January 2, 2026 • 31 mins
Peter Schweitzer and Eric Eggers sit in for Sean and ring in the new year with a reality check on 2025. They revisit dire forecasts around tariffs, National Guard deployments in cities, and strikes on Iran, comparing them with outcomes they say include a steady market, reduced crime in Washington, D.C., and no broader war. On immigration, they cite figures on self-deportations and removals, argue the labor market remains solid, and note claims of significant tariff revenue and a narrowing deficit. The conversation also touches on reactions from Warren Buffett, Gavin Newsom, J.B. Pritzker, Tucker Carlson, and Mark Cuban. They preview a conversation with Carol Markowitz about New York City's new Democrat socialist mayor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello America, and happy new Year. I'm Peter Schweitzer. That's
Eric Eggers, and we are going to be filling in
for Sean today. We have a podcast that we do
together called The Drill Down. We've written multiple books, eight
New York Times bestsellers for at number one. We do
investigative work, and we are so blessed to come and
(00:22):
fill in for Sean from time to time. And twenty
twenty six, we're here, and you are happy about the
new year, right.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Peter Schweitzer.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Not only are we blessed to continue to do the
very good work that we do both on our podcast,
The Drill Down, which you can find at the drill
Down dot com and at the Government Accountability Institute, the
nonprofit organization that you steer as president.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But we're blessed to just be here. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's January two, twenty twenty six, and we have survived
the year twenty twenty five, a year in which Donald
Trump became president and we were told repeatedly the end
of Western society was nigh.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, we remember a course election eight of twenty twenty
four and the meltdowns and the shock of a lot
of people, but throughout twenty twenty five, when Donald Trump
enacted his policies, we got a recipe, a massive recipe
of doom and gloom. So tariffs, of course, were a
big part of his initiative on the economy, and tariffs
(01:20):
were going to tank the economy and effectively destroy the
Western world. Here's what Warren Buffett, the famous investors said
earlier this year, earlier in the spring of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
How do you think tariffs will affect the economy?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
The tariffs are Actually we've got a lot of experience
with them.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
They're an act of war.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, so tariffs are an active war. I didn't know that,
but apparently they are. And that's just one example of
many things that were said about Trump's tariff's policy.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Look, far be it from me to criticize Warren Buffett.
Incredibly successful and I think gets most things right except
for maybe his prediction on tariffs. And understand the social
impact that his little chuckle had the end of his
little things thought. But yeah, that would be an example
of one of the famous people who said a thing
that what didn't prove to be true about the impact
(02:10):
of Donald Trump and his policies and what they would
have on the United States. You follow the stock market
quite closely, it seems like we're still doing okay.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, we're doing fine. And what's interesting about this, and
there's a common pattern with all of these things where
you had these dire predictions, is nobody's saying, well, I
would prefer if the policy were slightly different. It's all
doom and gloom with Donald Trump. So on tariff policy,
we heard that in spades. You know, this was going
to be what happened in the stock market crash in
(02:37):
twenty twenty nine when Herbert Hoover came in and there
was the tariffs that came into place. It was going
to be a replay of that. Trump's use of the
National Guard again, the debate was not, well, we're not
sure that this is the best way to deal with
crime and disorder in our cities.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
And to pause and acknowledge, hey, there are in fact
some cities where crime is a problem exactly exactly. They're like, no,
what are you talking about? What crime? And then they
bring in the troops and then we're told by Gavin
Newsom that in fact the troops are going to create
more crime, not solve it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, that's right. In JB. Pritsker course, the governor of
Illinois said this was going to get civilians killed, like
these guardsmen were going to run around and shoot people.
And then, of course, in his most extreme form, you
had progressive saying that this was going to be in
effect a fascist takeover. This was Trump's effort to sort
of conceal and control power in the United States through
(03:27):
the use of the National Guard. Interesting to note, of course,
that they just announced that the National Guard is actually
leaving some cities. So those are a couple of examples.
Another one, of course, Iran, the bombing of Iran. Again,
you can have a dispute on what is the best
way to deal with Iran. I certainly think you have
to be firm and tough, But people like Tucker Carlson
(03:49):
were predicting that the bombing of Iran would lead to
a catastrophic, full scale World War III. It would involve
thousands of American depths, deaths, the collapse of the US
economy because gas was gonna be thirty dollars a gallon,
and it was gonna be the end of Donald Trump's presidency.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oops, well, we're only off by decimal because it is
does start with a three, but it ends there. That's
the units digit. No, it's the hyperboles insane. And so
just the recap so far, if you're keeping track, we
were gonna be in a World War three because we're
going to bombar on. The economy is going to be
in the tank because of the tariff policies. And uh oh,
(04:26):
by the way, like we were going to have like
fascist takeover mildrized streets because we had deployed National Guards
troops to major cities. And quietly, many people may not
know this because it didn't get a ton of meat
attention because it doesn't fit the dominative narrative, dominant narrative
that Donald Trump is a fascist, but they did it.
I'll say, look, okay, we lost the Supreme Court decision,
so Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, we're going to take the
(04:48):
troops out of there. Notice in Washington, DC, in which
he was permitted to do so, the troops were quite
successful helping produce crime.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, that's right, because Washington, DC, of course has a
special status under federal authority. But and Tucker wasn't the
only one that protected World War three. There are plenty
of Democrats, but The point is, do you see a
pattern forming here? It has been sort of outrage media
on everything that Trump has done, and none of it
has panned out. Let's go on to immigration, right. Trump
(05:16):
said I'm going to build a wall, I'm going to
seal the border, and we learned to deport people that
are in the country illegally. A lot of predictions that
was going to tank the economy and lead to massive problems.
Here's what Mark Cuban, the billionaire who's been wrong about
probably more things than any other billionaire I know, here's
what he said was going to happen with Donald Trump's
(05:38):
deportation policy.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Donald Trump has got Steven Miller who said he wants
mass deportations. I sat in front of restaurant owners and
I asked them, what would it be like if all
of a sudden you got to knock on your door
and there was somebody from Stephen Miller's squad asking you
for the names and addresses and immigration status of everybody
that works for you. That's not how you can run
a country.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, well, we have been running the country that way
for the past year, and it's been great. The economy's
doing well, the labor market is good again, more dire
predictions that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You know, you're absolutely right about Mark Cuban. He's wrong
so much.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He was giving that interview in fact, in support for
Kamala Harris and suggesting that she would be better for
the country. Mark Cuban's wrong so much. I think he
did support the Luca Dochs trade. In fact, I think
that's now I'm bringing him into that loop. No, and so,
just to put the meat on the bone on this
particular issue, we've had two million people Peter Schweizer self
deport this year. They up the incentive, they tried offer
(06:35):
three thousand dollars instead of one thousand dollars. At the
end of twenty twenty five, they've had six hundred thousand deportations,
so a little over two and a half million fewer
people in this country who weren't supposed to be here.
But the fact that he had two million self deportations,
I think is as a stat no one really talks about.
It should be a credit to the Trump administration. And
by the way, Barack Obama used to be called the
(06:56):
deporter in chief. He was sending on average about four
hundreundred thousand people out through just deportations, not the self deportation.
