October 24, 2025 • 33 mins
Letitia James arraigned in Virginia today. Day 24 of the shutdown. Inflation is up slightly. Canada put out an ad featuring Ronald Reagan from 1987 excoriating tariffs. President Trump off to Asia meetings.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
on Friday. Today is the twenty fourth day of October,
year of our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is
Tom Sullivan. So interesting day today, we've got day twenty
four of the shutdown. We'll fill in a little bit
of that. We got our Consumer Price index inflation number
(00:44):
out a little delayed, but we got one today. Tariffs man,
they're going back to the Ronald Reagan on tariffs. When
was the date of this thing? Back in nineteen eighty seven?
A clip of Romer Reagan that the Canadians use for
an ad that's made President Trump mad. But let's start
(01:08):
with The Attorney General for the State of New York
was in the defendant's seat at the courthouse Federal Courthouse
in Norfolk, Virginia today. Letitia James. The case, well, the
arraignment was today and this is about well, I'll let
(01:30):
Ellie Honig, who is a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, explain
what the case is all about.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Ocus, we'll be here on.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Letitia James, the Democratic New York State Attorney General. Today
she will find herself in an unfamiliar position, sitting at
the criminal defendants table in a federal court in Virginia.
Now by her side will be her defense lawyer, Abbey lowl.
Abbyloh is one of the most renowned defense lawyers in
the country. He's been practicing for over forty years. He
has other high profile clients, including John Bolton who was
(02:01):
indicted recently, including Lisa Cook who's under investigation.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
He's been a busy guy.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
On the other side of the courtroom, we will have
Lindsay Halligan, who is the current US Attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia. She's been to that job for
about a month. And the way she got this job
is because her predecessor was pushed out and resigned in
part because he refused to charge this very case. And
then finally, the judge is Judge Jamar Walker, relatively new
(02:25):
to the bench. He was appointed by Joe Biden in
twenty twenty three. He actually was a prosecutor in this
same office for about eight years before he became a judge.
And really important to know this case is about more
than just Letitia James. It's about the independence of the
Justice Department. Everyone I think will recall this truth social
post by Donald Trump about a month ago in late
(02:45):
September when he posted to Pambondi, what about Comy Adam
Schiff and Letitia Letitia there of course refers to Letitia James.
Just days later, Lindsay Halligan came in as prosecutor, and
just days after that, Letitia James was indicted.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So this stays. There are even bigger than just this
one defendant.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So she gets her day in court. And there are
two parts to what the federal government is accusing her
of the first one is mortgage fraud and the second
one is lying to the feds. So Trey Goudi, who's
a former prosecutor, well, this is what he thinks about it.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
It's going to depend and the most important thing that
happens today's actually the government's going to have to turn
over its discovery that includes exculpatory evidence. I mean, our
systems unique. The prosecution has to turn over everything, whether
it's good for you or bad for you. So she
takes out a loan saying that she may or may
not occupy this second residence. There's a deminimous benefit from
(03:46):
a mortgage standpoint. That's where the nineteen thousand dollars comes from.
I mean, I would say to the critics of this indictment,
you actually can't steal a little bit of money. So
the dollar amount impacts sentencing, but not culpability, not guilt.
How strong the cases depends upon the witnesses. And we'll
know starting today what the government has because uniquely they
(04:08):
have to turn over stuff that's good and bad for them.
And if she did not lie on these mortgage applications,
then it ain't going to be a good case for
the state, for the government.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
There are a lot of questions about the facts, and
it's somewhere I think Ellie said eighteen thousand dollars. Tray
said nineteen thousand dollars. It's basically the benefit that she
got somewhere in that range by getting a loan at
a lower rate, because she said the home was second
to home, a second home for her, not an investment
(04:40):
rental property. Solatitia James. After the hearing came out and
there was a small crowd, a couple hundred people, and
they were very loud, and they were chanting, and she
I think it was like it was like a pastor
was giving a religious speech. Listen to the little Tsha James,
(05:03):
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I am.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I want to.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
I want to thank all of you. I wanna so,
I want to thank all of you. I want to
thank each and every one of you. I wanna thank
(05:38):
you for your prayers. I want to thank you for
your emails. I want to thank you for your support.
It has, it has it has strengthened my spirit.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And as.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
And it has anchored my souls. So I want to
thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
But this is not about me.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
This is about all of us and about a justice
system which has been weaponized, a justice system.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Which has been used as a tool of revenge.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I don't know. I thought that was kind of rich
that she was talking about a justice system that has
been weaponized and a justice system that's being used for revenge.
She ran explicitly, you vote for me to be your
maturity general State of New York, and I will go
after Donald Trump. And the case that she did. She
(06:43):
had to put together a misdemeanor and a felty that
I've never been put together anyway. I don't want to
relitigate that, but she's she used law fare, and lawfair
is now coming back to bite her, no question about it.
Karas Canal was outside the courthouse today.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
This is like a campaign vibe out here. When Letitia
James just came out of the courthouse after pleading not
guilty to that one count of bank fraud and that
one kind of making a false statement to a financial institution,
she was met by this large crowd that was chanting
we stand with Tish, holding up signs of saying, don't
turn the federal judiciary into a kangaroo court. Just a
(07:25):
swarm of supporters were out here as she exited the courtroom,
and then as you saw, came and spoke to the cameras,
thanking everyone for coming here, saying that they were lifting
her up, and saying that this was a vindictive prosecution,
an effort to turn the Justice Department into a tool
of revenge. As she said, now this whole hearing took
place is just about a half an hour. James appeared
(07:46):
in court. Inside the courtroom were numbers of family members
and friends. They were lining a back row of the courtroom.
Some were sitting just a few seats away from me
in the galley. And she walked in, she looked towards them,
she smiled, She looked like she was beaming inside that
courtroom with all the support both inside and now outside
the courtroom.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
As well as she's just leaving.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
But you know, they got down to business inside the courtroom.
