speaker 3: a million people have been killed. But if that's really
Speaker 3: where they are, you know, democratically and both democratically in
Speaker 3: terms of popularity and at the leadership will level with Zelenski,
Speaker 3: then you know, I don't even know what to say
Speaker 3: to them at this point. Like if they truly want
Speaker 3: to fight it out and believe it should be like
Speaker 3: a war of annihilation, then that maybe that's a choice
Speaker 3: that they want to have. That's not something that I
Speaker 3: think we should accept and or push for. But you know,
Speaker 3: that's where on the administration side, I just don't see
Speaker 3: the level of attention and detail that's actually happening here
Speaker 3: that could bring any sort of rap to this conflict.
Speaker 3: Considering how much other BS that all top level negotiators
Speaker 3: are currently dealing with. They have to deal with Japan,
Speaker 3: with China, with you know, with Israel, with the now
Speaker 3: with Russia, it's like, you can't it's impossible, honestly be
Speaker 3: able to do this with the level of care and
Speaker 3: detail that you need. And that's what I'm worried about,
Speaker 3: is the vacuum because within that vacuum and the uncertainty.
Speaker 1: Just think it'll be a disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's a really I think excellent point that
Speaker 2: I hadn't really thought through. Is because they've basically, you know,
Speaker 2: gone to war with the entire world and started all
Speaker 2: sorts of conflagrations and are involved in all sorts of
Speaker 2: complex negotiations, including supposedly negotiating trade deals with like ninety
Speaker 2: countries around the world. Look, you just have finite resources,
Speaker 2: especially finite resources in terms of the type of top
Speaker 2: level talent you would need to resolve this situation. Because
Speaker 2: Trump's bluster about I'll solve it within twenty four hours notwithstanding,
Speaker 2: like we always knew that was preposterous, because the fact
Speaker 2: of the matter is it's a very difficult situation to
Speaker 2: untangle at this point. There are no good or ideal
Speaker 2: answers at this point. And you know that was that's
Speaker 2: always been the horror and the tragedy of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration's approach and their desire to block piece deal, you know,
Speaker 2: at the beginning. But we are where we are at
Speaker 2: this point, and you know, resolving this will be an
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult feat They Trump rarely you know, he now
Speaker 2: has recently started talking about Ukraine War, but often there
Speaker 2: were long stretches where he wasn't even talking about it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem particularly focused on it, you know, the trade
Speaker 2: deal seems to be much more of his particular obsession,
Speaker 2: and so it's hard to see how we get more
Speaker 2: than just to continue to muddle through and maintain the
Speaker 2: status quo in the near future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that the most likely scenario when
Speaker 3: your lack of attention is there is just continued weapons
Speaker 3: to Ukraine and continued Russia. Right, that is the that's
Speaker 3: actually easiest for everybody. The Ukrainians get to maintain their
Speaker 3: facade of fighting. They're just going to continue slowly dying
Speaker 3: and bleeding their country.
Speaker 1: We and our.
Speaker 3: Women's weapons manufactures. Oh it's nothing, you know, and not
Speaker 3: by the way, where's ewon, where's DOJE on the Ukraine
Speaker 3: War and everything that we continue to fund there? And
Speaker 3: then for the Russia, they don't care at all, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, this is the backbone of their economy. Their
Speaker 3: entire population basically at this point supports the war. Or
Speaker 3: you know, the disson in factions and all that people
Speaker 3: had such great hopes for hasn't materialized. Putin is stronger
Speaker 3: than ever. If anything, you know, a lack of negotiation,
Speaker 3: it works to his benefit. He can just keep rolling forward.
Speaker 3: They push the Ukrainians out of Russia after they did
Speaker 3: their little invasion, they've actually seized even more territory. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you see, you know, broad collapse generally of what
Speaker 3: of what at least you know, any Ukrainian offensive strength,
Speaker 3: and year after year it's actually probably to the Russians
Speaker 3: advantage to sign sign no peace deal.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't you know, they wouldn't love to keep doing that.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, you know, it's not I
Speaker 3: just don't see again the proper conditions and this so
Speaker 3: called walk away, I just don't think that it's gonna work.