November 14, 2024 • 26 mins
Trump picks Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump picks Fox host Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary and stuns Pentagon. Genetic discrimination is coming for all of us. Trump’s proposed tariffs, especially on China and Mexico, could hit California hard.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle. Here it is a
Wednesday morning, November thirteenth. Before we get into a little
bit of politics, I'm just having a ball with this
quick reminder or invitation. This Saturday, LA Lawyers Philharmonic and
Legal Voices are putting on a concert.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And I go every year.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is lawyers and judges and people in the legal
field doing something nice, and that.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Is they're in an orchestra, like a world class orchestra.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And these are world class musicians decided to make a
living and that's why they got into law. And so
the concert is this Saturday night at Barnum Hall in
Santa Monica, and it's classical music and movie classics and
contemporary I mean just all over the place and it's
wonderful and I'd love to see you there. I'll be
the one in the checkered plaid suit looking like a moron. Anyway,
(01:01):
just go to La Lawyersphil dot org. La Lawyers Phil.
That's in Philharmonic Phil, La.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Lawyers Phil dot org. And that's this.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Saturday in Santa Monica. Now the president to be President
elect and no surprise here has picked Elon Musk and
Vivic Ramaswami to lead a new sort of federal department.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And we knew Musk was going to have.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
A really big influence and importance in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
This just came out a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
By the way, he actually went crazy after the assassination attempt.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And now must be Musk.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
He threw one hundred and seventy five million dollars in
the Trump campaign and a couple of brilliant political moves
in terms of get out the vote. And I've talked
about that before. But Trump wins the election. And he
he had said no surprises except maybe a few surprises
I'll talk about in terms of nominations and selections.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So what he has.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Done is he asked tasks Elon Musk and Vivic Ramuswande
to lead this new commission on cutting government spending and regulation.
Now that's been said many, many times, right, this one
is going to go. Now is it going to help
maybe to the extent. Is it throwing out the baby
(02:28):
with the bathwater? Is it throwing out the bathwater? Is
it throwing out the bathroom with the bathwater? Is it
throwing out the House with the bath water. Yeah, it
could be. It's a new Department of Government Efficiency. Really
don't know what that means. This was championed my busk,
by the way, and Trump said that the department would
operate outside of government. So I don't know how you
(02:50):
have outside of government and still have a governmental office.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I don't think they put that together yet.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
But there's going to be a drastic change in how
the finances of this country are going to be met.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Federal spending is controlled by Congress and the White House,
and so there are if Congress is if the Republicans
take Congress, there will be no guardrails.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Mike Johnson has already said.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
The Speaker, we are here to push for Trump's agenda.
That's what I am going to do. It's whatever President
Trump wants. I am here to make sure that happens.
This is Trump not onwly owning the Republican Party, but
if the House goes Republican, he will own government. There
(03:41):
will be no checks and balances as far as Congress
and the White House is concerned. The courts still except
there'll be federal judgeships that will be Trump's selections and
since the Republicans control the Senate, it will be anybody
that Trump wants as a federal judge, which is a
lifetime appointment.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
As I said, we're in for a ride, and a
big one.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Ramaswami said, we have a fourth branch of government, the
administrative state, which our founding fathers didn't envision, and removing
the excess bureaucracy is going to be good for our
economy and for our national spirit.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know what, there's an argument there.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I don't mind that, because there's always when you have
a budget of seven trillion dollars and you have hundreds
or millions of employees. I mean, you can always figure
something out in terms of cutting expenses and making a
move to make yourself more efficient or to make.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A government more efficient.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But must talked about taking a third of the budget
out of the United States cutting a third, and that's
a problem. How do you cut a third of an
entire budget without just screwing up the economy. It can't
be done. Matter of fact, the experts say, the best
(04:59):
that you're going to be able to do is tens
of billions of dollars that they'll be able to find the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Rest of it. It's a pipe dream.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
And at one point, by the way, Ramaswambian, when he
was running for the GOP presidential primaries in twenty twenty four,
he called for reducing the workforce by more than seventy
five percent. Now, yeah, that's a cut that's certainly going
to save the government money. But if there's two billion,
if there's two million employees from the government, and I
(05:30):
don't even know what the figure is, taking out one
point five million of them, that's a good cut.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Expenses are cut.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And so, by the way, while all this is happening
under the Trump administration, our national debt exploded. Under the
Biden administration, our national debt exploded. And not only is
our national debt going to keep exploding, but President elect
Trump has already said that he's looking at seven trillion
(05:59):
dollars in tax cuts. That means the federal government doesn't
get the money.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So that is going to add.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
To the deficit even more because there'll be no income
coming in. So, as I said, we're in for a
very very big, big ride on this. And of course
you don't need Senate confirmation, not that he's ever going
to need it, because the Senate's can control by the Republicans,
(06:31):
and so you're going to see some wild ass nominations
that you just take your head at.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
As a matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
One of them, Hey, why don't we do this, and
that is we need a new secretary of defense. Let's
go to Fox News, Fox and Friends and grab a
secretary of defense. Huh oh, yeah, that's just the start. Oh,
I'm just having the time of my life with this.