They set a trial date in this case now for
January twenty six. They have set a motion schedule to
try to speed things along. Abby Lowell, Tish, James's attorney,
said that he doesn't intend to challenge Lindsay Halligan as
being validly serving as the US attorney. The judge said,
(08:33):
once he officially gets that motion, he will recommend that
the case he transferred to the same judge who is
hearing James Comey, the former FBI Director's challenge of Halligan's authority,
and that judge can decide to consolidate those cases. The
government did not object to that, so that will be
one course that will take place. There's also Lowell said
he expects that he will file a motion around the
(08:54):
concept of vindicted or selective prosecution.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
He said that's the worst.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Kept secret in this case that he's going to pursue
that as feeling that this was not a valid case.
But he said he wants to see more of the
discovery that was turned over as part of this investigation
to help inform the decision making and then there will
be the traditional motion practice. He intimated that he didn't
think some of the crimes charged were supported by the
allegations in the indictment, and he would look to challenge those.
(09:20):
So we've already teed up that they're going to be
at least three hearings now before this goes to trial.
But it is the Eastern District of Virginia, this is
going to move much more coally than it does in
other instances. And the judge reminding everyone there's only one
attorney who's practiced before and before he said he wants
everyone to get up to see with how things were
going to stick stricks so things can stay on track.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So these motions are actually pretty interesting because on the
one hand, he says, no, I'm not going to challenge
Abby Lowell said for Letitia James, he's not going to
challenge Lindsay Halligan as whether or not she's validly the
acting US attorney. But the judge may consider combining Letitia
(10:01):
James case with James Colmey's case. They're both filed in
the Eastern District of Virginia, and Colby said, I want
a quick trial, and this judge set this for January
twenty six, and you've got these other motions about putting
them together. The judge may put them together. There's also
the motion about selective prosecution. So it's going to be
(10:24):
a very interesting come January when if these two cases
get put into the same court at the same time.
Today's also day twenty four of the government shutdown, and
today was supposed to be a payday for federal employees.
So for you federal employees, I'm sorry that did not happen.
(10:48):
Last night. There were ground stops at LaGuardia, Newark Airport,
Reagan Airport in Washington, and Bush Airport in Houston. So
that's getting to be a little bit worse. And for
those of you that have flights that you're counting on,
good luck on some of that. James Langford, the Senator
(11:10):
from Oklahoma, was talking about this earlier today.
Speaker 7 (11:15):
The crazy thing is they keep saying, well, this is
about healthcare piece. Well, in twenty thirteen, as folks recall,
Republicans were mad about Obamacare. We were pretty clear about it,
and we had a big government shutdown, it was shorter
than this one, and Democrats at that time said we
will not negotiate on healthcare while the government is closed. Now,
it's literally the opposite on it that we're saying, we're
(11:35):
not going to negotiate on health care. Healthcare is incredibly complicated.
You can't do it while people are not getting snaped benefits,
people are not getting paid, air traffic controllers aren't getting paid.
You can't sit there and say we'll do this little
tweak and that's going to be enough.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It's not enough.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
So let's actually have a real conversation about all these issues,
but not while there's a shutdown. We never shut the
government down on President Biden. Thirteen times we had a
moment like this in his presidency. We didn't do this.
All those folks that were unaffected. So the key thing
that we're trying to be able to drive here is
let's keep the government open while we're negotiating. It's a
big shock Republicans and Democrats don't agree on things, But
(12:10):
why are we punishing people that shouldn't be punished for it?
In the meantime on it and the healthcare piece on it,
they've been all over the place on what they're looking for,
and they're finally coming back out and saying, Okay, let's
just do one year your latest piece. So it's just
one year, and our Mason question is okay, well, let's
talk about this. In my state, the Affordable Care Act
and all the folks that are on that healthcare program.
Over the six year period, the premiums went up two
(12:32):
hundred percent at the same time commercial insurance went up
twenty nine percent. There is a structural problem there. The
more money we dump into it doesn't fix the structural problem.
And for them to just over and over it against
I just give us more money, just give us more
money on it doesn't fix the real issue that's there.
And so this is not as simple as just throw
more money at it and that's all we need.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's sort of amazing. If commercial insurance went up twenty
some percent and the premiums for for the Affordable Care
Act went up over two hundred percent in the same period,
there's something else going on with this government run healthcare.
And usually government run anything is full of large So
I think they do need to sit down and work
(13:14):
that out. I don't know why anybody would be against that,
but apparently they are. Even though the government has shut down.
They apparently called in the people that worked for the
Bureau of Labor Statistics so that they could produce the
consumer Price Index report. It was supposed to be out
well over a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, but
(13:36):
they got it out today. This is the September inflation
report at the consumer level, and it came out at
three point zero percent. Remember, the FED has the target
they wanted to be down to two percent, so it
was higher than that, but it was It was up
(13:57):
from August, but slightly less than what they expected. It
was three percent. They were expecting three point one. So
no matter how you look at this, it's probably not
going to affect what the FED is going to do.
The Fed's going to meet next week to decide about
interest rates, and everybody and their brother is expecting them
to lower interest rates again next week. But as far
(14:20):
as this is the highest inflation rate we've had since January.
But Kevin has it National Economic Council Chairman. He's going
to put the White House spin on this. But Kevin's
a good guy. But listen to what he has to say.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
Yeah, I think this is actually a really great report,
and the market is responding appropriately to really good news
because forty eight economists for Bloomberg said that this number
was going to go way up. That if you look
at the core CPI, which is the thing that economists
rely most on because it takes out some volatable things
like gasoline, that it was down from August and below
expectation and headed in the right direction. And the top
(15:01):
line number was a little bit up, but that was
because there was a refinery shut down in September and
so gas prices went up. But we've already seen the
gas prices are going way down in October. So the
next time we get CPI release when they opened the
government government again, that we're going to see even further
reductions of inflation. The bottom line is the markets are
responding not because they think inflation's going up, but because
(15:23):
they believe, as we know is true, that inflation is
headed in the right trajectory. And here's what I would
like to say about that, that if you go back
and look at the history of the Biden administration, then
what people are going to say is that Biden's runaway
deficits caused the biggest inflation spike basically we had since
the seventies. There's no dispute about that. Really, well, why
(15:44):
is inflation going down now? Well, it's because President Trump's
policies are set. We just did the calculation to reduce
the deficit by six hundred billion dollars this year alone,
and that's because we've got Laffer curve effects. So tax
revenue is up about two hundred billion. We've cut discretionary
spending already this year by about two hundred billion, and
we've got the tariff revity, and so we're doing the
(16:05):
exact opposite of what Biden did defeat inflation.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so of course inflation's going down. Kay, the only
way we could go.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Well, I look at the facts of the faction. Kevin
puts the White House spin on things. But inflation is
at three percent for the month of September. But that's
been going up inflation. He keeps saying inflation's going down.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The Fed keeps saying we wanted to get down to
two percent. It hasn't gotten there, and it got down
to about three and a half I'm sorry, about two
and a half percent, and then it's been climbing about
one tenth of a percent per month. It's not big.
