Glenn and Stu discuss what they’re most excited to see in a second Trump term. Will Trump have BOTH the House and Senate so he doesn’t have to rely on executive orders? Will Elon Musk be able to clean out the bureaucracy? Can Trump lower the income tax or abolish the 16th Amendment altogether? Will his tariff plan work? Will he be able to reduce the government’s spending? Will we finally see term limits for members of Congress?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So, Stu, are you -- are you almost giddy at what is possibly coming?
STU: Yeah!
I think I'm really -- I'm excited. I was trying to think of what I'm most excited about. Because there's a good chance the Republicans get the House.
And, by the way, this is going to be close.
GLENN: Don't toy with my feelings here, Stu.
STU: Yeah. I was interested. Because there's so -- I think this is the right thing to feel.
But there's very little panic over the house. I think the Republicans will get it. But if you think about like, the shenanigans that have better than been worried about over the years.
GLENN: I don't know if it was shenanigans.
STU: Yeah. I was going to go a different direction.
The shenanigans that we have been worried about over the years. It would be a heck of a lot easier to steal this election. Than anything else that you could possibly imagine.
We will be completely dependent on California districts that take two weeks to count. That is legitimately what the House comes down to.
The fact that we're not freaked out about that. Is good.
Maybe that means, at the end of the day, whatever problems we have had before, have been solved.
At the end of the day, we are looking at a very close, 220, maybe 221, if we're lucky, in the House.
It will be in that general vicinity. Markets say, it's a 93 percent chance that Republicans will get the House. Not 100.
So that's still out there.
But if you are able to get that. I was thinking, what does that mean?
You will have 53 senators, at least. McCormick, by the way, even though some places haven't called that race. McCormick will get that race in Pennsylvania.
You still have two possibilities. Kari Lake in Arizona and Sam Brown in Nevada, that are possible.
I would say probably less than 50 percent on those. But 53 isn't 50 or 51. So you've got a little bit of a cushion there.
The more cushion you have --
GLENN: You just have enough for Murkowski and Collins.
STU: Right. And Collins. You at least you have that going for you, which is nice.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: And the more cushion you have, the better bill you can get out of let's say reconciliation, to keep it nerdy as possible.
You will get one bill, basically, that is going to give you, that will pass with 50 votes.
This is how Donald Trump passed the tax break package. He passed back in his first term. And we may very well get a good tax break package.
It may be really good, you know, maybe he gets even more aggressive. Because, remember, that was sort of an off-the-shelf government proposal, largely, that they passed in 2017. So maybe we'll get something even better.
But honestly, I was thinking about. That's not what I'm most excited about. I think what I might be most excited about is the prospect of Elon Musk coming in and identifying places to come.
GLENN: Oh. Me too.
STU: Like, there's something about that. Because that is really his -- all of his brilliance.
We all know the guy is a genius.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: But of all his brilliance, that is what you take most away from what he was able to bring to all of the companies.
Sometimes, it's even presented as soulless and heartless. Right?
He just comes in, and he has no care. We don't need --
GLENN: Hang on just a second. It's a company.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: I mean, it's not a charity. It's a company.
STU: Agreed.
GLENN: And look at how many people this heartless bastard cut from Twitter.
Well, it's doing better than it ever has. You know, you might have your complaints here or there. But I believe X saved the republic.
I wonder if it wasn't for Elon Musk, buying Twitter. If we would have won.
STU: I think that's very true.
I think remember, when you say it's doing better than it ever has done. You can definitely look at financial measures that do not agree with that comment. However, that's not what his goal was.
What was his goal? His goal was to allow people to speak freely?
And it was an expensive genre, into that world.
I mean, you know, but it was worth it, I think. And it was something -- he was protecting the First Amendment. And I didn't mean to say it in a negative way. When I said heartless and soulless, that was how it was portrayed by many.
GLENN: That's how it was spun many times.
STU: Yeah. And there are plenty stories of him being tough on employees. Maybe too tough on certain employees.
But that attitude, 100 percent is necessary in the federal government.
Whatever he thought was waste, at Tesla, or SpaceX, or Twitter, is nothing compared to the burden we all carry with incompetent employees and complete waste. And nonsensical programs, that accomplish nothing.
We all carry that burden.
And if Donald Trump empowers him, and he wants to take this on, as they talked about in the campaign. I feel like, it's one of those things we could actually see a real difference made.
Not just a little, hey, we should get 4 percent off of this rate, which I will cheer on.
I will be happy with tax rates going down.
But like, that's something I think that could really change the country in a positive direction.
GLENN: So I want you to bring your best hat, your best thinking cap on Monday.
Because I scheduled a -- an economist, who said, the way that Donald Trump is thinking about -- thinking about tariffs, would mean an 18 thousand dollar raise for everybody.
And could actually work to pay our -- to pay our -- you know, our bills every month. And now, I don't know.
I haven't heard the full argument. But I just want to hear it. Because if we can cut back our spending, so it's fairly reasonable.
And we're still, you know, providing a safety net and everything else.
I am very interested in rebuilding our industries. Rebuilding our factories. And -- and actually motivating people, to go to work.
And -- and learn a real skill, and start making things here in America. And having pride in that.