Deported over three million people during his eight years as presidency.
So all Donald Trump has done is continue a policy,
maybe at a higher level than something Obama did.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, there's clearly a pattern here, right, and that's the hyperbole,
the threats Donald Trump is the devil, Donald Trump is
going to cause all these problems. Turns out they're not true.
So you're right, immigration policy is working. He's doing what
he said he was going to do. You've had two
million self deportations, six hundred thousand deportations by of federal authorities.
(07:33):
Look at what bombing Iran did. Didn't lead to World
War three. It led to a situation where we actually
now have a peace, relatively speaking, the Middle East and
a chance for real change. There's massive protests that have
broken out in Iran because the economy is in the toilet,
it's in a terrible state, and you have people tens
(07:53):
of thousands of people chanting death to the dictator on
the streets of Iran. So those protections were totally wrong.
We got crime down in cities because of what we
did with the National guards. So look at the tariffs
we got two hundred billion dollars in tariff revenue, so
the deficit is actually coming down a remarkable record in
(08:16):
contrast to what we were told was going to be
a disastrous chaot, a terrible twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So then here's the question, because you know, we are
seeing there are some challenges and the real problems. You've
heard audio from the beginning of the intro here, which
they do a great job putting that together. But New
York City has a new mayor. They have a Democrat socialist,
and so a lot of people are suggesting that that
will not be great for the future of the greatest
city in the world. We're going to talk to Carol
(08:42):
Markowitz about that actually at the bottom of this hour
and just kind of get some insights and boots on
the ground. How bad is New York City? How bad
will it be? But if the larger theme of this
segment that we've done is a lot of times these
dire predictions are wrong, but not when we make them
about Mom. Donni right that he's going to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well, it's going to being to see right what he does,
and we're gonna look at later in the broadcast at
his relationship with Bernie Sanders, because Bernie Sanders was mayor
of Burlington, Vermont. Bernie Sanders is his mentor and his icon,
according to Mam Donnie. And when Bernie Sanders became mayor
of Burlington, Vermont, that's when he started to get rich.
(09:21):
So it's going to be interesting to see what Mumdonnie does.
I think that the lesson that we all have to
learn is looking at how we consume information, what we believe,
what we listen to. If people are wrong consistently, if
they're wrong in a massive way, maybe we ought to
not listen to them as much anymore. I mean, if
they're making predictions we're gonna have World War three, the
(09:43):
economy is going to shut down, that food's going to
be rotting in the fields because there's nobody to pick it,
and that turns out not to be true, not even
remotely true. Perhaps those people don't deserve the attention of
our ears.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, remember we were told among the predictions, not just
about immigration and the tariffs and bombing Iran, all that stuff,
we were told by people like Mark Cuban and by
Kamala Harrison twenty twenty four that no less than democracy
was on the ballot, Peter Schweizer, And of course the
irony was that Donald Trump is the one person who
we had to choose from president actually won his party's
(10:16):
political primary, which casts you know, votes were cast. But
here we are on twenty twenty six. Maybe we should
just take a moment toast the fact that democracy still
seems to be at least somewhat alive.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
People. They're still holding elections.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It's hanging on. It's hanging on by a threat.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The troops have gone, the ballot boxes are open, like
we made it. We're okay.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, well, well I think you're right, and I'm going
to predict that Donald Trump is actually going to leave
the White House under his own power. He's not going
to try to hold it like so many people predicted,
and it's going to be a great twenty twenty six.
We want to hear what your thoughts aren't about the
year ahead, not just politically but personally. What are the
things that you were looking forward to? Are there commitments
(10:55):
you're making personally? Resolutions for the new year? Call us
at weren't one hundred nine four one seven three two
six winn aighthundred ninety four one seven three, two six,
You made any New Year's resolutions, at least ones you
want to share with millions of people.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Absolutely, I mean I come on national radia to be
vulnera about my own personal life and the inherent problems
that are in it. Actually, later I will read something
because to your point, I think one thing that we
need to continue to be just mindful of is the
information we consume and who's creating that information. As a
story in the five o'clock I or you're not gonna
want to miss about AI generated content being directed at
(11:31):
kids on YouTube and how much money people are making
off of it, people who are not credential to be you know,
we're not talking about like a mister beast. We're talking
about people from these foreign countries that create AI content
and it directed at kids. They're making money and that
just as a parent you have to be incredibly mindful.
But we've got a lot of very important stories to
talk about today. We love getting to fill in for Sean.
(11:52):
We've got Carol Markowitz, as we said, talk about the
mom Donnie era in New York City. At four o'clock,
we're gonna talk about former Congressman Jason Chafitz about what
to expect in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Congress.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Allegedly dysfunctional people are leaving, but there's still work to
be done, right.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, there's work still to be done, and there's some
encouraging things, but also there's a lot of chaos. So
it's gonna be interested to get his insights. We're also
going to have the former governor of Minnesota, Tim Polente
to come on and talk about the massive, widespread fraud
that is curring in Minnesota. And I think even the
bigger story, which is the effort by the political establishment,
(12:28):
Governor Wallis and others to cover it up.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Absolutely. You know, you've seen the video, You've seen Nick Shirley.
There's a lot of really weird stories about this Minnesota.
But I think the biggest thing that people aren't talking
about that I hope we can talk to former Governor
Tim Paulenti about is the fact that he's the last
Republican to win statewide election in Minnesota. And just you know,
consider this that for the last twenty years, only one
party's been in charge in the state of Minnesota, and
(12:52):
for the last fifteen of those years, the person who's
been in charge of that party, the person who's been
in charge the Democrat Party in Minnesota is now in
charge of the Democrat Party in the country. Ken Martin
is the head of DNC. So is the model that
was created in which you have these refugees, these migrants,
and we're funneling all this welfare money to them, and
then that money finds its way back into the coffers
(13:12):
of these politicians in one way or another. Is that
a model that are attempting to replicate throughout the country. And
I think it's a very important story that suggests what,
at least on some level, the left wants to do
to the country.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And what you're saying is it worked in Minnesota, absolutely,
so it could potentially work nationally because you do see
the pattern of this massive fraud. I mean, fraud happens everywhere,
but you see it kind of on a massive scale
in place like California and Illinois because the political leadership
does not want to investigate it. We're going to be
back after this break and we're going to talk about
(13:45):
Donald Trump's New Year's Resolution. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Hey, It's Eric Eggers and Peter Schweitzer. We're filling in
for Sean Handy. Here on January two, Happy New Year,
to thank you for spending your Friday afternoon with us, Peter.
It is the day after the New Year, and a
lot of people like to make New Year's resolutions. Donald Trump,
on New Year's Eve was asked what his was peace.
That's peace on earth. That's the most chaotic possible sound
(14:18):
you've ever heard for someone saying he wishes for peace
on earth. Peter Schwiser, what do you think about the
fact that he's trying to get peace on earth?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, I think Trump doesn't get enough credit for what
he does in terms of foreign policy. And you know,
he is somebody who's America first, but he's not America only.