There's no big skyrocketing inflation here. But it's going up,
(16:46):
it's not going down, up about one tenth. Like I said,
August was two point nine. September number today is three
point zero. It was expected to be three point one.
So this again should not affect anything the Fed's going
to do next week, even though it's above their target range.
And the reason why is because the federal reserve is less.
(17:07):
I mean, they got two things they got to watch,
inflation and the other one is jobs, and the job
market is getting fragile. I guess that's a good way
to say it. So the total debt that we have,
also the debt clock costs thirty eight trillion dollars this week.
(17:28):
Where now, yeah, how did the debt go up if
inflation In any case, the debt is up to thirty
eight trillion dollars and growing, and inflation is climbing at
a very very slow rate. So I've got and the
the other question about this is do you believe the numbers?
(17:49):
Because these are there's a bunch of people out there
today talking about the fact that the numbers may be rigged.
But the Bureau of Labor Statistics called in their employees
to come up with this number. And I've got this
summary report. Let's take a look at some of the
numbers here. Energy, well, energy's two point eight percent, right,
(18:13):
Gasoline down four tenths of one percent. That's good. But
we look down here at utilities up eleven point seven percent.
We all have utility expenses. The power company, if you will,
electricity up five point one percent. Energy service is up
(18:36):
six point four percent. Where's my other's the automobiles? Used
cars up five point one percent. The reason for that
is people are going into the showrooms and finding that
the new cars have tariff prices on them, so they're
going for the used cars. So, I mean there are
some prices that are down. The services sector three point
(19:02):
five percent. That's not good. Medical care up seven tenths
of one percent. So you can look across from find
exactly what's up and what's down. But the overall net
net number on the consumer Price Index up to three
point zero percent in the month of September. Rick Santelli,
(19:23):
who is a guy at the Chicago Commodities House, he's
been with CNBC forever and he even listened to what
he has to say about this. He's even questioning some
of it.
Speaker 9 (19:38):
This is a very important number because the market without
any data.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Points, has been pretty much viewed on the.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
Notion that the labor market is slowing, and that really
is a good thing if you're looking for the FED
cycle to continue its rate cuts.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You know, when I look at stocks.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
Don't you most of the guests don't they say, Wow,
it's getting a little frothy, it's getting a little fraudt See.
My theory is, my epiphany is is that the only
honest metric we're getting about the US economy now, in
my opinion, is the stock market. Because I think all
the professionals, I think they look at many things through
the prism that's affected politically, and I think a lot
(20:16):
of the weakness that we see showing up comes from surveys.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And now I have a huge mistrust of surveys.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, so he doesn't believe some of these surveys that
are out there, and this is one of them. Consumer
Price Index is a survey. And so he's even and
the guy's been there forever. He's questioning all of this
these numbers right now. But he's right. The stock market
is a reflection of corporate earnings, and corporate earnings are growing,
and so the stock market's growing At the same time,
(20:45):
you can have two things happen. You can have the
stock market growing, you can also have inflation growing. It's
not a lot, there's no alarm bills going off, but
it is continuing to go up about one tenth of
a percent per month. Inflation and prices are higher. Meantime,
the President leaving on a very important trip this evening,
(21:06):
heading out of Washington, flying over to Malaysia. He's going
to be Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea, and South Korea
is where he's going to be meeting with President She
of China next Thursday. By the time he gains so
that's the end of his trip. After he meets with
President She, he's heading on Air Force one back home
(21:29):
to Washington. So this is going to be an important
week to walk. Like I said, he heads out tonight,
so he'll be Malaysia, Japan, and China, and we'll see
whether or not there's any breakthrough with China. The last
round of the president raising lowering raising lowering on China
was one hundred percent tariffs going into effect November first,
(21:52):
So I doubt that that's going to happen, and I
would expect that some breakthrough in that takes place at
least by Thursday. But things are not all that warm
and cutly. When we talk about Canada, the Canadians put
out an ad that made President Trump mad, so he
(22:13):
sent out a True Social Actually he sent out three folkts.
But you know how he does that stuff. Here's one
of them, says theed the so aling caps. By the way,
the United States is wealthy, powerful, and nationally secure again
all because of tariffs. The most important case ever is
(22:34):
in the United States Supreme Court. God bless America. Yeah,
the Supreme Court has a case in front of them
about does Donald Trump have the authority to single hand
at least audition out tariffs. So that's going to be
a big one. Then another post came out from True
Social The stock market is stronger than ever because of tariffs. No,
(23:00):
in fact, when he first did tariffs, what did this
stock market do?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It plunged.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Here's the third one. This is the one about Canada.
Most of it's no, part of it is in caps.
Canada cheated and got caught. They fraudulently took a big
buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like tariffs,
but actually he loved tariffs for our country and its
(23:26):
national security. Canada is trying to illegally influence the United
States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings
in the history of our country. Canada has long cheated
on tariffs, charging our farmers as much as four hundred percent.
That's let me clarify that for you. Now they and
other countries can't take advantage of the US any longer.
(23:49):
Thank you to Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing the fraud.
Make America great Again. So what happened was is a
bunch to unpack here the ad was edited. This is
an old Ronald Reagan radio He used to do radio
presidential radio, not shows, but just an announcement from the
(24:11):
president every Saturday. And on one of those Saturdays he
talked about the tariffs, and I'll play it for you.
