BLOGNovember 03, 2017

Glenn Blasts ‘Worthless’ Republicans for New Tax Plan

What happened?

House Republicans introduced the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Thursday. Speaker Paul Ryan said the new plan for tax reform would allow the U.S. to better “compete with the rest of the world.”

What Kind of Half-Assed Circus Freak Has the GOP Become?

The goal is to move the bill quickly through Congress; however, Senate Republicans are expected to introduce their own version of tax reform next week.

Listen to this clip from today’s show to get the bad news about the bill in less than 4 minutes:

Clock’s ticking …

After 10 months in power, what have Republicans accomplished besides confirming one Supreme Court nominee? After failing to keep their promise to repeal Obamacare, House Republicans have introduced a tax reform bill in a desperate attempt to get something done before the end of the year – whether or not their tax plan helps Americans.

Glenn’s take:

“Will we ever see a truly innovative tax plan in America?” Glenn asked. “No. As long as the Republicans are the party in power, nope.”

On the other hand, Democrats would revolutionize America’s tax system, simplifying it so the socialist government gets everything. A bad Republican bill is better than communism, but is it really the best we can do?

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Will we ever really see a truly innovative tax plan in America? No. No. No.

As long as the Republicans are the party in power, nope. Nope. And the Democrats won't -- no. Actually, the Democrats would give us a truly inventive one for America. It will look a lot like the old Soviet tax plan. They'll take everything.

So, yes, you could have that. But Republicans, worthless. We are now ten months into the Republicans controlling the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Can somebody remind me which legislative goals have been accomplished again? There was the confirmation of the Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. That was good.

Go ahead. Give me anything else that Congress has done. Go ahead. Just let it rip. Oh, yeah. You're right. You're right. They did botch the overhaul of health care. They never got that really done.

President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are so desperate for something they can hang their hats on, because the clock is ticking on 2017. And they need to win in -- tax reform. Quick. Tax reform. Surely, that's the ticket. They've been talking about fixing our overcomplicated tax code for years. This is their big chance. In fact, several of the candidates ran on a 10 percent tax cut.

I mean, cutting it to 10 percent. Not cutting 10 percent. You remember they were going to do that, and they were going to stop spending? Yeah, the spending limits are all blown.

But they need a catchy title. To pass something, you need something like tax cuts and Jobs Act.

Wow. Low score for originality on that one. But it is the substance that counts. Don't judge a book by its cover. The subtitle, more jobs, fairer taxes, bigger paychecks.

Well, now, they've worked a long time on the title and the subtitle. But how are they going to do these things?

Well, the House Republican tax plan came out yesterday. It's mostly like everything else Congress has slapped together this year. Really underwhelming. Your eyes will glaze over as you read the plan. And I have an executive producer who has been taking me all through it all day over and over and over again, until you want to hang yourself.

STU: Sorry.

GLENN: But wait until you get to the really good stuff. And you don't ever find that.

But what they consider really good stuff and you'll say to yourself, that's the best they could come up with? And then you find out about the hidden 46 percent tax bracket that they haven't announced, that it's in the tax plan, so we are now giving -- as Donald Trump said, this is the best -- this is the biggest and no one has ever done anything like this in America before.

Actually, Woodrow Wilson and FDR did this. But other than that, no Republican has that I know of.

In the press conference, announcing the plan, Paul Ryan called it real relief for people in the middle.

And there is maybe some relief. The new family credit expands the tax credit from $1,000 to $1,600 per child. And overall, it looks like most Americans will pay a little less in taxes with this plan. But it really depends on several factors. So far, the only thing that jumps off the page as a potential game-changer is reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent. That's really all Congress ever cares about, isn't it? The corporations. They don't care in Washington about you. You don't have any power. They care about the unions. Because they have power. They care about the corporations, because they have power. You don't have any real power.

In fact, I contend that the Republicans despise you. The Democrats have always despised you. Look at how they treat their friends.

Look how great they have been to the African-American in the inner city. Right?

One thing that will help you is the corporate tax rate, if corporations decide to invest that money in you and be able to invest that money in an actual products -- making products better and not investing it in a runaway bogus stock market, which is probably what they will do.

American conditions will compete better on the world stage. That's good. It could create more jobs. It might attract more foreign companies to set up shop in the US. But other than that, the tax cuts and job act is about as uninspired as the title. It's a slight improvement. Nothing innovative. I'll take it.

But this is the best we've got? The only bright side is Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi don't like the plan. So we can always hope maybe there's something in there that can't be all that bad.

RADIO

Why Trump MUST PREPARE for AI to TRANSFORM Warfare

Artificial intelligence, especially once it hits ASI, will change the world as we know it, including warfare. So, why is the Pentagon investing so much in designing new weapons when AI will make everything obsolete in the blink of an eye? Glenn makes the case that there are smarter things for the Trump administration to invest in to prepare for the AI revolution that’s right around the corner.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Who creates jobs. What's happening with the economy. We will get into that here in a second. But Stu, when we went off the air here, in the commercial break, he was like, I don't know if I agree with you on what I'm saying is, freeze all of the big spending. Do not start any new airplane design at the Pentagon that is a ten-year contract. That most likely will be a waste of money!

Because AGI and ASI is coming! And that will change everything. It will change warfare. Just will!

Drones, five help you dollars each, have already changed warfare. We have to be preparing for the future. And that future is much more nimble, much smaller, and I have a feeling, much cheaper.

STU: Are you concerned about a bridge here, though? We don't know when this is coming, we don't know how it's going to develop. We don't know what it will look like. No one does.

So, you know, we still need the best planes while planes are important.