And that are the various cabinet and senior positions at
(06:58):
President elect Trump has already named or is considering, and
some of them are Okay, I can see that it
makes sense and there's some creds there.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
The first one that he named was Susan.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Wilds as chief of staff and campaign manager for Trump,
a big role in charting. Has comeback, very organized, actually
very well respected, and the chief of staff does that.
She is not known as a policy person, but a
chief of.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Staff shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Chief of staff is basically the operations manager of the
White House, and you need tremendous organization abilities, and you
need the ear or she needs the heir of the president,
and she absolutely has that. Probably the most controversial one
is Pete Hegseeth. Now if you don't know who Pete
(07:52):
Hegseeth is, if you watch Fox and Friends, he is
one of the hosts of Fox and Friends, and he
is was a fanatic follower, is.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
A fanatic follower of Trump.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And keep in mind the number one requirement, the number
one credential for Donald Trump is loyalty above credentials, above background,
above competence. And we don't even know if he's competent
or not. We're going to find out. And is he
going to be nominated? Of course he is.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He's already been nominated. He's already been selected.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And he goes in front of the Senate controlled by
a Republican Senate, and the confirmation is done.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Absolutely. He literally he could.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well it's to be against the law as of right now,
but he could name Baron as the new Secretary of
State and the Senate we confirm it. I mean, he
is owning the government. And so Pete Hegseth is the
new Secretary of Defense. Okay, so you you know right
(09:00):
now you have Austin who is a Secretary of Defense,
right Lloyd Austin, Joint chiefs of Staff, head of the
Joint chiefs of Staff. Background in the military, for forty years.
I mean just went up the ranks. Knows it cold,
national security advisor, I mean knew it all right. How
about Heck's death. He's an army infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(09:21):
He did a couple of tours. He was a member
of the Minnesota National Guard. I think he got some
stars for that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
He got some awards, And that is his background.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He was a captain in the National Guard and was
in camp combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And he goes from there to the Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And is there and this Senate confirmation, By the way,
I can't wait to see what happens during the confirmation hearing.
Can you imagine what the Democrats on the committee are
going to do. They're going to vote, and he's going
to be voted in.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Secretary of Education. There's a few.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I'm not going to go through those because they're five
or six, but I think there are some more important
ones I want to talk about. Secretary of Health and
Human Services oversees health insurance programs like Obamacare, and Trump
has pledged that he's now going to keep Originally he
had said he wants to undo it completely. And there
(10:27):
was obviously some controversy about that because Obamacare is the
third rail. It has become Medicare. There are some I
don't know, thirty million people that are covered by Obamacare,
and to undo that is going to get some really
pissed off constituents. So there are well, Medicare, Medicaid, FEMA,
(10:50):
all of it. Under Secretary of Health and Human Services
the number one candidate, although it hasn't been officially selected,
but I'm guessing will Robert Kennedy Junior now Robert F.
Kennedy Junior is not merely as become a Trump loyalist,
and that was recently.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
He ran on his own.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
He ran as independent, realized he was getting nothing and
joined the Trump bandwagon, thinking correctly, thinking that Donald Trump
was going to win the election. And the argument was
and he said, outright, I'm now endorsing Trump, and I
expect to have a big role in the administration. Trump
said he is going to have a big role in
(11:31):
the administration. Didn't know what. And it looks like he
is one of the top contenders. He's on the very
short list to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Here's the problem. While you have people who.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Are nominated potential nominees who are politically on one side
loyalists to Trump, far more loyal than they are, for example,
having the credentials or experienced or competent loyalty is everything.
Few of them, if any of them, are as crazy
as RFK juniors.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He is genuinely a fruit loop.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Right there. He's a conspiracy theorist of the first water.
