March 10, 2025 • 39 mins
Join us as we dive into Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney—his background, his sharp opposition to Donald Trump, and the uncertainty surrounding his leadership ahead of the snap elections he promised. We also break down the Supreme Court’s recent decision rejecting the Trump administration’s request to overturn a federal judge’s order, requiring the State Department and USAID to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign aid reimbursements. We analyze the legal and financial implications of the ruling and how it differs from Trump’s broader efforts to cut unfinished USAID projects.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:22):
Welcome back here to The Full Story on WYAB 103.9
on this Monday morning
as we get into the new time zone.
Or, not new time zone, new...
No longer...
Now we're officially on daylight savings time.
The official time.
We get an extra hour of...
Well, we don't technically get an extra hour.
(00:44):
The days get longer anyway.
But, which definitely means that it's going to be dark
here at the studio at this time of day
from now for at least the next few months.
Well, I guess the next six or seven months.
As long as we have daylight savings time.
So, I hope everybody's up this morning
and is able to lose that hour of sleep.
Everybody's going to be groggy in the morning.
(01:05):
And people are definitely getting groggy
up in Washington, D.C.
as the continuing movement and the continuing shaping
of our federal government continues on
with just the big movements that Donald Trump has been doing
and the movements that he continues to do.
Obviously, the tariffs has been the biggest thing
which we talked about on Friday.
(01:28):
But what I want to talk about...
The first story I want to talk about this morning
is I want to talk about Canada's new Prime Minister,
Mark Carney, who he is.
Of course, this comes after Justin Trudeau had to resign
after having, you know, not the greatest...
Not the greatest feedback from his own people.
(01:50):
Obviously, a liberal leadership over the last,
I think it was 12 years that he was in power.
And it just... People are getting tired of it.
So, he saw that his party was losing.
He had to buck out before he's done his party any more harm.
And so, we're going to talk about the guy who's replacing him
as far as after that resignation.
(02:12):
And what that guy is, what it's going to mean for the tariffs
and what it's going to mean for the United States
and Canadian relations,
which have been very tense the last couple of weeks.
Of course, Donald Trump, he's not one to back down.
(02:33):
Of course, you know, we had the tariffs to begin with,
with essentially punitive tariffs regarding the border.
Now, just what I've talked about, economic tariffs.
I've talked about the difference between those two
and in previous shows, but essentially how they're going to go forward
with these tariffs and now retaliatory tariffs,
kind of a trade war.
(02:54):
And that's up to Canada.
That's more power to you if you think you can win that.
If you think you can win that war.
But it's going to hurt Canada more than us.
And so, you know, if you want to go for it, just fine.
But, you know, this idea of free trade and people's idea of free trade,
it's starting to, you know, it seems it was the in vogue thing 30 years ago.
(03:19):
It was like, hey, let's open up trade.
It sounded like a good idea.
No tariffs on anything.
And then we start to realize why tariffs were there to begin with,
why we ever had tariffs,
because of to protect your own domestic production.
And because if they're, oh, let's make everything cheaper.
You know, all the goods will be cheaper for the people.
(03:41):
And then you start realizing, well, yeah, sure, it's cheaper.
But then they don't have jobs to pay for it.
So what does that necessarily mean?
It's very interesting, you know, with economics, you know, everything with economics.
It's got a math part, but it's also got a social part to it.
And we've been testing these things, you know, the last, you know, for so long.
(04:05):
How much extreme can we go, right?
How much free trade can you actually have?
Because, again, free trade, when you first put it on paper, sounds really, really good.
You know, you're going to have no taxes on imports, no taxes on exports.
So ideally, we have this great free trade where we're just going back and forth.
And it's just like everybody's going to benefit, right?
(04:28):
It's what it sounds like from the get go.
But then reality starts to set in.
And it's like, wait a minute.
Well, if it starts to become one sided, especially when it comes down to Mexico, more so than Canada,
but Canada as well, when it starts to become one sided
and one country is benefiting it more than the other, then you're going to start having a problem.
(04:54):
And again, certain people obviously get benefits from it.
But if it starts hurting more, then it helps.
And especially if one country or two countries get better results
or it's more beneficial to them than one country, then things start to turn.
And again, that's the reality of the situation is that if everything would be equal
(05:18):
and everybody's getting the same amount of benefit, then perfect, right?
It would be beautiful.
But that's not how reality is.
Same thing, right, with the zero percent interest rates.
You know, we had after the housing crisis of 2008, we started going to this zero percent interest rate.
(05:42):
And for a long time, I wondered myself, is how long can you go with that?
Because it seemed like it helped build it, it helped get the economy back.
People were able to lend money with very low interest rates.
They're able to get houses in the very low interest rates.
(06:04):
And it just seemed like, oh, why can't we just do this forever?
Why can't we just have a near zero percent interest rate for as long as possible?
And then, like everything else, reality sets in.
And what reality set in for that was it causes mass inflation.
You add to that massive government spending and you have a double whammy, as it were,
(06:30):
for just massive, massive inflation, which we saw happen right after the pandemic
and, of course, the Biden administration just making matters worse,
which causes and which needs a heavy mass or a very heavy handed correction.
(06:51):
And that's what Donald Trump is starting to do.
And I think with a heavy handed correction is that it's going to be tough for a lot of people.
It's going to be not very fun, you know, for and it's going to hurt certain people.
But again, with the idea being in the long run, it's what's best for the country.
(07:13):
At least that's what's in theory, you know, because something has to change.
And the big part of what the inflation that had to change was the easy one, right?
With the zero percent inflation, I mean, the zero percent interest rates from the federal government.
They obviously increase those under Biden exponentially, right?
(07:37):
Because they had to. They had their hand was forced in that regard.
But even that didn't really temper inflation as much as you as you thought it might or we thought we would hope it would.
And so then it's going to take that shows you, OK, we need to take even more drastic measures,
which then entered the massive, massive spending cuts that have to happen from the federal government.
(08:03):
Because the federal spending itself lends to a lot of the inflation.
That's where Doge came in. That's where you have an all the mass layoffs within the federal government
looking at cutting things like USAID. And that's the kind of things they are they're looking about.
And that's another story we're going to talk about this morning is the Supreme Court
(08:24):
and what they have recently said about the federal government freezing billions of dollars worth of aid.
So we're going to cover that story as well. That was a long wrap around to get to that, by the way.
But I finally got there. And so those are the kind of the two big things I want to talk about is the prime minister,
the new prime minister, Mark Carney, and this case with how we're doing on federal aid.
(08:50):
Because, again, they have a lot to do with that big picture that I'm just talking about, right?
The big picture of how do we address these symptoms that the country has been suffering from the last few years, right?
Which is inflation, where people can't afford things and the lack of jobs, jobs being moved out of this country and not moving back in.
(09:17):
And again, what is being done to address that, which is tariffs, which affects what's going on with Canada,
massive spending cuts, freezing of aid, things like that to focus more on domestic issues.
And that's what Donald Trump is doing. They're taking a gamble on it, right?