GLENN: Right. But you don't need to start any new. Fix what we have. You know, finish what you've got in production.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: But you don't need to sit down and okay a new design for a new fighter jet.

STU: It's a big bet though. You are making a big bet on ASI and AGI with no backup plan. Why wouldn't you still want to have the best planes in your arsenal?

GLENN: I think, you know, look, let's look at it this way. Our generation's Manhattan project is AI, ASI.

Back with when FDR was convinced by Einstein. He didn't believe it could happen.

And Einstein came in and said, listen. I'm from Germany. They will do it! And so he convinced him. Go ahead. Build this bomb.

It was magical.

Nobody knew that we could even get there.

You know, we could split the Atom, but what does that mean? Can we actually make a bomb that can work? We put everything we had into it, and we continued to build planes and everything else. Because we were currently fighting a war. And we didn't know if that would happen. Up until the very last moment, when they said, dear God, what have we done?

Okay? This yen radiation, it's going to end the same way. In three to five years. Except, this time, we know it's going to happen. Almost everybody who was a naysayer on ASI, almost all of them are now saying, oh, dear God. Yes. It's coming. And it's coming much faster than we thought.

It will be here by 2030. Most likely, it will be here in the next three years. Now, if that time continues to collapse, I mean, just in the last five years, it's gone from 2050, maybe.

To now 2028, 2029.

If that continues to collapse like that. We're -- we're at the event horizon of the singularity. So we know it's going to happen.

Our job is to just bridge the gap as much as possible. But don't build things that we don't know are -- here's what -- here's what our Pentagon should be doing right now.

Building nuclear power plants. Our army Corps of Engineers should be building those little teeny nuclear power plants. Build as many as they possibly can. You don't even to have start them up yet.

Just have them ready to go. So when the server farms are ready. When everything. When AI is there, we can power it.

We won't have the power to be able to have ASI think and affect. We have to start thinking towards the future. Not what's the next generation of fighter jet look like?

There ain't going to be one, attitude. There's just not. At least with a person in it.

STU: Right. Because it will still have -- I mean, AI will probably come up with something that flies.

GLENN: Yeah. It will be hypersonic. It might even be of a new material.

Here's what people don't understand.

ASI will look at the period okay table of elements. And say, guys, shuffle the deck this way. And you have a material that will go 900 miles an hour. It will hold up under the heat and the friction. It won't bend.

It's perfect!

And it's only a quarter of the weight!

And, by the way, here's the formula. And you don't to give and test it for two years. It's correct! Do it!

I mean, that's how fast things are going to happen, once they start happening. And, Stu, this scares the hell out of me. Because you know how I feel about AI.

STU: Yeah, I was going to ask you, because AI obviously has a lot of potential negative consequences. And if we're putting the government. The military in control of that. Does that scare you?

GLENN: No. I'm not saying that we put the government in control of it.

STU: Okay.

GLENN: We have to balance all of this. But the government is already involved in it.

I'm saying, let the government build like power plants. Build the things that we know the country is going need to, the infrastructure, to be able to handle this.

Build the things that we say, we've got it, we can turn it opposite

STU: Yeah. Get prepared for whatever is coming here. I think, I guess, I'm concerned. This is from a guy I have talked to for 20 years, who continually repeats the phrase. I'm always wrong about timing. I'm concerned about that bridge period.

Because I think you're probably coming. It is coming really, really fast. But if something happens. If something goes off course.

You don't know. We need to be prepared for that bridge period.

PAT: How do we spend 877 billion dollars every single year, every year, China spends 200 some billion dollars every year.

And it's that close? If it's that close, you know, we have other problems.

STU: You're just saying, we should sort of rest on our laurels a little bit and just say, hey, we already have the best technology. We already have the best military. Let's not try to develop new things until this AI thing comes.

GLENN: Right. They're developing new stuff as well. Great. Great.

Let's give some time to AI. Let's not double our work. Let's not spend money, now on things that most likely. Don't build another aircraft carrier. Don't design another F57. Tonight do it. It's not going to. You have no idea what's coming!

Fix the stuff we have.

Make sure we have the amnesty. Make sure we have the latest and the greatest, that's already here! Don't do R&D on that stuff.

Don't do it!

And, by the way, you can't tell me, that again, $900 billion overlet's say 250. Or let's say 300 for China.

Okay. We spend three times the amount every year. And we're not competitive?

I don't believe that. And if it is, everybody in the Pentagon should go to jail.

STU: I do think, we're certainly competitive.

GLENN: Of course, we are.

STU: To me, I think there's a lot of bolder projects. There's a bunch of crap in our military.

That tough is our higher priority target, let's put it that way. Then eliminating potential limitations in these fields.

Even though, I know what you're saying. They might be obsolete in a few years.

GLENN: And you will to have come in front of a committee, that is like filled with Elon Musks. And say, here's the pitch!

I don't want the decision to be made by the senators or the generals at this point.

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: Here's the pitch. Here's why we think this fits with tomorrow's technology.

STU: And they won't be in an adviser role. But we do have a system of government to follow.

GLENN: Yeah. I know. But they should be the ones saying, don't do that, Senator. Don't do that. That's stupid. If they want to do that. We'll vote them out.

We will all know which ones are doing it. Because they're funneling money to their friends.

STU: Part of this comes to the way I think about government spending. Government spending is always worse than the private sector.

GLENN: Huh.

STU: Which is a very basic conservative point. Right?

I think though, the one time, that you -- obviously, constitutionally, you have certain powers, the government spends.

Defense is one of them.

That they will typically be responsible for.

The way I look at it, is government can do some things relatively well.

If you don't care about efficiency. Businesses do. Right?

So they will -- they will not take certain risks, that, you know, have a low percentage chance of paying off.