But what he said was tariffs are terrible. He didn't
love tariffs at all. And the part that Canada edited
out was the fact that he said except for specific
cases involving national security. So that's where Ronald Reagan was
(24:35):
listen to what he actually said in this radio statement.
This is from April twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 10 (24:45):
First, when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports.
It looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting
American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while
it works, but only for a short time. What eventually
occurs is first homegrown industries start relying on government protection
in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and
(25:09):
stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need
to succeed in world markets. And then while all this
is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably
lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of
fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs,
higher and higher trade barriers, in less and less competition.
(25:32):
So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by
tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.
Then the worst happens. Market shrink and collapse, businesses and
industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
The memory of all this occurring back in the thirties
made me determined when I came to Washington to spare
(25:53):
the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. So
I've always been Reagan Republican. I mean when I was
a Republican, I was truly a Reagan Republican. And he
explained it perfectly. He talked about the he remembered from
the nineteen thirties that was tariff, the huge tariffs that were.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Put in that well, a lot of economists looked at
and say, if it did not cause the Great Depression,
it was certainly a contributing, a large contributing element. So tariffs,
he said it better than any economists I've ever heard.
They caused supply problems, they caused shortages, they cause inflation.
(26:39):
So I don't know where in that President Trump said
that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs. Didn't sound like it to me.
So Mark Carney, the Premier of Canada, was interviewed at
the airport in Ottawa before he got on the plane.
Guess where he's going, same place that Donald Trump is going.
(27:01):
He's going to Malaysia, Japan, in South Korea. So he's
going to be meeting with a lot of the Asian
leaders about doing business with Canada.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Science. All right, good morning.
Speaker 11 (27:16):
Look, for months we have stressed the importance of distinguishing
things we can control and.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Things we can't control. We can't control the trade policy
of the United States.
Speaker 11 (27:29):
We recognize that that policy has fundamentally changed from the
policy in the nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, two thousands, and
it's a situation where the United States has tariffs against
every one of their trading partners to different degrees. And
it's in that context that our officials, my colleagues have
(27:50):
been working with their American colleagues on detailed, constructive negotiations,
discussions on specific transaction, specific sectors steel, aluminum, and energy,
and a lot of progress has been made and we
stand ready to pick up on that progress and build
(28:13):
on that progress when Americans are ready to have those discussions,
because it will be for the benefit of workers in
the United States, workers in Canada, and families in both
of our countries. Now, what we can control absolutely is
how we build here at home. That's the focus a
(28:35):
budget twenty twenty five generational investment here in Canada. And
when we can also control or at least heavily influenced,
he is developing new partnerships and opportunities, including with the
economic giants of Asia, which is the focus of this
strip off Rosse.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
So that was Mark Carney, the I think it's the premiere.
He's a Prime Minister of Canada. And that was at
the Auto airport as he's heading to Asia. And did
you hear the last part of his statement he said,
and the focus will be on the Asian giants. That's
where he's going to go, talk to the people that
leave Japan, South Korea and China and try and get
(29:14):
some business for Canada. So we got a trade war
going with them, and Donald Trump stopped all of the
trade negotiations because he heard the Ronald Reagan ad and
he didn't like it. Scott Linscomb, he is with CATO,
the big libertarian group, and he was asked about Okay,
so the trade war with China, how is that shaping
(29:35):
up as the president's heading that way?
Speaker 12 (29:37):
Well, it's certainly worse today than it was just a
few weeks ago when things haven't really seemed to settle down.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But then the United States imposed some new.
Speaker 12 (29:46):
Export controls on semiconductors and other technologies, and then China
retaliated to that with new significant export controls on rare
earth minerals, which are used in a lot of electronics,
doable energy, and autos. And then of course President Trump
came back and threatened one hundred percent tariff increase effective
(30:08):
November first. So we in a very short time things
have escalated dramatically and we're hoping that the two leaders
can calm things down next week. Well, the first thing
is just to lower the temperature on all of this,
because trade wars become trade wars because each side hits
and hits back, and this tit for tat action ends
(30:31):
up in a full blown trade war. But the other
thing is that the president has both political issues he
needs to needs to deal with and economic ones. The
political one is the soybean export situation with the Chinese
having not purchased almost any soybeans this year, and that's
harming American farmers at depressing soybean prices. But then there
(30:53):
are real economic issues as well. Trump needs to find
a way an off ramp for these one hundred percent
tariffs because those could lead back to what we were
seeing in the spring, with a lot of investor nerves
about the really trillions of dollars in trade investment sales
and the rest that could be implicated. The other thing
(31:14):
is they got to deal with rare earths because the
Chinese export restrictions have really freaked out not just automakers
in the US and others, but other companies in other
places like Europe, and they've got to find a way
to resolve that too, just again to kind of get
things on a better trap.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I don't have any inside information, but I got a
feeling that President Trump is going to use this Asian
trip to make all kinds of wonderful announcements about how
they've reached agreements with Asian countries, especially China. I think
it's going to be once they meet face to face,
that there will be some smoothing over of this trade war.
(31:54):
I'm being optimistic. I know the markets were optimistic today,
but earlier we played Kevin has I was talking about
the markets loved the fact that inflation is so great,
and I'm going, no, it had nothing to do with that.
It has to do with the fact that because the
inflation numbers went up just a little, that the Fed
has room to lower interest rates next week. And that
(32:17):
is what the market was optimistic about today, and it
did great. It was a wonderful day on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrials for the first time above forty
seven thousand, obviously new record. The Dow at forty seven
thousand and two to oh seven. That was a game
today of four hundred and seventy two points, the S
and P up fifty two, the Nasdaq up two hundred
(32:39):
and sixty three, the price of gold volatile, down nineteen
dollars the forty one to twenty six, and oil down
a little bit today. People are still nervous in the
oil pits about Russian oil with the sanctions and so forth.
So down thirty five cents to sixty one dollars and
some change for a barrel of oil. That's it for today.