It's we're in this territory where, you know, we're trying to do things that what seems like it would work on paper.
(09:46):
And we'll have to see how it works. And it's the thing is, though, at the bottom, at the end of the day, is that drastic change was needed.
It had to happen. And we'll see if Donald Trump's approach works.
All right. So we're going to go ahead and take our first break right here. We'll get back. We'll get right into Mark Carney.
(10:07):
If you want to call during the break, number 601-879-0002, or of course, going live also on Rumble and YouTube,
which you can find the links to on regulatorsproductions.com.
Keep it tuned here to the full story on W.I.A.B. 103.9.
(10:29):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on W.I.A.B. 103.9 as we get to our main story,
which is Canada's, I guess I was a Canadian, Canada's new prime minister, Mark Carney.
So one thing I want to start out with is this was not like Canada just had a election, right?
(10:52):
So how they work over there, their prime minister is not elected like our president, right?
So the way it is that their Congress, their parliament, as they call it, selects their leader.
And so this wasn't a national election. This was them. This is the party itself selecting Carney.
(11:15):
So he is a former the former governor of the Bank of Canada.
And so, again, he won the liberal leadership race last night.
And Carney told cheering supporters that, quote, Canada never will be part of America in any way, shape or form.
And of course, that goes to Donald Trump said, hey, we'd like to make you the 51st state.
(11:38):
And I think I think Donald Trump like saying things like that, just just to irk people, just to get on their nerves a little bit, because why not?
Right. So he received 80 percent, 86 percent of the vote of the.
So that was of the party members who registered to participate in the leadership election.
(12:01):
So, again, there his party picked him. Right.
This wasn't like a he said it wasn't a national election.
It was an election from the Liberal Party, which currently is which currently controls the parliament.
And so the liberal leader told party members that they should be prepared to fight, quote, the most important election of our lives where the stakes have never been higher.
(12:30):
And what he's talking about there is the fact that the national elections for Canada will happen in two weeks.
So, again, this all came after back in December when outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly approached Carney to serve as a Canadian finance minister,
(12:55):
which caused the incumbent, Christia Freeland, to leave the cabinet and publicly release her resignation letter in which she wrote that she and the prime minister had found themselves at odds about the best pass forward for Canada.
And so essentially getting him ready to replace himself, probably.
And then less than a month later, Trudeau announced his intention to step down as liberal leader and prime minister, saying that if he's having to fight internal battles,
(13:22):
he cannot be the best option in a general election scheduled to be held no later than October 20th.
That's October 20th of this year.
However, opposition party members, opposition parties have vowed to force an earlier national vote through a non-confidence motion in the House of Commons against the liberal minority government when parliament is recalled on March 24th.
(13:47):
And on Saturday, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Carney will likely call a snap election the week before the March 24th resumption of parliament with voting on either April 28th or May 5th.
So essentially they're calling up their election.
You know, when you start seeing all these other part, all these other countries, too, and their way they work, you really start to appreciate how good the American political system is as far as how it was set up by our founding fathers.
(14:16):
Right. Like you see this craziness that's going on there, right, that party members select their own not their own nominee.
Right. So that's essentially how Kamala Harris was selected.
Right. There wasn't it. Well, he was like even better than that.
She wasn't selected by her party members. She was just Christian.
She didn't have to run a primary. So in a way, she wasn't even done that much, but just selected.
(14:39):
And then they can call elections whenever they want.
Right. Essentially.
And so that's exactly what there is no like national election like, hey, every four years in November, we do this.
They can call elections in call snap elections and get things done to try to sometimes like this, I think in this time to their benefit.
(15:00):
But again, he this Carney guy, he came out swinging against Donald Trump and his first address.
And I have some of that for you here, which I'm going to go ahead and play for you now.
Actually, let me share on the live stream so that people on the live stream see the video.
(15:22):
There's someone who's trying to weaken our economy.
Yeah.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump.
And Donald Trump, as we know, has put as the prime minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living.
(15:47):
He's attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed.
And we won't.
All right, there you have it. Like I said, going right after Donald Trump on that.
And it's kind of funny because if there's one person you don't want to say we're going to stop, it's probably Donald Trump.
(16:14):
I mean, it's not going to you're not going to have a very good working relationship with the guy.
If if you just try to, you know, if you if you try to have a peeing contest with him, right?
Because at the end of the day, I get it. You know, you want to you want to worry about Canadian families.
And that's great. But you have to understand that America is going to worry about hers, too.
(16:37):
And America is going to put as they have a president right now, America does.
That's going to put her families first and her people first, much, much more so for the first time.
We're looking at that, not this global thing.
That's why it's crazy to me is that all these leaders, you know, they want tariffs on the United States and they expect the United States to do all these things.
And pay all these things and then still get things from America and then not have any any kind of America have just free trade with them and have no kind of reciprocal return on any of our investments with anybody to the detriment of America.
(17:11):
Right. We've seen, like I said, we've seen that our our manufacturing economy just collapse.
It's just not there like it used to be. I mean, all of so many American car manufacturers now.
They're in Canada, they're in Mexico, they're not in America anymore.
In fact, the I've talked about said this several times of the 20 of the top 20 most made America cars, cars that are mostly made America only four are actually from American car manufacturers.
(17:43):
And three of those four Teslas. The other one is a Corvette.
All the other ones on there are all Japanese vehicles and German vehicles who have moved their factories over here, mostly in the south to the to anti to non-union states.
And while the American car manufacturers, they've moved out.
They've so that when I even like you, you're you're when you drive a Toyota, it is more American made than almost any Chevrolet.
(18:11):
Bottom line. And we see that we've seen the destruction of great manufacturing cities in this country over the last 60 years.
And so you say, you know, we get we talk about free trade and we talk about, oh, it's supposed to help everyone.
It just doesn't look like it. Right. Like the these these cities and everything else just just doesn't seem to turn out that way.
(18:39):
And and Americans, they want they want that they want that change.
It was time for that change. And I think, you know, if you're if you're if you're Canada, you have to understand that, you know, your economy in itself.
Well, you know, it's it's a big part, you know, and it's as our as our border neighbor, it's important to have good relationships with with your neighbors.
(19:05):
Don't get me wrong. Not the detriment to your own citizens, though.
And their economy is still puny, absolutely puny compared to ours, not even close.
And so they need to, you know, if he does this hard stance, he was taken.
I get he's trying to take this hard stance, probably because the elections are coming up that just talked about, because he may not be prime minister for very long.
(19:30):
If he calls these snap elections and the conservative party wins, he's out.
He could be prime minister for all of like three or four weeks. Right.
Or less than a month or two at most if he loses.
So he wants to try to act tough and try to call out Donald Trump.
But you do that now. Donald Trump may not want to talk to you at all.
(19:53):
And that's going to hurt you much more than it's going to hurt the United States.
So and I get it. Right. You feel like, oh, we're going to have to if he wants to tear, we're going to put tariffs. Right.
OK. More power to you. Go ahead.
I mean, that's what that's what Donald Trump is doing to begin with. Right.
As he said, hey, we're going to put every country that has tariffs on us.