He's worried about things that are going on in the world.
And look when he was saying, I want peace in
the world. That's my New Year's resolution. Vladimir Putin had
a different speech that he gave, and his speech he
talked about his defiance of the West, the fact that
(14:48):
he was going to guarantee the integrity, security, and sovereignty
of the Fatherland, and he talked about Ukraine and continuing
the escalation of the warfare there. You're talking about a
million people that Haven in that battle already, Trump is
trying to fix that. China, you had China's President Xi,
who also had in the year's address, was not Peace
(15:08):
on Earth was not what he was focused on. He
was vowing to reunify China and Taiwan in his annual speech.
And then, of course you have all the military operations
that are taking place around Taiwan. The other thing that's
going on is in Iran. You have this uprising that
is occurring that the media has ignored. They've they've shut
down twenty one provincial governments. Protests have broken up around Iran,
(15:31):
and they're calling for death to Komani. So hopefully he's
going to succeed, but huge.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Challenges, massive challenge. He's not the only one facing challenges.
New York City's facing challenges. They've got a Democrat socialist
in charge of that city. We're going to talk to
Carol Markowitz, New York Post columnists about what the future
holds under a mom Done administration. That's next. He's Peter
Schweizer America Eggers. We're in for Sean Handy.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Be right back.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Hey, It's Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers. We are filling
in for Shawn. Happy New Year to you. Join the
Conversation one hundred nine to four one seven, three two six.
Also consider subscribing to our podcast, The Drill Down. So
New York City has a new mayor. Things off to
kind of a rocky start. The New York Post reporting
that the inauguration block party, it was called the Inauguration
(16:14):
for a New Era block Party by macdonnie's staff, was
a dismal failure. It was a bust. Apparently, people showed
up by the thousands. They were told to get there
by eleven for the event to start at one. It
started half an hour late. No bathrooms and no food.
People not particularly happy about that. But the problems are
(16:35):
likely to get larger than just this terrible rollout of
the block party.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Not a good look if the first event you hold
as a Democrat socialist is no access to public facilities
and no food.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Get used to it, right.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
From the people who brought you no food at the
rally comes, We're gonna now in charge of the buses exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, we've got a great guest that's going to be
joining us, Carol Markowitz. He's a calumnist for The New
York Post. One of my favorite writers, and she is
I think a New York refugee. She lived in New
York now has moved down to Florida. Happy New York, Carol,
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Hi, Peter and Eric, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
So your take on Mumdannie Is it going to be
as bad as people are predicting or do you think
that he's going to kind of moderate a little bit?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I interesting because I am somewhere in between, not because
I think he's going to moderate at all, but because
I think he's going to be unable to do some
of the things that he says he wants to do.
So free busses, for example, which sound like a great
idea in theory, but in practice would be basically homeless
shelters on wheels, and you know, drugs attic locations on wheels.
(17:52):
And so the idea of doing that was something that
he ran on, but in actuality to do that, you
need the Governor of New York to raise taxes in
order to accomplish that, and Governor Kathy Hochel has no
interest in doing that in her own election year. So
I think he's going to be stymied by the realities
on the ground. That still means he will be able
(18:15):
to do a lot of damage. Build A Blasio, the
last socialist mayor, He did a lot of damage to
the city. Today is actually my four year anniversary of
living in Florida, being a Floridian. I feel like a
genius every single day. But we got out because of
build A Blavio's policies, and they were terrible and really
just He did a lot of damage to the city.
(18:36):
He undid so much good that had preceded him, and
New York hasn't recovered from that.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
It's you know, on some level that there's a spirit
of New Yorkers, which I think embodies the spirit of America,
and we like, we like to fight, we like the energy.
But when you kind of combine a cultural wokeness with
this socialist that kind of seems to work against these
capital initiatives in spirit, it seems like a bad recipe.
It also seems, you know, for as much as Donald
Trump gets accused of being a racist and like signaling
(19:06):
to like the worst elements of society, Mom Donnie has
done some dog whistly things that seem to be anti Semitic, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean just you know, his first
orders of business were things that you know, Jews considered
protections that were in place, and anti Semitic attacks on
Jews are at an all time high in New York City,
specifically Brooklyn is that the capital of actual attacks, actual
physical attacks on Jews in the country. And so I
(19:37):
think that there's been so much dog whistling. He keeps
having these little moments where he can make himself clearer
or not hire people who have extremely questionable things in
their past, but he hasn't done that, and I think
that Jews of New York are bracing for the worst
with him, and I think they should be. I think
(19:58):
they're in a situation where they're incapable of protecting themselves.
New York has very strict anti gun laws, so they
cannot defend themselves, and they have a mayor now who
has no interest in defending them or no interest in
standing up to the people who would harm them. So
it is a really tough time for the Jews of
New York City. I would say to a lot of them,
get out if you can, really, And I have family
(20:20):
in New York I root for New York. I want
things to turn around, but I don't see things getting better.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
For a while. Yeah, Carol, it's interesting when you talk
about him getting rid as some of the protections for
the Jewish community. This is the same guy who's talked
about quote unquote microaggressions like verbal things that are said.
You're actually talking about physical attacks in this particular case. So,
you know, here's the question. I mean, the fear that
I always have when a social democrat assumes the position
(20:47):
of power, is they know how to effectively use the
machinery of government to stay in power. So, as a
New Yorker, as somebody who has family there, you write
for the New York Post, does this represent a sea
change in New York? In other words, is there going
to be a chance to go back or do you
think he's going to spend so much time and energy
building up the political infrastructure for himself and the same
(21:11):
kind of stay in power.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, it's definitely possible. You know, I think that New
York is a special place, I really do. I think
it has a lot of things that other cities just
don't have. It's sort of the city that accomplishes most
in the country, and the fact is that it's on
the decline. It has been for a while now. So
(21:34):
is he going to be able to use the mechanisms
of power to keep his own people in power. I'm
sure he will be. I think that they're in a
bad place and it's going to take a lot to recover.
One thing that I like to say is, you know,
bold Blasio didn't undo it overnight. He actually, for his
first term was able to ride on the accomplishments of
Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. And it took a while
(21:57):
to undo fifteen years of good police for example. It
wasn't an overnight thing. So I think Mamdannie is heading
in that very same direction. I don't know how much
worse it could get in New York in terms of
like people not being held accountable for various crimes, or
the fact that every single Duyne read or grocery store
(22:19):
has to lock up their products. I mean, all of
that is makes it a really challenging place to live.
So I hope that he's able to or not able
to succeed in doing the kind of things that he
wants to do. But he really did get elected with
the majority of New Yorkers saying we want this, so
we'll see.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
So let me ask you about that, because do you
think the majority of New Yorker said we want this
or do you think the majority of New Yorkers said
we don't want that? Like you just said, how much
worse can it get? If it's a super expensive and
crime ridden city. You don't fault New Yorkers for saying
please anything. And he campaigned on this pledge to we're
going to make the falafels cheaper because we're going to
(23:00):
get rid of regulations and we're gonna you know, like
in the buses and the daycare is going to be free.