And the idea that maybe you come up a nuclear bomb.

And you're able to stop global wars for multiple decades.

You know, a private company. You know, like -- very -- certainly, they shouldn't be coming with nuclear bombs. You know what I'm saying. That type of risk. That type of expenditure. That will likely fail. Is the type of thing that the government can take on.

Because when you don't care about efficiency. When you don't care about. Hey, we tried 25 things. Twenty-four of them failed. That's okay.

GLENN: Look. Private industry should be doing this, leading this. But the government is already in bed. DARPA is already doing this. The CIA is the one who helped fund the Silicon Valley in the 1960s. Please, let's get over our little illusion, that they're not involved in any of this.

Let me give you an example, on something the president I hope will talk about tonight: The private sector versus big government and Biden spending spree. What Trump is doing, and what Biden did.

The president has been in for 40 days. I've never seen anything like this, in 40 days.

So he's been in office for 40 days. And the numbers he's bringing into the economy, are staggering. Yesterday.

Taiwan, semi conductors. Which is the greatest news you could possibly hear, if you understand what this means. Taiwan makes all of the best semi conductors and super conductors. And they're dropping $100 billion to build chip factories here in America. Apple, 500 billion over four years, to crank up its manufacturing.

Think Texas server plants, not sweatshops.

SoftBank is in for 100 billion on AI. UAE is tossing 20 billion into data centers. That's $700 billion in private sector commitments. Now, some people are saying that it's as high as 1.7 trillion.

But I can't track those numbers, and get -- I can get a lot of rumors. A lot of, yeah, maybe.

But I don't have -- this is real. This is almost a trillion dollars. Remember, our -- the investment for Barack Obama, the reinvestment act. Was 787 billion. This is 720 billion. All coming, want from tax dollars. Not coming from government IOUs. But real money from companies all over the world. That are betting on America.

This number, like I said, can be verified. And they're not handouts.

Now, just the investment from TCMC, could mean 40,000 construction jobs.

And 6,000 high-tech gigs. Apple, thousands.

This is the private sector.

Not because Uncle Sam wrote a check. But because Trump demanded the same rules on tariffs, for everyone.

We're going to charge you, what you charge us!

That is fair on any playground, anywhere in the world!

And then he sweetened the deal by cutting the red tape and the tax advantages that no other country will offer. And said, build it here.

Bring those jobs here.

We're a stable country. We're the future.

RADIO

Financial Expert WARNS: Why Trump’s Tariffs are a Risky Game

Inflation is still up, prices are still high, GDP is now predicted to decrease, and the Legacy Media is, of course, blaming President Trump and his tariffs. But financial expert Carol Roth makes the case that they KNEW this was coming. The economy is still reeling from Biden-era spending. That’s why Glenn advises Trump to demand in his first Address to Congress that Congress pass a budget with a bare minimum of a trillion dollars in cuts. But Carol also gives a warning: she believes that DOGE’s cutting and Trump’s tariffs could “explode the deficit” and alienate our allies if they are not done surgically.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right let me go to Carol Roth. Hello, Carol. How are you?

CAROL: Yeah. Glenn, I've just found that we've only been in this administration for a month and a halfish, and I feel like it's been 16 years.

GLENN: Yeah. I know. I know.

CAROL: There's so much going on. I'm trying to process it now. When somebody said, it's only been a month and a half. I went -- you know, my mind was blown.

GLENN: Yeah, we're 40 days into this administration. You're looking into this. And it's breathtaking at what has been done. Last -- last month, we had I think 1800 encounters at the borders.

A year ago, last February, it was 1009000 encounters.

That's how much of an impact he has made on that. We have all these things that he has done. But when it comes to the economy, Congress has to move on some of his things. He hasn't really done anything with the economy. Except, perhaps, for DOGE. Which you've been warning about on this program, for a while now.

What's happened?

CAROL: Yeah. Yeah. So we've talked about before, that the economic situation, is not really what it was presented to be. You know, we heard under Biden and certainly during election season. What a wonderful economy we had. All of these really great statistics, on employment and growth.

And it's become very clear. Well, it was very clear to all of us, before. We've talked about it. Something that Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent talked about a couple of weeks ago. Is that really, the economic foundation is incredibly fragile. And what we've had the Biden administration do, which was exceptionally nefarious. Is that they decided that they were going to spend to paper over the weakness of the economy.

So if you remember, I think it was back in 2022, we had those two down powers of GDP. Which is a technical recession.

For some reason, by the way, they said, was not a recession. I'm sure if Trump had to down quarters, they would say it was.

GLENN: Right. Depression.

CAROL: But it had a D in front of it, so it wasn't. Then we came out of it. Then it was pretty clear that we were going to go into this double dip recession.

So what did they do to increase government spending, which is very inefficient spending, and we have been running deficits as a percentage of GDP. That are at wartime levels.

We're talking six to 7 percent of GDP, the historical average is somewhere around three, or three and I half percent.

So about double, you know, what you might see, on average. Not -- well, you have a good economy. You would actually expect that to be much lower. Because you're getting more receipts.

That's what happened. We had more receipts. We were taking $5 trillion. And they're spending even more. They're spending almost $7 trillion. So that was done to mask the weakness in the economy. Now that we don't have the ability to continue to kick up even more and more to show growth, the consumer continues to be tapped out from all the Biden Arab policies. And the fact that we have DOGE. Which is trying to cut down government spending. We're at a situation where things could get uglier. Before they get better. Or they could get uglier. And they could take away the political will to make them better.

That's this delegate dance that we've been talking about. Why we need this careful choreography.

The craziest thing that has happened over the past several days. Is that the Atlanta Fed. One of the branches of the Federal Reserve. Has a tool that predicts GDP each quarter.