Vaccines are horrible, and he has said that he will
do everything to eliminate vaccines because they are so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I mean, the.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Whole autism thing, all the crazy stuff. I mean, what
do you do with that? Well, do we have a
new Secretary Health and Human Services? And here's the question,
assuming that Donald Trump nominates him. And I'm hoping some
of Donald Trump's advisors are telling.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Him don't do it.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Although Donald Trump's advisors have been telling him to do things,
and Trump has said, go pound sayand I'm gonna do
it my way, and he won the election.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They told him you're off.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Message, you're hurting yourself, and he said, I know more
than you do. Leave me alone. Advisors to him is
merely a title. He doesn't pay attention to anybody other
than Donald Trump. And you know what, he's right.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
He won the election.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He's absolutely right because he hit that nerve. The advisors
didn't run, he ran. So he may very well say,
I don't care. I'm going to choose Robert F.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Kennedy. I don't care about his conspiracy theorist. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He's a big fan of Marjorie Taylor Green because she
is such a staunch advocate. Now, is the Senate going
to confirm rfk jor? I almost hope that he does
nominate rfk jor crazy man, just to see what the
Senate is going to do, Just to see if there's
anybody on the Senate on the Republican side that will go,
(13:49):
wait a minute, do we really want a conspiracy theorists
running hhs?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
This is going to be entertainment with the capital E.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
All right, Attorney general, there's one potential cabinet Well, we
don't know who the attorney general is going to be,
but there are a couple of people that have Mark Palletta,
for example, General Counsel in the Office of Management and Budget,
and Trump's first term doesn't have a lot of experience
(14:24):
as a prosecutor or anybody of that ILK Matt Whittaker
had a brief stint as acting Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
He has a legal background.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
During the first term, remember when the Sessions were resigned
and before Bill Barr became the Attorney General, who, by
the way, Bill Barr has turned totally against Trump.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Well, this guy was in there just for a moment.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
He had criticized the Mueller investigation of Russian interference. Trump
appoints him to oversee that investigation, which he had already
said is complete.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Bs Uh. It just gets better and better and better.
And I wish I had time to go through all
of them.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Pete Secretary of Transportation, and here I'm going to say that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
There are some names here, and again they are here
because of loyalty to Trump.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Joe Biden did the same thing with Pete Boodage, exactly
the same thing. Boodhajige does not have any experience with
a Department of Transportation. I don't even know if you
have a driver's license. He was the mayor of Indianapolis,
is that what? He was mayor of one of those cities,
those smaller cities, and has no experience.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why is he secretary of Transportation. He was an early
supporter of Biden, so this goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It's just that when Trump does this, he does it bigger, better,
deeper than anybody else. All right, Uh, back we go,
And I'm gonna tell talk a little bit about discrimination.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Now. Normally we talk about discrimination.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
We talk about religious discrimination, racial discrimination, age discrimination, handicap.
Now I don't use handicap anymore, handy capable discrimination. You know,
violations of ADA, I mean all of that. Okay, we're
familiar with that. So let me tell you what's coming
in the future. Genetic discrimination. What the hell is that? Well,
(16:30):
let's say you have a DNA test done, okay, or
you do one of those ancestor twenty three and meters
and all of that, and your information is out there,
particularly genetic testing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
All right. And this is a story in the Atlantic
about a guy named Bill. Let's only use his first name.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I thought it was a coincidence that his dad and
grandfather both had als. His brother says, he has a
als so man. So he goes to an ALS specialist
who orders Bill a test, a DNA test, And while
he's waiting, he applies for long term care insurance just
in case, because if he ever develops als man, I
(17:14):
want some insurance, and he calls his insurance agent, and
the insurance agent says, you know what.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Don't expect to be approved.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Why not, because you have to share all of the
information in the insurance company, and if you have the
mutant gene, then you're probably gonna have it.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Wait a minute, well, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's insurance, right,
how are they going to know?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Because insurance companies know medical insurance companies know everything about you,
and so this becomes sort of kind of a pre
existing condition, not for medical care, but for insurance in
this case, or long term care, which is a form
of insurance. Now, there is a United States genetic non
discrimination law law that means that life insurance, long term care, insurance,
(18:08):
disability insurance, you have to be covered.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
They can't discriminate.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
However, there are holes in it big enough to drive
a truck through. Why because the insurance companies have a
lot of labbying power and they don't want to cover
you if they're going to pay for long term care
for the rest of your life. To the insurance companies,
long term care is defined as you lasting three months
(18:36):
and then you die. That's long term care. And so
right now the law says that the insurers can obligate
their customers to disclose genetic risk factors. That is the
exception to the entire rule. And here's the big issue.