So if you is there anything he can do, because
obviously he's not gonna to raise taxes, Hope was not
going to work with him. What can he do from
what your understanding is, and what's the thing that's most
concerning about what is on the table.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
So many things are concerning, but you're absolutely right. New
Yorkers said, first of all, they said no to Andrew Cuomo,
which when Andrew Culomo was the great hope of New York,
I knew things were not going to go out, you know,
when that was the guy that was going to save
the place that that was really, you know, a path
that they didn't want to be on. But yeah, you're right,
(23:39):
New Yorkers wanted lower prices, that they wanted different policies,
and that they're going to get that. I'm most concerned,
I guess I think the crime part of it is
things he's going to be able to do. If he
really does close Riker's Island, that will put a lot
of criminals on the streets because there's simply nowhere else
for them to go. So the plan was to close
(24:01):
Rikers and to build additional prisons to transfer the prisoners.
But if he just closes it without those additional prisons,
which she has kind of signaled he's going to do those,
they're going to have to release some number of criminals
onto the streets and stuff like that. Is really scary
to me because I don't know how New York can
sustain that. They already have so many issues with homeless
(24:24):
people being violent, or there was a rash of people
being pushed onto subway platform onto the subway tracks. It's
a really tough situation on the crime side, and that's
something that he's going to be able to affect.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. No, I think it's going to be very interesting
to watch. It has implications not just for New Yorkers
but for the rest of the country because we know
how this goes Carol right, it was the same thing
with AOC when she run one in twenty eighteen. Social
democrats around the country tried to adopt that model, And
you also have this interesting merging in New York of
(25:00):
Muslims who are serious about their faith working with left
wing progressives who believe in things like gay marriage that
Islamis don't necessarily believe in. So that kind of so
called red Green alliance seems to be the model that
they're going to try to imitate elsewhere, at least where
they have that kind of a population density that can
make a difference.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah, it's an interesting alliance, but we are seeing it
across the country. I think that they're willing to work
together in the fact that fact really shows that they
have a common goal maybe, and I think a lot
of it does have to do with Israel or with
Jews in general. They've made this alliance and that's where
they're headed to really make it more difficult to support Israel.
(25:45):
For example, one of the things that he got rid
of that Eric Adams had done was supporting Israel. So
I don't know whether that alliance can be sustained long term.
They're definitely making a run of it for now in
a lot of places across the country. Our Muslims necessarily
left wing. I don't know, but they are doing this alliance,
(26:05):
and I don't know they're winning.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So yeah, maybe they're willing to look overlook some of
the other liberal cultural policies when you have stuff like
I mean, one of Eric Adams's executive orders was going
to bar city officials from boycotting or divesting from Israel.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Mom Donnie revokes that on the first day.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
He also revokes Eric adams adoption of the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti Semitism, So, you know, things
are important to the Jewish community and he gets rid
of it right away, and it doesn't seem like that's
not impacting the daily life of New Yorkers. So it
seems there's got to be some other larger principal point
he's trying to make. We'll definitely be watching Karl Markowitz.
(26:43):
You've done a great job of documenting this great job
with New York Posts. Will continue to watch this story.
She's thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Thanks so much, guys.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So she's Karen Markowitz, He's Peter Schweitzer and Peter, you
have stuff and we're going to talk about this just
on this side this break. It matters what Mom Donnie does,
and it matters who his influences are. And while he's
got some Islamic influences, he's got some political influences also.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, Bernie Sanders, his mentor. Bernie Sanders was a mayor
and very interesting. I think we're gonna see history repeated
itself in a very unusual way. We'll be right back
after this. Henned King Ted Copple says Sean Hannity is
(27:28):
bad for America.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Sean Hannity, Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
It's Eric Eggers and Peter Schweitzer feeling in for Sean Hannity.
We do a podcast called The Drill Down, which you
can find at the drill down dot com. Peter, we
just heard from Carol Markowitz. The Mom Donnie era has
begun in New York City. And he had a few
people to thank as he gave his remarks yesterday, one
of whom I think caught your eye.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
Thank you to the two titans. Who is an assembly
member I've had the proof of being represented by in
Congress Nidia a Velasqez and our incredible opening speaker, Alexandria
Ocasio Cortes.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You have paved the way for this moment.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most
to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn
in by today, Senator Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Now this is fascinating to me because, of course Bernie
Sanders apparently is the icon and the idol of Mamdanni.
Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont for eight years,
and he seeks to emulate him. Here's my prediction. I
think one of the ways that Mamdonnie's going to going
to imitate him is by self enriching the way that
Bernie Sanders did so. Bernie Sanders, when he became mayor
(28:46):
of Burlington, was completely broke. Eight years later, he leaves
as mayor, he owns three homes. He's worth a lot
more money than he was before. And he did it
by putting his first girlfriend and then later wife on
this city payroll without any approval. He put her in
charge of the Mayor's Youth Office, whatever that is. He
started giving paid speeches on socialism around the country and
(29:09):
he said at one point, it's so strange just having money,
is what Bernie Sanders said. And what he also did, though,
is he struck political bargains with people in Burlington that
were powerful that he previously opposed. There was the Palmerlow family,
there were big developers. He ran against them, but once
he became mayor, he partnered with him. And of course
(29:29):
the Palmelau family not only started donating to his campaigns,
they started funding his wife's private projects. So I think
you're going to get the same kind of action from Mamdnnie.
You're going to see this self enrichment. He's going to
engage in crony capitalism with favored people that are willing
to fund his causes and fund perhaps his family members.
That's what I think he means by emulation, not just
(29:52):
the socialism, but the self enrichment the socialism.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I don't know that we know enough to say whether
or he's a true believer in that, although he's been
and connected to this Bernie Sanders alliance for some time.
But it does seem like once you get into office. Look,
being the mayor of New York City has got to
be good for your bottom line. And if you can
sprinkle in enough of like the virtue signaling left stuff
to keep the business running, then that's how you kind
(30:16):
of stay in office.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, it's a combination of the two. So Bernie Sanders
would attack the powerful people in Burlington, but then he
would also set up side deals with them, involving his
wife and other people. And I can absolutely see Mom
Donnie doing the same thing. Fund my causes. Do enough
to keep the progressives happy, do enough to keep some
of the rich people happy that they're willing to play
(30:37):
ball with you.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, and to the point of like following the Bernie
Sanders playbook of striking up deals or getting along with
rich influential people. Note that what did mom Donnie do
went to the White House and played nice with Donald Trump?
He did, indeed, So we'll continue to see how much
of the Bernie Sanders playbook Mom Donnie follows. By the way,
everything Peterswiser just said is in his book Profiles in Corruption,
(30:57):
one of his numerous number one year time as best sellers,
which you can encourage you to pick up. It's too
late for it to be a Christmas president, but it's
still good information. When we come back, we're going to
talk to Jason Chafitz. He's been somebody that's affiliated with
our organization here, former member of Congress and former chair
of the House Oversight Committee. We're going to talk about
some of the things we're hearing about Congress. Is it
(31:19):
really dysfunctional in the House GOP caucus, and what can
we expect to actually happen. Will there be indictments, will
there be subpoenas? Will people go to jail for some
of the things we've been documenting all the corruption that's
been happening. We're back after this. He's Peter Schweizer, americ
Egers Philly in for Sean Handy. Jason Chaffit's up next.