We're going to put tariffs on them. Right. It's just it's just fair.
(20:15):
So more power to you. But I would I would I would say may want to watch your tone a little bit.
You may want to watch what you're doing here because again, Donald Trump's not the one to take things like that lightly or just or just let let it let it not bother him.
(20:37):
Oh, not bothering him is not the correct word.
Or it's going to take him off. And you don't want to be on his bad side.
So, you know, again, if I'm if I'm the if I'm the Canadian prime minister first again, like any prime minister of your country,
you have to worry about your country first and you got to put your citizens first.
That's what I would expect. But at the same time, you got to realize what is going to be best for our country is having this hard line stance against the United States really going to help you by taking off the leader of the biggest economy in the world.
(21:11):
Probably not. Right.
Instead of, hey, we see what Donald Trump is doing and why we find it regrettable that he wants to put tariffs on our country.
We want to get in work with Donald Trump to see how we can work out a partnership for the betterment of both countries.
Right. Something to that effect. That would be my statement.
And, you know, reiterating that they're going to put Canadians first. Right.
(21:34):
Just like America wants to put Americans first and say that you understand that you understand that position.
But we can come to an agreement together on what works best with both countries. Right.
We tried the free trade thing. That didn't work. Okay.
But that is when you got to get all your panties in a wide because it didn't. Okay.
And get all offended about everything. It's like, okay, well, let's think about some solutions that can work together.
(22:01):
So, like I said, it's thinking just thinking about how that is going to work. And Carney, he's actually got a bachelor's degree in economics.
And he went to Harvard University, which I find funny.
Hey, you're going to put Canada first, but you're going to go to an American university. Go ahead, my friend.
(22:22):
I just find that hilarious. But like all these people, right, they come to American universities to get the best education.
And so my thing to you is, okay, if you got if you got a degree in economics and you again you were head of the Canadian Bank, not for very long. Right.
And the reason he was put as head of Canadian makes he was closer to Trudeau than last one who couldn't agree with Trudeau about how he was handling things.
(22:48):
So he had to oust her and replace her with this guy.
So not very long before he did that is just think about, you know, what is going to be best for the country.
And again, I think here the next few weeks, it's all about it's all about campaigning for him because, again, their election, he's going to call these snap elections.
(23:09):
And the reason they want snap elections, both sides do. Right.
The conservatives want it because potentially he's not they're going to this their first time in I think 12 years that they can replace a liberal a liberal prime minister.
This is their opportunity. But for them is they don't if the liberals if they get into a extended trade war with the United States, it's going to hurt Canada exponentially.
(23:37):
And so they need to have a hard line, but make sure the elections happen quick.
Otherwise, it potentially otherwise the longer it goes on, the more Canada gets hurt and the more likely they're going to not want you there.
So both sides have an interest in having quick elections for different, completely vastly different reasons.
(24:01):
And he can be a hardliner for a few weeks. Right. And and try to see how they can try to weather the storm.
He seems like try to put on that national hero thing. I'm standing up to the United States.
I'm standing up to the big bad Donald Trump. Look at what I'm doing.
But again, Canada is going to lose in the long run, and they know that.
(24:22):
So he has to try to put up a try to have a hard line stance, try to win the election.
And then see what he can do after that.
But again, if you try to have a hard line stance now, Donald Trump is not going to be as likely to work with you afterwards, because then you're going to be begging to him.
And that's just what Donald Trump is waiting for.
He's waiting for you to come begging begging him for for assistance.
(24:46):
And that is when Donald Trump has you.
And he's been Donald Trump's been pretty smart so far.
His people, J.D. Vance, all those guys, Marco Rubio, they've been very smart in how to handle these international leaders and how to manipulate them to their to the Americas advantage.
And you better watch out, Mr. Carney, because you may get played.
(25:10):
Right. You may get played very, very hard because Donald Trump loves doing that.
I mean, again, this guy ran, you know, this guy ran multiple businesses, multinational businesses for a long time.
And that's where his experience comes from.
And getting one over on people and making others look like fools is something I think he just generally enjoys and is pretty good at.
(25:37):
So you better watch out is all I'm saying, because it may not end like you like you think it would.
So, again, so we'll see how these tariffs play out.
We talked last week how Trump has delayed the start a few of them, but they are still going to be going through.
(25:59):
And it's going to be interesting again how they're going to play out and how the parties are going to play out.
So, again, they're looking to have those election.
And so Pierre Polivier, I guess how you say it, Polivier, I don't know, it seems seems French.
(26:20):
He said that America's he's the leader of the Conservative Party in Canada and says that Canadians are ready for a change election.
They said we've had 10 years of a liberal government and Canadian Canadians are tired of that.
And so, again, that's what they're that's what they're looking at.
(26:43):
It hasn't like you said, the record hasn't been great.
Trudeau's record hasn't been great. That's why he had to resign.
And we'll see how they can if they can come up and come through with this, because otherwise it could be a conservative government that and maybe that'll work better with Donald Trump.
And if Canadians if they're voting, I think they need to think about that is.
Do we want a prime minister who's going to try to fight the United States or do you want one who's going to try to work with the United States?
(27:11):
If you try to fight the United States, who do you think is going to win?
And again, looking at the economy and the size of the economy, who do you think can hold out longer?
I think I think the numbers speak for themselves.
All right. We're going to take another break right here.
We get back. I want to talk about the Supreme Court and Donald Trump's and Donald Trump's plan to freeze aid, international aid, talking about USAID, all this other stuff, a bunch of wasteful spending and what the Supreme Court has said.
(27:41):
If you want to call in during the break, number 601-879-0002, keep it tuned to the full story on WIAB 103.9.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on WIAB 103.9. And I just want to mention real something real quick.
Of course, you heard there on the CBS NewsHour about the the eggs and the egg producers, essentially the major egg producers possibly being in collusion with one another for egg prices, which, you know, doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility with with everything.
(28:16):
And, you know, this whole idea of this chicken flu or bird flu or whatever is causing the high rise in eggs.
Because one thing I find interesting is that I was in I was in Leesville, Louisiana, not that long ago, and eating at this nice restaurant there in the small Leesville, Louisiana, a very small town, the western part of western part of southwest part of Louisiana.
(28:38):
And there's this great diner that sits over there and all of their egg prices were unchanged.
They I'm guessing they get most their eggs from local producers.
And so, you know, but if you go to Waffle House, for instance, I was just at Waffle House the other day, they have a little sticker on their menu that says, you know, 50 cents or two dollars.
(28:59):
I can't see the 50 cents or two dollars. I can't remember.
It's one of the two surcharge on eggs because the national shortage.
And so it makes me wonder, though, right.
The fact that this little this little diner in Leesville, Louisiana, a population of less than 10,000, they can keep their prices the same.
But Waffle House can't.
They have to have the surcharge.
(29:21):
So it makes me that that was it makes me even more suspicious of certain things.
And these potential national egg producers being inclusion, whereas, again, your small restaurant in a small town which gets their eggs locally doesn't have such an issue, which I think is another indicator that, you know, we need to look at how we purchase these types of things.
