Trump & Bukele BLAST CNN's Kaitlan Collins w/ Eric Bolling & Chris Cuomo | PBD Podcast | Ep. 577
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Okay, so...

Rob, what are we? Episode 577. We have Eric Bolling and we have Chris Cuomo in the house today. How are you guys doing? Good. Doing great. Thanks for having me. Rebirth and renewal. Rebirth and renewal. That's right. Easter's coming. Did you get in the back or no? Yes. A couple days away.

When's the last time you guys did something together? Has it been a minute? Long time. It's been a while. But a big fan. Really? Yeah. Good to see him. Good to see him. But you've done things together in the past. No, we were on competing places, different places, but I always watched what he was doing, trying to figure out why he was beating me.

Well, I was at Fox. All things being equal, I mean, you were like the most rational lefty at the time, kind of centrist now, but we came a long way. I guess that's a compliment. Most rational lefty? I take what I can get when I come here. I mean, there's not a lot of common sense on the left, and you had some, which is...

You know what, Rob? I say we make a shirt. Say I'm an ex-rational lefty and we send a shirt to Chris. Please, man. I'm sure Chris will wear it. He's going to replace that with a free agent. I think the shirt should say left and right. You cross it out and it says reasonable. I think that that's the shirt. That's modern day today. That's the shirt. Okay, so we got a lot of things to reason with. Maybe a little bit of debate will happen today, but...

A lot of weird things are going on right now. A lot of stories going on right now. Obviously, Bukele was from El Salvador, was at the White House, and it was interesting when they were both talking to the media, and there was a lot of back and forth on what to do next.

with the wrongly deported man who is alive in El Salvador prison, and he asks him, he says, what do you want me to do with this guy? You want me to send him over here to you? No, we're not going to be doing that. You have to see the exchange. It's very entertaining and interesting. At the same time, Iran says any future U.S. sanctions relief must be guaranteed. Iran and U.S. envoys hold first negotiation over Tehran's nuclear program and talk face-to-face. There's a percentage...

of numbers they're looking at with the nuclear levels, where Iran's at, where they would like them to be at the 3.67%. They haven't met that, and there's a lot of different speculation on what's going on there. We'll talk about that. Trump's exit promises...

Record $1 trillion Pentagon budget and a market kind of like that because it was $180 billion above what it was last year, what Tom just told me right now. And in a strange way, market liked seeing that. Trump has answered nearly 20 times more press questions at three cabinet meetings than Biden ever did. A report comes out. Yellen says bringing manufacturing back is a pipe dream. I don't understand the rationale for the tariffs.

And she said a few other things as well. Trump exempt phones, computers, chips from new tariffs. And Yellen says treasuries show U.S. confidence loss, not dysfunction. And when it comes down to Panama, Panama opposition party accuses U.S. of camouflage invasion. An Italian tycoon emerged as a lead investor for C.K. Hutchinson's port. It's a kind of weird thing that those are two ports we want over here to be in the States. But we'll see what happened there.

We've got a couple of stories I'll come to both of you guys with having to do with CNN and Newsmax, but we'll cover that here in a few minutes. Kristi Noem urges people to get real IDs, keep our country safe. What is this real IDs? Are we going back to what we never thought we're going to get to? And we'll talk about a special moment that we had yesterday in the podcast prep meeting when Brandon's like, I would never do something like this, Rob. Tell me that wasn't the best moment, right?

And I'm sure he's watching this. Pennsylvania arson suspect planned to beat governor with hammer. And then Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon both had something to say. Ray Dalio said, I'm worried about something worse than a recession. Jamie Dimon makes apocalyptic prediction.

And then Hesed says, 100% not expecting U.S. recession. We'll see who's right. Fed prepares $2 trillion bailout as hedge fund trade implodes. And then crypto czar David Sachs gets into a catfight with Larry Summers. I don't know if it's a catfight or not. That's the word they use here, but you've got to see it. It's entertaining. And then Bill Maher goes and spends time with Trump after the conversation he had with you. That was very interesting. It almost flipped. You started interviewing him.

And, you know, Kid Rock himself, Dana White, Chuck LaBella was also there at the meeting. And Bill Maher came out and gave a, Rob, see if you can get a shorter version of it. Because it's 12 minutes. Maybe get a shorter version of what it is that we can cover. And then something happened with Netanyahu pushes back on anti-Israel trends in meetings with podcasters. Something happened with Tim Pool that there's a lot of discussion with him having a meeting that maybe wasn't disclosed. I don't know what it's all about. Well,

We'll discuss it here as well. And then we got a few other things. Trump administration freezes more than $2.2 billion after Harvard rejects its demand. And then the Frisco stabbing suspect, Carmelo Anthony, released after bond lowered to $250,000. Vinny's got some thoughts on that.

And then Steve Bannon ignites new MAGA civil war as he turns on cabinet members. Maybe Eric's got an opinion on that. Who knows? We'll see. Trump swipes at CNN's Caitlin Collins and brutal exchange. And we've got a few other things here. But let me give you guys some good news on what's going on. Here's the good news.

A lot of you have been asking about the Cigar Lounge, that you want to come to it. And we've been having back-to-back-to-back. This last Friday was the biggest event we ever had at the Cigar Lounge, which was fantastic. However, grand opening is this Thursday night. This Thursday night. And this is what we're doing. Thursday, we're not doing a podcast in the morning. Thursday, we're doing a live podcast at

at our comedy club, at Cigar Lounge, 5990 Live. Tickets are being sold. It'll be myself, Vinny, Tom, and Adam. Live audience. Come on down. Bar opens at 6. If you get there at 6 p.m., you buy tickets. No matter whether you buy the regular ticket, the general, the premium, or VIP, if you get the ticket and you're there early, we're going to give private tours of the Cigar Lounge and then bring you back in the room, and the podcast will start at 7 p.m. It's going to be a skeptic. If you've been to it before, it's a spectacle.