Hello America, and happy new Year. I'm Peter Schweitzer. That's
Eric Eggers, and we are going to be filling in
for Sean today. We have a podcast that we do
together called The Drill Down. We've written multiple books, eight
New York Times bestsellers for at number one. We do
investigative work, and we are so blessed to come and
(00:22):
fill in for Sean from time to time. And twenty
twenty six, we're here, and you are happy about the
new year, right.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Peter Schweitzer.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Not only are we blessed to continue to do the
very good work that we do both on our podcast,
The Drill Down, which you can find at the drill
Down dot com and at the Government Accountability Institute, the
nonprofit organization that you steer as president.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But we're blessed to just be here. Right.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
It's January two, twenty twenty six, and we have survived
the year twenty twenty five, a year in which Donald
Trump became president and we were told repeatedly the end
of Western society was nigh.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, we remember a course election eight of twenty twenty
four and the meltdowns and the shock of a lot
of people, but throughout twenty twenty five, when Donald Trump
enacted his policies, we got a recipe, a massive recipe
of doom and gloom. So tariffs, of course, were a
big part of his initiative on the economy, and tariffs
(01:20):
were going to tank the economy and effectively destroy the
Western world. Here's what Warren Buffett, the famous investors said
earlier this year, earlier in the spring of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
How do you think tariffs will affect the economy?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
The tariffs are Actually we've got a lot of experience
with them.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
They're an act of war.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, so tariffs are an active war. I didn't know that,
but apparently they are. And that's just one example of
many things that were said about Trump's tariff's policy.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Look, far be it from me to criticize Warren Buffett.
Incredibly successful and I think gets most things right except
for maybe his prediction on tariffs. And understand the social
impact that his little chuckle had the end of his
little things thought. But yeah, that would be an example
of one of the famous people who said a thing
that what didn't prove to be true about the impact
(02:10):
of Donald Trump and his policies and what they would
have on the United States. You follow the stock market
quite closely, it seems like we're still doing okay.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, we're doing fine. And what's interesting about this, and
there's a common pattern with all of these things where
you had these dire predictions, is nobody's saying, well, I
would prefer if the policy were slightly different. It's all
doom and gloom with Donald Trump. So on tariff policy,
we heard that in spades. You know, this was going
to be what happened in the stock market crash in
(02:37):
twenty twenty nine when Herbert Hoover came in and there
was the tariffs that came into place. It was going
to be a replay of that. Trump's use of the
National Guard again, the debate was not, well, we're not
sure that this is the best way to deal with
crime and disorder in our cities.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
And to pause and acknowledge, hey, there are in fact
some cities where crime is a problem exactly exactly. They're like, no,
what are you talking about? What crime? And then they
bring in the troops and then we're told by Gavin
Newsom that in fact the troops are going to create
more crime, not solve it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, that's right. In JB. Pritsker course, the governor of
Illinois said this was going to get civilians killed, like
these guardsmen were going to run around and shoot people.
And then, of course, in his most extreme form, you
had progressive saying that this was going to be in
effect a fascist takeover. This was Trump's effort to sort
of conceal and control power in the United States through
(03:27):
the use of the National Guard. Interesting to note, of course,
that they just announced that the National Guard is actually
leaving some cities. So those are a couple of examples.
Another one, of course, Iran, the bombing of Iran. Again,
you can have a dispute on what is the best
way to deal with Iran. I certainly think you have
to be firm and tough, But people like Tucker Carlson
(03:49):
were predicting that the bombing of Iran would lead to
a catastrophic, full scale World War III. It would involve
thousands of American depths, deaths, the collapse of the US
economy because gas was gonna be thirty dollars a gallon,
and it was gonna be the end of Donald Trump's presidency.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oops, well, we're only off by decimal because it is
does start with a three, but it ends there. That's
the units digit. No, it's the hyperboles insane. And so
just the recap so far, if you're keeping track, we
were gonna be in a World War three because we're
going to bombar on. The economy is going to be
in the tank because of the tariff policies. And uh oh,
(04:26):
by the way, like we were going to have like
fascist takeover mildrized streets because we had deployed National Guards
troops to major cities. And quietly, many people may not
know this because it didn't get a ton of meat
attention because it doesn't fit the dominative narrative, dominant narrative
that Donald Trump is a fascist, but they did it.
I'll say, look, okay, we lost the Supreme Court decision,
so Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, we're going to take the
(04:48):
troops out of there. Notice in Washington, DC, in which
he was permitted to do so, the troops were quite
successful helping produce crime.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, that's right, because Washington, DC, of course has a
special status under federal authority. But and Tucker wasn't the
only one that protected World War three. There are plenty
of Democrats, but The point is, do you see a
pattern forming here? It has been sort of outrage media
on everything that Trump has done, and none of it
has panned out. Let's go on to immigration, right. Trump
(05:16):
said I'm going to build a wall, I'm going to
seal the border, and we learned to deport people that
are in the country illegally. A lot of predictions that
was going to tank the economy and lead to massive problems.
Here's what Mark Cuban, the billionaire who's been wrong about
probably more things than any other billionaire I know, here's
what he said was going to happen with Donald Trump's
(05:38):
deportation policy.
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Donald Trump has got Steven Miller who said he wants
mass deportations. I sat in front of restaurant owners and
I asked them, what would it be like if all
of a sudden you got to knock on your door
and there was somebody from Stephen Miller's squad asking you
for the names and addresses and immigration status of everybody
that works for you. That's not how you can run
a country.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, well, we have been running the country that way
for the past year, and it's been great. The economy's
doing well, the labor market is good again, more dire
predictions that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
You know, you're absolutely right about Mark Cuban. He's wrong
so much.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
He was giving that interview in fact, in support for
Kamala Harris and suggesting that she would be better for
the country. Mark Cuban's wrong so much. I think he
did support the Luca Dochs trade. In fact, I think
that's now I'm bringing him into that loop. No, and so,
just to put the meat on the bone on this
particular issue, we've had two million people Peter Schweizer self
deport this year. They up the incentive, they tried offer
(06:35):
three thousand dollars instead of one thousand dollars. At the
end of twenty twenty five, they've had six hundred thousand deportations,
so a little over two and a half million fewer
people in this country who weren't supposed to be here.
But the fact that he had two million self deportations,
I think is as a stat no one really talks about.
It should be a credit to the Trump administration. And
by the way, Barack Obama used to be called the
(06:56):
deporter in chief. He was sending on average about four
hundreundred thousand people out through just deportations, not the self deportation.
Deported over three million people during his eight years as presidency.
So all Donald Trump has done is continue a policy,
maybe at a higher level than something Obama did.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, there's clearly a pattern here, right, and that's the hyperbole,
the threats Donald Trump is the devil, Donald Trump is
going to cause all these problems. Turns out they're not true.
