October 31, 2025 • 43 mins
China and nuke testing by the US. What kind of nuke testing? Two Federal judges ruled the government must use a $6 billion contingency fund to pay SNAP benefits. The problem is SNAP benefits equal close to $9 billion per month. Democrats will ramp up their campaigns to be the next nominee after next Tuesday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
And Hello, Hi, how are you welcome to the Big
Podcast on this Friday. Today's the thirty first day of October,
Happy Halloween, on the year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five.
My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
So so so.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We've got a lot to go over today. We just
got word as we are recording this podcast today that
the government, there's been two judges with this afternoon, one
federal judge in Rhode Island and another federal judge almost
simultaneously in Boston, so they're both New England, have blocked
(01:04):
the Trump administration from stopping Snap benefits footstamp benefits during
the government shutdown. So this all was supposed to come
to a screeching halt tonight tomorrow. Those on SNAP were
not going to be able to use there wouldn't be
any funds on their cards. Now I don't personally know
(01:27):
how those cards get loaded. The foodstamps. That terminology came
because when the program first started many years ago, they
actually had a book of stamps, and depending upon how
much the bill was at the cashier, they peeled off
a number of stamps. But it led to a lot
(01:49):
of people feeling shame, guilt, whatever, some sort of negative
feeling because they everybody stand in line. That was before
they had the checkout automatic checkout things, but the kiosk uh,
so everybody would see that, Oh, that's the person that's
(02:11):
on food stamps. So they changed it to a card
that looks like a credit card. I don't know how
they load those. I don't know. With these judges, like
I said, two of them this afternoon almost simultaneously said yeah,
you've got to You've got a fund that those food stamps,
(02:31):
the SNAP benefits. Uh. And what the judge said, This
one judge out of Rhode Island named Judge Jack McConnell,
said that, uh. The he said the administration must use
a six billion dollar contingency fund already set aside by
(02:55):
Congress to continue using SNAP benefits. Now, these funds, the
six billion dollars, are apparently at the United States Department
of Agriculture USDA. Now, yesterday the Secretary of Agriculture said
we can't legally use those. Well, this one judge today said, yeah,
well yes you can. But here's the problem. The contingency
(03:19):
fund has six billion dollars in it sounds like a
lot of money, but the SNAP program takes almost nine
billion per month, so they can't. I don't know how
they do this. If they if they load them once
a month, I think so, but they don't have enough
to load everything. They have six billion, but they cost
(03:42):
nine billion, so they I don't know what they're going
to do, and I don't know whether the federal government
is going to appeal this or not. But that is
the ruling that has come out, So that brings up
the other question too. These are two judges, federal judges
in federal districts New England, one in Massachusetts, one in
(04:02):
Rhode Island. You know, they were judge shopping on this
because that part of the country is very, very liberal,
Rhode Island and Boston, of course, so you knew they
were going to get a favorable ruling on this. So
now the question is who's running the country. And I
thought that the Supreme Court admonished federal judges and said
(04:25):
you can decide federal law for your district, but not
for the nation. That's not your role. But both of
these judges have made rulings that basically apply to the
entire country, the forty two million people that are on
SNAP benefits, not just the people that live in Massachusetts
(04:46):
or the people that live in Rhode Island. So again
it goes back to who is running the country. Is
it the judges or is it Congress. Congress is the
one who set these funds aside, put them in the
executive branch, and the executive branch said it wasn't legal
to use. Judges said, yes you can. But again, the
problem is they have a six billion dollar fund contingency fund,
(05:09):
and that will be completely wiped out and then some
because it takes nine billion dollars to do it. So
we've got that. We've also well, let's let's get into
this whole thing about pick up from where we left yesterday.
President had come back from his Asian trip, and it
(05:29):
was fascinating to hear the analysis because the president, who
always the way he thinks, the way he works, the
way he speaks is always everything's the greatest, the best,
head on and on. And that's good. I'm glad to
see the man as super positive. The problem is with
a lot of people that know about the relationship with China,
(05:54):
said no, China has got a different message saying it
wasn't all that great. So there's still a lot to
work out. Two things about the talks with China. One
of them is about Taiwan. The other one is about
the President said we're going to start nuclear testing again.
(06:17):
General Keen weighs in on both. Let's start with his
reaction regarding the fact that nothing was said about Taiwan.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I really would have
liked that to be on the agenda. Maybe it was
on the agenda. I don't know who was talked about.
I think if it was that any progress would have
been made there, we would know about it. I really
do think that China clearly matters in sustaining Russia. Not
just what do oil, but that's primary, but they provide
(06:46):
everything short of a weapon system to them to keep
them moving. They are their number one supplier in keeping
Putin in the war and compensating for the short falls
he has in his defense industrial base. And we're going
to have to deal with China when it pertains to
support for Russia at some point here.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So I'm curious as to why Taiwan was not on
the agenda. Wasn't even discussed about the nuclear testing. This
is something that was brought up by President Trump just
before the meeting with President she and his delegation in
South Korea.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
You know, I can only speculate here, but it's been
known for a number of years. I mean, the three
countries that are testing openly nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan,
and North Korea. We have suspected for years, and I
likely Trump took a briefing before he went on this
trip that China and Russia have been secretly testing nuclear warheads,
(07:47):
and likely the President has a pretty good fidelity on
what that is, if that actually has been taking place,
and that may have been on his mind knowing that reality.
I'm only speculating as to why he wants to resume
that testing, because he wants to shut them down. This
isn't He doesn't want to escalate, as you well know.
(08:08):
He wants to reduce the number of nuclear weapons we
have while China is expanding it, trying to catch us
and go past us. He would like to get into
a deal with China, Russia in the United States sitting
down around a table and let's reduce the number of
nuclear weapons. Russia's increasing theirs because they've got tactical nuclear
weapons now because they broke part with the IMF treaty.
(08:30):
The Reagan established, and she is on the march with
modernized nuclear weapons and his desires to go right past
what Russia and the United States have. And when you're
looking at the you got to look at the both
of them as being adversaries of ours and combine their
nuclear weapons together is the issue for the United States
and dealing with this, And there's no wonder the President
(08:52):
wants to sit down and have a discussion on bringing
this all down to something that's far more reasonable.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Fascinating because if Russia and China are both increasing their
nuclear weapon capability and President Trump wants to reduce them,
something's got to give. Here's what the President actually said
about nuke testing.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Things I discussed with President put in the other It
wasn't just that, it was also other things. And I
think the denuclearization is a very it's a big game.
But Russia is willing to do it, and I think
China is going to be willing to do it now.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That statement by President Trump, that's from a comment that
he made two months ago. So why he wants to
start nuclear testing again? And the question is what kind
of nuclear testing? Admiral Stravitees had this comment about it.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I don't think related. You know three different things. Here,
a nuclear weapon, everyone knows what that is, goes off,
mushroom cloud, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, devastating. There is nuclear power, which
is electricity generated by nuclear capability. That's benign generally and
(10:10):
is part of what Putin has been talking about. Nuclear
powered torpedoes, nuclear powered cruise missiles. Third thing nuclear testing,
That is detonating a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
You're correct.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
The United States hasn't done that since the early nineteen nineties.
Neither has Russia, neither has China. I hope we can
avoid that. The only country that's done a nuclear test
detonating a nuclear weapon of late is North Korea. I
think it's unlikely to happen, and I think President Trump
probably conflated nuclear power because Putin was talking about all
(10:51):
of his new nuclear powered weapons. So President Trump kind
of converted that to we're going to do nuclear testing
to keep up with them, to show them we're strong.