(33:01):
Have yourself a wonderful weekend. We'll be back on Monday,
and we hope to see you then
And Hi, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast
on Friday. Today is the twenty fourth day of October,
year of our Lord twenty twenty five. My name is
Tom Sullivan. So interesting day today, we've got day twenty
four of the shutdown. We'll fill in a little bit
of that. We got our Consumer Price index inflation number
(00:44):
out a little delayed, but we got one today. Tariffs man,
they're going back to the Ronald Reagan on tariffs. When
was the date of this thing? Back in nineteen eighty seven?
A clip of Romer Reagan that the Canadians use for
an ad that's made President Trump mad. But let's start
(01:08):
with The Attorney General for the State of New York
was in the defendant's seat at the courthouse Federal Courthouse
in Norfolk, Virginia today. Letitia James. The case, well, the
arraignment was today and this is about well, I'll let
(01:30):
Ellie Honig, who is a lawyer, former federal prosecutor, explain
what the case is all about.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Ocus, we'll be here on.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Letitia James, the Democratic New York State Attorney General. Today
she will find herself in an unfamiliar position, sitting at
the criminal defendants table in a federal court in Virginia.
Now by her side will be her defense lawyer, Abbey lowl.
Abbyloh is one of the most renowned defense lawyers in
the country. He's been practicing for over forty years. He
has other high profile clients, including John Bolton who was
(02:01):
indicted recently, including Lisa Cook who's under investigation.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
He's been a busy guy.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
On the other side of the courtroom, we will have
Lindsay Halligan, who is the current US Attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia. She's been to that job for
about a month. And the way she got this job
is because her predecessor was pushed out and resigned in
part because he refused to charge this very case. And
then finally, the judge is Judge Jamar Walker, relatively new
(02:25):
to the bench. He was appointed by Joe Biden in
twenty twenty three. He actually was a prosecutor in this
same office for about eight years before he became a judge.
And really important to know this case is about more
than just Letitia James. It's about the independence of the
Justice Department. Everyone I think will recall this truth social
post by Donald Trump about a month ago in late
(02:45):
September when he posted to Pambondi, what about Comy Adam
Schiff and Letitia Letitia there of course refers to Letitia James.
Just days later, Lindsay Halligan came in as prosecutor, and
just days after that, Letitia James was indicted.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So this stays. There are even bigger than just this
one defendant.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So she gets her day in court. And there are
two parts to what the federal government is accusing her
of the first one is mortgage fraud and the second
one is lying to the feds. So Trey Goudi, who's
a former prosecutor, well, this is what he thinks about it.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
It's going to depend and the most important thing that
happens today's actually the government's going to have to turn
over its discovery that includes exculpatory evidence. I mean, our
systems unique. The prosecution has to turn over everything, whether
it's good for you or bad for you. So she
takes out a loan saying that she may or may
not occupy this second residence. There's a deminimous benefit from
(03:46):
a mortgage standpoint. That's where the nineteen thousand dollars comes from.
I mean, I would say to the critics of this indictment,
you actually can't steal a little bit of money. So
the dollar amount impacts sentencing, but not culpability, not guilt.
How strong the cases depends upon the witnesses. And we'll
know starting today what the government has because uniquely they
(04:08):
have to turn over stuff that's good and bad for them.
And if she did not lie on these mortgage applications,
then it ain't going to be a good case for
the state, for the government.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
There are a lot of questions about the facts, and
it's somewhere I think Ellie said eighteen thousand dollars. Tray
said nineteen thousand dollars. It's basically the benefit that she
got somewhere in that range by getting a loan at
a lower rate, because she said the home was second
to home, a second home for her, not an investment
(04:40):
rental property. Solatitia James. After the hearing came out and
there was a small crowd, a couple hundred people, and
they were very loud, and they were chanting, and she
I think it was like it was like a pastor
was giving a religious speech. Listen to the little Tsha James,
(05:03):
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I am.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I want to.
Speaker 5 (05:17):
I want to thank all of you. I wanna so,
I want to thank all of you. I want to
thank each and every one of you. I wanna thank
(05:38):
you for your prayers. I want to thank you for
your emails. I want to thank you for your support.
It has, it has it has strengthened my spirit.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And as.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
And it has anchored my souls. So I want to
thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
But this is not about me.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
This is about all of us and about a justice
system which has been weaponized, a justice system.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Which has been used as a tool of revenge.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I don't know. I thought that was kind of rich
that she was talking about a justice system that has
been weaponized and a justice system that's being used for revenge.
She ran explicitly, you vote for me to be your
maturity general State of New York, and I will go
after Donald Trump. And the case that she did. She
(06:43):
had to put together a misdemeanor and a felty that
I've never been put together anyway. I don't want to
relitigate that, but she's she used law fare, and lawfair
is now coming back to bite her, no question about it.
Karas Canal was outside the courthouse today.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
This is like a campaign vibe out here. When Letitia
James just came out of the courthouse after pleading not
guilty to that one count of bank fraud and that
one kind of making a false statement to a financial institution,
she was met by this large crowd that was chanting
we stand with Tish, holding up signs of saying, don't
turn the federal judiciary into a kangaroo court. Just a
(07:25):
swarm of supporters were out here as she exited the courtroom,
and then as you saw, came and spoke to the cameras,
thanking everyone for coming here, saying that they were lifting
her up, and saying that this was a vindictive prosecution,
an effort to turn the Justice Department into a tool
of revenge. As she said, now this whole hearing took
place is just about a half an hour. James appeared
(07:46):
in court. Inside the courtroom were numbers of family members
and friends. They were lining a back row of the courtroom.
Some were sitting just a few seats away from me
in the galley. And she walked in, she looked towards them,
she smiled, She looked like she was beaming inside that
courtroom with all the support both inside and now outside
the courtroom.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
As well as she's just leaving.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
But you know, they got down to business inside the courtroom.
They set a trial date in this case now for
January twenty six. They have set a motion schedule to
try to speed things along. Abby Lowell, Tish, James's attorney,
said that he doesn't intend to challenge Lindsay Halligan as
being validly serving as the US attorney. The judge said,
(08:33):
once he officially gets that motion, he will recommend that
the case he transferred to the same judge who is
hearing James Comey, the former FBI Director's challenge of Halligan's authority,
and that judge can decide to consolidate those cases. The
government did not object to that, so that will be
one course that will take place. There's also Lowell said
he expects that he will file a motion around the
(08:54):
concept of vindicted or selective prosecution.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
He said that's the worst.