So you're right, immigration policy is working. He's doing what
he said he was going to do. You've had two
million self deportations, six hundred thousand deportations by of federal authorities.
(07:33):
Look at what bombing Iran did. Didn't lead to World
War three. It led to a situation where we actually
now have a peace, relatively speaking, the Middle East and
a chance for real change. There's massive protests that have
broken out in Iran because the economy is in the toilet,
it's in a terrible state, and you have people tens
(07:53):
of thousands of people chanting death to the dictator on
the streets of Iran. So those protections were totally wrong.
We got crime down in cities because of what we
did with the National guards. So look at the tariffs
we got two hundred billion dollars in tariff revenue, so
the deficit is actually coming down a remarkable record in
(08:16):
contrast to what we were told was going to be
a disastrous chaot, a terrible twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
So then here's the question, because you know, we are
seeing there are some challenges and the real problems. You've
heard audio from the beginning of the intro here, which
they do a great job putting that together. But New
York City has a new mayor. They have a Democrat socialist,
and so a lot of people are suggesting that that
will not be great for the future of the greatest
city in the world. We're going to talk to Carol
(08:42):
Markowitz about that actually at the bottom of this hour
and just kind of get some insights and boots on
the ground. How bad is New York City? How bad
will it be? But if the larger theme of this
segment that we've done is a lot of times these
dire predictions are wrong, but not when we make them
about Mom. Donni right that he's going to be terrible.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well, it's going to being to see right what he does,
and we're gonna look at later in the broadcast at
his relationship with Bernie Sanders, because Bernie Sanders was mayor
of Burlington, Vermont. Bernie Sanders is his mentor and his icon,
according to Mam Donnie. And when Bernie Sanders became mayor
of Burlington, Vermont, that's when he started to get rich.
(09:21):
So it's going to be interesting to see what Mumdonnie does.
I think that the lesson that we all have to
learn is looking at how we consume information, what we believe,
what we listen to. If people are wrong consistently, if
they're wrong in a massive way, maybe we ought to
not listen to them as much anymore. I mean, if
they're making predictions we're gonna have World War three, the
(09:43):
economy is going to shut down, that food's going to
be rotting in the fields because there's nobody to pick it,
and that turns out not to be true, not even
remotely true. Perhaps those people don't deserve the attention of
our ears.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Well, remember we were told among the predictions, not just
about immigration and the tariffs and bombing Iran, all that stuff,
we were told by people like Mark Cuban and by
Kamala Harrison twenty twenty four that no less than democracy
was on the ballot, Peter Schweizer, And of course the
irony was that Donald Trump is the one person who
we had to choose from president actually won his party's
(10:16):
political primary, which casts you know, votes were cast. But
here we are on twenty twenty six. Maybe we should
just take a moment toast the fact that democracy still
seems to be at least somewhat alive.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
People. They're still holding elections.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
It's hanging on. It's hanging on by a threat.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The troops have gone, the ballot boxes are open, like
we made it. We're okay.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, well, well I think you're right, and I'm going
to predict that Donald Trump is actually going to leave
the White House under his own power. He's not going
to try to hold it like so many people predicted,
and it's going to be a great twenty twenty six.
We want to hear what your thoughts aren't about the
year ahead, not just politically but personally. What are the
things that you were looking forward to? Are there commitments
(10:55):
you're making personally? Resolutions for the new year? Call us
at weren't one hundred nine four one seven three two
six winn aighthundred ninety four one seven three, two six,
You made any New Year's resolutions, at least ones you
want to share with millions of people.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Absolutely, I mean I come on national radia to be
vulnera about my own personal life and the inherent problems
that are in it. Actually, later I will read something
because to your point, I think one thing that we
need to continue to be just mindful of is the
information we consume and who's creating that information. As a
story in the five o'clock I or you're not gonna
want to miss about AI generated content being directed at
(11:31):
kids on YouTube and how much money people are making
off of it, people who are not credential to be you know,
we're not talking about like a mister beast. We're talking
about people from these foreign countries that create AI content
and it directed at kids. They're making money and that
just as a parent you have to be incredibly mindful.
But we've got a lot of very important stories to
talk about today. We love getting to fill in for Sean.
(11:52):
We've got Carol Markowitz, as we said, talk about the
mom Donnie era in New York City. At four o'clock,
we're gonna talk about former Congressman Jason Chafitz about what
to expect in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Congress.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Allegedly dysfunctional people are leaving, but there's still work to
be done, right.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, there's work still to be done, and there's some
encouraging things, but also there's a lot of chaos. So
it's gonna be interested to get his insights. We're also
going to have the former governor of Minnesota, Tim Polente
to come on and talk about the massive, widespread fraud
that is curring in Minnesota. And I think even the
bigger story, which is the effort by the political establishment,
(12:28):
Governor Wallis and others to cover it up.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Absolutely. You know, you've seen the video, You've seen Nick Shirley.
There's a lot of really weird stories about this Minnesota.
But I think the biggest thing that people aren't talking
about that I hope we can talk to former Governor
Tim Paulenti about is the fact that he's the last
Republican to win statewide election in Minnesota. And just you know,
consider this that for the last twenty years, only one
party's been in charge in the state of Minnesota, and
(12:52):
for the last fifteen of those years, the person who's
been in charge of that party, the person who's been
in charge the Democrat Party in Minnesota is now in
charge of the Democrat Party in the country. Ken Martin
is the head of DNC. So is the model that
was created in which you have these refugees, these migrants,
and we're funneling all this welfare money to them, and
then that money finds its way back into the coffers
(13:12):
of these politicians in one way or another. Is that
a model that are attempting to replicate throughout the country. And
I think it's a very important story that suggests what,
at least on some level, the left wants to do
to the country.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And what you're saying is it worked in Minnesota, absolutely,
so it could potentially work nationally because you do see
the pattern of this massive fraud. I mean, fraud happens everywhere,
but you see it kind of on a massive scale
in place like California and Illinois because the political leadership
does not want to investigate it. We're going to be
back after this break and we're going to talk about
(13:45):
Donald Trump's New Year's Resolution. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Hey, It's Eric Eggers and Peter Schweitzer. We're filling in
for Sean Handy. Here on January two, Happy New Year,
to thank you for spending your Friday afternoon with us, Peter.
It is the day after the New Year, and a
lot of people like to make New Year's resolutions. Donald Trump,
on New Year's Eve was asked what his was peace.
That's peace on earth. That's the most chaotic possible sound
(14:18):
you've ever heard for someone saying he wishes for peace
on earth. Peter Schwiser, what do you think about the
fact that he's trying to get peace on earth?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Well, I think Trump doesn't get enough credit for what
he does in terms of foreign policy. And you know,
he is somebody who's America first, but he's not America only.
He's worried about things that are going on in the world.
And look when he was saying, I want peace in
the world. That's my New Year's resolution. Vladimir Putin had
a different speech that he gave, and his speech he
talked about his defiance of the West, the fact that
(14:48):
he was going to guarantee the integrity, security, and sovereignty
of the Fatherland, and he talked about Ukraine and continuing
the escalation of the warfare there. You're talking about a
million people that Haven in that battle already, Trump is
trying to fix that. China, you had China's President Xi,
who also had in the year's address, was not Peace
(15:08):
on Earth was not what he was focused on. He
was vowing to reunify China and Taiwan in his annual speech.