It's incredible. The energy, the vibe, the announcements, different things that we do, and a lot of people networking together. But that's the QR code. The website, Rob, if we can give them the website so some of the folks on Spotify can go to it as well. I believe it's boardroom.com.

CigarLounge.com. BoardroomCigarLounge.com. Go a little bit lower so it gives the details. You'll get the tickets. So go lower, Rob. Lower, lower for the tickets. There's general premium VIP, $100, $250, $500. VIP, you get a chance to actually go afterwards to the Cigar Lounge, and we'll be with you guys later.

And we're doing it Thursday instead of Friday because Friday is Good Friday. So Thursday we'll celebrate it together. Come on down, bring a friend, network, join the rest of us. We'll have a good time. If you've been to it before, typically the people that have been to it before, they know VIPs sell out immediately. This year we have fewer VIPs because Platinum members get first on those seats. So if you want to have a VIP seat, hurry up and place your order and we'll see you guys Thursday night. Okay, let's get right into it. Stories, tariffs is the first one I want to get into.

Eric, your background, for some of the audience that don't know, your background is actually finance before you got into TV. If you don't mind, for some folks that don't know, maybe take a minute or two and give a little bit about your background in finance. Sure. I was a professional baseball player. I blew my rotator cuff out and had nowhere to go, nothing to do. I ended up in New York on Wall Street.

and started on the New York Mercantile Exchange trading energy futures. And I spent 12 years there. I got to the boardroom. I became a board member, brought the exchange public. The first major financial, certainly, exchange that went public on my push. And I spent 15 years total on Wall Street, and I've never left it. I continue to trade oil. I trade energy.

gold, silver, agricultural commodities, but I'm an active stock trader as well. And so I'm in and out of this. And tariffs, honestly, Patrick, I just don't get it. I'm an original MAGA. I'm an OG MAGA. Sorry, Chris. I know you're not going to love this. But one of the original Trump supporters, one of the original Steve Bannon supporters, because back in the day when Bannon and Andrew Breitbart were developing America First, they

I followed them and they were they were great. And we they brought President Trump to the presidency the first time. So the MAGA original MAGA support, I do not get this idea of of applying tariffs on the whole world. We are the biggest consumer on the planet. We have a lot of ways of exerting pressure on China to lower their tariffs and others, Brazil itself.

One of them would be use our massive oil infrastructure. I mean, Trump loves to drill oil. If we drilled a ton more oil, if we put liquefied natural gas, which we can now do to the point where we satisfy all of our domestic demand, the excess demand, we could offer to China and say, look –

You want to make a deal, lower your tariffs. We will sell you LNG at market price without a tariff. You want to keep your tariffs? We'll jack it up. China needs the oil. They need that. They're desperately seeking oil. That's why they have the partnership with Russia. Point is, I've done this for a really, really long time. It's the one area I just can't get behind. Free marketeer here, and anytime government gets involved in anything in the markets,

They pretty much screw it up. Okay, so let's start off with the tariff topic. I like that. So Trump exempts phones, computers, and chips from new tariffs. Rob, if you want to pull up the clip on that. Here's President Trump talking about what they're doing with phones, computers, and chips. Go for it.

Short-lived product exemptions. Which specific products are you considering and how long is short-lived? Weeks, months? I'm looking at something to help some of the car companies where they're switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico, and other places. And they need a little bit of time because they're going to make them here. But they need a little bit of time. So I'm talking about things like that. What about any Apple products, other cell phones? No.

Look, I'm a very flexible person. I don't change my mind, but I'm flexible. And you have to be. You just can't have a wall and you'll only go... Sometimes you have to go around it, under it, or above it. There'll be maybe things coming up. I speak to Tim Cook. I help Tim Cook.

recently and that whole business. I don't want to hurt anybody, but the end result is we're going to get to the position of greatness for our country. We're the greatest economic power in the world if we're smart. If we're not smart, we're going to hurt our country very badly. So the latest number, Rob, if you can verify this, I think it's U.S. 145% tariff on China. China's 125% tariff on U.S., okay?

It doesn't look like it's slowing down. Xi just went to Vietnam. Vietnam was the first person that we said we're going to lift the tariff. So he's going to his neighbors to say, hey, don't forget we have a great relationship together. The whole concept of we'll build this stuff here. We'll say made in China, but we'll put made in Vietnam. We're still going to keep that agreement. Let's not forget some of the stuff that we have going on here. But you're not liking the position they're taking with tariffs. Why is that? I don't know.

Because, again, government getting involved in anything, they screw everything up. Price controls screw up supply-demand. Just let supply-demand find the right room. Originally, they launched it as we're going to put an equivocal tariff on any certain country, China, Brazil, China.

Germany, whatever you're charging us, we're going to do the same. Reciprocal. Reciprocal. The problem is they didn't do that, Patch. What they did was they took a trade imbalance with a country, for example, China, $130 billion trade imbalance. That's what they sell us more than we sell them. And they divided that number by the total export China into America, which is fine, but it's an equation. It has nothing to do with their tariff structure at all. It's a trade imbalance number.