They went over the last four weeks. Okay. Four weeks time. From predicting we would have almost 4 percent GDP growth in the first quarter. To now negative 3 percent, in the first quarter.

GLENN: That's impossible.

CAROL: A seven percentage point difference in four weeks! Which, A, just goes to show what a joke any of this reporting. And these tools and this data are.

But I think also shows, hey. We've got, you know, somebody else at the helm here.

So now we don't need to doctor these numbers in a way that seem a bit more friendly.

And it's so -- we potentially could be seeing something ugly. Which is something that we've talked about many, many times.

And this has been a setup, that they knew was come.

If you go back to the middle of last year, you had a bunch of, quote, unquote, noble economists. That put out a piece that said, Trump was going to create inflation. He was going to do all these things to the economy. And I called it right out, there is will it. This is a setup. They know this is coming, right then. They are setting the groundwork to blame this on Trump.

Get ready for the talking points.

Trump has been in there for only six weeks.

He hasn't even really had a chance to do anything about the economy. Congress certainly isn't helping. And yet, we're already getting the rhetoric that, oh, look what he did to our really great economy.

GLENN: Correct me if I'm wrong here, Carol. But the Biden administration, while they spent a lot of money, they did it in ways to cover things up, et cetera, et cetera.

But that -- that big 2021, you know, $1.2 trillion bill. And then the 836 billion for roads and bridges. And broadband. And then the 144 in the Inflation Reduction Act. It's well over a trillion dollars.

And it's my understanding, that only 17 percent of that money has been sent. Spent. So what happens if we don't stop the spending, of just the stuff that is already on the books from Biden. Wouldn't that cause our inflation to go through the roof.

CAROL: Yeah. It absolutely would cause our inflation to go through the roof. Because even with the cash in and cash out that we have. As you said, we're running these wartime deficits. And, by the way, we're financing those at high interest rates. Not necessarily in the historical context. But in the context of the last 15 years. And in a way that we have now made the interest expense, on our debt, you know, what we're paying for stuff we've already bought.

Exceed, the financing charges exceed what we're spending on defense. Nile Ferguson has a great sort of maxim, if you will. That basically, I'm paraphrasing here.

But, you know, nations that spend more on interest, versus debt, don't, you know, remain great nations for very long. That seems to be pretty obviously, something that everybody can wrap their heads around. That we've -- we don't want to be spending all of our money paying for stuff that we, quote, unquote, already bought. And we certainly, at these levels, cannot afford to do that. If we continue to do that, and, you know, this kind of goes into another conversation that we've had before, Glenn, too. That central banks around the world who used to be our friends in support of the US being the world's reserve currency, used to just buy Treasuries, as kind of part of the deal here on an ongoing basis. Over the past 11 or so years, they have been net sellers of Treasuries. They have actually replaced that with gold on their balance sheet. So if we don't have central banks that will just buy Treasuries, whenever, because that's part of the geopolitical deal, that means you have to find people, who are, you know -- looking at the price. They're looking at the price of the treasuries. And basically, you know, at these levels, of even though, they've come off a little bit. And we can talk about that too.

But they're saying. Overall, they're saying, yeah, we're not going to do that. You know, we need to have a reprice here.

And, you know, when you don't have enough demand. You end up seeing our yields go higher. To the extent, they add you up too high. Which we were dangerously close to a few years ago. We've come off now.

If you hit that. That could end up causing a debt spiral.

End up causing a mismanagement.

Or not a mismanagement.

A throwing up, if you will, of the Treasury market. And have global implications. Let me explain this, so the average person understands what you just said.

You are -- you are wanting to buy a new house.

And the interest rates are up at 8 percent.

You say, honey, I don't think we should buy a new house.

The interest rate is too high.

And somebody says, historically not. Yeah. Historically, you might be right. But we're not buying in the 1980s right now. We're buying today, with our financial situation. So I don't think we're going to buy the house.

That's what a normal person would do. And you can start saving known buy a house later.

That's not what the government is doing. They're saying, let's buy the house at the high interest rates anyway.

But when you have poor credit, really good banks are going to say, no. I'm not going to take your loan.

That's what she's talking about with the central banks. They're like, I don't want it. I would rather buy gold.

Because I don't trust that you guys are ever going to get out of debt.

And so what happens? Loan sharks step in.

This is what she's saying about the yield going up. The loan sharks step in.

And they say, I can make this deal for you. It will cost you 12 percent.

You're like, 12 percent. That's outrageous.

You're going to do it, or you're not going to do it. What do you want?

So we're bigger ourselves with lone sharks. That's why, I believe, the president needs to say, tonight. Congress must pass a budget.

It must have cuts. I would love him to say, it must have a trillion dollars, bare minimum, of cuts. To show the rest of the world, that we're serious.

I don't know why Javier Milei can do these things, but we can't.

CAROL: However. However, however, Glenn, if we cut as we talked about, a trillion dollars. And we cut it up very carefully. And we don't choreograph it like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and then we don't have that in our GDP, then we have a shrunken economy. We're taking in less receipts, and we actually explode the deficit, which could end up in a debt spiral.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: So, yes. Congress needs to do their part. But it needs to be done very surgically, and that's the ultimate challenge.

That's the mess that the Biden administration left for Trump.

GLENN: If I were king of the world today, and I could go in and say, Congress, this is what you're going to do.

I would say to them, you're going to cut a trillion dollars. Plus, you're going to pass a flat tax. Or 15-15-15. What the president has talked about. And you're going to cut 15 percent of all regulations. Cut them right now. And you're going to pass the REINS Act. That would change the dynamics of the economy.