Speaker 6 (08:58):
Kept secret in this case that he's going to pursue
that as feeling that this was not a valid case.
But he said he wants to see more of the
discovery that was turned over as part of this investigation
to help inform the decision making and then there will
be the traditional motion practice. He intimated that he didn't
think some of the crimes charged were supported by the
allegations in the indictment, and he would look to challenge those.
(09:20):
So we've already teed up that they're going to be
at least three hearings now before this goes to trial.
But it is the Eastern District of Virginia, this is
going to move much more coally than it does in
other instances. And the judge reminding everyone there's only one
attorney who's practiced before and before he said he wants
everyone to get up to see with how things were
going to stick stricks so things can stay on track.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So these motions are actually pretty interesting because on the
one hand, he says, no, I'm not going to challenge
Abby Lowell said for Letitia James, he's not going to
challenge Lindsay Halligan as whether or not she's validly the
acting US attorney. But the judge may consider combining Letitia
(10:01):
James case with James Colmey's case. They're both filed in
the Eastern District of Virginia, and Colby said, I want
a quick trial, and this judge set this for January
twenty six, and you've got these other motions about putting
them together. The judge may put them together. There's also
the motion about selective prosecution. So it's going to be
(10:24):
a very interesting come January when if these two cases
get put into the same court at the same time.
Today's also day twenty four of the government shutdown, and
today was supposed to be a payday for federal employees.
So for you federal employees, I'm sorry that did not happen.
(10:48):
Last night. There were ground stops at LaGuardia, Newark Airport,
Reagan Airport in Washington, and Bush Airport in Houston. So
that's getting to be a little bit worse. And for
those of you that have flights that you're counting on,
good luck on some of that. James Langford, the Senator
(11:10):
from Oklahoma, was talking about this earlier today.
Speaker 7 (11:15):
The crazy thing is they keep saying, well, this is
about healthcare piece. Well, in twenty thirteen, as folks recall,
Republicans were mad about Obamacare. We were pretty clear about it,
and we had a big government shutdown, it was shorter
than this one, and Democrats at that time said we
will not negotiate on healthcare while the government is closed. Now,
it's literally the opposite on it that we're saying, we're
(11:35):
not going to negotiate on health care. Healthcare is incredibly complicated.
You can't do it while people are not getting snaped benefits,
people are not getting paid, air traffic controllers aren't getting paid.
You can't sit there and say we'll do this little
tweak and that's going to be enough.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
It's not enough.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
So let's actually have a real conversation about all these issues,
but not while there's a shutdown. We never shut the
government down on President Biden. Thirteen times we had a
moment like this in his presidency. We didn't do this.
All those folks that were unaffected. So the key thing
that we're trying to be able to drive here is
let's keep the government open while we're negotiating. It's a
big shock Republicans and Democrats don't agree on things, But
(12:10):
why are we punishing people that shouldn't be punished for it?
In the meantime on it and the healthcare piece on it,
they've been all over the place on what they're looking for,
and they're finally coming back out and saying, Okay, let's
just do one year your latest piece. So it's just
one year, and our Mason question is okay, well, let's
talk about this. In my state, the Affordable Care Act
and all the folks that are on that healthcare program.
Over the six year period, the premiums went up two
(12:32):
hundred percent at the same time commercial insurance went up
twenty nine percent. There is a structural problem there. The
more money we dump into it doesn't fix the structural problem.
And for them to just over and over it against
I just give us more money, just give us more
money on it doesn't fix the real issue that's there.
And so this is not as simple as just throw
more money at it and that's all we need.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's sort of amazing. If commercial insurance went up twenty
some percent and the premiums for for the Affordable Care
Act went up over two hundred percent in the same period,
there's something else going on with this government run healthcare.
And usually government run anything is full of large So
I think they do need to sit down and work
(13:14):
that out. I don't know why anybody would be against that,
but apparently they are. Even though the government has shut down.
They apparently called in the people that worked for the
Bureau of Labor Statistics so that they could produce the
consumer Price Index report. It was supposed to be out
well over a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, but
(13:36):
they got it out today. This is the September inflation
report at the consumer level, and it came out at
three point zero percent. Remember, the FED has the target
they wanted to be down to two percent, so it
was higher than that, but it was It was up
(13:57):
from August, but slightly less than what they expected. It
was three percent. They were expecting three point one. So
no matter how you look at this, it's probably not
going to affect what the FED is going to do.
The Fed's going to meet next week to decide about
interest rates, and everybody and their brother is expecting them
to lower interest rates again next week. But as far
(14:20):
as this is the highest inflation rate we've had since January.
But Kevin has it National Economic Council Chairman. He's going
to put the White House spin on this. But Kevin's
a good guy. But listen to what he has to say.
Speaker 8 (14:37):
Yeah, I think this is actually a really great report,
and the market is responding appropriately to really good news
because forty eight economists for Bloomberg said that this number
was going to go way up. That if you look
at the core CPI, which is the thing that economists
rely most on because it takes out some volatable things
like gasoline, that it was down from August and below
expectation and headed in the right direction. And the top
(15:01):
line number was a little bit up, but that was
because there was a refinery shut down in September and
so gas prices went up. But we've already seen the
gas prices are going way down in October. So the
next time we get CPI release when they opened the
government government again, that we're going to see even further
reductions of inflation. The bottom line is the markets are
responding not because they think inflation's going up, but because
(15:23):
they believe, as we know is true, that inflation is
headed in the right trajectory. And here's what I would
like to say about that, that if you go back
and look at the history of the Biden administration, then
what people are going to say is that Biden's runaway
deficits caused the biggest inflation spike basically we had since
the seventies. There's no dispute about that. Really, well, why
(15:44):
is inflation going down now? Well, it's because President Trump's
policies are set. We just did the calculation to reduce
the deficit by six hundred billion dollars this year alone,
and that's because we've got Laffer curve effects. So tax
revenue is up about two hundred billion. We've cut discretionary
spending already this year by about two hundred billion, and
we've got the tariff revity, and so we're doing the
(16:05):
exact opposite of what Biden did defeat inflation.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And so of course inflation's going down. Kay, the only
way we could go.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Well, I look at the facts of the faction. Kevin
puts the White House spin on things. But inflation is
at three percent for the month of September. But that's
been going up inflation. He keeps saying inflation's going down.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
The Fed keeps saying we wanted to get down to
two percent. It hasn't gotten there, and it got down
to about three and a half I'm sorry, about two
and a half percent, and then it's been climbing about
one tenth of a percent per month. It's not big.