(29:43):
And these companies will take advantage of a situation.
There could have been a bird flu.
And they're like, hey, these increased money for eggs sounds like a great thing.
This sounds like a lot of money we can make out of people are willing to pay more.
Why don't we all get together and charge more?
Of course, that's against the law for them to collude on prices like that.
And I don't know, maybe the maybe the Department of Justice will take a look into it.
(30:08):
But speaking of the Department of Justice, I did want to I did want to finally get to the Supreme Court decision on the on on Trump's bid to freeze two billion dollars in federal aid.
This happened last week, but I didn't have a chance to get to it. So many other big stories.
And I was like a chance to try to try to talk through these things.
So in a five to four decision, the Supreme Court on last Wednesday turned down a request by the Trump administration to lift a order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C.
(30:40):
that had directed the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development USAID to pay nearly two billion dollars in foreign aid reimbursements for work that had already been done.
So in a brief unsigned opinion, the court noted that the February 26 deadline for the government to make the payments had already passed.
(31:02):
The court had instructed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with a temporary restraining order that Ali has entered in the case, paying attention to how feasible it is for the government to comply with those timelines.
So essentially, I'm telling them, all right, what did you exactly want them to pay?
(31:23):
Because you got to be a little bit clear. You can't just say all and everything. What exactly did you want them to pay here?
So Ali is expected to hold a hearing on the aid group's motion for a preliminary injunction, which if granted, would suspend the freeze for foreign assistance funding going forward.
And this means that the dispute could return to the Supreme Court as an emergency appeal again soon.
(31:47):
So what this one was and you know what the media comes out as like, oh, look, look, the Supreme Court vote against Trump.
Trump was wrong. What this this is this is this is not on USAID as a general.
Right. This was on work that was already performed that before Trump could freeze the stupid amount of spending.
(32:08):
This was stuff that would have been done for whatever reason.
They say, hey, this is a project they had funding for, for instance, and the project would hardly been finished.
So they need the money. So what Trump had previously done is that, hey, we're not going to pay anything from this point on.
And what this order was was they sued to say, hey, we need to be paid for that work that had already been done.
(32:33):
Now, they're also suing this in the same in the same in the same regard for stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Right. But that's not what the Supreme Court decided on this one.
And that's what I'm saying, that it could return back to the Supreme Court on the injunction for money that hasn't been spent.
So for work that hasn't. So essentially, you know, can this federal just say, OK, you must spend that money now.
(32:55):
You must do those projects. You must fund those projects, even though they haven't occurred.
That's a different issue that the Supreme Court didn't talk about.
The issue they talked about was projects that had already been done that they still said, hey, you know, I get it.
Those those are projects that were promised in the last administration. We ain't paying for them.
That's what the Supreme Court said lifting the injunction.
(33:19):
And then they returned it back to the judge to say, hey, what exactly do you think they need to pay?
Because you just can't say everything. Right.
So tell us exactly what you what you mean by this orders.
So for the court's justice, I would have granted the government's request to put the order on hold.
And that was Justice Samuel Alito and a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
(33:46):
And Justice Alito described himself as, quote, stunned by the ruling, calling it a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a two billion dollar penalty on American taxpayers.
Now, that being said, I don't necessarily I agree that it is a two billion dollar penalty on American taxpayers, but I don't believe that's up to a judge to determine our for a judge to stop or or not.
(34:16):
Because to me, that is, again, a function that the last administration did.
And to me, again, I think the idea that sure, that was two billion dollars that is completely down the drain.
But that's because the prior administration had done it.
And that was a two billion dollar fee, essentially, that the last administration caused.
(34:41):
So I don't think that's a reason to have stopped it, though, from a judicial standpoint.
Again, just because I'm the way I look at judicial review is that it's very much not supposed to get involved into best practices.
It's just what the law is, because you can have best practices that are you can have very, very poor practices that are legal.
(35:06):
But again, this is talking about things that have already been done, not things going on in the future.
And again, I think that's where the Supreme Court needs to step in and say, again, from that same point I just said, is that just like the Supreme Court should be really be involved in stuff that's already been done.
I don't want to say it's a waste of money. It's also not this. It's also not a court job to say you must spend a certain money.
(35:31):
You like you must spend. You must buy these things. Right.
There's a difference between saying, hey, you bought the car. Now you must pay for it, which is essentially what they're saying here.
And again, I get it was your it was the you know, it was not your car. You didn't want to buy it.
It was the people before you that bought it. Nonetheless, they bought it and you're responsible for it now.
(35:52):
That's what they said here. That's a lot different from having to say, hey, the last the last person wanted to buy that Corvette.
You don't want to buy it. But now we're going to force you to buy the Corvette. Right.
I hope that's that's that dichotomy is coming through because those are two wildly separate issues.
And again, what the Supreme Court said on this one, again, just to put it into perspective of a car is, hey, Biden bought the Corvette already.
(36:21):
He already signed the paperwork. His name signed it and he already made a couple of payments on it.
Now you have to finish paying it off. Right. You are liable for that Corvette versus, hey, he looked he came into the dealership, looked at the Corvette and said he would want to buy it.
But we didn't sign anything. And but we're still going to force you to buy it because you said you would buy it. Right.
(36:47):
Those are two vastly different things. And again, the Supreme Court was looking at the previous one, not this one.
So it's not like this huge, you know, this huge big loss or this Supreme Court throwing down Donald Trump that they think it was. Right.
It is a relatively small issue. It's a big issue in the grand scheme of things, but it's a small piece of a much larger issue.
(37:12):
And again, all of this needs to be fixed as well when we actually get a budget. Right.
Which is going to really create this kind of like this kind of small minor like this kind of hiccups like this.
This is what Congress is here for to say we're going to completely defund it in the next budget.
That's the answer. That's the best answer to all of it. So the judges don't have to get involved.
(37:34):
That's how it's supposed to be. If the Republicans can make sure they get in line to get this budget passed.
All right. We're going to take our last break right here. We'll get back. We'll do this day in history.
But keep it to the full story on W.I.B. 103.9.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on W.I.B. 103.9 as we get to this day in history.
(37:56):
So on this day, March 10th, 1804 was the day the United States officially took control of the Louisiana Louisiana territory.
So our formal ceremony was held in St. Louis to mark the transfer of the Louisiana purchase from France to the United States.
The deal had been struck just months earlier in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson purchased eight hundred and twenty eight thousand square miles of land from France's Napoleon Bonaparte for just 15 million dollars, which is a mere four cents per acre.
(38:30):
Napoleon, needing money for his wars in Europe, was eager to sell the property.
Meanwhile, Jefferson saw the purchase as a once in a lifetime opportunity to expand the nation.
It became official in a ceremony known as the Three Flags Day, where the Spanish flag was lowered, followed briefly by the French flag before the stars and stripes were finally raised over St. Louis.
(38:54):
Louisiana Purchase opened the door for westward expansion, new trade routes and the famous Lewis and Clark expedition.
