RADIOMarch 05, 2024

REALLY? Biden Creates Shrinkflation Task Force to Blame COMPANIES for HIS Failures

President Biden is launching a new shrinkflation task force to crack down on the “unfair and illegal pricing” of goods. But is Biden right to blame companies when it’s his economic policies that has caused inflation? “You Will Own Nothing” author Carol Roth joins Glenn to break down why this FTC and DOJ-led task force is actually push for price controls. Plus, Carol weighs in on New York Attorney General Letitia James’ recent attack on the beef industry and how the White House is spreading propaganda through Cookie Monster.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: All right. We have Carol Roth with us. Carol Roth is a good friend of the program. And also the author of, you will own nothing.

Former investment banker now cares about Main Street.

Carol, how are you?

CAROL: Well, Glenn, you seem a little feisty today, and I always enjoy feisty Glenn. This should be good.

GLENN: Well, I tell you, the Cookie Monster really pissed me off today, because there's no way, that that's a coincidence. That's coordinated propaganda from the White House.

CAROL: Well, I feel like Cookie Monster is the one who got it right. Cookie Monster is not the one who blamed the corporations. I believe it was Joe Biden, right. He just said that his cookies were getting smaller because of shrinkflation.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: And I think that makes him a better economist than anyone in the Biden administration or in the New York Times. You know, for that matter.

But the reality is that this is a Biden talking point, so they picked up on this, and they said, no, no, no. Cookie Monster, shrinkflation is happening because of the green corporations.

GLENN: So today, they're launching something. And, Carol, I want to get your read on this.

This seems a little terrifying. Joe Biden today is launching a new task force to take on unfair and illegal corporate pricing, which Biden sees as a major reason why consumers are not yet feeling the impact of a cooling inflation rate.

The task force will jointly be led by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, two agencies at the forefront of the Biden administration's aggressive regulatory agenda over the past three years.

Wow!

What are these illegal -- what did they say?

Illegal --

CAROL: Illegal and unfair. Illegal and unfair pricing. Unfair -- unfair is anything that Biden says doesn't go along with his narrative. And he's really talking out of both sides of his mouth. Or perhaps mumbling outside of both side of his mouth.

On the one hand, he's touting how much the economy is growing.

That things are going well.

That wages are increasing. If that was the case. Corporations should be doing better.

And there is no corporation, that is making any sort of outsized profits. Things like shrinkflation. And what's happening. Our downstream issues from the inflation.

That the Biden administration caused. And certainly the fed caused.

So to now say, we're going to have a task force. That is going to look up unfair and legal pricing practices.

You know, legal is one thing.

There's a certain definition at least today.

Who knows what that could be expanded to. Unfair is obviously anything that they don't happen to believe in or agree with. Or is against their policy.

One of the things we know in economics, across-the-board, price controls don't work.

That's something that creates rationing, and goods shortages.

GLENN: And a black market.

CAROL: Even Paul Krugman, who gets everything wrong. The one thing he's ever gotten right. He's against rent control. Which is one of many of price controls, even he kind of gets the fact that price controls don't work.

Everyone pretty much across-the-board agrees with that. But now they want to come in with the government, and step in. And say, oh, you're earning too much of a profit.

We don't like what you're doing.

You need to lower your prices.

Even though we're imposing this world upon you. That is a recipe of disaster. And obviously, completely the opposite of free market capitalism.

GLENN: Right. It is a fascistic move. When the government tells companies what to do, it's a move that fascists make.

I'm concerned about this, because, you know, with all the public/private partnerships. The ones that are going to get into trouble. Are not the ones doing the bidding of the American government now.

Let me give you an example. New York State attorney, Latisha James, has now filed suit, against JBS, USA food company.

This is the world's largest beef producer.

Accusing him of fraudulent and illegal business activities.

And disgorgement of all profits and ill-gotten gains.

She's using the state's apparatus, to go after beef procures.