I'm all for showing them we're strong. I'm not for
nuclear testing, and I doubt the President actually is either
do we need to.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Show them that we're strong or do they know that
we're strong.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
I think a bit of both. They're certainly aware that
we have the pre eminent military force in the world.
Our budget is triple that of China, it's four times
maybe five times that of Russia. And it's a highly
blooded armed force because of twenty years in the Forever Wars,
a lot of combat experience. They know all that. On
(11:33):
the other hand, or yes, we have to continually demonstrate
to our opponents that we have that capability. Hopefully you
do it without nuclear testing, without actually attacking other countries.
You do it in tests and exercises, working with your allies.
When necessary, use actual force, like the President did against Iran.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
What do these tests look like?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
It is if you were going to do one. You
could do an underground version, that's what North Korea ostensibly did.
You can do it above ground, but it creates a
messy radiation cloud. Obviously, you do it in remote test sites,
and I think these days the propensity to go find
(12:19):
a place where you can detonate a nuclear weapon is
quite low, so I wouldn't overstress this as a realistic
possibility at this point. Fortunate.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
How do you think the relationship between President Trump and
President Putin is emerging or shifting?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
It is, and I think it is shifting to the
detriment of President Putin. And that's because President Trump has
reached out on a number of occasions, including the red
carpet ride he gave him up in Alaska at the
Computative Summit a few weeks ago. Really, and all that
seems to look like disrespect to President Trump because Putin
(12:59):
is not shifting his position at all. He's continuing maximalist
demands in Ukraine. And I think President Trump is beginning
to see that President Putin is indeed an extremely malevolent
actor in the international system.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Beren Sadler, who is with the Heritage Foundation former in
the navyes focused on nuclear submarines. His reaction to all
this nukta.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Yes, I mean this has been in the works for
several years.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
The fact that the President chose to announce and to
really publicly commit to this just before he met with
President Chuging Pain is certainly not something to be missed
for the strategic and the messaging significance of that. But
you could start seeing testing, scaled underground testing in the
very near future. Whether or not we're prepared as another question,
but we definitely need to do this.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
It's long overdue.
Speaker 8 (13:48):
Nuclear weapons do go bad, kind of like bread, but
we do need to test how the fundamentals are changing
over time. You do that with digital kind of simulations,
but those are only so good based on years old data.
So the testing is critical to continue to have high
confidence and the viability of our nuclear deterrence that we
rely on.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So back to the point that Russia and China are
both expanding their nuclear capabilities, what do you make of that?
Speaker 8 (14:17):
Well, clearly the Russians and the Chinese have no intent
to backing down on their decades long expansion and modernization
of their nuclear weapon arsenal. The Chinese just a few
years ago triple the size of their intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal,
and so there's no real pressure for them to actually
rein it in unless they're confronted with a strong American
nuclear deterrent. And I think the President realizes that. Putin
(14:41):
also understands the President's desire to get rid of these
very dangerous weapons, and that's why he's dangled it out
several times as a way to try to forestall Harsher
actions against his war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So, while we're keeping an eye on China and Russia
and trying to figure out why the president isn't being
tough on China and talking about Taiwan and Russia and
about the oil. But he hasn't, So we move on.
There was an interesting tweet that came out from cash
Pateel earlier this morning. It says the FBI stopped a
(15:15):
potential terrorist attack in Michigan before it could unfold. Thanks
to swift action and coordination with our partners, a violent
plot tied to international terrorism was disrupted. This is what
defending the homeland looks like. Vigilance saves lives. So what
was this all about? We didn't know. All we know
(15:38):
is that he put out this tweet and then later
the FBI announced that they arrested multiple people in Michigan.
I believe the number turned out to be five. So
it what was this all about? What was going on?
John Miller, former NYPD guy, chimes in.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Well, the FBI swept out out from the Detroit Field
office last night and through this morning, taking people into custody,
executing search warrants, and doing subpoenas for phones, computers, and
other material. This all relates to an investigation that started
months ago into people who were communicating online with each
(16:21):
other here in the United States in the Detroit area Dearborn, Michigan, Inkster, Michigan,
but also talking to people overseas possibly connected to ISIS.
The discussions were geared towards should they do an ISIS
inspired plot here in the United States. The what that
plot was, the when that plot would be, what the
(16:42):
target would be was unclear as they discussed various options
in terms of timing. But this week when a group
of those men that were being monitored went to a
shooting range with AK forty sevens and other weapons, fired
a large number of rounds of ammunition practice tactical high
(17:05):
speed reloads, and in the discussions it was picked up
a reference to what we are told was Pumpkin Day,
a possible reference to Halloween. The FBI went into the
mode of do we have the correct controlling features around
this group in terms of monitoring, physical surveillance, electronic surveillance,
(17:28):
so that if a plot spun up quickly, we could
stop it in time, because now intent has been established,
but capability has increased by the trip to the shooting range,
and the decision was made to take it down now
and sort through who to charge, who to charge with
what based on the evidence they've gathered over these many weeks.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Which is an interesting dilemma for law enforcement because if
they have a bid on a person or a group
of people that are taught about doing terrorist activities, you
can't arrest people for their thoughts or their social media
communication per se. But you also can't wait until they
(18:15):
actually kill somebody. So how do you go in and
stop a terrorist attack before the attack takes place. There
was a guy whose family called law enforcement in the Atlanta,
Georgia area. This was a week or two ago, and
the guy was making all kinds of claims of wanting
(18:35):
to shoot up people in the airport. And sure enough,
he shows up in front of the Atlanta Airport illegally,
parks his truck at the where you drop off passengers,
walks into the airport and is looking around. Now, they
had the beat on this guy, and yet he didn't
have any arms on him. He was just looking around
(18:57):
or was he? Because in his illegal lee park kruk,
it was loaded with high powered ammunition and guns which
are legal to carry apparently in Georgia. So Juliet KM,
who was also former FBI, weighs in more on this
story today out of Michigan.
Speaker 9 (19:19):
It's typical for this administration and this FBI director. I
think we were all sort of adjusting to it because
he'll announce something. Sometimes he announces it not quite before
it's done, and then we don't know what the details are.
So when we read the FBI director saying a terrorist
attack has been thwarted, that makes it sound like, you know,
(19:43):
this was very imminent, as John says, we don't have
that yet. It also is just it's it's just as
it's a way that this director is that is not
necessarily good for law enforcement. You don't want to get
too far ahead about what the claims are. But you're
also the investigation is ongoing. As John luted, this isn't
(20:05):
Dearborn Michigan. It is the high Arab and Muslim American
community and the highest in the United States. Anybody knows
that community knows about Dearborn. What are those connections that
those young adults and some of them not even adults
yet under eighteenth had to people abroad? Who were those
(20:26):
people and where are those people right now? If they
were planning something serious? And then is the group bigger?
So that's why this tactic of Patel I've been critical
of before this and even will being now, And I
want to just alert to one thing. There is a
statement by the Dearborn Police Department about the FBI, and
(20:52):
it seemed, at least in my reading of it, that
there wasn't much connectivity between those two law enforcement. Asians
you've seen this in the past, the FBI will sort
of come in and sort of bypass normal protocols of
Joint Terrorism task Forces law enforcement. So that just means
a lot of people have to adapt because I don't
think it's going to stop well.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That disconnects sometimes between local law enforcement and the FBI
has been around for as long as I can remember,
so it's nothing new. But they were talking about basically cash.