It remains one of the most significant land acquisitions in U.S. history and which definitely shaped the future of the country.
All right. That's all I have for you guys today.
We'll see you again tomorrow. But until then, my name is Matthew Bishop and you have heard the full story.
Welcome back here to The Full Story on WYAB 103.9
on this Monday morning
as we get into the new time zone.
Or, not new time zone, new...
No longer...
Now we're officially on daylight savings time.
The official time.
We get an extra hour of...
Well, we don't technically get an extra hour.
(00:44):
The days get longer anyway.
But, which definitely means that it's going to be dark
here at the studio at this time of day
from now for at least the next few months.
Well, I guess the next six or seven months.
As long as we have daylight savings time.
So, I hope everybody's up this morning
and is able to lose that hour of sleep.
Everybody's going to be groggy in the morning.
(01:05):
And people are definitely getting groggy
up in Washington, D.C.
as the continuing movement and the continuing shaping
of our federal government continues on
with just the big movements that Donald Trump has been doing
and the movements that he continues to do.
Obviously, the tariffs has been the biggest thing
which we talked about on Friday.
(01:28):
But what I want to talk about...
The first story I want to talk about this morning
is I want to talk about Canada's new Prime Minister,
Mark Carney, who he is.
Of course, this comes after Justin Trudeau had to resign
after having, you know, not the greatest...
Not the greatest feedback from his own people.
(01:50):
Obviously, a liberal leadership over the last,
I think it was 12 years that he was in power.
And it just... People are getting tired of it.
So, he saw that his party was losing.
He had to buck out before he's done his party any more harm.
And so, we're going to talk about the guy who's replacing him
as far as after that resignation.
(02:12):
And what that guy is, what it's going to mean for the tariffs
and what it's going to mean for the United States
and Canadian relations,
which have been very tense the last couple of weeks.
Of course, Donald Trump, he's not one to back down.
(02:33):
Of course, you know, we had the tariffs to begin with,
with essentially punitive tariffs regarding the border.
Now, just what I've talked about, economic tariffs.
I've talked about the difference between those two
and in previous shows, but essentially how they're going to go forward
with these tariffs and now retaliatory tariffs,
kind of a trade war.
(02:54):
And that's up to Canada.
That's more power to you if you think you can win that.
If you think you can win that war.
But it's going to hurt Canada more than us.
And so, you know, if you want to go for it, just fine.
But, you know, this idea of free trade and people's idea of free trade,
it's starting to, you know, it seems it was the in vogue thing 30 years ago.
(03:19):
It was like, hey, let's open up trade.
It sounded like a good idea.
No tariffs on anything.
And then we start to realize why tariffs were there to begin with,
why we ever had tariffs,
because of to protect your own domestic production.
And because if they're, oh, let's make everything cheaper.
You know, all the goods will be cheaper for the people.
(03:41):
And then you start realizing, well, yeah, sure, it's cheaper.
But then they don't have jobs to pay for it.
So what does that necessarily mean?
It's very interesting, you know, with economics, you know, everything with economics.
It's got a math part, but it's also got a social part to it.
And we've been testing these things, you know, the last, you know, for so long.
(04:05):
How much extreme can we go, right?
How much free trade can you actually have?
Because, again, free trade, when you first put it on paper, sounds really, really good.
You know, you're going to have no taxes on imports, no taxes on exports.
So ideally, we have this great free trade where we're just going back and forth.
And it's just like everybody's going to benefit, right?
(04:28):
It's what it sounds like from the get go.
But then reality starts to set in.
And it's like, wait a minute.
Well, if it starts to become one sided, especially when it comes down to Mexico, more so than Canada,
but Canada as well, when it starts to become one sided
and one country is benefiting it more than the other, then you're going to start having a problem.
(04:54):
And again, certain people obviously get benefits from it.
But if it starts hurting more, then it helps.
And especially if one country or two countries get better results
or it's more beneficial to them than one country, then things start to turn.
And again, that's the reality of the situation is that if everything would be equal
(05:18):
and everybody's getting the same amount of benefit, then perfect, right?
It would be beautiful.
But that's not how reality is.
Same thing, right, with the zero percent interest rates.
You know, we had after the housing crisis of 2008, we started going to this zero percent interest rate.
(05:42):
And for a long time, I wondered myself, is how long can you go with that?
Because it seemed like it helped build it, it helped get the economy back.
People were able to lend money with very low interest rates.
They're able to get houses in the very low interest rates.
(06:04):
And it just seemed like, oh, why can't we just do this forever?
Why can't we just have a near zero percent interest rate for as long as possible?
And then, like everything else, reality sets in.
And what reality set in for that was it causes mass inflation.
You add to that massive government spending and you have a double whammy, as it were,
(06:30):
for just massive, massive inflation, which we saw happen right after the pandemic
and, of course, the Biden administration just making matters worse,
which causes and which needs a heavy mass or a very heavy handed correction.
(06:51):
And that's what Donald Trump is starting to do.
And I think with a heavy handed correction is that it's going to be tough for a lot of people.
It's going to be not very fun, you know, for and it's going to hurt certain people.
But again, with the idea being in the long run, it's what's best for the country.
(07:13):
At least that's what's in theory, you know, because something has to change.
And the big part of what the inflation that had to change was the easy one, right?
With the zero percent inflation, I mean, the zero percent interest rates from the federal government.
They obviously increase those under Biden exponentially, right?
(07:37):
Because they had to. They had their hand was forced in that regard.
But even that didn't really temper inflation as much as you as you thought it might or we thought we would hope it would.
And so then it's going to take that shows you, OK, we need to take even more drastic measures,
which then entered the massive, massive spending cuts that have to happen from the federal government.
(08:03):
Because the federal spending itself lends to a lot of the inflation.
That's where Doge came in. That's where you have an all the mass layoffs within the federal government
looking at cutting things like USAID. And that's the kind of things they are they're looking about.
And that's another story we're going to talk about this morning is the Supreme Court
(08:24):
and what they have recently said about the federal government freezing billions of dollars worth of aid.
So we're going to cover that story as well. That was a long wrap around to get to that, by the way.
But I finally got there. And so those are the kind of the two big things I want to talk about is the prime minister,
the new prime minister, Mark Carney, and this case with how we're doing on federal aid.
(08:50):
Because, again, they have a lot to do with that big picture that I'm just talking about, right?
The big picture of how do we address these symptoms that the country has been suffering from the last few years, right?
Which is inflation, where people can't afford things and the lack of jobs, jobs being moved out of this country and not moving back in.
(09:17):
And again, what is being done to address that, which is tariffs, which affects what's going on with Canada,
massive spending cuts, freezing of aid, things like that to focus more on domestic issues.
And that's what Donald Trump is doing. They're taking a gamble on it, right?
It's we're in this territory where, you know, we're trying to do things that what seems like it would work on paper.
(09:46):
And we'll have to see how it works. And it's the thing is, though, at the bottom, at the end of the day, is that drastic change was needed.
It had to happen. And we'll see if Donald Trump's approach works.