But not for any other reason, other than they say, they are shooting for zero e- missions by 2040.

And she says that's fraud.

CAROL: Yes. She's accusing them of what's, quote, unquote, brainwashing. The state has put these different apparatus around these the different companies.

The companies as we know, leaned into those and wanted to sound like they were complying.

And so they said, oh, we're going to do all these things to help the environment. So now she's saying no, it's fraudulent. You haven't done the things that we said, or at least in the way that we said.

And, you know, with JBS. It's a little bit tough obviously. Because they're this huge corporate conglomerate. In some cases, they may have created some issues with the independent farmers. Either way, you're not rooting for the state here to come in.

And this discouragement of profits sounds, by the way, a lot what happened to Donald Trump. So this is anything that people made, we're going to confiscate it.

GLENN: First New York came for the National Rifle Association. I didn't say anything, because I didn't own a rifle. I wasn't a hunter, and I disagree with guns.

Then they came for Donald Trump, but I didn't vote for him. So it didn't matter. Now they're coming for beef.

And, you know, you could go after JBS for unfair business practices in my opinion. Because I'm a rancher.

CAROL: Sure.

GLENN: And I see these -- I believe there's absolute collusion with the three companies that are producing all of the beef in the country.

They're getting rich. The farmers are getting poorer. The ranchers are getting poorer.

So I think you can go after that. But it would have to be legitimate. I don't have the facts.

You could go after them for that. And break that monopoly up. Which I think is -- is fair. But he's not.

She's talking about the rain forest. What the hell does the rain forest have to do with New York?

CAROL: And not only that. This is very war on small business-like, right?

Because these bigger companies will have the Capitol base and the power to withstand at least the first time around, some of these tests from the state. But if you are an independent farmer. Or you are a small business, in some other arena. And they come after you. That's it. You are wiped off the map.

Which just further consolidates, those are exactly the opposite of what you just talked about. It doesn't create this more fair playing field.

It creates these tighter monopolies and do you duopolies. So this is almost like a warning sign to say, hey, maybe you want to get out of this business. Because we're coming after you.

And that seems like the plan. They want to capture and control more and more of our resources. And bring it more along with the state.

And they're finding all of these, frankly, unconstitutional ways, and banana republic sort of ways to do it, and we have to stand up.

GLENN: I have to tell you, you got to get out of New York because they're just going the wrong way. Carol -- and, Stu, I think you know a little bit about this too.

This is the future. Litigation is the way the left is moving. They're going to overwhelm the system, with lawsuits, on anything they disagree.

They're just going to take this.

Look what they're doing to Donald Trump.

That's going to happen everywhere.

STU: Yeah. Law fair is definitely the strangle, right?

They keep coming out. They push these things down the throats of everybody.

And then, what's the response?

Like the good outcome, is you spend years and years and years litigating, and spend tons and tons of money defending yourself.

You're not furthering the economy, you're not furthering your business, you're not helping anybody. You're not making products benefiting anyone. You're just in constant defense mode. And how do you advance yourself that way?

CAROL: And you have to have the capital base to be able to do that.

This is not something for the faint of heart, or if you don't have enough dollars in the bank, this is a very expensive endeavor, to be able to fight this.

So you come out the other end. And it's not guaranteed that you will get restitution for your legal fees or anything else for that matter. It's like, oh. Sorry. I guess we didn't win this particular one.

Or you send up in a corrupt area. And they do end up winning. On something that is baseless, as we saw happening in New York.

So it's very frightening. For anybody that has this.

GLENN: So let me ask you. Hochul came out last time under Trump.

Don't worry. This is Donald Trump-specific.

No. No. No. This is exactly. They are targeting a business they don't like. And theory trying to take it down, with everything the state has in its power.

When -- when does New York cross the Rubicon, and businesses just say, I am out of here?

When does New York collapse economically?