Yes. We would have all of that spending going away from our GDP. From the government.

Good, but money would flow into our country, and jobs would be created.

And we would he go night the engine at the same time. That's what has to happen! But that's not going to be the president's fault, if it doesn't happen. What a surprise! It will be the lame ass G.O.P. that will screw this up.

He has to get them back on path. Back in just a second with Carol Roth with some good news.

GLENN: Okay. Is there anything else that we need to hit here, on the economy, before we get to some good news?

CAROL: I mean, this was probably going to be a whole other segment, at some point we need to have a discussion about the tariffs. It's probably not the time now.

GLENN: No. Okay.

CAROL: But we need to have a discussion about these tariffs.

GLENN: Okay. Let's do that now. Let's start there.

CAROL: All right. So basically, what did the American people hire Trump to do? Right?

They hired Trump to stabilize prices. To get things more normalized.

And, yes. We have these issues around the world. In terms of where we stand by trade.

However, as we have been talking about, we just talked about, this needs to be very surgical. We need to have Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers doing choreography. We don't need to have a bull in a China shop.

And the tariffs situation, given the precarious economic situation that Biden has left us. And the fact that the citizens of the United States want priced ability is absolutely maddening.

I understood Art of the Deal. I understood the first time around, that we're trying to put some pressure. Show who is the big dog, and people to come to the table. But now, we're going after our allies.

We're trying to kind of separate ourselves from China. Well, we have country. Companies who decided to move manufacturing from China to Mexico.

So that they could be more aligned with the United States and North America. And now we're putting these crazy tariffs on it. This is -- this is something that, frankly, nobody in any economic circle, that I know, understands the strategy.

GLENN: Okay. So here's. And it does not seem to be consistent with what I have been talking about.

GLENN: Okay. Donald Trump has been playing many different games all at once. And the strategy that comes with Canada and Mexico.

I don't think really has anything to do with the economy.

It has everything to do with the border.

He is saying, help us with the border.

Help stop the flow of illegals. Stop fentanyl. And recognize that your cartels are terror organizations. Work with us. If you don't want to. That's fine!

You will get a tariff. He's not saying, you know, we -- you're charging us too much for our milk. And not enough for your milk.

Or whatever. That is part of it. But that's not really what he's after, I believe, on the tariffs with Canada and Mexico!

CAROL: I agree. That was the first time, we tried this.

And he got them to the table. And now we need to have sort of a different situation. Because the reality is that, as you said, he's made huge strides.

We have a tiny fraction of the encounters at the border.

So that is moving in the right direction. But things like pricing ability. Is not necessarily moving in the right direction.

And to throw this into the mix, at a time that is so precarious from an economic situation. Even if that is the ultimate outcome, it seems like the wrong tactic to take, because the situation on the economic front is so volatile. Find another path to do that! That's all I'll have to say on that.

STU: Yeah. And just to back up Carol's point on the border, I mean, we're down -- this is the lowest month we've had in at least 25 years of border crossings.

GLENN: Since 1968 or something crazy like that.

STU: Yeah. The only other close month was April 2017. Right? After Trump came in the first time. But that was much more about just tone, and it did slow things down.

This seems to be backing up with action.
And, you know, I -- I tend to agree on the tariffs with Carol here.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm against tariffs. I'm for even playing field tariffs.

STU: But, again, and that is defensible logically. Not what's happening with Canada, with being in agreement. There's no tariffs.

It was his agreement. He designed it. And now he's putting the tariffs on.

GLENN: I know.

CAROL: That's going back with the surgical part, if it was something very specific, I could understand. But across-the-board, at these levels, seems really insane at this point.

RADIO

Israeli Ambassador to US Explains Trump’s REAL Gaza Strategy

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Well, we -- it's not every day we have an ambassador pop in. But we have the Israeli ambassador to the United States.

Ambassador Leiter, welcome. How are you, sir?

LEITER: I'm good. It's good to be with you, Glenn.

GLENN: Yeah. You have it easy than your predecessor, dealing with Trump than President Biden. So you must be breathing a little easier. How are things in Israel?

LEITER: Well, I just got here. Five weeks ago, just landed.

GLENN: I know. I know. I know.

LEITER: I was actually the first ambassador to present his credentials to Trump. Yeah. And as my Prime Minister, Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to visit the White House.

So feeling pretty good about that.

GLENN: Yeah. So let me go back to the speech that President Biden gave. Because he said something in his speech, with Benjamin Netanyahu, or his -- his -- his answer. Question-and-answer session.

That even the Prime Minister couldn't have said. You know, saying, the Palestinians, they have to go some place else.

He couldn't have said. Nobody could have said that. Donald Trump know comes out and says it.

And we will build a beautiful resort.

What strategically, what do you think he was doing?

LEITER: Well, frankly, Glenn. I didn't hear the president say, he was going to force the Arabs and Palestinians out.

GLENN: No, he didn't say that. He didn't say that.

LEITER: I think what the president is saying, let's give these people a choice.

I mean, these people have been kept in Gaza. Egypt refused to open the gates.

Nobody brought ships to the coasts.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

LEITER: To offer them safe passage anywhere. Why do we just open up Gaza. And say, look, if you would like to leave. You have that option to do so. Many have left. Tens of thousands have left, by pagan exorbitant amount of money to the border crossing in Rafa. We don't need to do that. Let's just say, open the gates. Let the people out. Let's destroy Hamas. And, by the way, if they choose to leave, like Arafah left Beirut in 1982, by boat, some country that wants to absorb, I don't think anybody wants to take Hamas. I think they want to take the Gazans. Many people will take Gazans. They are an industrial bunch of people. And they will be very, very helpful to any country that wants to absorb them, but not Hamas. Nobody will take them.