All right. So we're going to go ahead and take our first break right here. We'll get back. We'll get right into Mark Carney.
(10:07):
If you want to call during the break, number 601-879-0002, or of course, going live also on Rumble and YouTube,
which you can find the links to on regulatorsproductions.com.
Keep it tuned here to the full story on W.I.A.B. 103.9.
(10:29):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on W.I.A.B. 103.9 as we get to our main story,
which is Canada's, I guess I was a Canadian, Canada's new prime minister, Mark Carney.
So one thing I want to start out with is this was not like Canada just had a election, right?
(10:52):
So how they work over there, their prime minister is not elected like our president, right?
So the way it is that their Congress, their parliament, as they call it, selects their leader.
And so this wasn't a national election. This was them. This is the party itself selecting Carney.
(11:15):
So he is a former the former governor of the Bank of Canada.
And so, again, he won the liberal leadership race last night.
And Carney told cheering supporters that, quote, Canada never will be part of America in any way, shape or form.
And of course, that goes to Donald Trump said, hey, we'd like to make you the 51st state.
(11:38):
And I think I think Donald Trump like saying things like that, just just to irk people, just to get on their nerves a little bit, because why not?
Right. So he received 80 percent, 86 percent of the vote of the.
So that was of the party members who registered to participate in the leadership election.
(12:01):
So, again, there his party picked him. Right.
This wasn't like a he said it wasn't a national election.
It was an election from the Liberal Party, which currently is which currently controls the parliament.
And so the liberal leader told party members that they should be prepared to fight, quote, the most important election of our lives where the stakes have never been higher.
(12:30):
And what he's talking about there is the fact that the national elections for Canada will happen in two weeks.
So, again, this all came after back in December when outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly approached Carney to serve as a Canadian finance minister,
(12:55):
which caused the incumbent, Christia Freeland, to leave the cabinet and publicly release her resignation letter in which she wrote that she and the prime minister had found themselves at odds about the best pass forward for Canada.
And so essentially getting him ready to replace himself, probably.
And then less than a month later, Trudeau announced his intention to step down as liberal leader and prime minister, saying that if he's having to fight internal battles,
(13:22):
he cannot be the best option in a general election scheduled to be held no later than October 20th.
That's October 20th of this year.
However, opposition party members, opposition parties have vowed to force an earlier national vote through a non-confidence motion in the House of Commons against the liberal minority government when parliament is recalled on March 24th.
(13:47):
And on Saturday, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported that Carney will likely call a snap election the week before the March 24th resumption of parliament with voting on either April 28th or May 5th.
So essentially they're calling up their election.
You know, when you start seeing all these other part, all these other countries, too, and their way they work, you really start to appreciate how good the American political system is as far as how it was set up by our founding fathers.
(14:16):
Right. Like you see this craziness that's going on there, right, that party members select their own not their own nominee.
Right. So that's essentially how Kamala Harris was selected.
Right. There wasn't it. Well, he was like even better than that.
She wasn't selected by her party members. She was just Christian.
She didn't have to run a primary. So in a way, she wasn't even done that much, but just selected.
(14:39):
And then they can call elections whenever they want.
Right. Essentially.
And so that's exactly what there is no like national election like, hey, every four years in November, we do this.
They can call elections in call snap elections and get things done to try to sometimes like this, I think in this time to their benefit.
(15:00):
But again, he this Carney guy, he came out swinging against Donald Trump and his first address.
And I have some of that for you here, which I'm going to go ahead and play for you now.
Actually, let me share on the live stream so that people on the live stream see the video.
(15:22):
There's someone who's trying to weaken our economy.
Yeah.
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump.
And Donald Trump, as we know, has put as the prime minister just said, unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell, on how we make a living.
(15:47):
He's attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses, and we cannot let him succeed.
And we won't.
All right, there you have it. Like I said, going right after Donald Trump on that.
And it's kind of funny because if there's one person you don't want to say we're going to stop, it's probably Donald Trump.
(16:14):
I mean, it's not going to you're not going to have a very good working relationship with the guy.
If if you just try to, you know, if you if you try to have a peeing contest with him, right?
Because at the end of the day, I get it. You know, you want to you want to worry about Canadian families.
And that's great. But you have to understand that America is going to worry about hers, too.
(16:37):
And America is going to put as they have a president right now, America does.
That's going to put her families first and her people first, much, much more so for the first time.
We're looking at that, not this global thing.
That's why it's crazy to me is that all these leaders, you know, they want tariffs on the United States and they expect the United States to do all these things.
And pay all these things and then still get things from America and then not have any any kind of America have just free trade with them and have no kind of reciprocal return on any of our investments with anybody to the detriment of America.
(17:11):
Right. We've seen, like I said, we've seen that our our manufacturing economy just collapse.
It's just not there like it used to be. I mean, all of so many American car manufacturers now.
They're in Canada, they're in Mexico, they're not in America anymore.
In fact, the I've talked about said this several times of the 20 of the top 20 most made America cars, cars that are mostly made America only four are actually from American car manufacturers.
(17:43):
And three of those four Teslas. The other one is a Corvette.
All the other ones on there are all Japanese vehicles and German vehicles who have moved their factories over here, mostly in the south to the to anti to non-union states.
And while the American car manufacturers, they've moved out.
They've so that when I even like you, you're you're when you drive a Toyota, it is more American made than almost any Chevrolet.
(18:11):
Bottom line. And we see that we've seen the destruction of great manufacturing cities in this country over the last 60 years.
And so you say, you know, we get we talk about free trade and we talk about, oh, it's supposed to help everyone.
It just doesn't look like it. Right. Like the these these cities and everything else just just doesn't seem to turn out that way.
(18:39):
And and Americans, they want they want that they want that change.
It was time for that change. And I think, you know, if you're if you're if you're Canada, you have to understand that, you know, your economy in itself.
Well, you know, it's it's a big part, you know, and it's as our as our border neighbor, it's important to have good relationships with with your neighbors.
(19:05):
Don't get me wrong. Not the detriment to your own citizens, though.
And their economy is still puny, absolutely puny compared to ours, not even close.
And so they need to, you know, if he does this hard stance, he was taken.
I get he's trying to take this hard stance, probably because the elections are coming up that just talked about, because he may not be prime minister for very long.
(19:30):
If he calls these snap elections and the conservative party wins, he's out.
He could be prime minister for all of like three or four weeks. Right.
Or less than a month or two at most if he loses.
So he wants to try to act tough and try to call out Donald Trump.
But you do that now. Donald Trump may not want to talk to you at all.
(19:53):
And that's going to hurt you much more than it's going to hurt the United States.
So and I get it. Right. You feel like, oh, we're going to have to if he wants to tear, we're going to put tariffs. Right.
OK. More power to you. Go ahead.
I mean, that's what that's what Donald Trump is doing to begin with. Right.
As he said, hey, we're going to put every country that has tariffs on us.
We're going to put tariffs on them. Right. It's just it's just fair.
(20:15):
So more power to you. But I would I would I would say may want to watch your tone a little bit.