Researchers for decades have feared that people might be targeted
(19:00):
did over their DNA predispositions for and a couple of
diseases is a gene or a couple of genes, for example, braca,
which is the disease that you have an eighty five
percent chance, or a woman has an eighty five percent
chance of developing breast cancer. And if someone has the brocogene,
(19:23):
and I know people who have done this, what they
have is prophylactic mas sectomies, double masectomies.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And we're talking about young women.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
There's a friend of mine who is a doctor who
in fact she's in her thirties and she had underwent
double messectomy because she has the brocogene. Now, that is
easy to determine if you have that gene, because there
is a direct correlation between breast cancer and that gene.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Other diseases, other.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Sicknesses and cancers, et cetera. There's a lot of genes involved,
I mean a ton of them, and lifestyles and weight
and exercise has a lot to do adding to the
breed disposition or taking away. So the point is there
(20:18):
is a Genetic Information Non Discrimination Act GINA A past
in two thousand and eight sign into law.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Employers, for example, can't decide.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Or hire or fire you based on your DNA your genetics. Also,
health insurance can't decide whether you get a policy based
on DNA. But here is the exceptions, long term life insurance,
disability insurance, they can take DNA into account. And so
(20:53):
what happens, Well, excuse me, still fighting this thing. So
I'm turning off the mic as I'm coughing. Is that working,
by the way.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Sure it sounds perfectly smooth.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh good, excellent. See I'm a pro.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I come to work because I'm scared to death of
you filling in for me, Neil.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So yeah, I think I think we all are so
scared about that. But you keep throwing slugs up against
that microphone sock.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
You should see this microphone right now. It is tripping, No,
it is. I should take a picture of this. It's
like slime.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
No, never mind, when you finally kick it, we're taking
that thing to the lab and we're making another one
of you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
You know what, why don't we go ahead and just
pay a lot of it at that point?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
What do you think? All right, a little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I'm gonna be doing a fair amount of this about
Donald Trump only because he's gonnaffect our lives. Any president
affects our lives. And President elect Trump has said that
his two favorite word things language are tariffs. Actually is
I think his favorite word is tariffs. And he has
set and he will institute new higher tariffs, and in
big time tariffs ten percent across the board, China sixty percent.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Mexico up to two hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Now it's a two edged sword because to his credit,
he is saying, hey, they're tariffing us, We're going to
tariff them right back. Other presidents didn't have the balls
to do that with China. On the other side of it,
it's going to cost us. We're going to save money
or we're going to create more jobs. As far as
(22:39):
the president is going to be concerned, not necessarily, things
are going to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Be more expensive. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Instituting tariffs does not mean we're going to save money.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It means that.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It's going to be more expensive for us to buy
goods because right now goods from China are are cheaper
than anything made here.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now, with tariffs.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Being thrown, it's either going to be more expensive or
about the same.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And it's important for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
As well as for the rest of us that if
we could, we'd rather buy goods in America, America made America,
manufactured employees in America. The problem is what's more important
saving money or keeping Americans employed?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
What do you think people vote?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
They walk, they talk with their pocketbooks, with their wallets.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So we really don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But they're a huge number of economists, I mean like
two hundred of them. Nobel Prize winning economists have written
an open letter to Trump saying, the kind of tariffs
that you're proposing are effectively going to break the bank.
You know, it's going to stop. It is going to
stop trade cold. And who's going to be hurt the worst, Well, California,
(23:57):
it's probably going to be hit the hardest because we
have the ports bring it everything from China and Asia,
and our biggest trading power, our biggest trading partner is Mexico.
And Trump has said, you know, all the car manufacturing
is happening in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
That's going to stop.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We're going to make it so expensive that they'll have
to bring the car manufacturing back here. And and I,
you know, I don't disagree with that. I think you know,
am I willing to pay more money for a product
to make sure it's manufacturing the United States? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I am. I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The problem is is I'm not I'm not living hand
in the mouth. You know, it's not going to kill
me to pay more money. You know, I happen to
be making a very good living. The problem is how
about people that you know are struggling, and especially after
inflation which did hit very hard.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Which way do you go? We're going to find out.
We're going to find out. And also what I.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Like is the whole concept of reciprocity. They charge X
percent for a good, We're going to charge the same thing.
The problem is when you talk about tariffs, so you
probably don't know this, it's not sector wide tariffs. Individual
goods are tariff. There are twenty six thousand tariffs that
are on the books.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
You know. I've often given this example.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Jewelry stones are tariffed once if you bring in stones,
if a ring, the metal that's coming in to make
a stone is tariffed. If it's a ring or a
piece of jewelry that's already manufactured, it's a tariff. If
something is manufactured overseas or assembled here, it's a tariff
of different different amounts. So we're gonna find out what
happens on this, and it's gonna happen, and we'll see,
(25:48):
we'll see if it pans out. Is everything going to
happen that President elect Trump is gonna want? Well, of
course not, it never is. But I think you're going
to see some of the biggest changes you've seen in
a in a an administration and a very very long time.