CAROL: It's a really good question. Certainly as a test run, I do think that people, particularly New York has a lot of liberal people, who believe that they -- will not happen to them.

We did see mass movement during COVID.

People who said, I've had enough of these policies.

Certainly, the cost. The crime. All those other issues.

Seen a mass exodus in the state, for places like Florida.

For people who remain, that say, no. This is my home. This is the heartbeat of my soul or whatever it is. They just aren't going to believe that it is going to happen to them, until it happens to one of them.

And then, of course, they make another set of excuses, saying, well, you know, this was different.

And I just think, that's one of the big issues with this country.

We have a lot of people, who are in conditional. And decoupled with reality.

And don't understand. And don't want to frankly understand. The reality of what is happening here, Glenn.

GLENN: Right.

So let me go back to this tribunal.

That the -- that the president is starting today. With the Department of Justice.

And the FDC.

This again, I -- I -- you know, I hate to be such a cynic.

But I -- I have no reason, not to be in this case.

They're going to target the companies that are not falling in line with them.

And how are you -- how are we going to fight this one?

What should these companies do?

And what should the average person do, to prepare? Because this is -- this is really going to go right to the heart of capitalism.

CAROL: Yeah. To think, the one piece of good news, the courts are also working. In some cases, the other way.

And there are groups like Pacific legal foundation. And others, who are these nonprofits, that will stand up, for businesses, and individual rights.

We just saw a -- at least interim win, that Corporate Transparency Act that we had talked about.
The financial crimes network, that was mass-targeting small businesses over the weekend. The Alabama courts had ruled or came out over the weekend, had ruled that it was unconstitutional.

Certainly, we imagined that the Treasury will fight that. If that holds, that shows, that there will be a win.

So there will be these marquee opportunities to push back.

Unfortunately, it's just exhausting.

Because it's like, you go and you kill the ants, and you think that you got everything done. And then the rain comes

And then you have a whole group of them coming back out.

I think we have to stay vigilant. And we have to use our voices.

Because the places where people have spoken up, and said, this is an issue, across-the-board. Whether it's to politicians.

Whether it's to Wall Street.

Wherever it is. Those are the places they backed off. And certainly, they've gone somewhere else.

But things like messing with our food supply, that is an absolute no. And something that everybody should be using their voices.

GLENN: So BlackRock says ESG advocacy say risk-factory for its bottom line.

I told you, don't believe them.

They will repackage.

Carol, I just want to hit this briefly.

Because I've got other things on the economy, I want to talk about.

BlackRock has now said, we're not doing ESG. Too many lawsuits. But we're doing transition investing.

Hmm. What's transition investing?

CAROL: They're transitioning, Glenn.

They want to transition, and they're transitioning, away from ESG.

And they're doing it in infrastructure.

And when they say infrastructure. They mean things like transportation.

Like water. Like sewage. And the like.

So instead of using their client's money to bully companies to make the changes they want. They're like, let's just use our client's money to invest directly into things that are sort of lynch pins, in making a change in their sort of energy cultism, so to speak.

So one of the things they did, they bought a private equity firm. That, actually, specialized in this. Not even just public money. But private money.

This company has about 100 billion in assets, under management. Which is -- not to say is a small amount of money. It's a huge amount of money.

But in terms of BlackRock, it's about 1 percent of their assets under management. Because remember they have about 10 trillion in assets under management.

But it gives them the vehicle to make these direct investments. And the firm they bought, owned things like big pieces of airports around the world. And water and sewage treatment and the like. And so BlackRock is going to be offering more of these investment opportunities, as well as having funds that do that in the public sector.

But the reason, they're doing it. You know, this is not just about control.

This is about following the money, Glenn.

And that is sort of the -- one of the ten polls of ESG. This is a quote from Larry Fink.

Policymakers are only just beginning to implement once in a generation financial incentives, for new infrastructure, technologies, and projects.

So this is not only about control. But this is another cash grab.