And they came up, like, I think 64%, and they said, oh, we're going to do 32%. They did that with every single country in the world. It had nothing to do with the actual tariffs. So they sold it as, we're going to raise our tariffs reciprocally,

And when you lower country A, B, or C, we will lower with you, which is great. That's fine. You want to play that game? Wonderful. Then it became something different. Then it became, we're doing this to everyone, and now we have 15 countries who want to negotiate. Now we have 150 countries that want to negotiate. And it became more about,

The world leaders coming to the Trump administration and begging for some relief, which isn't the real nature of it. You want to play the tariff game, play it where the purpose is to lower tariffs completely both directions. And I think they lost that script for a while. They're trying to get it back now. And then this whole idea of choosing certain industries to exempt from tariffs, not necessarily countries, but industries, chips, cell phones, computers, etc.

It just, I just don't like, I'm a free market person, Patrick. The free market is what made this country number one, the greatest country on the planet, bar none, because we had the most free business environment markets and the tariff disrupts that whole apple. Tom, your thoughts on this? Well, Trump said, I want to leverage, I want to leverage things to get the world to come to the table. And so, okay, we're using tariffs and I, and I'm on board with that.

But then the calculation of how you get them to the world, I thought that they kind of lost the headline there because it's like, wait a minute, to your point, how are you calculating to get them to the table? You want to get them to the table and say, hey, look, you've

You've got two things here. One of them is tariffs, and you're not really bad on tariffs, Eric, but you know what? I know you're cheating, and I know you've got intellectual property things going on, and I know you've got some relabeling on country of origin, and that's annoying, so let's fix that. So maybe the tariff gets them to the table. Maybe leverage gets them to the table so you can talk about all these other things. The biggest one to deal with is...

is China, the biggest one to deal with. But, Tom, I don't mean to interrupt, but they didn't use a tariff and add-on difficulty getting into your market. No.

Or back and forth. They didn't use that. They literally took the trade imbalance of country A, B, or C, and they divided it by the exports into America. I agree. That's why I said I was confused by the calculation, but I understood the purpose. Which is a non-formula. It is a formula that does not exist in economic analysis. It's a formula, but it's not what they sold us. Right. It's not what they said. It was going to be a tariff we'll raise to you. And they said we're going to be lenient and only do half. Right. But the number they are using is the tariff that we're being charged. It had nothing to do with the tariff.

And again, I'm putting this on Howard Lutnick because this is Howard Lutnick's baby here. And I've known that guy for 30 years. I wouldn't trust him to, you know, park my car over there. Lutnick's the problem. Only the best. Tell me why. Tell me why. Only the best. You want me to tell you why? Yeah. Trump brings in only the best, though. What?

Only the best. Again, so I was on with O'Reilly, and he said, oh, Bollinger, you're a MAGA psychophan. He can do no wrong. Is there anyone in this administration he may know? I think you made a mistake with Lutnick. I believe you do. Chris, you and I were in New York when the World Trade Center came down, right? Oh, boy. Howard Lutnick was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Howard wasn't at the World Trade Center the day it came down because he was taking his kid to school. Right.

His brother dies. 115 of his employees die. The families of his employees didn't have money. They didn't have health care. They had to sue Howard Lutnick to get health care.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, this is out there. It's a bad history. But it's 25 years ago, and people are like, oh, Howard Lutnick. They don't remember. Since then, my first experience with Howard Lutnick, because I was trading oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange. I was on the board. We were huge. We were growing. We were the premier oil trading platform in the world. For every single barrel of oil, price was discovered on the New York Merc, and it still is.

I was a board member there. Howard calls from a canner before the World Trade Center comes down. He says, I'm going to put you guys out of business. I'm developing an oil contract that is going to bury the New York mercantile exchange. So I went over there with a couple of other board members to have a nice conversation with them to see if there's a way we could all work together together.

To discover prices for oil. The more price discovery, the more people involved, the better. He just literally looked at this and said, I'm going to develop a contract putting you guys out of business. Make a long story short, the exchange is still here. It's a $150 billion entity, and Howard's making tariff numbers. Why do you think he is, though?

So for everybody, they have a sword to die on, right? If we're talking about specific two tariffs, why do you think that's a Latinx sword to die on? Well, I think he sold it as his expertise. I mean, he came in as the commerce secretary and he had an idea.

And Trump liked the idea. But the problem is that the idea of raising your own tariffs to reduce global tariffs on incoming imports, their exports, our imports, is a nice idea. It's a...

Maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. Maybe it throws people, the world into a global recession. I'm not sure. But he sold it and Trump kind of liked the idea. And then he got away. It became something different. I think it'll get back to what the original was. So, by the way, I want to make sure we're fair here. Rob, can you pull up what happened with Lutnick? Because I don't know the whole thing. They got a chunk of money as a settlement, right? As a lot of the people who were affected did. The initial criticism was...

that Lutnik had taken a lot of the money and it looked like it was going to go his way, not the family's way. Over time, he did more and more for the families. They got insurance. They got settlements. Correct. But it was a bad look early on. Is this about him committing a crime? No. Is it about him screwing them, period? No, I'm not suggesting he committed any crime. But there was bad blood early on. He promised to give 25% of Cantor's future profits to the families, the 658 employees who died.

And over the years, he gave more than $180 million distributed to those families. He's also created a relief fund offering health care and financial support to those left behind. And Fitzgerald was one of the few companies who stayed in business after losing two-thirds of his staff. So he ended up making it right afterwards with some of this stuff. So I want to make sure we put that. It depends who you ask, but I get that. It wound up better than it started, put it that way. But Eric is not wrong to say that the impression of him was very negative. No.

Fair enough. I wasn't there. I'm not in the know of exactly what happened. If somebody is more interested in it, they can look into it and respond to it here. But let's go to tariffs. So, Eric, Chris, it seems are you guys both on the same page on the tariff position with what he's taking? Would you say you're relatively on the same page? I'll add one piece. Please. OK, which is first, you know, this is a this is as nice an assessment as Trump is going to get of this. Right. If this had been Biden who had done this, you know, everybody's head would be on fire in this room right now.