Betel is quick to send out a tweet about the
fact that they're up to something. So we still don't
have all the details, but there was something brewing and
they jumped on it. We don't know if it was
actually just some people talking big on social media or
(21:37):
whether they were really going to go kill people. Politics
twenty twenty eight. So here we are with the twenty
twenty five election on Tuesday, and living in New York,
I got to tell you every single act is about
(22:00):
the mayor's race here in New York, and also, since
they're in the same media market, is the governor's race
in New Jersey. I'm sure for those of you in
Virginia you're getting inundated with ads for your governor's race
and attorney general's race and so forth. But it's what
happens is after Tuesday that really kind of starts the
(22:22):
treadmill into a higher shifting into a higher gear, because
that's going to start for then the midterms. We don't
let up, do we we come act you with the
two twenty five twenty twenty five elections. The minute that's over,
everybody's looking at the race for twenty twenty six in
the midterms. The other big race I don't want to
(22:43):
take away from is it's not a race. It's a proposition.
In California, it's called Proposition fifty and what it was
put on the ballot by the governor and the legislature
to basically say to the people of California, we wanted
to take back the power to draw the legislative congressional
(23:04):
maps for the state of California because we're going to
try and squeeze five more Democrats out of the congressional
districts because Texas is attempting to squeeze five more Republicans.
I saw a study of all the states that are
trying to do redistricting, and it turns out to where
(23:25):
there's about half of them are pro Democrat, about half
of them are pro Republican, and the net is maybe
two or three seats different if they're all successful and
they're redistricting. But I got a nice email from Sharon,
the public health nurse. She lives in Tennessee, and she
(23:46):
used to live in California, and we've talked before when
I was doing the radio show. But she sends me
this email. It was about a week ago and with
some photos, and she says California election is a subject
another example of incompetency. Question mark, ballot stuffing. Question mark.
I'm not sure. As I reported to you last year,
(24:08):
our daughter, a registered Democrat, has received California ballots and
election info since we moved to Tennessee five years ago,
even though she has never lived here or with us,
nor used this address for anything. She lives in North
Carolina and she has registered in her state of residence,
(24:33):
but she continues to get election material from California. However,
our two sons, nor my husband, nor myself registered Republicans
and Independents, have ever received any election material from California.
I find this both interesting and concerning. Be well, Nurse Sharon.
(24:55):
I do too, Sharon, and thank you. She sent me
photos of what she got in the mail. And there
it is a statewide special election November fourth, twenty twenty five,
from the California Secretary of State. And there's the ballot
that's got to open it up and do all that.
(25:16):
But I mean, this is why is the registered Democrat
in her family getting a ballot the Democrats, but the
Republicans and the independence in her family are not. And
they don't live in California and they haven't for five years,
which is why people say, oh, Tom, oh Tom. But
(25:38):
I look at this and go, this is why I
don't like mail in ballots. I want you to show
up and present yourself on election day. I know it's
old school, but I'm thank you, Sharon. I'm glad you
sent that to me. So we've got what's going to
(25:59):
happen and after Tuesday, and oh, by the way, back
to Proposition fifty in California. If this passes, it will
give Gavin Newsom a big edge up in the race
to be the Democrat nominee in twenty twenty eight. I
(26:20):
know the midterms have to come next in twenty twenty six,
but they're all trying to position themselves for who's going
to be the nominee for the Democrat Party in twenty
twenty eight. If this passes, because this was Gavin Newsom
and he's trying to do whatever he can to be
the guy who the Democrats look to to fight Donald
(26:42):
Trump and do all that sort of stuff. But he's
got Kamala Harris who is hinting that she wants to run.
You've got a Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania. You've got Governor
Basher from Kentucky. You've got a bunch of different Democrats
that are going to be circling around trying to figure
out who is going to be the Democrats nominee at
(27:05):
the next presidential election, which is is they're going to
have to obviously ramp that up in about a year.
But if this passes, Gavin Newsom will get a leg up.
It will give him a lot of cred in the
Democrat Party for look what he was able to do,
(27:25):
what a leader, even though the state is a disaster.
There's a lot of people in the country that don't
know that. They think California is land of sunshine and
hot tubs. But I digress. If it doesn't pass that,
I think he's toast. I think he will be looked
(27:45):
upon as just a goofball that he is, and people
will go, well, that was a waste. By the way,
it's costing the California taxpayers three hundred million dollars to
put this this ballot measure on for the voters to
vote on next Tuesday. So it's really critical for him.
(28:05):
But people are talking about Kamala Harris too because she
is out well, she's on her book tour, but she's
really starting her campaign to try to make herself the
candidate for the next round. Jeremy Hunt and Patrick Murphy.
Jeremy is a Republican spokesman. Patrick is a former a
(28:29):
Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania. Talking about Kamala Harrison, how she's
doing out there, Let's start with Jeremy.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
Yeah, I mean, look, if you're like us, if you're
on the right and you're looking at this, they're saying,
twenty twenty eight is already shaping up to look pretty
good for us. I mean, there still can get the
basic answers right to questions about this bite and cover up,
then it's going to be a very easy next few years.
But let me let's start by Harris start by saying,
when I watched this you Kamala Harris media tours, book camp,
(29:00):
book tour that she's on, I've learned one thing and
that is nothing has changed about Kamala Harris.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
I mean, there have been no lessons learned. There have
been no serious introspection. She is still vomiting out the
same word salads, defending Joe Biden and saying that, oh,
I think he could have gone another four years. I mean,
give it a break. The cat's out of the bag.
It's no secret. We know there was a serious cover up.
We know that we had an auto pen in chief
(29:28):
for four years. And the number one question that everyone's
going to ask is what was your role in this
cover up? And for her to go on this book
tour and not have an answer to that question and
is to keep going back to the same twenty twenty
four talking points that lost her that election, saying, oh, well,
Biden's fine, I didn't have any issues. Look, she is
off on the wrong start already.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
And honestly, this is I think it's political malpractice for
the Democrat side at the highest level.
Speaker 10 (29:53):
But if you're like us and ne're in the right,
it's not a bad day, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So he's speaking from the viewpoint of a Republican. Patrick Murphy,
former Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania. What's he think about Kamalo's
book to her? And how is she doing?
Speaker 10 (30:07):
It?
Speaker 11 (30:08):
Does matter? And I actually agree with a lot of
the points that Derry's banking, not all, but a lot
of the points. And we you know, knowledge his service
and is a great West play guy. I know him
and his brother are great Americans. For some reason, she
has not gotten a memo that she's the first Democratic
nominee for president in the last two decades, twenty years,
five elections that did not win the popular vote. So
(30:30):
what does that tell us? That tells us that that
was a mandate last year not to run again. And
I don't know why. Wow, it hasn't sunk in.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
She's definitely reading the memo differently. If she has it
at all, though, Patrick, because she made it all about
the current President Trump, who not only won the popular
vote but all the battleground states too. She made it
about him. Does that help your party?
Speaker 11 (30:54):
I don't think it does. I really don't think it.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Does, to be honest with yet.
Speaker 11 (30:57):
And you know, like Jeremy and I were both army officers, right,
both certainly combat and we have this. We have seven
army values. One is loyalty, one is honor. We have
a say in the army though, loyalty above all else
except honor. Oh, it's pretty simple to say, hey, we
made mistakes staying this and this and this, but you
have to have that self reflection and I'm honest, accountability
(31:20):
in your heart. And people articulate that and we're not
seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So yeah, Kamala Harris is still going around defending the
fact that everything was fine with Joe Biden. He looked
just as sharp as can be. There was no cognitive problems,
none whatsoever. She's not the only one, you know, who
else is really saying the same thing. Gavin Newsom the
other day I'm paraphrasing, but he said, I'll go to
(31:45):
my grave defending the fact that Joe Biden was perfectly fine,
and I I think that's gonna hurt him. I think
it does hurt Kamala Harris because all of the saw
Joe Biden stumbling around and couldn't figure out how to
get off the stage or get on the stage, or
(32:06):
where to go or what to do, and he had
to read cards that were given to him with pre
ordained questions. I mean, just there was so much where
they were coddling him because he just seemed totally out
of it. So why would Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris
basically put their political careers on the line and saying
(32:29):
Joe Biden was absolutely fine. Let me play for you
a couple of different cuts. This is Kamala Harris being
interviewed just I think in the last week by an
Australian reporter who asked her specifically about Joe Biden and
(32:53):
what did you see, And Kamala Harrison decided to answer
the question by saying Donald Trump was the guy I
was running against and he's a terrible person, et cetera,
et cetera. And the Australian reporter literally tells her, no,
you're not answering my question. Listen to this.