You may want to watch what you're doing here because again, Donald Trump's not the one to take things like that lightly or just or just let let it let it not bother him.
(20:37):
Oh, not bothering him is not the correct word.
Or it's going to take him off. And you don't want to be on his bad side.
So, you know, again, if I'm if I'm the if I'm the Canadian prime minister first again, like any prime minister of your country,
you have to worry about your country first and you got to put your citizens first.
That's what I would expect. But at the same time, you got to realize what is going to be best for our country is having this hard line stance against the United States really going to help you by taking off the leader of the biggest economy in the world.
(21:11):
Probably not. Right.
Instead of, hey, we see what Donald Trump is doing and why we find it regrettable that he wants to put tariffs on our country.
We want to get in work with Donald Trump to see how we can work out a partnership for the betterment of both countries.
Right. Something to that effect. That would be my statement.
And, you know, reiterating that they're going to put Canadians first. Right.
(21:34):
Just like America wants to put Americans first and say that you understand that you understand that position.
But we can come to an agreement together on what works best with both countries. Right.
We tried the free trade thing. That didn't work. Okay.
But that is when you got to get all your panties in a wide because it didn't. Okay.
And get all offended about everything. It's like, okay, well, let's think about some solutions that can work together.
(22:01):
So, like I said, it's thinking just thinking about how that is going to work. And Carney, he's actually got a bachelor's degree in economics.
And he went to Harvard University, which I find funny.
Hey, you're going to put Canada first, but you're going to go to an American university. Go ahead, my friend.
(22:22):
I just find that hilarious. But like all these people, right, they come to American universities to get the best education.
And so my thing to you is, okay, if you got if you got a degree in economics and you again you were head of the Canadian Bank, not for very long. Right.
And the reason he was put as head of Canadian makes he was closer to Trudeau than last one who couldn't agree with Trudeau about how he was handling things.
(22:48):
So he had to oust her and replace her with this guy.
So not very long before he did that is just think about, you know, what is going to be best for the country.
And again, I think here the next few weeks, it's all about it's all about campaigning for him because, again, their election, he's going to call these snap elections.
(23:09):
And the reason they want snap elections, both sides do. Right.
The conservatives want it because potentially he's not they're going to this their first time in I think 12 years that they can replace a liberal a liberal prime minister.
This is their opportunity. But for them is they don't if the liberals if they get into a extended trade war with the United States, it's going to hurt Canada exponentially.
(23:37):
And so they need to have a hard line, but make sure the elections happen quick.
Otherwise, it potentially otherwise the longer it goes on, the more Canada gets hurt and the more likely they're going to not want you there.
So both sides have an interest in having quick elections for different, completely vastly different reasons.
(24:01):
And he can be a hardliner for a few weeks. Right. And and try to see how they can try to weather the storm.
He seems like try to put on that national hero thing. I'm standing up to the United States.
I'm standing up to the big bad Donald Trump. Look at what I'm doing.
But again, Canada is going to lose in the long run, and they know that.
(24:22):
So he has to try to put up a try to have a hard line stance, try to win the election.
And then see what he can do after that.
But again, if you try to have a hard line stance now, Donald Trump is not going to be as likely to work with you afterwards, because then you're going to be begging to him.
And that's just what Donald Trump is waiting for.
He's waiting for you to come begging begging him for for assistance.
(24:46):
And that is when Donald Trump has you.
And he's been Donald Trump's been pretty smart so far.
His people, J.D. Vance, all those guys, Marco Rubio, they've been very smart in how to handle these international leaders and how to manipulate them to their to the Americas advantage.
And you better watch out, Mr. Carney, because you may get played.
(25:10):
Right. You may get played very, very hard because Donald Trump loves doing that.
I mean, again, this guy ran, you know, this guy ran multiple businesses, multinational businesses for a long time.
And that's where his experience comes from.
And getting one over on people and making others look like fools is something I think he just generally enjoys and is pretty good at.
(25:37):
So you better watch out is all I'm saying, because it may not end like you like you think it would.
So, again, so we'll see how these tariffs play out.
We talked last week how Trump has delayed the start a few of them, but they are still going to be going through.
(25:59):
And it's going to be interesting again how they're going to play out and how the parties are going to play out.
So, again, they're looking to have those election.
And so Pierre Polivier, I guess how you say it, Polivier, I don't know, it seems seems French.
(26:20):
He said that America's he's the leader of the Conservative Party in Canada and says that Canadians are ready for a change election.
They said we've had 10 years of a liberal government and Canadian Canadians are tired of that.
And so, again, that's what they're that's what they're looking at.
(26:43):
It hasn't like you said, the record hasn't been great.
Trudeau's record hasn't been great. That's why he had to resign.
And we'll see how they can if they can come up and come through with this, because otherwise it could be a conservative government that and maybe that'll work better with Donald Trump.
And if Canadians if they're voting, I think they need to think about that is.
Do we want a prime minister who's going to try to fight the United States or do you want one who's going to try to work with the United States?
(27:11):
If you try to fight the United States, who do you think is going to win?
And again, looking at the economy and the size of the economy, who do you think can hold out longer?
I think I think the numbers speak for themselves.
All right. We're going to take another break right here.
We get back. I want to talk about the Supreme Court and Donald Trump's and Donald Trump's plan to freeze aid, international aid, talking about USAID, all this other stuff, a bunch of wasteful spending and what the Supreme Court has said.
(27:41):
If you want to call in during the break, number 601-879-0002, keep it tuned to the full story on WIAB 103.9.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on WIAB 103.9. And I just want to mention real something real quick.
Of course, you heard there on the CBS NewsHour about the the eggs and the egg producers, essentially the major egg producers possibly being in collusion with one another for egg prices, which, you know, doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility with with everything.
(28:16):
And, you know, this whole idea of this chicken flu or bird flu or whatever is causing the high rise in eggs.
Because one thing I find interesting is that I was in I was in Leesville, Louisiana, not that long ago, and eating at this nice restaurant there in the small Leesville, Louisiana, a very small town, the western part of western part of southwest part of Louisiana.
(28:38):
And there's this great diner that sits over there and all of their egg prices were unchanged.
They I'm guessing they get most their eggs from local producers.
And so, you know, but if you go to Waffle House, for instance, I was just at Waffle House the other day, they have a little sticker on their menu that says, you know, 50 cents or two dollars.
(28:59):
I can't see the 50 cents or two dollars. I can't remember.
It's one of the two surcharge on eggs because the national shortage.
And so it makes me wonder, though, right.
The fact that this little this little diner in Leesville, Louisiana, a population of less than 10,000, they can keep their prices the same.
But Waffle House can't.
They have to have the surcharge.
(29:21):
So it makes me that that was it makes me even more suspicious of certain things.
And these potential national egg producers being inclusion, whereas, again, your small restaurant in a small town which gets their eggs locally doesn't have such an issue, which I think is another indicator that, you know, we need to look at how we purchase these types of things.
(29:43):
And these companies will take advantage of a situation.
There could have been a bird flu.
And they're like, hey, these increased money for eggs sounds like a great thing.