The ambition is a good ambition. The mistake the left is making is hating the ambition, helping the American worker, having new economy jobs here that pay more, bringing things back that we need to make here so that people can't hold us hostage like happened in the beginning of the pandemic when we didn't have any of the PPE that we needed.

I think that's all good, and I think it's wrong to criticize it just because Trump is doing it. That's why I talk about the president and the administration a lot. I try to keep Trump's name out of it so people on the left can keep their head straight about the idea. So I respect the ambition. You know the expression. We all know it. Failing to plan is planning to fail. And what they're doing here is a ready-shoot-aim.

That's why he has to keep backing off. I have a little bit of a suspicion about why he's helping Cook. Cook gave him a ton of money. Why he's helping the car companies that he is, they gave him a ton of money. I don't think he should play favorites.

How he wants to do this, Eric is right to question. And you're hearing it. It's not unusual criticism. But the ambition is a good one. I'm fine with what he wants to do. The question is, is this the way to get it done? It's very hard to find anybody who doesn't work for him who says yes. Can we have a friendly banter here on this topic? Let's just kind of go through some of the ideas here. So what is the alternative?

If they don't do it this way and we just sit there and you're like, look, just use the oil reserves. We have plenty of oil. We're going to be okay. Use that as the method of getting back. And China needs our oil. Don't take this approach. Fair. If we go with that approach, you're assuming a similar type of a leader is going to get elected after him. What if he's not? What if it's going to be a different kind of a president that takes a different approach that doesn't believe in drill, baby, drill? So, okay, let's go with tariffs. If we keep it the way it is,

from 1971 where we kind of opened it up and they started doing business to 2001 when World Trade Organization, they joined it and they kind of started doing more business. How much has China grown compared to us? What happened to us? How many jobs did we give away? It almost sounds like, Eric, what you're saying is similar to what Yellen is saying. Yellen said, bringing manufacturing back is a pipe dream. I

I don't understand the rationale for tariffs. You sound like Janet, if that's your position, and you can disagree with it. Rob, if you want to play this clip, this is Janet Yellen, former Treasury Secretary. Go ahead, Rob.

Perhaps it's to bring back American manufacturing, but I really think that's a pipe dream and not something that is likely to be accomplished. And we could even raise questions about whether or not, in a broad-based way, that's a desirable goal.

Okay, so this is traditional way of thinking establishment saying this is a pipe dream. What are your thoughts on that? I think Janet Yellen should never have been Treasury Secretary. I think she's ridiculous. She's the one who said inflation was transitory when it was clearly not transitory for the better part of four years of Joe Biden's presidency. It was directly tied to their policy.

I just happen to also question whether or not raising tariffs will actually create American jobs. And what kind of American jobs are we going to create here if we do this? And we're going to – clearly product prices are going to go up. If all things stay the same, tariffs stay high with China and others –

Product prices will go up globally. Hopefully there's enough demand to support the higher price. Maybe there is. I believe there's a lot of demand in the U.S. economy right now, but you have to worry about China. China right now is on that precipice of is there enough demand to keep them paying for their growth? I'm not sure. So that's the risk. And the payoff would be, Patrick, is Tim Cook says, I'll give a half a trillion dollars. We're going to build $500 billion worth of manufacturing in America. Lutnick said...

Okay, we're going to have Americans screwing those little screws in iPhones. No, that's not how it happens. They come back, and if they do spend money to build a manufacturing plant here, which would be great, economic activity is good, but

They'll all be robotics. Every single iPhone will be built with robotics. The only reason why it's not happening now is because it's too expensive to build a new manufacturing plant with the robotics. But if you're going to make it expensive to import, then you'll do it here and there won't be more Americans working in manufacturing. There'll be more manufacturing, but not more Americans manufacturing products and stuff. Everything's going robotic.

But that's going to happen no matter what. I mean, that's not it's like saying, hey, when back in the days in the 1900s, you know, 41 percent of people worked in farms. And then all of a sudden a tractor and fertilizer eliminated those jobs. And they're like, what the hell do I do? And everybody was afraid. But we adjusted. We pivoted to a different place. And that's the key. Yeah. The key is the adjustment. That's why Trump shouldn't liken this to the Gilded Age.

Okay, I'm sure we all saw what was in the Woodward book where Gary Cohn was trying to explain to the then president in the first term, we don't want to go back to the Gilded Age. Americans don't want that kind of job. We can do better than that. And Trump, for whatever reason, was fixated on that being America's best time, which is hard to justify economically.

You are right to characterize what Lutnick said the way you are because his quote was taken out of context. He gave a nod that we're not going to be turning screws. Those will be robotic jobs. But...

Why? China underwrites the cost of those factories in their country. So you say you want to start one. We come in with Valuetainment. We want to do it as a consortium. China underwrites it. That's what the United States has to do. So it's not just starting with tariffs. It's not going to get you where you want to be. The ambition is fine. But what I don't like is

China is outplaying us right now in this moment. They see an opportunity. We overreached. We pissed everybody off. Everybody wants to meet with China all of a sudden, which did not happen before. Who's everybody? Japan, South Korea, the EU. They're taking meetings. Vietnam didn't just talk to Xi. They signed over a dozen new trade deals in that meeting.

So China isn't reciprocal tariffing us. What are they doing? Restricting. Meaning what? They're not going to punish their consumers to the extent that they have a robust base there. They're just not allowing us access to these things. They are being very sad. They need us, though. They definitely need us. They can play with Vietnam and whomever else they want to play with all they want. But what are we, maybe net-net 20% of their business?