Speaker 12 (33:12):
Didn't you also have a responsibility? You were one of
the people in the room.
Speaker 13 (33:15):
I did not question Joe Biden's capacity to be president
at all for four more years. He did not question
his capacity.
Speaker 12 (33:24):
It wasn't his refusal to recognize his own frailties the
reason that you faced a nearly impossible task.
Speaker 13 (33:32):
I ran against Donald Trump for president, and Donald Trump
ran on a platform that was, in large part, I believe,
misrepresenting his intentions to the American people. You combine that
misrepresentation of intention with also what was that play in
(33:55):
terms of massive amounts of misinteristant for me? Now forgive me,
I want to calendar in terms of yes, the clerk,
I want to interrupt you because that is a world
class pivot.
Speaker 12 (34:06):
But it is not the question that I asked you,
which is about Joe Biden's failure to recognize his own
frailties and what that did to you. Question is about
Joe Biden. Are you still reluctant to criticize the former
president in what regard?
Speaker 13 (34:20):
Please? Well, just in terms of that question, so you
went exactly, would you like to ask be more specific?
Speaker 12 (34:26):
If you don't Joe Biden's decision, his failure to recognize
his own frailties in that position that put you in
the position that made it almost impossible to win that race.
Speaker 13 (34:36):
He was not frail as a president of the United States.
Speaker 12 (34:39):
But he had frailties. We saw the debate.
Speaker 13 (34:43):
I do believe that Joe Biden had the capacity to
be president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
So not only would she not answer the question, she
eventually did. She said, I believe he had the capacity
to be president of the United States, but it was
also she I had to ask the reporter about the question.
She says, did you see Joe biden frailty that made
it difficult for you to win? And she said, I
don't understand. Basically, I don't understand the question. Asked again,
(35:12):
and she asked it again, and she says, and be
more specific, I mean, how hard was it for her
to understand the basic question that the reporter was asking.
Apparently it was difficult. Okay, here's another one with John
Stewart from The Daily Show. And he certainly isn't a
right wing nut job. Listen to this.
Speaker 13 (35:34):
I believe he was fully competent to serve. Are you
really yeah, I do.
Speaker 6 (35:40):
That surprises me.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Actually, no, I do.
Speaker 13 (35:44):
But there's a distinction to be made between running for
president and being president.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Even John Stewart was flabberg asked as he says, that
surprises me. Nobody's buying what she's saying. One more, here's
good old James Carville.
Speaker 14 (36:00):
Be very clear here, no one that had anything to
do with twenty twenty four. No Democrat wants to hear
from her, Not Hunt of Biden, not Harris, not Tim Wallas,
not the consultants, not anything. The twenty twenty four have
left such a lingering bad taste in Democrats. We just
(36:21):
don't just get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. I can't speak for the Democrats, but Carville can,
and John Stewart and I don't know about the Australiant Reporter,
but it did leave a bad test. Democrats have had
a hard time since the twenty twenty four election. They
don't have a leader. They're kind of wandering around trying
to figure out what to say and what to do.
(36:47):
But pay attention to this business about defending Joe Biden,
because again you saw what I saw, what everybody saw,
was sadly a elderly man that did not seem to
have anywhere near full cognition. In fact, very deficit on
(37:10):
his cognition. He could not figure out what to say,
or what to do, or how to get on a
stage or off a stage. Even at the terrible debate
that he had, he had to be helped down three
stairs off of the dais. He had the cards put
in front of him at news conferences so that he
would only call on reporters that had already submitted questions.
(37:34):
It was I mean, it just went on and on
and on about the fact that Joe Biden sadly had
become not able to do just about any job, let
alone president. So if Kamala Harris wants to keep defending him, okay,
and Gavin Newsen have jumped on that same bandwagon. I
(37:57):
think it's a huge mistake for any Democrat. I think
they should just ignore it. Like Carvel said, just stop
talking about it. I've got to play. I've got another
one here. I forgot about that. I wanted to play
for you too. This was She's on the book tour
and Caris Wisher was the moderator. She was on stage
with Kris Wisher and launched into this story the debate.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
Look I mean, okay. So part of it is so
what happened was.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Okay.
Speaker 13 (38:34):
So part of what I do talk about is that
so debate camp, which was really intense. And then we
get to Philly and my team and it's Kirsten Allen,
who many people here may know, and Brian Fallon and
they're getting me ready and they're like, hey, boss, So
(38:56):
we saw Donald Trump coming off the plane coming to
the debate and Laura Lumer was on the plane with him,
and so they basically say to me, we didn't tell you,
but she's been talking about people eating cats and dogs.
They said, we think we need to tell you because
his propensity is to say the last thing he heard.
(39:18):
Oh it's sure enough on the debate stage. He said it.
Speaker 9 (39:25):
He said it, and they were ready did Yeah.
Speaker 13 (39:32):
I was brought, but not really.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I gotta admit I'm that whole story about the cats
and dogs or eating cats are eating dogs. It's a
funny story. But she doesn't I don't know if the
gravitasa just it sells one more see if you can
figure out what she's saying. This is more of the
going back to her word solad business. I don't remember
(39:58):
Kamala Harris doing word talar when she was the attorney
general in California. I don't remember her doing words tellar
when she was the Senator and she was quizzing Kavanaugh.
Something's going on with her, in my humble opinion, in
the last few well else in the last four years.
(40:19):
And she starts wandering down a thought process and then
she switches before she finishes that thought to another thought,
and then she interrupts herself to yet another thought, and
it's just it creates a word salad. This is from
the book Tour.
Speaker 13 (40:37):
But for example, I discussed in the timeline we had
policy work to do that was about letting people know
where I stood on the fact that I wanted to
make sure that for example, it was my intention. And
I know a lot of beautiful public servants here today,
(41:00):
some of who are not have been let go over
the last several months, and some of who are furloughed,
And I thank you all for your service and everything
that you do, and if we can just applaud those
who are here. But for example, one of the things
that I intended to do was as the president, we
(41:25):
then have the largest workforce, right is the federal government.
And I intended to figure out a way to reclassify
job descriptions by skill, not just by college degree.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So she got there, but she wandered, I mean all
over the map before she got there. So I mean,
this is going to be interesting to watch to see
as she I'm going to guess she's going to try
to run. Remember when she ran the first time, she
was the first Democrat in, and she was the first
Democrat out. She got out before the primaries because people
(42:04):
just absolutely did not connect. So I find it interesting
to see. And again after Tuesday, that's going to be
more of the focus on all of that. Wall Street
today was positive again, the Dow up forty at forty
seven five sixty two, SMP up seventeen, the NASDAK up
(42:27):
one hundred and forty three, the price of gold the
only down, airrowyc down five bucks to four thy ten,
and oil price is up thirty cents to just under
sixty one dollars for a barrel of oil. Thank you
for coming by today. Happy Halloween to you. Have a
great weekend. We'll be back on Monday. Hope to see
(42:50):
you then.