There's no big skyrocketing inflation here. But it's going up,
(16:46):
it's not going down, up about one tenth. Like I said,
August was two point nine. September number today is three
point zero. It was expected to be three point one.
So this again should not affect anything the Fed's going
to do next week, even though it's above their target range.
And the reason why is because the federal reserve is less.
(17:07):
I mean, they got two things they got to watch,
inflation and the other one is jobs, and the job
market is getting fragile. I guess that's a good way
to say it. So the total debt that we have,
also the debt clock costs thirty eight trillion dollars this week.
(17:28):
Where now, yeah, how did the debt go up if
inflation In any case, the debt is up to thirty
eight trillion dollars and growing, and inflation is climbing at
a very very slow rate. So I've got and the
the other question about this is do you believe the numbers?
(17:49):
Because these are there's a bunch of people out there
today talking about the fact that the numbers may be rigged.
But the Bureau of Labor Statistics called in their employees
to come up with this number. And I've got this
summary report. Let's take a look at some of the
numbers here. Energy, well, energy's two point eight percent, right,
(18:13):
Gasoline down four tenths of one percent. That's good. But
we look down here at utilities up eleven point seven percent.
We all have utility expenses. The power company, if you will,
electricity up five point one percent. Energy service is up
(18:36):
six point four percent. Where's my other's the automobiles? Used
cars up five point one percent. The reason for that
is people are going into the showrooms and finding that
the new cars have tariff prices on them, so they're
going for the used cars. So, I mean there are
some prices that are down. The services sector three point
(19:02):
five percent. That's not good. Medical care up seven tenths
of one percent. So you can look across from find
exactly what's up and what's down. But the overall net
net number on the consumer Price Index up to three
point zero percent in the month of September. Rick Santelli,
(19:23):
who is a guy at the Chicago Commodities House, he's
been with CNBC forever and he even listened to what
he has to say about this. He's even questioning some
of it.
Speaker 9 (19:38):
This is a very important number because the market without
any data.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Points, has been pretty much viewed on the.
Speaker 9 (19:45):
Notion that the labor market is slowing, and that really
is a good thing if you're looking for the FED
cycle to continue its rate cuts.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You know, when I look at stocks.
Speaker 9 (19:55):
Don't you most of the guests don't they say, Wow,
it's getting a little frothy, it's getting a little fraudt See.
My theory is, my epiphany is is that the only
honest metric we're getting about the US economy now, in
my opinion, is the stock market. Because I think all
the professionals, I think they look at many things through
the prism that's affected politically, and I think a lot
(20:16):
of the weakness that we see showing up comes from surveys.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And now I have a huge mistrust of surveys.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, so he doesn't believe some of these surveys that
are out there, and this is one of them. Consumer
Price Index is a survey. And so he's even and
the guy's been there forever. He's questioning all of this
these numbers right now. But he's right. The stock market
is a reflection of corporate earnings, and corporate earnings are growing,
and so the stock market's growing At the same time,
(20:45):
you can have two things happen. You can have the
stock market growing, you can also have inflation growing. It's
not a lot, there's no alarm bills going off, but
it is continuing to go up about one tenth of
a percent per month. Inflation and prices are higher. Meantime,
the President leaving on a very important trip this evening,
(21:06):
heading out of Washington, flying over to Malaysia. He's going
to be Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea, and South Korea
is where he's going to be meeting with President She
of China next Thursday. By the time he gains so
that's the end of his trip. After he meets with
President She, he's heading on Air Force one back home
(21:29):
to Washington. So this is going to be an important
week to walk. Like I said, he heads out tonight,
so he'll be Malaysia, Japan, and China, and we'll see
whether or not there's any breakthrough with China. The last
round of the president raising lowering raising lowering on China
was one hundred percent tariffs going into effect November first,
(21:52):
So I doubt that that's going to happen, and I
would expect that some breakthrough in that takes place at
least by Thursday. But things are not all that warm
and cutly. When we talk about Canada, the Canadians put
out an ad that made President Trump mad, so he
(22:13):
sent out a True Social Actually he sent out three folkts.
But you know how he does that stuff. Here's one
of them, says theed the so aling caps. By the way,
the United States is wealthy, powerful, and nationally secure again
all because of tariffs. The most important case ever is
(22:34):
in the United States Supreme Court. God bless America. Yeah,
the Supreme Court has a case in front of them
about does Donald Trump have the authority to single hand
at least audition out tariffs. So that's going to be
a big one. Then another post came out from True
Social The stock market is stronger than ever because of tariffs. No,
(23:00):
in fact, when he first did tariffs, what did this
stock market do?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
It plunged.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Here's the third one. This is the one about Canada.
Most of it's no, part of it is in caps.
Canada cheated and got caught. They fraudulently took a big
buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like tariffs,
but actually he loved tariffs for our country and its
(23:26):
national security. Canada is trying to illegally influence the United
States Supreme Court in one of the most important rulings
in the history of our country. Canada has long cheated
on tariffs, charging our farmers as much as four hundred percent.
That's let me clarify that for you. Now they and
other countries can't take advantage of the US any longer.
(23:49):
Thank you to Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing the fraud.
Make America great Again. So what happened was is a
bunch to unpack here the ad was edited. This is
an old Ronald Reagan radio He used to do radio
presidential radio, not shows, but just an announcement from the
(24:11):
president every Saturday. And on one of those Saturdays he
talked about the tariffs, and I'll play it for you.