Kf I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle. Here it is a
Wednesday morning, November thirteenth. Before we get into a little
bit of politics, I'm just having a ball with this
quick reminder or invitation. This Saturday, LA Lawyers Philharmonic and
Legal Voices are putting on a concert.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And I go every year.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
This is lawyers and judges and people in the legal
field doing something nice, and that.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Is they're in an orchestra, like a world class orchestra.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
And these are world class musicians decided to make a
living and that's why they got into law. And so
the concert is this Saturday night at Barnum Hall in
Santa Monica, and it's classical music and movie classics and
contemporary I mean just all over the place and it's
wonderful and I'd love to see you there. I'll be
the one in the checkered plaid suit looking like a moron. Anyway,
(01:01):
just go to La Lawyersphil dot org. La Lawyers Phil.
That's in Philharmonic Phil, La.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Lawyers Phil dot org. And that's this.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Saturday in Santa Monica. Now the president to be President
elect and no surprise here has picked Elon Musk and
Vivic Ramaswami to lead a new sort of federal department.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And we knew Musk was going to have.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
A really big influence and importance in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
This just came out a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
By the way, he actually went crazy after the assassination attempt.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And now must be Musk.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
He threw one hundred and seventy five million dollars in
the Trump campaign and a couple of brilliant political moves
in terms of get out the vote. And I've talked
about that before. But Trump wins the election. And he
he had said no surprises except maybe a few surprises
I'll talk about in terms of nominations and selections.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So what he has.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Done is he asked tasks Elon Musk and Vivic Ramuswande
to lead this new commission on cutting government spending and regulation.
Now that's been said many, many times, right, this one
is going to go. Now is it going to help
maybe to the extent. Is it throwing out the baby
(02:28):
with the bathwater? Is it throwing out the bathwater? Is
it throwing out the bathroom with the bathwater? Is it
throwing out the House with the bath water. Yeah, it
could be. It's a new Department of Government Efficiency. Really
don't know what that means. This was championed my busk,
by the way, and Trump said that the department would
operate outside of government. So I don't know how you
(02:50):
have outside of government and still have a governmental office.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I don't think they put that together yet.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
But there's going to be a drastic change in how
the finances of this country are going to be met.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Federal spending is controlled by Congress and the White House,
and so there are if Congress is if the Republicans
take Congress, there will be no guardrails.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Mike Johnson has already said.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
The Speaker, we are here to push for Trump's agenda.
That's what I am going to do. It's whatever President
Trump wants. I am here to make sure that happens.
This is Trump not onwly owning the Republican Party, but
if the House goes Republican, he will own government. There
(03:41):
will be no checks and balances as far as Congress
and the White House is concerned. The courts still except
there'll be federal judgeships that will be Trump's selections and
since the Republicans control the Senate, it will be anybody
that Trump wants as a federal judge, which is a
lifetime appointment.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
As I said, we're in for a ride, and a
big one.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Ramaswami said, we have a fourth branch of government, the
administrative state, which our founding fathers didn't envision, and removing
the excess bureaucracy is going to be good for our
economy and for our national spirit.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
You know what, there's an argument there.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I don't mind that, because there's always when you have
a budget of seven trillion dollars and you have hundreds
or millions of employees. I mean, you can always figure
something out in terms of cutting expenses and making a
move to make yourself more efficient or to make.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
A government more efficient.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But must talked about taking a third of the budget
out of the United States cutting a third, and that's
a problem. How do you cut a third of an
entire budget without just screwing up the economy. It can't
be done. Matter of fact, the experts say, the best
(04:59):
that you're going to be able to do is tens
of billions of dollars that they'll be able to find the.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Rest of it. It's a pipe dream.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
And at one point, by the way, Ramaswambian, when he
was running for the GOP presidential primaries in twenty twenty four,
he called for reducing the workforce by more than seventy
five percent. Now, yeah, that's a cut that's certainly going
to save the government money. But if there's two billion,
if there's two million employees from the government, and I
(05:30):
don't even know what the figure is, taking out one
point five million of them, that's a good cut.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Expenses are cut.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And so, by the way, while all this is happening
under the Trump administration, our national debt exploded. Under the
Biden administration, our national debt exploded. And not only is
our national debt going to keep exploding, but President elect
Trump has already said that he's looking at seven trillion
(05:59):
dollars in tax cuts. That means the federal government doesn't
get the money.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So that is going to add.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
To the deficit even more because there'll be no income
coming in. So, as I said, we're in for a
very very big, big ride on this. And of course
you don't need Senate confirmation, not that he's ever going
to need it, because the Senate's can control by the Republicans,
(06:31):
and so you're going to see some wild ass nominations
that you just take your head at.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
As a matter of fact.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
One of them, Hey, why don't we do this, and
that is we need a new secretary of defense. Let's
go to Fox News, Fox and Friends and grab a
secretary of defense. Huh oh, yeah, that's just the start. Oh,
I'm just having the time of my life with this.