But if they are going to leave, that's fine. Otherwise, we will have to destroy Hamas.

GLENN: Well, you're going to have to do it anyway. I saw -- when I was watching him, I -- I thought, nobody is going to be talking about that part tomorrow.

They're all going to be talking about building a big, beautiful city. And the Arab nations are going to say, immediately.

No, no, no, no. America is not doing that. They are doing that.

You think, part of his strategy was to get everybody back to the table, where they were with the Abrahamic accords, and everybody kind of working together for some peace with Israel.

LEITER: Glenn, I think your question is straight-on. It's very perceptive. There's been a narrative for the past, really since Israel was created.

That if Israel does not give up land. And we don't withdraw. There can't be peace. Yet, every time we've withdrawn, we've only gotten war.

And everybody has gotten into the habit of kind of using Israel as a whipping boy.

Israel not doing enough, it's doing too much. And what the president has done. It's taking everything out of the bag. And you said, look, in the Abraham accords, Israel wasn't demanded to withdraw, to give up land. How much territory do we have, by the way?

You know, we're the size of New Jersey, except come a hamburger. We're a hot dog.

It's very easy to cut in half. We're a tiny little country. We're in Texas. Israel fits into Texas 31 different times.

GLENN: Sorry.

LEITER: I'll never forget when -- when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took Bush 41 in a helicopter ride over all of Israel. And when they got out of the helicopter, President Bush said, yeah, that's about the size of my ranch.

Right? That's the state of Israel. So if we don't have too much territory, and it also doesn't work.

If the Abrahamic Accords, and the magic of the Abraham Accords is, you know, recognize Israel unconditionally. Let's just be friends.

Let's live together. And that's where we have to go now.

Saudi Arabia is ready. Okay? Other Arab countries, other Muslim countries are ready. Can you imagine if we have peace tomorrow with Indonesia? 300 million Muslims?

And, you know, it's going to be better for them. It will be better for us. It will be better for the region. It will be better for the world.

GLENN: So what do you think about this?

Because everybody was freaking out about what happened to the White House on Friday. By the way, the way Joe Biden treated Benjamin Netanyahu, making him wait for hours. And just treating him like garbage. And having the Democrats walk out.

Please don't talk to me about how President Trump treated Zelinsky.

He treated him like a king until things were turned around.

But the -- the -- what Trump is doing, is he is thinking on almost all fronts, out of the box.

He's breaking all of the -- the calcium, that's on all of our thinking.

He's just breaking it all off.

And thinking in new ways.

And -- and talking about peace, in a different way, that if you would -- you would get out of yourself or your old think, you would see, there's a real chance, this works.

But he's realigning everything.

LEITER: He's realigning everything. You know, for a while now, the world has been in search of a new international paradigm. You know, international relations works on the basis of a paradigm. So the first half of the 20th century, we had a multi-lateral, multi-polar paradigm. It didn't work. It ended up in two world Wars. Second half of the 20th century, we had a bipolar world.

It was a Cold War. It was on the brink of nuclear war extinction. Then we had unipolar moment. A unipolar world.

But which, the United States is stepping back from. Because we don't want to lead everywhere in the world. Take responsibility for the globe anymore.

So the world is in need of a new global paradigm. And I believe President Trump is establishing that global paradigm. And it may not have a very simple name. Like multi polar. Bipolar. And unipolar.

It may be Trumpian polar.

It will be less polar. If it's not mutually assured destruction. But mutually assured construction. Right?

Everybody can benefit from this approach to foreign relations. We certainly want to be part of that.

I think we're the best ally the United States has. We've never asked for boots on the ground.

Okay? We fight enemies. The common enemies that we have, particularly Iran. Particularly Iran.

GLENN: Yeah. Kind of scary.

You know, J.D. Vance, our vice president said, when he was speaking about a year ago. He said, you know, the Islamic country that you should be worried about, with nuclear missiles.

Will some day soon, maybe be the UK. I mean, I'm not going to ask you to comment on that.

But, you know, Europe, I think you guys could maybe show them the history of Israel.

Europe is appeasing an awful lot of stuff right now.

And the people are starting to feel like we're losing our country, and our -- our place. And it's becoming very -- very Sharia law, in some places.

LEITER: Yeah. Well, you're bringing up a fascinating point. And I will say something very undiplomatic. Even though I'm in the world of diplomacy.

This all boils down to the fact that, the 36 countries, in the developed world. The OECD. There's only one country in the world with replacement fertility.

We're having kids in Israel. We're preparing the next generation -- one country, of the developed nations that have replacement fertility. That's the state of Israel. That's three generations of a Holocaust. Talk about miracles. Huh?

So, you know, it -- the -- the -- the West has to believe in itself again. And part of believing in itself. And being happy with its existence. And believing in the ideals that it created to the Judeo Christian culture. Needs to be -- to celebrate a revival.

GLENN: Right. And I don't think we did.

And I don't think Joe Biden believed in that.

And based on their reaction to J.D. Vance over in Germany. I'm not sure that Europe actually believes in itself. Jason Buttrill is with us. He's our chief researcher. Watches over foreign affairs as well. You have something over the ambassador before he has to leave?

JASON: Yeah. Ambassador, I was in Israel before the October 7th anniversary, and I -- the flood of emotions, throughout the entire country. I can't imagine what the -- what the -- I just can't. What everyone is going thew.

How do you balance getting hostages back, versus releasing, you know, tons more Hamas hostages.

How do you even balance that? And can you put someone like me at ease. That wants all this Hamas terrorists dead. What's going to happen to them, once they go out. Are they going to reestablish back in Gaza? Are they going to go somewhere else and still threaten Israel? I mean, how do you get hostages back, but still deal with the -- the Hamas terrorists that are still getting out there?