20%? We're 14% of exports, maybe 16? We're probably higher than that number and probably higher on a profitability basis too because not only we don't just buy the little Sharpies, we buy iPhones. It's expensive, so there's a lot more profit margin in the stuff we buy. They can't live without it. Chris, they are on...

They're on a path to not be able to actually go into more than a recession, maybe even a depression. They can't keep up. I mean, they've grown. They had massive growth. Their growth has almost stopped. But they have structural advantages that Trump doesn't have to worry about. Of course, yeah, in labor. The people don't matter. In labor. Politicians don't matter. Labor costs. The currency doesn't matter. You know, they have control over everything. But let me ask you a question, though. Okay, everything you're saying there, this is...

This is kind of how I process it. The problem with the U.S. politics, here's a problem that I see, is the leverage he has is what? When is his next election? She? Never. That's the point. So the problem we have with America is what? When is our next election? Really, like in 16 months. Yeah, midterms. Okay, so what happens if there's a bloodbath and then, hey, look what's going on. So then you've got to pivot and, oh, my God. So the challenge I have is the following.

If we don't do something now and the next president doesn't and the next everybody keeps what's the word in the can? Hey, you know, let's just let's just get. And then eventually, all of a sudden, you're going to wake up one day and they're going to be like, hey, guess what? We got you. Now we have you. So because we don't want to deal with a little bit of pain today, we're like, how do they know? How do they have us?

And the portrayal is that because we have such a trade, massive trade imbalance, we're at some sort of... Pull up numbers, Rob. They're there. I agree with you. Pull up numbers. We have a trillion-dollar trade. But tariffs aren't the reason for the imbalance. Pull up the numbers. Where was China? Where did China rank in GDP in 1971? Go in 1971, where was China? Okay. So where do they have us? China was ranked what?

The Chinese are ranked number 8th. They gave us another 2 points. I'm going to give us another 1970. Suggesting a similar rank to 71. Okay. Then go to where they were in 2001. Pre-WTO. Okay. And WTO, they were ranked what? Third. They jumped up. Okay. Go to 2000 instead of 2001. Go to 2000. 2000, they're still third? Sixth. Four. Sixth. So they go from sixth to...

So, boom, top 10, sixth, WTO, third, where are they today? Go to where they are today. Second, okay, so what are the projections of where they're going to be by 2030, 2035, 2040? So we're supposed to sit here and just kind of cave and say a new regime's in town. It's not about the what. It's about the how.

The argument you're having is about, it's not that we got to do something about China. We have to figure out how to protect ourselves and advance ourselves. I think people can get on the same page with that, or they should. It's the how.

The trade deficit is not because of tariffs. In fact, when they got into the WTO, what did they have to do to get into it? Lower their tariffs. So as the trade deficit was growing, they were actually lowering tariffs. So the point is, and what pisses off people like Eric who understand tariffs is it's not the right mechanism.

Yeah, I have a hard time with that, Chris. Let me put it to you how I look at it. So you said the way they could get WTO was what? To lower their tariffs. They lowered their tariffs when they got in. So let me ask you a question. And four years after that. So let me ask you a question. How much has China shown a track record of following rules and guidelines and things that ask for agreements to do? They cheat. They steal our stuff. They may be helping right now in the Ukraine war by giving Russia manpower. So let me get this straight. They have a track record of agreeing...

on certain terms and not following through on the terms and you want us to take the negotiation seriously and try to play nice with these guys it's not like you're you're dealing with somebody when you deal with somebody you do business you'll have a phone call you you guys been in the entertainment business for a while you know who to call that you know whatever they say it's going to get done and i guarantee you both of you guys have a name that no matter what they say you better verify it 17 times because you know nothing that person ever said

I just don't know that tariffs is the right punch to throw to knock them out. What's the alternative, though? What's the alternative? That's the discussion I have. So I can give you an alternative. Let's hear it. Open up our markets. Trump loves to drill for oil. If we became a global major exporter of oil. That's a term, though. So China goes to number one, Patrick. Let's say they take over the United States in two, three, five years, whatever. Do it by per capita now.

They have five times our population. But they also don't care about how big our body is. They don't care about that. From a third world country to a developed nation. They're not wired like you. They're not wired like us. My point is we get hung up. Are we first or second? Are we the biggest military or the second biggest military? My point is we're the most powerful country. It doesn't matter if China has a bigger GDP than the United States. We'll still be a...

Heck of a lot more powerful than they will. They would love to have what we have. Based on what, though? Based on what? Our buying power. We have a consumer that is the strongest consumer on the planet. Our economy is the strongest economy on the planet. Let me ask you a question. Per capita GDP. If this continues, if this continues, who's a slave to who?

They can't, we can never be a slave to them. We buy their shit. We sell them stuff. We pay them. They can't stop. And they have a lot of our debt. If they put us into a depression and we default on the trillions of dollars of our debt that they hold, they don't want to do that either. Yeah, but what's the, okay, so here's,

The more I'm listening to what we're saying, the more I'm processing it as let's find a way to make it good now. Yes. Okay. It's kind of like... Although I don't believe anybody is going to run away from something that's working. You know, the Democrats criticized Trump's tariffs on China in the first term. Biden left them in. People don't run away from success. No, what I'm saying to you is if we have a chance...

To have this tough conversation now, I have a feeling if we don't do it now, this may be the last chance ever to have it. And why? Let me explain why. Here's what I mean by why. When's the last time we had a guy like Trump as a president?