And then, of course you have all the military operations
that are taking place around Taiwan. The other thing that's
going on is in Iran. You have this uprising that
is occurring that the media has ignored. They've they've shut
down twenty one provincial governments. Protests have broken up around Iran,
(15:31):
and they're calling for death to Komani. So hopefully he's
going to succeed, but huge.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Challenges, massive challenge. He's not the only one facing challenges.
New York City's facing challenges. They've got a Democrat socialist
in charge of that city. We're going to talk to
Carol Markowitz, New York Post columnists about what the future
holds under a mom Done administration. That's next. He's Peter
Schweizer America Eggers. We're in for Sean Handy.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Be right back.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Hey, It's Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers. We are filling
in for Shawn. Happy New Year to you. Join the
Conversation one hundred nine to four one seven, three two six.
Also consider subscribing to our podcast, The Drill Down. So
New York City has a new mayor. Things off to
kind of a rocky start. The New York Post reporting
that the inauguration block party, it was called the Inauguration
(16:14):
for a New Era block Party by macdonnie's staff, was
a dismal failure. It was a bust. Apparently, people showed
up by the thousands. They were told to get there
by eleven for the event to start at one. It
started half an hour late. No bathrooms and no food.
People not particularly happy about that. But the problems are
(16:35):
likely to get larger than just this terrible rollout of
the block party.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Not a good look if the first event you hold
as a Democrat socialist is no access to public facilities
and no food.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Get used to it, right.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
From the people who brought you no food at the
rally comes, We're gonna now in charge of the buses exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, we've got a great guest that's going to be
joining us, Carol Markowitz. He's a calumnist for The New
York Post. One of my favorite writers, and she is
I think a New York refugee. She lived in New
York now has moved down to Florida. Happy New York, Carol,
thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Hi, Peter and Eric, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
So your take on Mumdannie Is it going to be
as bad as people are predicting or do you think
that he's going to kind of moderate a little bit?
What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (17:28):
I interesting because I am somewhere in between, not because
I think he's going to moderate at all, but because
I think he's going to be unable to do some
of the things that he says he wants to do.
So free busses, for example, which sound like a great
idea in theory, but in practice would be basically homeless
shelters on wheels, and you know, drugs attic locations on wheels.
(17:52):
And so the idea of doing that was something that
he ran on, but in actuality to do that, you
need the Governor of New York to raise taxes in
order to accomplish that, and Governor Kathy Hochel has no
interest in doing that in her own election year. So
I think he's going to be stymied by the realities
on the ground. That still means he will be able
(18:15):
to do a lot of damage. Build A Blasio, the
last socialist mayor, He did a lot of damage to
the city. Today is actually my four year anniversary of
living in Florida, being a Floridian. I feel like a
genius every single day. But we got out because of
build A Blavio's policies, and they were terrible and really
just He did a lot of damage to the city.
(18:36):
He undid so much good that had preceded him, and
New York hasn't recovered from that.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
It's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
It's you know, on some level that there's a spirit
of New Yorkers, which I think embodies the spirit of America,
and we like, we like to fight, we like the energy.
But when you kind of combine a cultural wokeness with
this socialist that kind of seems to work against these
capital initiatives in spirit, it seems like a bad recipe.
It also seems, you know, for as much as Donald
Trump gets accused of being a racist and like signaling
(19:06):
to like the worst elements of society, Mom Donnie has
done some dog whistly things that seem to be anti Semitic, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean just you know, his first
orders of business were things that you know, Jews considered
protections that were in place, and anti Semitic attacks on
Jews are at an all time high in New York City,
specifically Brooklyn is that the capital of actual attacks, actual
physical attacks on Jews in the country. And so I
(19:37):
think that there's been so much dog whistling. He keeps
having these little moments where he can make himself clearer
or not hire people who have extremely questionable things in
their past, but he hasn't done that, and I think
that Jews of New York are bracing for the worst
with him, and I think they should be. I think
(19:58):
they're in a situation where they're incapable of protecting themselves.
New York has very strict anti gun laws, so they
cannot defend themselves, and they have a mayor now who
has no interest in defending them or no interest in
standing up to the people who would harm them. So
it is a really tough time for the Jews of
New York City. I would say to a lot of them,
get out if you can, really, And I have family
(20:20):
in New York I root for New York. I want
things to turn around, but I don't see things getting better.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
For a while. Yeah, Carol, it's interesting when you talk
about him getting rid as some of the protections for
the Jewish community. This is the same guy who's talked
about quote unquote microaggressions like verbal things that are said.
You're actually talking about physical attacks in this particular case. So,
you know, here's the question. I mean, the fear that
I always have when a social democrat assumes the position
(20:47):
of power, is they know how to effectively use the
machinery of government to stay in power. So, as a
New Yorker, as somebody who has family there, you write
for the New York Post, does this represent a sea
change in New York? In other words, is there going
to be a chance to go back or do you
think he's going to spend so much time and energy
building up the political infrastructure for himself and the same
(21:11):
kind of stay in power.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Yeah, it's definitely possible. You know, I think that New
York is a special place, I really do. I think
it has a lot of things that other cities just
don't have. It's sort of the city that accomplishes most
in the country, and the fact is that it's on
the decline. It has been for a while now. So
(21:34):
is he going to be able to use the mechanisms
of power to keep his own people in power. I'm
sure he will be. I think that they're in a
bad place and it's going to take a lot to recover.
One thing that I like to say is, you know,
bold Blasio didn't undo it overnight. He actually, for his
first term was able to ride on the accomplishments of
Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani. And it took a while
(21:57):
to undo fifteen years of good police for example. It
wasn't an overnight thing. So I think Mamdannie is heading
in that very same direction. I don't know how much
worse it could get in New York in terms of
like people not being held accountable for various crimes, or
the fact that every single Duyne read or grocery store
(22:19):
has to lock up their products. I mean, all of
that is makes it a really challenging place to live.
So I hope that he's able to or not able
to succeed in doing the kind of things that he
wants to do. But he really did get elected with
the majority of New Yorkers saying we want this, so
we'll see.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
So let me ask you about that, because do you
think the majority of New Yorker said we want this
or do you think the majority of New Yorkers said
we don't want that? Like you just said, how much
worse can it get? If it's a super expensive and
crime ridden city. You don't fault New Yorkers for saying
please anything. And he campaigned on this pledge to we're
going to make the falafels cheaper because we're going to
(23:00):
get rid of regulations and we're gonna you know, like
in the buses and the daycare is going to be free.