They are going to say, well, if we have our friends that we can influence in the government. And we can get them to give more incentives to the projects that we're investing in, then we are going to make more money. And we can achieve our goal. What a great win.

And another way to just completely consolidate money. Take taxpayer money. And find ways to enrich themselves while destroying our lives.

GLENN: That's fantastic.

CAROL: Yep.

GLENN: By the way, one quick thing. We have 90 seconds. We are adding 1 trillion dollars' worth of debt now, every three to four months.

CAROL: Correct. Every 100 days, $1 trillion. I said that you have that one family member in every family, who is the irresponsible one. The one who spends all their money, and then comes begging to you, and saying, they're going to be different this time.

GLENN: Right.

CAROL: The government is that drunk uncle. That is your family member. And unfortunately, there is no -- there is no stopping. But everybody knows the problem.

Like everybody has said this is a problem now. And nobody has the fortitude to do anything about it. We're talking from rating agencies. The Treasury, the Fed, the IMF. You know, major players from Jamie Dimon.

Every single person has come out now and said, this is a massive issue, and nobody is doing anything about this.

GLENN: And when you do this, and you add a trillion dollars every 100 days, to the debt.

Of course, inflation is going to go up.

And that's why you need price controls. And price controls lead to all kinds of bad things.

Don't believe what the mainstream media is telling you.

This is simple mathematics. Period.

Carol, thank you so much.

We'll talk again. God bless.

Carol Roth, the author of the book, you will own nothing.

EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Explains His FIERY Rejection of Spending Bill

According to the media, there’s a big fight going on between Republicans over the House’s new slimmed-down continuing resolution spending bill. Some, including President-elect Donald Trump, wanted the bill to pass. But others, like Texas Representative Chip Roy, argued that it still wasn’t ready. However, is the Republican “unity coalition” really crumbling, like the media claims? Rep. Chip Roy joins Glenn to explain what’s really going on. He argues that he IS trying to give Trump and DOGE a 100-day “runway” to fix the country. But he makes the case that, by increasing the debt ceiling by $5 trillion without agreeing on other cuts, this bill gives bad actors the ability to be an “obstacle” to Trump’s agenda further down the line. Plus, he reveals to Glenn that he believes some of these bad actors LEAKED false information about his stance to Mar-a-Lago.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN:

I think we have a great opportunity today. To show you how to have a -- tough conversation, with friends, friends. Where you deeply disagree on something.

But you know that their intent is good. They know my intent is good. Or our intent is good.

And we actually have the same end goal, but we disagree on the path. And we're going to walk away friends.

Chip Roy is joining us today. And, Chip, I love you. And I always will. And I agree with your, we've got to cut spending. We have to. But Liz Wheeler is with me. And we've been talking about it all morning. It's the -- the -- the -- the system of DOGE and Trump, the call-out to the world, in saying, you've got to surrender the Capitol. You know, the bad guys are in and about to take all the money.

Surround, and tell them, come out with your hands up. And that happened. And we scored a massive win, in an entirely new way.

Ask then you stood on principle, one we both agree with.

And it failed!

And so here's -- here's what Liz and I were talking about. Here's what we want to say to you.

And then get your response.

LIZ: Hi, Congressman Roy, this is the way I see it. I want your take on it. I love you. I think you're one of the best members of Congress. I disagree with you on the process that's happening. And I think that is the difference. The process. We elected Donald Trump to be a disruptor. Because Republican members of Congress for decades have been telling they're fiscal conservatives. They want to decrease the debt SEAL. It hasn't happened.

It hasn't -- it hasn't been done. And so Donald Trump comes in with Elon Musk, and uses this DOGE process to first identify these pieces of garbage in the first 1500-page bill. And take those things to the people. We took them to members of Congress. Congress said, okay. We'll listen to you.

So that new process was very effective.