Speaker 13 (43:00):
The s
And Hello, Hi, how are you welcome to the Big
Podcast on this Friday. Today's the thirty first day of October,
Happy Halloween, on the year of Our Lord, twenty twenty five.
My name is Tom Sullivan.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
So so so.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
We've got a lot to go over today. We just
got word as we are recording this podcast today that
the government, there's been two judges with this afternoon, one
federal judge in Rhode Island and another federal judge almost
simultaneously in Boston, so they're both New England, have blocked
(01:04):
the Trump administration from stopping Snap benefits footstamp benefits during
the government shutdown. So this all was supposed to come
to a screeching halt tonight tomorrow. Those on SNAP were
not going to be able to use there wouldn't be
any funds on their cards. Now I don't personally know
(01:27):
how those cards get loaded. The foodstamps. That terminology came
because when the program first started many years ago, they
actually had a book of stamps, and depending upon how
much the bill was at the cashier, they peeled off
a number of stamps. But it led to a lot
(01:49):
of people feeling shame, guilt, whatever, some sort of negative
feeling because they everybody stand in line. That was before
they had the checkout automatic checkout things, but the kiosk uh,
so everybody would see that, Oh, that's the person that's
(02:11):
on food stamps. So they changed it to a card
that looks like a credit card. I don't know how
they load those. I don't know. With these judges, like
I said, two of them this afternoon almost simultaneously said yeah,
you've got to You've got a fund that those food stamps,
(02:31):
the SNAP benefits. Uh. And what the judge said, This
one judge out of Rhode Island named Judge Jack McConnell,
said that, uh. The he said the administration must use
a six billion dollar contingency fund already set aside by
(02:55):
Congress to continue using SNAP benefits. Now, these funds, the
six billion dollars, are apparently at the United States Department
of Agriculture USDA. Now, yesterday the Secretary of Agriculture said
we can't legally use those. Well, this one judge today said, yeah,
well yes you can. But here's the problem. The contingency
(03:19):
fund has six billion dollars in it sounds like a
lot of money, but the SNAP program takes almost nine
billion per month, so they can't. I don't know how
they do this. If they if they load them once
a month, I think so, but they don't have enough
to load everything. They have six billion, but they cost
(03:42):
nine billion, so they I don't know what they're going
to do, and I don't know whether the federal government
is going to appeal this or not. But that is
the ruling that has come out, So that brings up
the other question too. These are two judges, federal judges
in federal districts New England, one in Massachusetts, one in
(04:02):
Rhode Island. You know, they were judge shopping on this
because that part of the country is very, very liberal,
Rhode Island and Boston, of course, so you knew they
were going to get a favorable ruling on this. So
now the question is who's running the country. And I
thought that the Supreme Court admonished federal judges and said
(04:25):
you can decide federal law for your district, but not
for the nation. That's not your role. But both of
these judges have made rulings that basically apply to the
entire country, the forty two million people that are on
SNAP benefits, not just the people that live in Massachusetts
(04:46):
or the people that live in Rhode Island. So again
it goes back to who is running the country. Is
it the judges or is it Congress. Congress is the
one who set these funds aside, put them in the
executive branch, and the executive branch said it wasn't legal
to use. Judges said, yes you can. But again, the
problem is they have a six billion dollar fund contingency fund,
(05:09):
and that will be completely wiped out and then some
because it takes nine billion dollars to do it. So
we've got that. We've also well, let's let's get into
this whole thing about pick up from where we left yesterday.
President had come back from his Asian trip, and it
(05:29):
was fascinating to hear the analysis because the president, who
always the way he thinks, the way he works, the
way he speaks is always everything's the greatest, the best,
head on and on. And that's good. I'm glad to
see the man as super positive. The problem is with
a lot of people that know about the relationship with China,
(05:54):
said no, China has got a different message saying it
wasn't all that great. So there's still a lot to
work out. Two things about the talks with China. One
of them is about Taiwan. The other one is about
the President said we're going to start nuclear testing again.
(06:17):
General Keen weighs in on both. Let's start with his
reaction regarding the fact that nothing was said about Taiwan.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I really would have
liked that to be on the agenda. Maybe it was
on the agenda. I don't know who was talked about.
I think if it was that any progress would have
been made there, we would know about it. I really
do think that China clearly matters in sustaining Russia. Not
just what do oil, but that's primary, but they provide
(06:46):
everything short of a weapon system to them to keep
them moving. They are their number one supplier in keeping
Putin in the war and compensating for the short falls
he has in his defense industrial base. And we're going
to have to deal with China when it pertains to
support for Russia at some point here.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
So I'm curious as to why Taiwan was not on
the agenda. Wasn't even discussed about the nuclear testing. This
is something that was brought up by President Trump just
before the meeting with President she and his delegation in
South Korea.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
You know, I can only speculate here, but it's been
known for a number of years. I mean, the three
countries that are testing openly nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan,
and North Korea. We have suspected for years, and I
likely Trump took a briefing before he went on this
trip that China and Russia have been secretly testing nuclear warheads,
(07:47):
and likely the President has a pretty good fidelity on
what that is, if that actually has been taking place,
and that may have been on his mind knowing that reality.
I'm only speculating as to why he wants to resume
that testing, because he wants to shut them down. This
isn't He doesn't want to escalate, as you well know.
(08:08):
He wants to reduce the number of nuclear weapons we
have while China is expanding it, trying to catch us
and go past us. He would like to get into
a deal with China, Russia in the United States sitting
down around a table and let's reduce the number of
nuclear weapons. Russia's increasing theirs because they've got tactical nuclear
weapons now because they broke part with the IMF treaty.
(08:30):
The Reagan established, and she is on the march with
modernized nuclear weapons and his desires to go right past
what Russia and the United States have. And when you're
looking at the you got to look at the both
of them as being adversaries of ours and combine their
nuclear weapons together is the issue for the United States
and dealing with this, And there's no wonder the President
(08:52):
wants to sit down and have a discussion on bringing
this all down to something that's far more reasonable.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Fascinating because if Russia and China are both increasing their
nuclear weapon capability and President Trump wants to reduce them,
something's got to give. Here's what the President actually said
about nuke testing.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Things I discussed with President put in the other It
wasn't just that, it was also other things. And I
think the denuclearization is a very it's a big game.
But Russia is willing to do it, and I think
China is going to be willing to do it now.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
That statement by President Trump, that's from a comment that
he made two months ago. So why he wants to
start nuclear testing again? And the question is what kind
of nuclear testing? Admiral Stravitees had this comment about it.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I don't think related. You know three different things. Here,
a nuclear weapon, everyone knows what that is, goes off,
mushroom cloud, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, devastating. There is nuclear power, which
is electricity generated by nuclear capability. That's benign generally and
(10:10):
is part of what Putin has been talking about. Nuclear
powered torpedoes, nuclear powered cruise missiles. Third thing nuclear testing,
That is detonating a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
You're correct.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
The United States hasn't done that since the early nineteen nineties.
Neither has Russia, neither has China. I hope we can
avoid that. The only country that's done a nuclear test
detonating a nuclear weapon of late is North Korea. I
think it's unlikely to happen, and I think President Trump
probably conflated nuclear power because Putin was talking about all
(10:51):
of his new nuclear powered weapons. So President Trump kind
of converted that to we're going to do nuclear testing
to keep up with them, to show them we're strong.
I'm all for showing them we're strong. I'm not for
nuclear testing, and I doubt the President actually is either
do we need to.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
Show them that we're strong or do they know that
we're strong.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
I think a bit of both. They're certainly aware that
we have the pre eminent military force in the world.