And that are the various cabinet and senior positions at
(06:58):
President elect Trump has already named or is considering, and
some of them are Okay, I can see that it
makes sense and there's some creds there.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
The first one that he named was Susan.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Wilds as chief of staff and campaign manager for Trump,
a big role in charting. Has comeback, very organized, actually
very well respected, and the chief of staff does that.
She is not known as a policy person, but a
chief of.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Staff shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Chief of staff is basically the operations manager of the
White House, and you need tremendous organization abilities, and you
need the ear or she needs the heir of the president,
and she absolutely has that. Probably the most controversial one
is Pete Hegseeth. Now if you don't know who Pete
(07:52):
Hegseeth is, if you watch Fox and Friends, he is
one of the hosts of Fox and Friends, and he
is was a fanatic follower, is.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
A fanatic follower of Trump.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And keep in mind the number one requirement, the number
one credential for Donald Trump is loyalty above credentials, above background,
above competence. And we don't even know if he's competent
or not. We're going to find out. And is he
going to be nominated? Of course he is.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He's already been nominated. He's already been selected.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
And he goes in front of the Senate controlled by
a Republican Senate, and the confirmation is done.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Absolutely. He literally he could.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Well it's to be against the law as of right now,
but he could name Baron as the new Secretary of
State and the Senate we confirm it. I mean, he
is owning the government. And so Pete Hegseth is the
new Secretary of Defense. Okay, so you you know right
(09:00):
now you have Austin who is a Secretary of Defense,
right Lloyd Austin, Joint chiefs of Staff, head of the
Joint chiefs of Staff. Background in the military, for forty years.
I mean just went up the ranks. Knows it cold,
national security advisor, I mean knew it all right. How
about Heck's death. He's an army infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(09:21):
He did a couple of tours. He was a member
of the Minnesota National Guard. I think he got some
stars for that.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
He got some awards, And that is his background.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
He was a captain in the National Guard and was
in camp combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And he goes from there to the Secretary of Defense.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And is there and this Senate confirmation, By the way,
I can't wait to see what happens during the confirmation hearing.
Can you imagine what the Democrats on the committee are
going to do. They're going to vote, and he's going
to be voted in.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Secretary of Education. There's a few.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I'm not going to go through those because they're five
or six, but I think there are some more important
ones I want to talk about. Secretary of Health and
Human Services oversees health insurance programs like Obamacare, and Trump
has pledged that he's now going to keep Originally he
had said he wants to undo it completely. And there
(10:27):
was obviously some controversy about that because Obamacare is the
third rail. It has become Medicare. There are some I
don't know, thirty million people that are covered by Obamacare,
and to undo that is going to get some really
pissed off constituents. So there are well, Medicare, Medicaid, FEMA,
(10:50):
all of it. Under Secretary of Health and Human Services
the number one candidate, although it hasn't been officially selected,
but I'm guessing will Robert Kennedy Junior now Robert F.
Kennedy Junior is not merely as become a Trump loyalist,
and that was recently.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
He ran on his own.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
He ran as independent, realized he was getting nothing and
joined the Trump bandwagon, thinking correctly, thinking that Donald Trump
was going to win the election. And the argument was
and he said, outright, I'm now endorsing Trump, and I
expect to have a big role in the administration. Trump
said he is going to have a big role in
(11:31):
the administration. Didn't know what. And it looks like he
is one of the top contenders. He's on the very
short list to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Here's the problem. While you have people who.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Are nominated potential nominees who are politically on one side
loyalists to Trump, far more loyal than they are, for example,
having the credentials or experienced or competent loyalty is everything.
Few of them, if any of them, are as crazy
as RFK juniors.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He is genuinely a fruit loop.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Right there. He's a conspiracy theorist of the first water.