And my question to you is: Once that process was proved to be effective. Which I think is exciting and wonderful.

How do we bridge this divide, with you, to say, okay.

Let's put some faith in this new process. And trust Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Dow Jones process, to eventually address the debt ceiling, but get this done right now?

GLENN: And not blind trust. Chip.

CHIP: So appreciate you guys. Appreciate being on the show. Particular order. I have to go through a couple of things.

GLENN: Yep.

CHIP: Number one, it's important to remember that my job and my duty is to the Constitution, to God, and the people I represent. I told them, when I came to Washington, I would not -- I would not let the credit card and the debt ceiling and the borrowing of the United States without the spending restraints necessary to offset it.

GLENN: Okay.

CHIP: Right now, all we have are promises and ideas and notions. What I know, that neither of you respectfully no, and that none of your listeners respectfully no are the people that are in the room, that I was in with yesterday. And the day before, who are recalcitrant.

And do not want to do the spending cuts that we need to do.

That I believe the president and the DOGE guys. And everybody want to do.

My job, is to force that through the meat grinder. To demand that we do our damn job. Okay?

GLENN: Okay. So hang on. Okay. So wait. Wait. You're right. You're right. You're right. Go ahead.

CHIP: Number thee, when we were going through the bill, I'm glad the bill dropped from 1,550 pages to 116 pages. Three-quarters of Twitter or X or whatever you want to call it, have been out there spreading false facts that we supported a bad bill and didn't like the better bill.

That's not true. But let's be Lear. The 1400 pages that were cut out. It's a panacea.

There were some good stuff in there. There were some bad stuff in there. There was a lot of disinformation.

There wasn't a $70,000 pay raise. There was a 3,000-dollar pay raise.

I didn't support any pay raise. I didn't support a lot of the stuff in there.

But there's a lot of misinformation. And here's the thing: The 116 pages that were left, and I opposed violently the first bill. I was leading the charge on fighting and killing the first bill.

GLENN: And I love you.

LIZ: The second bill for 116 pages. Turned off -- turned off the pay go requirement. That we slash 1.7 trillion automatically.

And added a 5 trillion that are increase.

My view was, I could not support that, without a clear understanding of what cuts we would get, in mandatory spending next year. And undo any of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The undoing of the student loans. The undoing of the crap with the food stamps.

And everything else. I yield back.

GLENN: Okay. I yield back.

Chip, you're not in a hostile room. We love you. And we agree with your end goals. It's our end goal too. We didn't make that promise that you made to the people that voted for you. So we have more wiggle room here.

But you say -- I think our big difference is, you say, I know the guys in the room.

You're right. You do. And we -- we ceded that earlier today on the show.

You are -- one of us is wrong on trust.

I don't trust any of the weasels in Washington.

But I think Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have earned enough trust, to get a grace period, here for the first -- maybe the first year.

Or at least six months.

To turn the economy around, and also reduce the size of the government.

And totally flip this thing.

And I know, as somebody who is -- you know, run a company, mainly into a ground. But run a company, and have to switch it, in the middle, and totally reshuffle. That -- that actually costs money, while you're doing it, to bridge the gap.

Because you have to fill up holes while you're filling in the gap.

You don't trust the people in the room. Neither do we.

But we do trust the system that worked on Wednesday with DOGE and Donald Trump.

Where do we disagree?

Can you give them --

CHIP: We don't disagree. And yesterday morning, I was making that precise argument in a room full of conservatives and then a follow-up room with people who will call it, less conservatives.

GLENN: Republican. Yes.

CHIP: And so we were making this argument. And then someone infamously. Something leaked out of the room, somehow out to Mar-a-Lago. That I was being resistant. Because I was negotiating trying to get the agreement to achieve the objective that you just said. I was trying to get, okay. In fact, yesterday morning, I made the argument to a group of conservatives. We need to give the president runway. We need to give him his first 100 days. We need to appreciate JD, and Vivek, and all the people -- and everybody involved. For the president to achieve the objective.