But what he said was tariffs are terrible. He didn't
love tariffs at all. And the part that Canada edited
out was the fact that he said except for specific
cases involving national security. So that's where Ronald Reagan was
(24:35):
listen to what he actually said in this radio statement.
This is from April twenty fifth, nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 10 (24:45):
First, when someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports.
It looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting
American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while
it works, but only for a short time. What eventually
occurs is first homegrown industries start relying on government protection
in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and
(25:09):
stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need
to succeed in world markets. And then while all this
is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably
lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of
fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs,
higher and higher trade barriers, in less and less competition.
(25:32):
So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by
tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying.
Then the worst happens. Market shrink and collapse, businesses and
industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.
The memory of all this occurring back in the thirties
made me determined when I came to Washington to spare
(25:53):
the American people the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity. So
I've always been Reagan Republican. I mean when I was
a Republican, I was truly a Reagan Republican. And he
explained it perfectly. He talked about the he remembered from
the nineteen thirties that was tariff, the huge tariffs that were.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Put in that well, a lot of economists looked at
and say, if it did not cause the Great Depression,
it was certainly a contributing, a large contributing element. So tariffs,
he said it better than any economists I've ever heard.
They caused supply problems, they caused shortages, they cause inflation.
(26:39):
So I don't know where in that President Trump said
that Ronald Reagan loved tariffs. Didn't sound like it to me.
So Mark Carney, the Premier of Canada, was interviewed at
the airport in Ottawa before he got on the plane.
Guess where he's going, same place that Donald Trump is going.
(27:01):
He's going to Malaysia, Japan, in South Korea. So he's
going to be meeting with a lot of the Asian
leaders about doing business with Canada.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Science. All right, good morning.
Speaker 11 (27:16):
Look, for months we have stressed the importance of distinguishing
things we can control and.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Things we can't control. We can't control the trade policy
of the United States.
Speaker 11 (27:29):
We recognize that that policy has fundamentally changed from the
policy in the nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties, two thousands, and
it's a situation where the United States has tariffs against
every one of their trading partners to different degrees. And
it's in that context that our officials, my colleagues have
(27:50):
been working with their American colleagues on detailed, constructive negotiations,
discussions on specific transaction, specific sectors steel, aluminum, and energy,
and a lot of progress has been made and we
stand ready to pick up on that progress and build
(28:13):
on that progress when Americans are ready to have those discussions,
because it will be for the benefit of workers in
the United States, workers in Canada, and families in both
of our countries. Now, what we can control absolutely is
how we build here at home. That's the focus a
(28:35):
budget twenty twenty five generational investment here in Canada. And
when we can also control or at least heavily influenced,
he is developing new partnerships and opportunities, including with the
economic giants of Asia, which is the focus of this
strip off Rosse.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
So that was Mark Carney, the I think it's the premiere.
He's a Prime Minister of Canada. And that was at
the Auto airport as he's heading to Asia. And did
you hear the last part of his statement he said,
and the focus will be on the Asian giants. That's
where he's going to go, talk to the people that
leave Japan, South Korea and China and try and get
(29:14):
some business for Canada. So we got a trade war
going with them, and Donald Trump stopped all of the
trade negotiations because he heard the Ronald Reagan ad and
he didn't like it. Scott Linscomb, he is with CATO,
the big libertarian group, and he was asked about Okay,
so the trade war with China, how is that shaping
(29:35):
up as the president's heading that way?
Speaker 12 (29:37):
Well, it's certainly worse today than it was just a
few weeks ago when things haven't really seemed to settle down.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But then the United States imposed some new.
Speaker 12 (29:46):
Export controls on semiconductors and other technologies, and then China
retaliated to that with new significant export controls on rare
earth minerals, which are used in a lot of electronics,
doable energy, and autos. And then of course President Trump
came back and threatened one hundred percent tariff increase effective
(30:08):
November first. So we in a very short time things
have escalated dramatically and we're hoping that the two leaders
can calm things down next week. Well, the first thing
is just to lower the temperature on all of this,
because trade wars become trade wars because each side hits
and hits back, and this tit for tat action ends
(30:31):
up in a full blown trade war. But the other
thing is that the president has both political issues he
needs to needs to deal with and economic ones. The
political one is the soybean export situation with the Chinese
having not purchased almost any soybeans this year, and that's
harming American farmers at depressing soybean prices. But then there
(30:53):
are real economic issues as well. Trump needs to find
a way an off ramp for these one hundred percent
tariffs because those could lead back to what we were
seeing in the spring, with a lot of investor nerves
about the really trillions of dollars in trade investment sales
and the rest that could be implicated. The other thing
(31:14):
is they got to deal with rare earths because the
Chinese export restrictions have really freaked out not just automakers
in the US and others, but other companies in other
places like Europe, and they've got to find a way
to resolve that too, just again to kind of get
things on a better trap.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I don't have any inside information, but I got a
feeling that President Trump is going to use this Asian
trip to make all kinds of wonderful announcements about how
they've reached agreements with Asian countries, especially China. I think
it's going to be once they meet face to face,
that there will be some smoothing over of this trade war.
(31:54):
I'm being optimistic. I know the markets were optimistic today,
but earlier we played Kevin has I was talking about
the markets loved the fact that inflation is so great,
and I'm going, no, it had nothing to do with that.
It has to do with the fact that because the
inflation numbers went up just a little, that the Fed
has room to lower interest rates next week. And that
(32:17):
is what the market was optimistic about today, and it
did great. It was a wonderful day on Wall Street.
The Dow Jones industrials for the first time above forty
seven thousand, obviously new record. The Dow at forty seven
thousand and two to oh seven. That was a game
today of four hundred and seventy two points, the S
and P up fifty two, the Nasdaq up two hundred
(32:39):
and sixty three, the price of gold volatile, down nineteen
dollars the forty one to twenty six, and oil down
a little bit today. People are still nervous in the
oil pits about Russian oil with the sanctions and so forth.
So down thirty five cents to sixty one dollars and
some change for a barrel of oil. That's it for today.
(33:01):
Have yourself a wonderful weekend. We'll be back on Monday,
and we hope to see you then
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