Vaccines are horrible, and he has said that he will
do everything to eliminate vaccines because they are so dangerous.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I mean, the.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Whole autism thing, all the crazy stuff. I mean, what
do you do with that? Well, do we have a
new Secretary Health and Human Services? And here's the question,
assuming that Donald Trump nominates him. And I'm hoping some
of Donald Trump's advisors are telling.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Him don't do it.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Although Donald Trump's advisors have been telling him to do things,
and Trump has said, go pound sayand I'm gonna do
it my way, and he won the election.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
They told him you're off.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Message, you're hurting yourself, and he said, I know more
than you do. Leave me alone. Advisors to him is
merely a title. He doesn't pay attention to anybody other
than Donald Trump. And you know what, he's right.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
He won the election.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
He's absolutely right because he hit that nerve. The advisors
didn't run, he ran. So he may very well say,
I don't care. I'm going to choose Robert F.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Kennedy. I don't care about his conspiracy theorist. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He's a big fan of Marjorie Taylor Green because she
is such a staunch advocate. Now, is the Senate going
to confirm rfk jor? I almost hope that he does
nominate rfk jor crazy man, just to see what the
Senate is going to do, Just to see if there's
anybody on the Senate on the Republican side that will go,
(13:49):
wait a minute, do we really want a conspiracy theorists
running hhs?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
This is going to be entertainment with the capital E.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
All right, Attorney general, there's one potential cabinet Well, we
don't know who the attorney general is going to be,
but there are a couple of people that have Mark Palletta,
for example, General Counsel in the Office of Management and Budget,
and Trump's first term doesn't have a lot of experience
(14:24):
as a prosecutor or anybody of that ILK Matt Whittaker
had a brief stint as acting Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
He has a legal background.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
During the first term, remember when the Sessions were resigned
and before Bill Barr became the Attorney General, who, by
the way, Bill Barr has turned totally against Trump.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Well, this guy was in there just for a moment.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
He had criticized the Mueller investigation of Russian interference. Trump
appoints him to oversee that investigation, which he had already
said is complete.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Bs Uh. It just gets better and better and better.
And I wish I had time to go through all
of them.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Pete Secretary of Transportation, and here I'm going to say that.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
There are some names here, and again they are here
because of loyalty to Trump.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Joe Biden did the same thing with Pete Boodage, exactly
the same thing. Boodhajige does not have any experience with
a Department of Transportation. I don't even know if you
have a driver's license. He was the mayor of Indianapolis,
is that what? He was mayor of one of those cities,
those smaller cities, and has no experience.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why is he secretary of Transportation. He was an early
supporter of Biden, so this goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It's just that when Trump does this, he does it bigger, better,
deeper than anybody else. All right, Uh, back we go,
And I'm gonna tell talk a little bit about discrimination.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Now. Normally we talk about discrimination.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
We talk about religious discrimination, racial discrimination, age discrimination, handicap.
Now I don't use handicap anymore, handy capable discrimination. You know,
violations of ADA, I mean all of that. Okay, we're
familiar with that. So let me tell you what's coming
in the future. Genetic discrimination. What the hell is that? Well,
(16:30):
let's say you have a DNA test done, okay, or
you do one of those ancestor twenty three and meters
and all of that, and your information is out there,
particularly genetic testing.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
All right. And this is a story in the Atlantic
about a guy named Bill. Let's only use his first name.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I thought it was a coincidence that his dad and
grandfather both had als. His brother says, he has a
als so man. So he goes to an ALS specialist
who orders Bill a test, a DNA test, And while
he's waiting, he applies for long term care insurance just
in case, because if he ever develops als man, I
(17:14):
want some insurance, and he calls his insurance agent, and
the insurance agent says, you know what.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Don't expect to be approved.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Why not, because you have to share all of the
information in the insurance company, and if you have the
mutant gene, then you're probably gonna have it.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Wait a minute, well, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's insurance, right,
how are they going to know?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Because insurance companies know medical insurance companies know everything about you,
and so this becomes sort of kind of a pre
existing condition, not for medical care, but for insurance in
this case, or long term care, which is a form
of insurance. Now, there is a United States genetic non
discrimination law law that means that life insurance, long term care, insurance,
(18:08):
disability insurance, you have to be covered.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
They can't discriminate.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
However, there are holes in it big enough to drive
a truck through. Why because the insurance companies have a
lot of labbying power and they don't want to cover
you if they're going to pay for long term care
for the rest of your life. To the insurance companies,
long term care is defined as you lasting three months
(18:36):
and then you die. That's long term care. And so
right now the law says that the insurers can obligate
their customers to disclose genetic risk factors. That is the
exception to the entire rule. And here's the big issue.