LEITER: Like you, Jason, I want my mind to be at ease. It's been a very traumatic year for me personally. I lost my oldest son, who led the forces into Gaza, and was killed in the second week of the war, when he entered a Hamas booby trap together with his command team.

He had spent 15 years in Special Ops. And he went to med school. And he was supposed to start his rounds in the hospital on October 8th. So it's a traumatic year for many.

We lost 1200 people on October 7th. Another 850 soldiers have been killed in this war. Over 2,000 people.

By United States statistics.

That would be about 65, 70,000 people killed.

Imagine. In a year! Year and a half.

So we also had tens of thousands of people, removed from their homes. Living in temporary quarters, because of the missiles fired from Hezbollah.

From the Houthis. In the Gaza envelope.

It's been a traumatic year. But I can tell you this, the people of Israel are resilient.

Our soldiers are very brave and courageous.

The fight goes on. I can guarantee you, we will release all the hostages. But we will do our damnest to do so.

Get them out alive. You're talking about a -- a cruel and brutal ghoulish group of people.

GLENN: Yes. Can I ask -- did they ever get -- the mother of the Bibas children.

Did they ever get her body back? I know they delivered a coffin.

LEITER: They deliberately delivered a coffin with someone else's body.

By the way, the locks that they put on the caskets. They provide keys that don't open the locks.

Just -- you know, just to stick it in our eye, a little further. We received the -- received the body. But you know how they were killed, again.

They were murdered.

By strangulation. And then a -- a -- effacement of the bodies. In order to be able to try -- and this was verified by autopsies. So we're dealing with a horrific group of people.

And we're going to make sure that they are not standing in Gaza any longer. It will be a difficult, long process, but we will come out on top, in the end.

GLENN: You will. Because you're not ashamed of who you are. Nor should you be. Nor should we. And we support you. We thank you.

LEITER: Thank you. Let me conclude with this one sentence. My son taught his soldiers when they go into battle. He said, always remember, where you are, where your friends are, and where the enemy is. And I learned from my son, that we always have to wake up in the morning and say, who am I? Who are my friends? And who is my enemy?

And don't confuse those three.

GLENN: Hmm.

LEITER: Categories.

GLENN: Thank you very much. The ambassador to -- to the United States. The Israeli ambassador. Ambassador Lighter.

RADIO

How Trump is Playing 5D Chess with Zelenskyy and the World

Glenn makes the case that President Trump is playing 5D chess with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the world. "I was horrified" by the fiery Oval Office meeting between Zelenskyy, VP JD Vance, and Donald Trump on Friday, Glenn says. "But not [for the same reasons] everybody else was." Trump was right to say that he holds all the cards, and he's using them to win 5 battles: stopping the bleeding of people and money in Ukraine; letting Putin go home declaring a win, while everyone else knows he actually lost; giving Ukraine security, but through the rare earth minerals deal, not NATO; and taking the rare earth minerals away from Russia and China.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Oh, okay. You know, I've been saying that Trump is playing five dimensional chess. Let me show you the five dimensions of a win here for America.

The reason why I -- well, I was horrified by what I saw come out of the Oval Office on Friday.

Not because of why everybody else was.

I mean, it was so stupid. Zelinsky is -- was just playing a game. And you don't play a game against Trump, unless you have a card. You know, he's standing there, going. I don't know.

I'm going to raise the steaks. And he's like, dude. You don't have any cards.

None of them. What are you doing? You're not -- you're not capable of even playing this game!

I don't know! I'm going to push all in. Okay.

So he was just stupid. First of all, put on a tie, man!

Put on a tie. I know this is ridiculous. You know, what? What's the big deal?

He can come in his jeans. You know, Ronald Reagan never came in as jeans. Even Elon Musk wears a T-shirt with a jacket.

Have you ever seen him in the Oval Office with just a T-shirt?

He's put a jacket on top. Wear a freaking jacket!

You know where you are!

The White House. The Oval Office.

Okay.

But that's small!

Don't pick fights unless -- unless you know, you're not going to get clobbered.

But he was playing a game, trying to cozy up. Look like the strong man. Who would stand up against Donald Trump.

And unite Europe, because I should be in NATO!

Hmm. Good luck with that one, NATO.

Let me show you what happened, and part of it, an extra win for the United States might happen just because Europe was stupid, and they threw themselves in with Zelinsky. So here's what Trump is accomplishing with all of this.

One! Stopping a war. Who is against that?

Well, maybe 500 thousand people. Half a million people. Remember, we lost about 60,000. 60,000 in -- in Vietnam.

Remember how horrible that was? Russia has lost 200,000!

Are these low numbers.

Ukraine, 50,000.

Low numbers. So 250,000 people, lost, in this war.

Could be much, much higher. Let's end it. What do you say?

Because I don't even think anyone knows what this one is about anymore.

So it ends then.

Two, it ends the spending of the United States, this Ukraine, where we don't have any idea where any of it is going!

Okay? It is a corrupt country. I don't want to be helping their sock industry!

Do you want to be responsible?

Because you already are.

Under Biden, you were paying for all of the Social Security benefits, for everybody on who has worked in the Ukrainian government.

Are you for that?

Because I'm not.

What the hell are we doing with that?

All right. Ending the killing.

Ending the bleed of money. Now, what does everybody get out of it. Well, let's take Russia. Here's point number two. Number one, stop the bleeding, on people and money. Number two, Russia. It lets Putin go home, while declaring a win. But everyone else knows, he actually lost. How can you possibly say that. Because supposed to go in there, and in two weeks, take Ukraine. Now we are, what? Four years later. Three years later, and he still only has 20 percent. And he is stuck. Societies not going anywhere. Go ahead, Putin.