Our budget is triple that of China, it's four times
maybe five times that of Russia. And it's a highly
blooded armed force because of twenty years in the Forever Wars,
a lot of combat experience. They know all that. On
(11:33):
the other hand, or yes, we have to continually demonstrate
to our opponents that we have that capability. Hopefully you
do it without nuclear testing, without actually attacking other countries.
You do it in tests and exercises, working with your allies.
When necessary, use actual force, like the President did against Iran.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
What do these tests look like?
Speaker 5 (11:57):
It is if you were going to do one. You
could do an underground version, that's what North Korea ostensibly did.
You can do it above ground, but it creates a
messy radiation cloud. Obviously, you do it in remote test sites,
and I think these days the propensity to go find
(12:19):
a place where you can detonate a nuclear weapon is
quite low, so I wouldn't overstress this as a realistic
possibility at this point. Fortunate.
Speaker 7 (12:29):
How do you think the relationship between President Trump and
President Putin is emerging or shifting?
Speaker 5 (12:36):
It is, and I think it is shifting to the
detriment of President Putin. And that's because President Trump has
reached out on a number of occasions, including the red
carpet ride he gave him up in Alaska at the
Computative Summit a few weeks ago. Really, and all that
seems to look like disrespect to President Trump because Putin
(12:59):
is not shifting his position at all. He's continuing maximalist
demands in Ukraine. And I think President Trump is beginning
to see that President Putin is indeed an extremely malevolent
actor in the international system.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Beren Sadler, who is with the Heritage Foundation former in
the navyes focused on nuclear submarines. His reaction to all
this nukta.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Yes, I mean this has been in the works for
several years.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
The fact that the President chose to announce and to
really publicly commit to this just before he met with
President Chuging Pain is certainly not something to be missed
for the strategic and the messaging significance of that. But
you could start seeing testing, scaled underground testing in the
very near future. Whether or not we're prepared as another question,
but we definitely need to do this.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
It's long overdue.
Speaker 8 (13:48):
Nuclear weapons do go bad, kind of like bread, but
we do need to test how the fundamentals are changing
over time. You do that with digital kind of simulations,
but those are only so good based on years old data.
So the testing is critical to continue to have high
confidence and the viability of our nuclear deterrence that we
rely on.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So back to the point that Russia and China are
both expanding their nuclear capabilities, what do you make of that?
Speaker 8 (14:17):
Well, clearly the Russians and the Chinese have no intent
to backing down on their decades long expansion and modernization
of their nuclear weapon arsenal. The Chinese just a few
years ago triple the size of their intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal,
and so there's no real pressure for them to actually
rein it in unless they're confronted with a strong American
nuclear deterrent. And I think the President realizes that. Putin
(14:41):
also understands the President's desire to get rid of these
very dangerous weapons, and that's why he's dangled it out
several times as a way to try to forestall Harsher
actions against his war in Ukraine.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So, while we're keeping an eye on China and Russia
and trying to figure out why the president isn't being
tough on China and talking about Taiwan and Russia and
about the oil. But he hasn't, So we move on.
There was an interesting tweet that came out from cash
Pateel earlier this morning. It says the FBI stopped a
(15:15):
potential terrorist attack in Michigan before it could unfold. Thanks
to swift action and coordination with our partners, a violent
plot tied to international terrorism was disrupted. This is what
defending the homeland looks like. Vigilance saves lives. So what
was this all about? We didn't know. All we know
(15:38):
is that he put out this tweet and then later
the FBI announced that they arrested multiple people in Michigan.
I believe the number turned out to be five. So
it what was this all about? What was going on?
John Miller, former NYPD guy, chimes in.
Speaker 6 (15:58):
Well, the FBI swept out out from the Detroit Field
office last night and through this morning, taking people into custody,
executing search warrants, and doing subpoenas for phones, computers, and
other material. This all relates to an investigation that started
months ago into people who were communicating online with each
(16:21):
other here in the United States in the Detroit area Dearborn, Michigan, Inkster, Michigan,
but also talking to people overseas possibly connected to ISIS.
The discussions were geared towards should they do an ISIS
inspired plot here in the United States. The what that
plot was, the when that plot would be, what the
(16:42):
target would be was unclear as they discussed various options
in terms of timing. But this week when a group
of those men that were being monitored went to a
shooting range with AK forty sevens and other weapons, fired
a large number of rounds of ammunition practice tactical high
(17:05):
speed reloads, and in the discussions it was picked up
a reference to what we are told was Pumpkin Day,
a possible reference to Halloween. The FBI went into the
mode of do we have the correct controlling features around
this group in terms of monitoring, physical surveillance, electronic surveillance,
(17:28):
so that if a plot spun up quickly, we could
stop it in time, because now intent has been established,
but capability has increased by the trip to the shooting range,
and the decision was made to take it down now
and sort through who to charge, who to charge with
what based on the evidence they've gathered over these many weeks.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Which is an interesting dilemma for law enforcement because if
they have a bid on a person or a group
of people that are taught about doing terrorist activities, you
can't arrest people for their thoughts or their social media
communication per se. But you also can't wait until they
(18:15):
actually kill somebody. So how do you go in and
stop a terrorist attack before the attack takes place. There
was a guy whose family called law enforcement in the Atlanta,
Georgia area. This was a week or two ago, and
the guy was making all kinds of claims of wanting
(18:35):
to shoot up people in the airport. And sure enough,
he shows up in front of the Atlanta Airport illegally,
parks his truck at the where you drop off passengers,
walks into the airport and is looking around. Now, they
had the beat on this guy, and yet he didn't
have any arms on him. He was just looking around
(18:57):
or was he? Because in his illegal lee park kruk,
it was loaded with high powered ammunition and guns which
are legal to carry apparently in Georgia. So Juliet KM,
who was also former FBI, weighs in more on this
story today out of Michigan.
Speaker 9 (19:19):
It's typical for this administration and this FBI director. I
think we were all sort of adjusting to it because
he'll announce something. Sometimes he announces it not quite before
it's done, and then we don't know what the details are.
So when we read the FBI director saying a terrorist
attack has been thwarted, that makes it sound like, you know,
(19:43):
this was very imminent, as John says, we don't have
that yet. It also is just it's it's just as
it's a way that this director is that is not
necessarily good for law enforcement. You don't want to get
too far ahead about what the claims are. But you're
also the investigation is ongoing. As John luted, this isn't
(20:05):
Dearborn Michigan. It is the high Arab and Muslim American
community and the highest in the United States. Anybody knows
that community knows about Dearborn. What are those connections that
those young adults and some of them not even adults
yet under eighteenth had to people abroad? Who were those
(20:26):
people and where are those people right now? If they
were planning something serious? And then is the group bigger?
So that's why this tactic of Patel I've been critical
of before this and even will being now, And I
want to just alert to one thing. There is a
statement by the Dearborn Police Department about the FBI, and
(20:52):
it seemed, at least in my reading of it, that
there wasn't much connectivity between those two law enforcement. Asians
you've seen this in the past, the FBI will sort
of come in and sort of bypass normal protocols of
Joint Terrorism task Forces law enforcement. So that just means
a lot of people have to adapt because I don't
think it's going to stop well.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
That disconnects sometimes between local law enforcement and the FBI
has been around for as long as I can remember,
so it's nothing new. But they were talking about basically cash.