But to get there. We have to make sure that the guys in the room, that are an obstacle to that, don't have the ability to block it.

Because information flow matters. And when those guys tell the president, they can't achieve X.

Then the president will not achieve X. Our job was to force and demand, guys, we need actual understanding of what the cuts will be.

And because otherwise, we're asking us to accept a 5 trillion-dollar limit in our credit card increase. In exchange for nothing!

Literally, in exchange for nothing, but -- but hope.

So our job was to force that change.

Unfortunately, while I was trying to make the argument that we needed something in order to get the votes, someone leaked that down to Mar-a-Lago, and the president reacted.

But now I have to now manage that.

GLENN: Right. I know. I know.

CHIP: They're trying to enforce change in town.

GLENN: So hang on.

We have to leave this. Because I'm going to run against the clock.

I could talk to you all day about this. You were in a meeting this morning about J.D. Vance. Can you tell us anything about that meeting?

CHIP: That meeting happened, because despite what happened yesterday, I'm trying to get this done. Last night, talking to JD, we worked to get this meeting done. We had some good progress this morning.

But there still remains people concerned about spending. That we can work out, what agreement we can reach. On what spending cuts. We can actually get next year, in exchange for giving the vote on a debt ceiling increase.

So it remains fluid. Progress was made. But we have to keep working on it.

And I left that meeting to talk to you. Soil get an update in a minute.

GLENN: Thank you for that, by the way.

I hear there is a new bill that may be coming today.

Is that the one you're talking about?

Or is this another bill that could be another nightmare?

CHIP: Despite other people leaking crap, I refused. I can't say, because it's not been decided by the speaker.

And it's not right to talk about things they're talking about in private meetings.

GLENN: Yeah, but it's -- it's this speaker. I mean, is he really the speaker anymore, Chip, really?

CHIP: We need to hear what bill we need to get forward. And I can't talk about the private meetings. But, look, I'm going to keep fighting for what I promised people that I represent.

I'm going to fight to cut spending. I am going to represent article one.

I'm going to support the president's agenda, but we've got to do that together.

GLENN: Okay.

Chip, thank you.

I think we can -- I think we agree, but I await to see what that means to you. Because we may just have to agree to disagree on this.

But I love you. And I still want you to replace Cornyn.

CHIP: The short version is, for inflation's sake, we cannot increase the debt ceiling $5 trillion without knowing what we're getting for it.

And I don't think anybody should disagree with that.

GLENN: But you don't disagree that Elon Musk and Trump and Vivek are serious about gutting the system.

CHIP: I believe that is their objective. I believe there are obstacles to that objective. And I need to know the sincerity of how we deal with those obstacles, both structural, and human. And we have to figure that out. And that's my job.

America's Favorite Villain Is Ready for Nuclear Fallout. Are You? | Glenn TV | Ep 401

In this episode of Glenn TV — a theatrical how-to guide to survive the breakdown of society after a nuclear attack, according to the new movie “Homestead” from Angel Studios. Glenn Beck interviews the movie’s star and executive producer, Neal McDonough, who plays the head of a family trying to survive as society is breaking down in a postapocalyptic world. You’ve probably seen Neal in everything from the hit TV shows “Yellowstone,” “Suits,” and “Justified” to movies like “Captain America,” “Minority Report,” and the groundbreaking mini-series “Band of Brothers.” Glenn asks Neal what it’s like to play a villain so often, how TV and movies are changing, and how he survived Hollywood as a devoted Christian and husband who refuses to do onscreen kissing scenes with any of his female co-stars. They also discuss his battle with alcoholism, what it’s like working the legends like Sylvester Stallone and Kevin Costner, and the cultural craving for Western cinema. Note: Angel Studios is a sponsor of “The Glenn Beck Program.” Get your tickets for “Homestead” at https://Angel.com/Beck.