This sounds like a lot of money we can make out of people are willing to pay more.
Why don't we all get together and charge more?
Of course, that's against the law for them to collude on prices like that.
And I don't know, maybe the maybe the Department of Justice will take a look into it.
(30:08):
But speaking of the Department of Justice, I did want to I did want to finally get to the Supreme Court decision on the on on Trump's bid to freeze two billion dollars in federal aid.
This happened last week, but I didn't have a chance to get to it. So many other big stories.
And I was like a chance to try to try to talk through these things.
So in a five to four decision, the Supreme Court on last Wednesday turned down a request by the Trump administration to lift a order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C.
(30:40):
that had directed the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development USAID to pay nearly two billion dollars in foreign aid reimbursements for work that had already been done.
So in a brief unsigned opinion, the court noted that the February 26 deadline for the government to make the payments had already passed.
(31:02):
The court had instructed U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with a temporary restraining order that Ali has entered in the case, paying attention to how feasible it is for the government to comply with those timelines.
So essentially, I'm telling them, all right, what did you exactly want them to pay?
(31:23):
Because you got to be a little bit clear. You can't just say all and everything. What exactly did you want them to pay here?
So Ali is expected to hold a hearing on the aid group's motion for a preliminary injunction, which if granted, would suspend the freeze for foreign assistance funding going forward.
And this means that the dispute could return to the Supreme Court as an emergency appeal again soon.
(31:47):
So what this one was and you know what the media comes out as like, oh, look, look, the Supreme Court vote against Trump.
Trump was wrong. What this this is this is this is not on USAID as a general.
Right. This was on work that was already performed that before Trump could freeze the stupid amount of spending.
(32:08):
This was stuff that would have been done for whatever reason.
They say, hey, this is a project they had funding for, for instance, and the project would hardly been finished.
So they need the money. So what Trump had previously done is that, hey, we're not going to pay anything from this point on.
And what this order was was they sued to say, hey, we need to be paid for that work that had already been done.
(32:33):
Now, they're also suing this in the same in the same in the same regard for stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Right. But that's not what the Supreme Court decided on this one.
And that's what I'm saying, that it could return back to the Supreme Court on the injunction for money that hasn't been spent.
So for work that hasn't. So essentially, you know, can this federal just say, OK, you must spend that money now.
(32:55):
You must do those projects. You must fund those projects, even though they haven't occurred.
That's a different issue that the Supreme Court didn't talk about.
The issue they talked about was projects that had already been done that they still said, hey, you know, I get it.
Those those are projects that were promised in the last administration. We ain't paying for them.
That's what the Supreme Court said lifting the injunction.
(33:19):
And then they returned it back to the judge to say, hey, what exactly do you think they need to pay?
Because you just can't say everything. Right.
So tell us exactly what you what you mean by this orders.
So for the court's justice, I would have granted the government's request to put the order on hold.
And that was Justice Samuel Alito and a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
(33:46):
And Justice Alito described himself as, quote, stunned by the ruling, calling it a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a two billion dollar penalty on American taxpayers.
Now, that being said, I don't necessarily I agree that it is a two billion dollar penalty on American taxpayers, but I don't believe that's up to a judge to determine our for a judge to stop or or not.
(34:16):
Because to me, that is, again, a function that the last administration did.
And to me, again, I think the idea that sure, that was two billion dollars that is completely down the drain.
But that's because the prior administration had done it.
And that was a two billion dollar fee, essentially, that the last administration caused.
(34:41):
So I don't think that's a reason to have stopped it, though, from a judicial standpoint.
Again, just because I'm the way I look at judicial review is that it's very much not supposed to get involved into best practices.
It's just what the law is, because you can have best practices that are you can have very, very poor practices that are legal.
(35:06):
But again, this is talking about things that have already been done, not things going on in the future.
And again, I think that's where the Supreme Court needs to step in and say, again, from that same point I just said, is that just like the Supreme Court should be really be involved in stuff that's already been done.
I don't want to say it's a waste of money. It's also not this. It's also not a court job to say you must spend a certain money.
(35:31):
You like you must spend. You must buy these things. Right.
There's a difference between saying, hey, you bought the car. Now you must pay for it, which is essentially what they're saying here.
And again, I get it was your it was the you know, it was not your car. You didn't want to buy it.
It was the people before you that bought it. Nonetheless, they bought it and you're responsible for it now.
(35:52):
That's what they said here. That's a lot different from having to say, hey, the last the last person wanted to buy that Corvette.
You don't want to buy it. But now we're going to force you to buy the Corvette. Right.
I hope that's that's that dichotomy is coming through because those are two wildly separate issues.
And again, what the Supreme Court said on this one, again, just to put it into perspective of a car is, hey, Biden bought the Corvette already.
(36:21):
He already signed the paperwork. His name signed it and he already made a couple of payments on it.
Now you have to finish paying it off. Right. You are liable for that Corvette versus, hey, he looked he came into the dealership, looked at the Corvette and said he would want to buy it.
But we didn't sign anything. And but we're still going to force you to buy it because you said you would buy it. Right.
(36:47):
Those are two vastly different things. And again, the Supreme Court was looking at the previous one, not this one.
So it's not like this huge, you know, this huge big loss or this Supreme Court throwing down Donald Trump that they think it was. Right.
It is a relatively small issue. It's a big issue in the grand scheme of things, but it's a small piece of a much larger issue.
(37:12):
And again, all of this needs to be fixed as well when we actually get a budget. Right.
Which is going to really create this kind of like this kind of small minor like this kind of hiccups like this.
This is what Congress is here for to say we're going to completely defund it in the next budget.
That's the answer. That's the best answer to all of it. So the judges don't have to get involved.
(37:34):
That's how it's supposed to be. If the Republicans can make sure they get in line to get this budget passed.
All right. We're going to take our last break right here. We'll get back. We'll do this day in history.
But keep it to the full story on W.I.B. 103.9.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back here to the full story on W.I.B. 103.9 as we get to this day in history.
(37:56):
So on this day, March 10th, 1804 was the day the United States officially took control of the Louisiana Louisiana territory.
So our formal ceremony was held in St. Louis to mark the transfer of the Louisiana purchase from France to the United States.
The deal had been struck just months earlier in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson purchased eight hundred and twenty eight thousand square miles of land from France's Napoleon Bonaparte for just 15 million dollars, which is a mere four cents per acre.
(38:30):
Napoleon, needing money for his wars in Europe, was eager to sell the property.
Meanwhile, Jefferson saw the purchase as a once in a lifetime opportunity to expand the nation.
It became official in a ceremony known as the Three Flags Day, where the Spanish flag was lowered, followed briefly by the French flag before the stars and stripes were finally raised over St. Louis.
(38:54):
Louisiana Purchase opened the door for westward expansion, new trade routes and the famous Lewis and Clark expedition.
It remains one of the most significant land acquisitions in U.S. history and which definitely shaped the future of the country.
All right. That's all I have for you guys today.
We'll see you again tomorrow. But until then, my name is Matthew Bishop and you have heard the full story.
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