Betel is quick to send out a tweet about the
fact that they're up to something. So we still don't
have all the details, but there was something brewing and
they jumped on it. We don't know if it was
actually just some people talking big on social media or
(21:37):
whether they were really going to go kill people. Politics
twenty twenty eight. So here we are with the twenty
twenty five election on Tuesday, and living in New York,
I got to tell you every single act is about
(22:00):
the mayor's race here in New York, and also, since
they're in the same media market, is the governor's race
in New Jersey. I'm sure for those of you in
Virginia you're getting inundated with ads for your governor's race
and attorney general's race and so forth. But it's what
happens is after Tuesday that really kind of starts the
(22:22):
treadmill into a higher shifting into a higher gear, because
that's going to start for then the midterms. We don't
let up, do we we come act you with the
two twenty five twenty twenty five elections. The minute that's over,
everybody's looking at the race for twenty twenty six in
the midterms. The other big race I don't want to
(22:43):
take away from is it's not a race. It's a proposition.
In California, it's called Proposition fifty and what it was
put on the ballot by the governor and the legislature
to basically say to the people of California, we wanted
to take back the power to draw the legislative congressional
(23:04):
maps for the state of California because we're going to
try and squeeze five more Democrats out of the congressional
districts because Texas is attempting to squeeze five more Republicans.
I saw a study of all the states that are
trying to do redistricting, and it turns out to where
(23:25):
there's about half of them are pro Democrat, about half
of them are pro Republican, and the net is maybe
two or three seats different if they're all successful and
they're redistricting. But I got a nice email from Sharon,
the public health nurse. She lives in Tennessee, and she
(23:46):
used to live in California, and we've talked before when
I was doing the radio show. But she sends me
this email. It was about a week ago and with
some photos, and she says California election is a subject
another example of incompetency. Question mark, ballot stuffing. Question mark.
I'm not sure. As I reported to you last year,
(24:08):
our daughter, a registered Democrat, has received California ballots and
election info since we moved to Tennessee five years ago,
even though she has never lived here or with us,
nor used this address for anything. She lives in North
Carolina and she has registered in her state of residence,
(24:33):
but she continues to get election material from California. However,
our two sons, nor my husband, nor myself registered Republicans
and Independents, have ever received any election material from California.
I find this both interesting and concerning. Be well, Nurse Sharon.
(24:55):
I do too, Sharon, and thank you. She sent me
photos of what she got in the mail. And there
it is a statewide special election November fourth, twenty twenty five,
from the California Secretary of State. And there's the ballot
that's got to open it up and do all that.
(25:16):
But I mean, this is why is the registered Democrat
in her family getting a ballot the Democrats, but the
Republicans and the independence in her family are not. And
they don't live in California and they haven't for five years,
which is why people say, oh, Tom, oh Tom. But
(25:38):
I look at this and go, this is why I
don't like mail in ballots. I want you to show
up and present yourself on election day. I know it's
old school, but I'm thank you, Sharon. I'm glad you
sent that to me. So we've got what's going to
(25:59):
happen and after Tuesday, and oh, by the way, back
to Proposition fifty in California. If this passes, it will
give Gavin Newsom a big edge up in the race
to be the Democrat nominee in twenty twenty eight. I
(26:20):
know the midterms have to come next in twenty twenty six,
but they're all trying to position themselves for who's going
to be the nominee for the Democrat Party in twenty
twenty eight. If this passes, because this was Gavin Newsom
and he's trying to do whatever he can to be
the guy who the Democrats look to to fight Donald
(26:42):
Trump and do all that sort of stuff. But he's
got Kamala Harris who is hinting that she wants to run.
You've got a Governor Shapiro from Pennsylvania. You've got Governor
Basher from Kentucky. You've got a bunch of different Democrats
that are going to be circling around trying to figure
out who is going to be the Democrats nominee at
(27:05):
the next presidential election, which is is they're going to
have to obviously ramp that up in about a year.
But if this passes, Gavin Newsom will get a leg up.
It will give him a lot of cred in the
Democrat Party for look what he was able to do,
(27:25):
what a leader, even though the state is a disaster.
There's a lot of people in the country that don't
know that. They think California is land of sunshine and
hot tubs. But I digress. If it doesn't pass that,
I think he's toast. I think he will be looked
(27:45):
upon as just a goofball that he is, and people
will go, well, that was a waste. By the way,
it's costing the California taxpayers three hundred million dollars to
put this this ballot measure on for the voters to
vote on next Tuesday. So it's really critical for him.
(28:05):
But people are talking about Kamala Harris too because she
is out well, she's on her book tour, but she's
really starting her campaign to try to make herself the
candidate for the next round. Jeremy Hunt and Patrick Murphy.
Jeremy is a Republican spokesman. Patrick is a former a
(28:29):
Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania. Talking about Kamala Harrison, how she's
doing out there, Let's start with Jeremy.
Speaker 7 (28:38):
Yeah, I mean, look, if you're like us, if you're
on the right and you're looking at this, they're saying,
twenty twenty eight is already shaping up to look pretty
good for us. I mean, there still can get the
basic answers right to questions about this bite and cover up,
then it's going to be a very easy next few years.
But let me let's start by Harris start by saying,
when I watched this you Kamala Harris media tours, book camp,
(29:00):
book tour that she's on, I've learned one thing and
that is nothing has changed about Kamala Harris.
Speaker 10 (29:07):
I mean, there have been no lessons learned. There have
been no serious introspection. She is still vomiting out the
same word salads, defending Joe Biden and saying that, oh,
I think he could have gone another four years. I mean,
give it a break. The cat's out of the bag.
It's no secret. We know there was a serious cover up.
We know that we had an auto pen in chief
(29:28):
for four years. And the number one question that everyone's
going to ask is what was your role in this
cover up? And for her to go on this book
tour and not have an answer to that question and
is to keep going back to the same twenty twenty
four talking points that lost her that election, saying, oh, well,
Biden's fine, I didn't have any issues. Look, she is
off on the wrong start already.
Speaker 7 (29:48):
And honestly, this is I think it's political malpractice for
the Democrat side at the highest level.
Speaker 10 (29:53):
But if you're like us and ne're in the right,
it's not a bad day, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So he's speaking from the viewpoint of a Republican. Patrick Murphy,
former Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania. What's he think about Kamalo's
book to her? And how is she doing?
Speaker 10 (30:07):
It?
Speaker 11 (30:08):
Does matter? And I actually agree with a lot of
the points that Derry's banking, not all, but a lot
of the points. And we you know, knowledge his service
and is a great West play guy. I know him
and his brother are great Americans. For some reason, she
has not gotten a memo that she's the first Democratic
nominee for president in the last two decades, twenty years,
five elections that did not win the popular vote. So
(30:30):
what does that tell us? That tells us that that
was a mandate last year not to run again. And
I don't know why. Wow, it hasn't sunk in.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
She's definitely reading the memo differently. If she has it
at all, though, Patrick, because she made it all about
the current President Trump, who not only won the popular
vote but all the battleground states too. She made it
about him. Does that help your party?
Speaker 11 (30:54):
I don't think it does. I really don't think it.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Does, to be honest with yet.
Speaker 11 (30:57):
And you know, like Jeremy and I were both army officers, right,
both certainly combat and we have this. We have seven
army values. One is loyalty, one is honor. We have
a say in the army though, loyalty above all else
except honor. Oh, it's pretty simple to say, hey, we
made mistakes staying this and this and this, but you
have to have that self reflection and I'm honest, accountability
(31:20):
in your heart. And people articulate that and we're not
seeing it.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
So yeah, Kamala Harris is still going around defending the
fact that everything was fine with Joe Biden. He looked
just as sharp as can be. There was no cognitive problems,
none whatsoever. She's not the only one, you know, who
else is really saying the same thing. Gavin Newsom the
other day I'm paraphrasing, but he said, I'll go to
(31:45):
my grave defending the fact that Joe Biden was perfectly fine,
and I I think that's gonna hurt him. I think
it does hurt Kamala Harris because all of the saw
Joe Biden stumbling around and couldn't figure out how to
get off the stage or get on the stage, or
(32:06):
where to go or what to do, and he had
to read cards that were given to him with pre
ordained questions. I mean, just there was so much where
they were coddling him because he just seemed totally out
of it. So why would Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris
basically put their political careers on the line and saying
(32:29):
Joe Biden was absolutely fine. Let me play for you
a couple of different cuts. This is Kamala Harris being
interviewed just I think in the last week by an
Australian reporter who asked her specifically about Joe Biden and
(32:53):
what did you see, And Kamala Harrison decided to answer
the question by saying Donald Trump was the guy I
was running against and he's a terrible person, et cetera,
et cetera. And the Australian reporter literally tells her, no,
you're not answering my question. Listen to this.