So if you is there anything he can do, because
obviously he's not gonna to raise taxes, Hope was not
going to work with him. What can he do from
what your understanding is, and what's the thing that's most
concerning about what is on the table.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
So many things are concerning, but you're absolutely right. New
Yorkers said, first of all, they said no to Andrew Cuomo,
which when Andrew Culomo was the great hope of New York,
I knew things were not going to go out, you know,
when that was the guy that was going to save
the place that that was really, you know, a path
that they didn't want to be on. But yeah, you're right,
(23:39):
New Yorkers wanted lower prices, that they wanted different policies,
and that they're going to get that. I'm most concerned,
I guess I think the crime part of it is
things he's going to be able to do. If he
really does close Riker's Island, that will put a lot
of criminals on the streets because there's simply nowhere else
for them to go. So the plan was to close
(24:01):
Rikers and to build additional prisons to transfer the prisoners.
But if he just closes it without those additional prisons,
which she has kind of signaled he's going to do those,
they're going to have to release some number of criminals
onto the streets and stuff like that. Is really scary
to me because I don't know how New York can
sustain that. They already have so many issues with homeless
(24:24):
people being violent, or there was a rash of people
being pushed onto subway platform onto the subway tracks. It's
a really tough situation on the crime side, and that's
something that he's going to be able to affect.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah. No, I think it's going to be very interesting
to watch. It has implications not just for New Yorkers
but for the rest of the country because we know
how this goes Carol right, it was the same thing
with AOC when she run one in twenty eighteen. Social
democrats around the country tried to adopt that model, And
you also have this interesting merging in New York of
(25:00):
Muslims who are serious about their faith working with left
wing progressives who believe in things like gay marriage that
Islamis don't necessarily believe in. So that kind of so
called red Green alliance seems to be the model that
they're going to try to imitate elsewhere, at least where
they have that kind of a population density that can
make a difference.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Yeah, it's an interesting alliance, but we are seeing it
across the country. I think that they're willing to work
together in the fact that fact really shows that they
have a common goal maybe, and I think a lot
of it does have to do with Israel or with
Jews in general. They've made this alliance and that's where
they're headed to really make it more difficult to support Israel.
(25:45):
For example, one of the things that he got rid
of that Eric Adams had done was supporting Israel. So
I don't know whether that alliance can be sustained long term.
They're definitely making a run of it for now in
a lot of places across the country. Our Muslims necessarily
left wing. I don't know, but they are doing this alliance,
(26:05):
and I don't know they're winning.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
So yeah, maybe they're willing to look overlook some of
the other liberal cultural policies when you have stuff like
I mean, one of Eric Adams's executive orders was going
to bar city officials from boycotting or divesting from Israel.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Mom Donnie revokes that on the first day.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
He also revokes Eric adams adoption of the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti Semitism, So, you know, things
are important to the Jewish community and he gets rid
of it right away, and it doesn't seem like that's
not impacting the daily life of New Yorkers. So it
seems there's got to be some other larger principal point
he's trying to make. We'll definitely be watching Karl Markowitz.
(26:43):
You've done a great job of documenting this great job
with New York Posts. Will continue to watch this story.
She's thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Thanks so much, guys.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So she's Karen Markowitz, He's Peter Schweitzer and Peter, you
have stuff and we're going to talk about this just
on this side this break. It matters what Mom Donnie does,
and it matters who his influences are. And while he's
got some Islamic influences, he's got some political influences also.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Yeah, Bernie Sanders, his mentor. Bernie Sanders was a mayor
and very interesting. I think we're gonna see history repeated
itself in a very unusual way. We'll be right back
after this. Henned King Ted Copple says Sean Hannity is
(27:28):
bad for America.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Sean Hannity, Welcome back, everybody.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
It's Eric Eggers and Peter Schweitzer feeling in for Sean Hannity.
We do a podcast called The Drill Down, which you
can find at the drill down dot com. Peter, we
just heard from Carol Markowitz. The Mom Donnie era has
begun in New York City. And he had a few
people to thank as he gave his remarks yesterday, one
of whom I think caught your eye.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
Thank you to the two titans. Who is an assembly
member I've had the proof of being represented by in
Congress Nidia a Velasqez and our incredible opening speaker, Alexandria
Ocasio Cortes.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You have paved the way for this moment.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Thank you to the man whose leadership I seek most
to emulate, who I am so grateful to be sworn
in by today, Senator Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Now this is fascinating to me because, of course Bernie
Sanders apparently is the icon and the idol of Mamdanni.
Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vermont for eight years,
and he seeks to emulate him. Here's my prediction. I
think one of the ways that Mamdonnie's going to going
to imitate him is by self enriching the way that
Bernie Sanders did so. Bernie Sanders, when he became mayor
(28:46):
of Burlington, was completely broke. Eight years later, he leaves
as mayor, he owns three homes. He's worth a lot
more money than he was before. And he did it
by putting his first girlfriend and then later wife on
this city payroll without any approval. He put her in
charge of the Mayor's Youth Office, whatever that is. He
started giving paid speeches on socialism around the country and
(29:09):
he said at one point, it's so strange just having money,
is what Bernie Sanders said. And what he also did, though,
is he struck political bargains with people in Burlington that
were powerful that he previously opposed. There was the Palmerlow family,
there were big developers. He ran against them, but once
he became mayor, he partnered with him. And of course
(29:29):
the Palmelau family not only started donating to his campaigns,
they started funding his wife's private projects. So I think
you're going to get the same kind of action from Mamdnnie.
You're going to see this self enrichment. He's going to
engage in crony capitalism with favored people that are willing
to fund his causes and fund perhaps his family members.
That's what I think he means by emulation, not just
(29:52):
the socialism, but the self enrichment the socialism.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I don't know that we know enough to say whether
or he's a true believer in that, although he's been
and connected to this Bernie Sanders alliance for some time.
But it does seem like once you get into office. Look,
being the mayor of New York City has got to
be good for your bottom line. And if you can
sprinkle in enough of like the virtue signaling left stuff
to keep the business running, then that's how you kind
(30:16):
of stay in office.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, it's a combination of the two. So Bernie Sanders
would attack the powerful people in Burlington, but then he
would also set up side deals with them, involving his
wife and other people. And I can absolutely see Mom
Donnie doing the same thing. Fund my causes. Do enough
to keep the progressives happy, do enough to keep some
of the rich people happy that they're willing to play
(30:37):
ball with you.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Well, and to the point of like following the Bernie
Sanders playbook of striking up deals or getting along with
rich influential people. Note that what did mom Donnie do
went to the White House and played nice with Donald Trump?
He did, indeed, So we'll continue to see how much
of the Bernie Sanders playbook Mom Donnie follows. By the way,
everything Peterswiser just said is in his book Profiles in Corruption,
(30:57):
one of his numerous number one year time as best sellers,
which you can encourage you to pick up. It's too
late for it to be a Christmas president, but it's
still good information. When we come back, we're going to
talk to Jason Chafitz. He's been somebody that's affiliated with
our organization here, former member of Congress and former chair
of the House Oversight Committee. We're going to talk about
some of the things we're hearing about Congress. Is it
(31:19):
really dysfunctional in the House GOP caucus, and what can
we expect to actually happen. Will there be indictments, will
there be subpoenas? Will people go to jail for some
of the things we've been documenting all the corruption that's
been happening. We're back after this. He's Peter Schweizer, americ
Egers Philly in for Sean Handy. Jason Chaffit's up next.
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