Never four years ago. Exactly. Meaning himself. That's what he's saying. Was Reagan like a Trump? No. Was Reagan more willing? If you read the Jim Baker book and you read about Reagan, Reagan was actually willing to compromise. So Reagan had a different approach that he would still work with the establishment a little bit and kind of be able to make that stuff work. To me, if there is a wild card in this equation,

of a guy that can, like, I was talking to a couple NBA guys the other day, with Scottie Pippen, and we're talking about a guy named Zion Williamson, okay, who's, exactly, but you know what I said? I said, let me ask you a question. Earlier, when I asked him about the whole challenge with Miami, he says, everybody leaves Miami. Why is that? He says, because of Pat Riley. Really, why? Because Pat is known for that. He has a reputation. He drives people to heart.

I said, great. 30 minutes later, I say, let me ask you a question. Zion Williamson, if there's a coach or somebody in the NBA that could change him, who would it be? He said, Pat Riley. I said, wait a minute, you can't say this. He says, I can't.

I said, what are you doing here? But the point is what? It takes an effing Pat Riley to change certain things. And I think the chances of getting another Trump in 4, 8, 12, 6, I don't know if we're going to see that. I don't know that you need it. There's a plus minus on how he is. Aggression is good. Trump is aggressive. He is assertive. He sees everything as a nail and he's a hammer. Okay.

OK, but it's still about how good the strategy is and what the mechanism is for too early to tell. Our biggest advantage over China is our alliances. OK, and that's why people were worried about the soft power. That's why people were worried about how you talk to your allies. When you see the EU saying we're going to take not just Spain. Right. We're going to take meetings with China. That's a middle finger to us.

And the reason they're giving a middle figure to us because they want to give it to Trump because how he talks about them. Now, you can say, yeah, but he's strong. You need your friends to beat China, not just because of of the number of human beings, but because of the concentration of power. That's the criticism is the way you're going about this is not going to get it done. But what you want to get done is the right thing to go after.

Tom, do you have final thoughts? Yeah, I don't know, Chris, about that point on the EU. I mean, the EU paraded Ursula von der Leyen, who's president of the EU Commission, the Economic Commission, right? And they paraded her out for the last week. And she said, well, EU...

Likes a good deal, would like a good deal, number one. Number two, she was saying things about, hey, we want to come negotiate this. We believe more moderation because they sent her out with the moderation message so that they can take these populist messages, except Italy, and.

to their media about, oh, you know, we're not going to be bullied by Trump. We're not going to be like this and everything. Meanwhile, they're coming out being very open about it. Being open about what? I don't understand your point. No, she's talking about we want to come negotiate this, this, and this. Right. Right. And so they send out Ursula von der Leyen to make those statements. Meanwhile, you know, Macron says, oh, I don't know about this. This guy is such a bully. You see the difference? Yeah, but I'm saying they say they're going to meet with China. They shouldn't be saying that.

They are our friend, not China's friend. And what's happening right now is a realignment because people are pissed at Trump. And that's not necessarily good. Look deeper into it, right? Huge. Auto industry is big in Europe.

Okay. So what's happening? Why is Renault Nissan like going to EU commission saying we need to investigate what's going on in Hungary with BYD? They're building a factory there. They're going to ship the cars over here. They're subsidizing it and they're going to screw all of us, but

on the equivalent of you know cost dumping because they're going to subsidize the whole thing and so i don't see a lot of love there for all of what's going on the auto industry in europe and that's what one of the things ursula vandalina was talking about and i'm no fan of her but my point was i'm sitting there watching her versus watching prime ministers and things and presidents and saying you know as much as they're pissed at trump they're scared to death of what china is doing

And so they're not running over there with open arms. I was on record in the beginning, Chris. I said, look, these tariffs are going to be tactics, not taxes. And I said that many, many times, and people –

Clicked on it and said, I think you're crazy. I don't think I'm crazy. I think that's what's happening now. But if you look at the tariff like a medication, you're saying that's the wrong medication to be giving the patient. Okay, you can certainly say that. But you've got to do it. You still have to cure the patient now. And I believe these are tactics, not taxes. Do I think that the calculation was like a wrong way to do it and opened your flanked ups to all kinds of criticism? Yes, absolutely.

But is it still the right thing to do to kind of, you know, hey, this is Holy Week, to flip over the tables and say we're going to change this? Yes.

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I think it's too early. Like you said, by the way, guys, this isn't my wheelhouse. It just has the average American looking out. I think it's way too early. China, I don't care. Listen, we're at war with China. We're not shooting guns. We're not dropping bombs. We're 100% at war with them. And by the way, they've gotten away for the past four years of what? Flying spy balloons for what? Nobody give the damn. They bought land by all of our military bases. Now I'm from Air Force Base New York.

Nobody's saying anything. You need something drastic. I think it's a little bit early. Let him cook. Let him do his thing. And then at what point, here's my question. At what point do we go, okay, did it work? And we have to shift gears. What, at what point? Cause we're saying two years. No, I don't think it's two years. I think it's like, if, and by the way, if some people are saying as early as this summer,

If the market by summer is choppy, this is not going to be pretty. Some are saying midterms. Midterms, if it goes like this, I know it's too late. It'll get wiped out. It'll get wiped out. So it could be summer is the latest. Again, this is the part about how things work in negotiation. If you read Trump's book of Art of the Deal,

The amount of times he was willing to go past the level of pain that the average negotiator couldn't handle, that's a skill set. I don't know if he's going to practice that here because in that sense, the pain is

is you us in no no him trump when you're because it's your deal but in this sense the pain is who the people so i don't know how he's going to manage that pain because maybe he can handle pain for himself and his employees but maybe the pain when he sees around his people what they're going to be saying maybe it's going to be different i i don't think anyone saw a 10 trillion dollar meltdown in the equity markets i mean the day before they announced we knew the announcement was coming on april 2nd