Speaker 12 (33:12):
Didn't you also have a responsibility? You were one of
the people in the room.
Speaker 13 (33:15):
I did not question Joe Biden's capacity to be president
at all for four more years. He did not question
his capacity.
Speaker 12 (33:24):
It wasn't his refusal to recognize his own frailties the
reason that you faced a nearly impossible task.
Speaker 13 (33:32):
I ran against Donald Trump for president, and Donald Trump
ran on a platform that was, in large part, I believe,
misrepresenting his intentions to the American people. You combine that
misrepresentation of intention with also what was that play in
(33:55):
terms of massive amounts of misinteristant for me? Now forgive me,
I want to calendar in terms of yes, the clerk,
I want to interrupt you because that is a world
class pivot.
Speaker 12 (34:06):
But it is not the question that I asked you,
which is about Joe Biden's failure to recognize his own
frailties and what that did to you. Question is about
Joe Biden. Are you still reluctant to criticize the former
president in what regard?
Speaker 13 (34:20):
Please? Well, just in terms of that question, so you
went exactly, would you like to ask be more specific?
Speaker 12 (34:26):
If you don't Joe Biden's decision, his failure to recognize
his own frailties in that position that put you in
the position that made it almost impossible to win that race.
Speaker 13 (34:36):
He was not frail as a president of the United States.
Speaker 12 (34:39):
But he had frailties. We saw the debate.
Speaker 13 (34:43):
I do believe that Joe Biden had the capacity to
be president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
So not only would she not answer the question, she
eventually did. She said, I believe he had the capacity
to be president of the United States, but it was
also she I had to ask the reporter about the question.
She says, did you see Joe biden frailty that made
it difficult for you to win? And she said, I
don't understand. Basically, I don't understand the question. Asked again,
(35:12):
and she asked it again, and she says, and be
more specific, I mean, how hard was it for her
to understand the basic question that the reporter was asking.
Apparently it was difficult. Okay, here's another one with John
Stewart from The Daily Show. And he certainly isn't a
right wing nut job. Listen to this.
Speaker 13 (35:34):
I believe he was fully competent to serve. Are you
really yeah, I do.
Speaker 6 (35:40):
That surprises me.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Actually, no, I do.
Speaker 13 (35:44):
But there's a distinction to be made between running for
president and being president.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Even John Stewart was flabberg asked as he says, that
surprises me. Nobody's buying what she's saying. One more, here's
good old James Carville.
Speaker 14 (36:00):
Be very clear here, no one that had anything to
do with twenty twenty four. No Democrat wants to hear
from her, Not Hunt of Biden, not Harris, not Tim Wallas,
not the consultants, not anything. The twenty twenty four have
left such a lingering bad taste in Democrats. We just
(36:21):
don't just get out of the way.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
Yeah. I can't speak for the Democrats, but Carville can,
and John Stewart and I don't know about the Australiant Reporter,
but it did leave a bad test. Democrats have had
a hard time since the twenty twenty four election. They
don't have a leader. They're kind of wandering around trying
to figure out what to say and what to do.
(36:47):
But pay attention to this business about defending Joe Biden,
because again you saw what I saw, what everybody saw,
was sadly a elderly man that did not seem to
have anywhere near full cognition. In fact, very deficit on
(37:10):
his cognition. He could not figure out what to say,
or what to do, or how to get on a
stage or off a stage. Even at the terrible debate
that he had, he had to be helped down three
stairs off of the dais. He had the cards put
in front of him at news conferences so that he
would only call on reporters that had already submitted questions.
(37:34):
It was I mean, it just went on and on
and on about the fact that Joe Biden sadly had
become not able to do just about any job, let
alone president. So if Kamala Harris wants to keep defending him, okay,
and Gavin Newsen have jumped on that same bandwagon. I
(37:57):
think it's a huge mistake for any Democrat. I think
they should just ignore it. Like Carvel said, just stop
talking about it. I've got to play. I've got another
one here. I forgot about that. I wanted to play
for you too. This was She's on the book tour
and Caris Wisher was the moderator. She was on stage
with Kris Wisher and launched into this story the debate.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
Look I mean, okay. So part of it is so
what happened was.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Okay.
Speaker 13 (38:34):
So part of what I do talk about is that
so debate camp, which was really intense. And then we
get to Philly and my team and it's Kirsten Allen,
who many people here may know, and Brian Fallon and
they're getting me ready and they're like, hey, boss, So
(38:56):
we saw Donald Trump coming off the plane coming to
the debate and Laura Lumer was on the plane with him,
and so they basically say to me, we didn't tell you,
but she's been talking about people eating cats and dogs.
They said, we think we need to tell you because
his propensity is to say the last thing he heard.
(39:18):
Oh it's sure enough on the debate stage. He said it.
Speaker 9 (39:25):
He said it, and they were ready did Yeah.
Speaker 13 (39:32):
I was brought, but not really.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I gotta admit I'm that whole story about the cats
and dogs or eating cats are eating dogs. It's a
funny story. But she doesn't I don't know if the
gravitasa just it sells one more see if you can
figure out what she's saying. This is more of the
going back to her word solad business. I don't remember
(39:58):
Kamala Harris doing word talar when she was the attorney
general in California. I don't remember her doing words tellar
when she was the Senator and she was quizzing Kavanaugh.
Something's going on with her, in my humble opinion, in
the last few well else in the last four years.
(40:19):
And she starts wandering down a thought process and then
she switches before she finishes that thought to another thought,
and then she interrupts herself to yet another thought, and
it's just it creates a word salad. This is from
the book Tour.
Speaker 13 (40:37):
But for example, I discussed in the timeline we had
policy work to do that was about letting people know
where I stood on the fact that I wanted to
make sure that for example, it was my intention. And
I know a lot of beautiful public servants here today,
(41:00):
some of who are not have been let go over
the last several months, and some of who are furloughed,
And I thank you all for your service and everything
that you do, and if we can just applaud those
who are here. But for example, one of the things
that I intended to do was as the president, we
(41:25):
then have the largest workforce, right is the federal government.
And I intended to figure out a way to reclassify
job descriptions by skill, not just by college degree.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
So she got there, but she wandered, I mean all
over the map before she got there. So I mean,
this is going to be interesting to watch to see
as she I'm going to guess she's going to try
to run. Remember when she ran the first time, she
was the first Democrat in, and she was the first
Democrat out. She got out before the primaries because people
(42:04):
just absolutely did not connect. So I find it interesting
to see. And again after Tuesday, that's going to be
more of the focus on all of that. Wall Street
today was positive again, the Dow up forty at forty
seven five sixty two, SMP up seventeen, the NASDAK up
(42:27):
one hundred and forty three, the price of gold the
only down, airrowyc down five bucks to four thy ten,
and oil price is up thirty cents to just under
sixty one dollars for a barrel of oil. Thank you
for coming by today. Happy Halloween to you. Have a
great weekend. We'll be back on Monday. Hope to see
(42:50):
you then.
Speaker 13 (43:00):
The s
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