Cross into Poland, and see what happens to you, if you do that. The idea that Russia can just plow into Europe, has now been proven to be false!

He lost in Europe!

Okay.

So he can go home, and declare he won. Because he's got some land. I don't like that. But that's what happens in war!

Two, with Trump and Putin at the negotiating table, what is Trump doing?

He's siding with Russia.

That's what he's doing. No!

He is getting the rare earth minerals from Russia!

Russia and Ukraine are sitting on a gigantic pile of rare earth minerals.

If you don't know what that is, that's the thing that makes your computer work!

If we don't have rare earth minerals, we cannot compete in the world of tomorrow. Who has 90 percent of them? China! Did we help that? Yes!

Because we gave China Afghanistan. You know why we built that gigantic base over there, that we just handed to them? Because that's near the site of rare earth minerals!

Again, we cannot compete in tomorrow's world without rare earth minerals.

Why do you think China is all cozied up to Russia on this? Not just because they're against the United States. They want the rare earth minerals.

What are they doing all over the world?

They're making deals and saying, hey. So we'll kind of, you know, juice your economy here. And you give us the rare earth minerals.

They're smart! They're thinking ahead. Oh. I'm not used to this. So is the president of the United States!

Thinking ahead. We need the rare earth minerals. So we win. But because we win -- well, I'll get to that here in a second. So we win.

We're giving money. It really is Russia's anyway.

We're giving money to Russia. To buy the rare earth minerals.

That's a win for us. Because we're getting them at a discount.

China, we have to buy them from them, at a higher rate. Money doesn't talk to Putin, it screams.

He wants the money, from the United States, for the rare earth minerals. And he goes away, not happy, but not vengeful.

Kind of an important thing.

So there's win number two. Putin and Russia.

And rare earth minerals for America. Three, Ukraine.

Okay? They didn't get the NATO thing. They'll never get the NATO thing. It allows for us to now buy rare earth minerals, from Ukraine! They make money, we get something in return, and here's the really important thing for Ukraine.

If we have our companies, and rare earth minerals, those are extraordinarily valuable to the United States. Do you think we're going to let -- infrastructure and minds, and everything else, to get rare earth minerals out, and then we'll just say, oh, Putin just took them all?

Nope! We're not sending in troops. But you will understand soon, in the coming days, months, and years. How important rare earth minerals are!

We would send troops, if that was our stash of rare earth minerals.

Okay. So a win for Ukraine!

They didn't get the guarantee. But they get it another way. America's interests are now in Ukraine.

You should have taken these things. Four, Europe. What -- what has been the goal of Donald Trump for Europe? He's been saying, we're going to get out of NATO. He doesn't -- that's not his goal. I don't think he would mind getting out of NATO. Because it's an old alliance, that no longer is necessary.

But what does he really want?

He wants to stop paying 70 percent for the defense of Europe.

We pay 70 percent of everything that Europe has in defense, we pay 70 percent of that! No! No!

We're not going to do that anymore. So what happens? Well, because of the WEF, you know, strategy over in Europe, you have them coming together on Zelinsky's side. That's not going to make NATO stronger.

Because America is not going to go and get involved. And if you think we're going to blink on that, Donald Trump -- Donald Trump will sew his eyelids open, before he would blink on, okay. We're going to send some troops into NATO.

It's not going to map not going to happen. That weakens NATO, yes.

But it also does, what?

It forces NATO to spend more money on their own defense. A win for America!

NATO pays more, okay. What's the other win? The World War II plans. The World War II model for the world. Takes a major hit.

That's another goal of anybody who wants to get out of NATO. Anybody who wants to say, you know, the world has changed. Why are we still doing it that way?

Which is Donald Trump. The downside on this one, is that the EU because of where they're headed with the World Economic Forum, they're headed to a very unpleasant place. I mean, they just said, when J.D. Vance was over there. They just said, we don't have anything in common with America. If they're going to be for free speech. And freedom of press.

And not changing the results of elections. I don't think we have as much in common. Well, you know what, I don't want to be your ally, if that's what you believe.

You're an enemy to freedom. No. I don't want to be here. I don't want to spend money for your defense.

It could cause a Cold War, between us and Europe.

Which would not be a good thing. But morally, ethically, and strategically. If that's who they're going to be, how do we remain their friends?

Wouldn't mind being a trading partner. But not your friend. And the fifth win, five-dimensional chess. The fifth win that Donald Trump is getting.

China loses Russia. China lose the rare earth minerals, that Russia just captured! China loses its grip, not just on -- on Russia, but also on us!

Why did Trump. One of the first things he said -- you know what, we have to buy Greenland. Greenland, come on. There's always a price. How much? How much?

Why? Because we needed ice cubes. We needed rare earth minerals.

The downside on all of this stuff is if Russia and Putin -- and Zelinsky don't make a deal with the United States. Greenland. Sorry, you're going to be seeing a lot of us in the future. Because to compete for America to win, for America to advance, for America to be a superpower, for us not to be slaves of China, we must have rare earth minerals.

That's what this whole thing is all about!

At least for Donald Trump. It was about bribery, graft, war with Europe and with Biden.

With Trump, it's about peace. It's about everybody can win here. And the United States will win, to quote him bigly, because we need the rare earth minerals.

Anybody who says that Trump is stupid. Trump is causing a war. No, he's not. No, he's not.

But the world is changing. And for once! Finally, we have a president that knows how to negotiate, is negotiating on so many levels, it's mind-boggling.

And a president that's going to win, not for him. Not for his cronies. But for America's future.

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