Researchers for decades have feared that people might be targeted
(19:00):
did over their DNA predispositions for and a couple of
diseases is a gene or a couple of genes, for example, braca,
which is the disease that you have an eighty five
percent chance, or a woman has an eighty five percent
chance of developing breast cancer. And if someone has the brocogene,
(19:23):
and I know people who have done this, what they
have is prophylactic mas sectomies, double masectomies.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And we're talking about young women.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
There's a friend of mine who is a doctor who
in fact she's in her thirties and she had underwent
double messectomy because she has the brocogene. Now, that is
easy to determine if you have that gene, because there
is a direct correlation between breast cancer and that gene.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Other diseases, other.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Sicknesses and cancers, et cetera. There's a lot of genes involved,
I mean a ton of them, and lifestyles and weight
and exercise has a lot to do adding to the
breed disposition or taking away. So the point is there
(20:18):
is a Genetic Information Non Discrimination Act GINA A past
in two thousand and eight sign into law.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Employers, for example, can't decide.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Or hire or fire you based on your DNA your genetics. Also,
health insurance can't decide whether you get a policy based
on DNA. But here is the exceptions, long term life insurance,
disability insurance, they can take DNA into account. And so
(20:53):
what happens, Well, excuse me, still fighting this thing. So
I'm turning off the mic as I'm coughing. Is that working,
by the way.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Sure it sounds perfectly smooth.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh good, excellent. See I'm a pro.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I come to work because I'm scared to death of
you filling in for me, Neil.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
So yeah, I think I think we all are so
scared about that. But you keep throwing slugs up against
that microphone sock.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
You should see this microphone right now. It is tripping, No,
it is. I should take a picture of this. It's
like slime.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
No, never mind, when you finally kick it, we're taking
that thing to the lab and we're making another one
of you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
You know what, why don't we go ahead and just
pay a lot of it at that point?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
What do you think? All right, a little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I'm gonna be doing a fair amount of this about
Donald Trump only because he's gonnaffect our lives. Any president
affects our lives. And President elect Trump has said that
his two favorite word things language are tariffs. Actually is
I think his favorite word is tariffs. And he has
set and he will institute new higher tariffs, and in
big time tariffs ten percent across the board, China sixty percent.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Mexico up to two hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Now it's a two edged sword because to his credit,
he is saying, hey, they're tariffing us, We're going to
tariff them right back. Other presidents didn't have the balls
to do that with China. On the other side of it,
it's going to cost us. We're going to save money
or we're going to create more jobs. As far as
(22:39):
the president is going to be concerned, not necessarily, things
are going to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Be more expensive. It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Instituting tariffs does not mean we're going to save money.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
It means that.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
It's going to be more expensive for us to buy
goods because right now goods from China are are cheaper
than anything made here.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now, with tariffs.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Being thrown, it's either going to be more expensive or
about the same.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
And it's important for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
As well as for the rest of us that if
we could, we'd rather buy goods in America, America made America,
manufactured employees in America. The problem is what's more important
saving money or keeping Americans employed?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
What do you think people vote?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
They walk, they talk with their pocketbooks, with their wallets.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So we really don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
But they're a huge number of economists, I mean like
two hundred of them. Nobel Prize winning economists have written
an open letter to Trump saying, the kind of tariffs
that you're proposing are effectively going to break the bank.
You know, it's going to stop. It is going to
stop trade cold. And who's going to be hurt the worst, Well, California,
(23:57):
it's probably going to be hit the hardest because we
have the ports bring it everything from China and Asia,
and our biggest trading power, our biggest trading partner is Mexico.
And Trump has said, you know, all the car manufacturing
is happening in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
That's going to stop.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We're going to make it so expensive that they'll have
to bring the car manufacturing back here. And and I,
you know, I don't disagree with that. I think you know,
am I willing to pay more money for a product
to make sure it's manufacturing the United States? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I am. I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
The problem is is I'm not I'm not living hand
in the mouth. You know, it's not going to kill
me to pay more money. You know, I happen to
be making a very good living. The problem is how
about people that you know are struggling, and especially after
inflation which did hit very hard.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Which way do you go? We're going to find out.
We're going to find out. And also what I.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Like is the whole concept of reciprocity. They charge X
percent for a good, We're going to charge the same thing.
The problem is when you talk about tariffs, so you
probably don't know this, it's not sector wide tariffs. Individual
goods are tariff. There are twenty six thousand tariffs that
are on the books.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
You know. I've often given this example.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Jewelry stones are tariffed once if you bring in stones,
if a ring, the metal that's coming in to make
a stone is tariffed. If it's a ring or a
piece of jewelry that's already manufactured, it's a tariff. If
something is manufactured overseas or assembled here, it's a tariff
of different different amounts. So we're gonna find out what
happens on this, and it's gonna happen, and we'll see,
(25:48):
we'll see if it pans out. Is everything going to
happen that President elect Trump is gonna want? Well, of
course not, it never is. But I think you're going
to see some of the biggest changes you've seen in
a in a an administration and a very very long time.
Kf I am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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