We knew it was coming. April 1st, the market was up, flat top a little bit. $1,600 on a Friday, $2,600 on the Monday, $1,500 the next day. When that happened, Trump's smart. He said, wait a minute, maybe this isn't the right. We thought it sounded great, and I agree with you that it should have been, let's use this to lower all tariffs. But they didn't realize how much the market was.

anticipated the downdraft but why do your guys feel that way in the markets okay like i've done a really weird thing on my show why since this happened because i have pros on the show a global recession that's why so guys who are like you like you know you guys i'm having them come on my show now not polished tv people to talk economics these are guys they're real institutional traders they're real economics working as analysts for big places and they're saying look

They needed to message this first. You had to tell us what your plan was, why you were doing it this way, and you had to hold to it because we're afraid with Trump of uncertainty or what, you know, we call chaos in the punditry business. And they didn't do that. And I think they didn't do it because he didn't have a plan. He had what Tom is talking about, which is a basic feel and a tactic.

to get it in. And now let's see what happens. And the markets don't like that. And the problem is he's not she. He can't look at the people who don't like what he's doing and saying, but you're going to stay quiet because I'll kill you.

Trump can't do that. He's got to be responsive to the criticism. And the problem is when he's responsive to the criticism, it makes it even worse because now it's feeding the sense of uncertainty. Well, what's he going to change next? Well, which is this going to happen? Are these going to happen or not? How do I plan? Where do I put my money? That's what you're seeing happen. Yeah. Well, I mean, this leads to the story of Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon. Ray Dalio says, I'm worried about something worse than a recession. Okay, Rob, if you want to play this clip and then we'll go to Jamie right afterwards. Here's Ray Dalio.

I think that right now we are at a decision making point and very close to a recession. And I'm worried about something worse than a recession if this isn't handled well. A recession is two negative quarters of GDP and whether it goes slightly there, we always have those things.

We have something that's much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money. So we have that problem. And when we talk about the dollar and we talk about tariffs, we have that. We are having profound changes in our domestic order.

how ruling is existing, and we're having profound changes in the world order. Such times are very much like the 1930s. I've studied history and this repeats over and over again. So if you take tariffs, if you take debt, if you take the rising power challenging the existing power, if you take those factors and look at the factors,

Those changes in the orders, the systems, are very, very disruptive. How that's handled. So that's Ray Dalio. So he's saying something worse than the recession, which is what? Depression, right? Okay, so this is Jamie Dimon. Jamie Dimon is taking a different position. He's on Fox Business. Go ahead, Rob.

My final question for you, after all of these incredible years of success and leadership in this great nation and the world, what tips do you want to give the younger generation who is coming up and watching you and wanting to learn how you achieved all of this? Give us some advice. So work hard, learn, learn, learn, read everybody. Don't get into the ecosystem of Democrat, Republican. He gets to the recession clip in...

in this clip, but it's very brief. Okay, go ahead.

And enjoy it. Enjoy it every step of the way. And so have a little heart in humanity. Treat people properly. You know, I grew up, you know, the way you treat people is you treat everyone fair and honest and forthright, whether it's a cab driver or waiter or a CEO. He does. You know, it's just there's something about this guy that feels like,

He's always trying to say the right thing at the right time, you know, and always trying to seem like he's on the right side of whatever it is. And I feel like, you know, I covered the 2008 TARP and TALF stuff for ABC News, okay? And I had worked in mezzanine finance before I got into this, and they didn't have a business correspondent at the time. And that guy...

was always saying what he needed to say for himself in that moment. But he always wanted to make it like he was there for the little guy and for the people. And I think he's full of shit, that guy. There's something about him that really...

I don't trust that he's coming from a good place, this guy, when he says things. Not that he's not smart. Not that he doesn't get it. He just – he's too convenient with what he says. It makes me think that he's not anchored by anything. I actually think he's brilliant. I think he's the smartest man on Wall Street. I also think he hedges everything with –

We're headed to a recession. He's been saying we're headed to a recession for the past 20 years. Yeah, and he's going to be right at some point. Right, but as the market goes up and J.P. Morgan stock goes up and Jamie Dimon looks smarter and smarter, if it does turn negative, he looks like he called a recession.

But even this, bringing our trading partners closer as we build our military. You just check in boxes. Yes, of course you want your trading partners close. Churchill had a great reminder for FDR during World War II when FDR was vacillating. The only thing worse than fighting against your friends is fighting without them. That's what we're risking right now is going alone. And when we're as a coalition with all these other countries, we're much more formidable even if we are very strong in our own right.

and I don't like two things that are coming our way right now. One, oh, turns out we have to spend a lot more money on military to compete with China. No thanks. We did that with the Cold War.

It doesn't work. We don't need to do that. And the other thing we're going to hear is, you're right about all these concerns about the domestic market. We need those tax cuts right now. I don't want to see another tax cut for me. That's not going to help the same people who are going to get hit by these tariffs if they're in place. And I feel like both of them are coming. See, now I would say...