STU: Yeah, for sure.
GLENN: And I think, for the first time, I think if I can -- if I can get somebody to tell me all of the metrics and the numbers. Because I -- you know, the numbers have to. They have to work out.
But that to me, is thrilling.
Even if you went to a 5 percent income tax. I would rather abolish it.
But if you did something track. You imagine the money that would open up. That could be invested in job creation.
New businesses. Can you imagine what would happen in a country, where we didn't have income tax?
STU: I -- look, the -- there is a three-pronged approach, right?
That he's talked about. One is raising tariffs. One is -- as you mentioned, getting rid of the income tax.
And a third would be cutting the government down level to levels. You know, roughly, you of course adjust for inflation, and you adjust for population growth and all these things.
But roughly to the 1800s. As he talked about 1880s.
GLENN: Or 1920s. Calvin Coolidge did this.
STU: Calvin Coolidge did this as well. He was more friendly to tariffs.
Even though, it's not my favorite policy. But he's one of my favorite presidents.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: But, you know, those three things are, if you could do all three of those together. It adjusts the country in a way that is so dramatic.
It would probably be do a lot of really positive things.
GLENN: Yeah. Like 5 percent growth.
Like 5 percent growth a year.
That's -- that puts us into the -- when China was doing well kind of growth.
STU: And I think we can get locked into the sort of fantasy league here.
GLENN: I like to.
I've been doomsday for a long time.
STU: Hey. This is the right time to do it. He just won. What can we do here?
The issue with these policies together is one of them is really easy to do, which is raise tariffs. Donald Trump can do that just on his own.
The other two are nearly impossible.
I mean, get over -- and I'm not -- I have literally sold mugs at StuDoesMerch.com. That's a repeal the 16th Amendment. So 100 percent, this should be our goal.
But you're right. Like there might be a modified version of this that makes sense. If you can control spending, if you can cut some, and you can lower the income tax, a great deal, and replace some of that income with tariffs.
I don't think that that would be the type of situation, that would be horrible.
I don't -- I mean, we do forget at times, we are the second largest manufacturing country in the world.
We do make a lot of things here.
GLENN: I know. I do.
STU: And a lot of times, those measures I think are a little bit out of whack. That being said, I'm happy to trade.
I'll trade getting rid of the income tax for a lot.
There's a lot of stuff I'm willing to deal with on the policy front, if we could get a win like that. And why not go for it?
Why not?
GLENN: I know.
I mean, he's the guy who could do it.
Donald Trump is the guy who could do it.
He could get that constitutional amendment passed on the -- the term limits, on Congress. I think he could get that passed.
If he backed it, he could get it passed.
If he wanted to repeal the 16th amendment, with another constitutional amendment, and he really laid it out.
Here's what this would mean for you. I -- think the numbers are so staggering, that who wouldn't be for that?
STU: Well, certainly. Constitutional amendments are difficult.
Because you need the other side involved in them.
That makes them -- I mean, there are other approaches.
But you know how hard it is. It's hard. We've done it 27 times, in a couple hundred years. And most of them are at the beginning.
It's really hard to do. And it should be hard to do, by the way. That's a change that I would absolutely love.
Term limits are one. Term limits, I would say, are arguably more interesting, from a pragmatic doable circumstance.
This is a really popular policy.
People can't stand the fact that Nancy Pelosi just won her 20th term in Congress.
20 terms in Congress. People don't like that. They don't like it on Republicans or Democrats. You're talking about 80 percent approval numbers for a proposal like that. And I think Trump also looks at it and says, you know what, good chance, you know what, if I ran again, I would win.
I'm limited. Why aren't you? I think he looks at that as a general idea of fairness, why is the president limited for -- to two terms, when they are -- when senators get to go for two -- multiple six-year terms. Congressmen can go forever, with two-year terms.
Why not make it so there are limits across-the-board?
GLENN: Wouldn't it be amazing if the last time they put term limits on was through Congress. Because they saw how out of control FDR was.
And it was the Democrats that led that, and thought, we can't. We can't have that. We can't that have.
And now, to come back after Congress has done nothing. And our government is -- is out of control. Like it was at the beginning of FDR, and through Woodrow Wilson.
To have now the president come back and say, all right. Let's finish that job.
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: The progressives always take people's breath away. They always go too far. And they hit a point to where you're like, oh, my gosh.
That is like, oh, what are we doing here? And they've done it again.
STU: You notice that, when you see people with bulging in their swimming suits winning gold medals.
GLENN: Yeah. For the women's.
STU: For the women's swimming events. Yeah, no. I mean, I think that's true.
You can get something like term limits.
I think there's very, very limited opposition to Donald Trump, for what he makes a priority from the Republicans. So when you're talking about laws, you're not going to get much pushback from Republicans on this stuff. I think, you know, when you get into constitutional amendments, it becomes much more difficult.
But it's all a matter of what Donald Trump prioritizes. If you remember 2016 and 2017, he also ran on a proposal to -- to do term limits.
He just never made it a huge priority.
He would mention it in speeches. This time, I think he's serious about it. In his first -- that speech we played earlier. The first ten things he wants to do.
GLENN: If you haven't heard it. Oh, it's so great.