We would agree on tariffs and we'll disagree on tax. That would be the one way to energize the U.S. economy is allowing us to keep more of our money. It's always been a great driver of...

and saving. I think making them permanent. Yeah, but just target it right. Target it right. You called it a middle class tax cut and they didn't get the money. Chris, I don't think there's a bad target to reduce a tax, whether it's corporate tax or individual personal income tax, lower level, high level, middle class. Lower taxes, you create economic activity. That's fine as long as you cut the spending. Not like he did it last time, Eric. The way he did it last time was screwed up. And they just kept saying they paid for themselves. And the only way you can get to that, as you know,

is if you include the pandemic money. And you want to cut taxes, fine. Cut spending. I agree with that. Cut spending. And go to the DOD and cut spending. We do not need to build up to compete with China. They're not our problem that way. It's not like we're going to get a land war in Asia. It's not the princess bride. If you can become fully... Listen, oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, period. Whoever has it does the best. So drill, drill, drill. So drill, baby, drill. Lower taxes, and you don't have to worry

to worry about spending, paying more in your tariffs when you send stuff to China than they send it this way. The best year of my life is the year I pay the most freaking taxes. OK, because I made a lot of money. Right. And my point is, if we are so strong, so powerful, our economy is pumping at 30, 40 trillion dollars a year GDP. OK, so China is doing 42. We have a

fifth of their population. It's all good. It's not bad. Lower our taxes, lower our fuel prices, and we will compete on a global stage for the rest of our lives. Now, but we're missing a piece. We're missing the most important piece. One of the things I love about Pat and what he's doing here is the culture that's an extension of family. Okay? You go see Pat with his kids. You know, one, he's present, right? And his wife, obviously.

They take education very seriously. Those kids have to nail it. They have to be STEM sensitive. Yeah, you got to be able to kick the ball and be a good team player. That's what China did. China invested. They are five to one STEM graduates over us. OK, per capita, five to one. We're leaving that piece out. OK, you want those jobs. Who's going to do those jobs?

We're not STEM activated here in our education. See, Trump's trying to fix that. Get rid of the Department of Education. How does that help? Kill the unions and all of a sudden things get better. Look, I think a lot. Again, unions. How do you know that? That's what's going to make it better. Well, that's the theory. I mean, the theory is free them up just like the free market. Free up education. Allow students.

allow parents to take the money that the public school system is wasting on students and failing miserably at and let them choose where the best schools are and where the best teachers are. I think you have to do what we don't want to do, which is what other cultures do, which is you have to pick winners and losers. You have to test kids at different points as they're coming up and figure out who has the aptitude and then put them on different courses like you see in other places. And

and you pay for their education. If you're that smart, Vinny, you're that good, I'll pay for your education, and you're going to give it back to me with what you do. We'll figure it out. We are not doing that in this country right now. We are a culture of accommodation right now. Everything's okay. Everything's okay. You be you.

And it's as big a part as anything we've talked about in the podcast up to this point as to what our concerns are with China. You misgendered me. I'm not you. I'm they, them. So you're correct. I thought you were macho macho. You're making the case to eliminate teachers unions, Department of Education. No, I'm not. I think that that's. You literally just said that. No, I didn't. Based on meritocracy rather than a union system.

Collective bargaining matters. You know, you go back to the Gilded Age and you see how workers were doing and what the die rate was and child labor. Unions have a place. No one's dying in factories anymore. The president says that's what we should go back to. No, it's a new golden era. It's not the Gilded Age. The golden era was after World War II. The Gilded Age, which is fake gold, right? That's the one that he points to.

Look, collective bargaining to me, I think, is a virtue. Can it go too far? Do you have to regulate it the right way? Of course. But what I'm saying is I don't care about what the mechanism is. I'm talking about the goal.

You don't have enough smart people with the right kinds of educations in this country. That's all I'm saying. You don't even have enough trade workers in this country. We agree. And we need to foster that. How do you get there is where we disagree. 100%. I don't necessarily disagree. I'm open to it. I think the best idea should win. I don't know what they are. I ask questions for a reason. You know what I mean? Tom, chances of a recession? Well, a recession by definition, two quarters, 10%.

I'm only at like 10, 20%. But you have to remember what a recession is. A recession is the consumer spending

spending drops, GDP drops two quarters because people aren't spending. Why are they spending? Because their sentiment went down. Why their sentiment now? Because everybody's telling them it's bad. Why is everybody telling me it's bad? Because they don't give enough time for these tactics to be come to fruition, to get to the other side of where we're going to do. You know, a recession doesn't mean that the auto industry has been nuked. It just means that all the spending was down for two quarters. Now, I think there's a 20% chance that that could happen.

That's what I think. But I'll tell you, I'm with Eric on the taxing. Right now, we're about to cross, if we haven't crossed already, $1.3 trillion on consumer credit card debt. Records are being set that the consumer shouldn't be setting. You know what I'm talking about. And we have the cumulative effect of inflation, so a tax cut on those people helps moderate that. And I think that helps them. And I also agree with drill, baby, drill, because I would...

I would go after Anwar and I would pump the hell out of Anwar and I would be selling it to people that own our T-bills and I'd be taking down our long-term debt. And guess what happens? You do that. Now you go watch what happens. But right now, I think there's a 20% chance of a recession by definition, not by the redefinition they did under Biden where they ignored the fact and worked around the fact. Well, they took out food and energy. Conveniently removed the two most volatile and spiking industries.

Yeah, that's exactly without my wife and I, the average age, we have a very young, healthy household. Sneaky. Next story. El Salvador. Rob, if you can pull up the clip of El Salvador's Bukele visiting the White House and saying he will not return a man. The U.S. mistakenly deported. This is from the Reuters. Go for it, Rob.

Stupid question.

I mean, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don't have the power to return him to the United States. But you could release him inside of Salamanca. Yeah, but I'm not releasing... I mean, we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. I mean, you just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back?

into the releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world. That's not going to happen. Well, they'd love to have a criminal released into a country. I mean, there's a fascination. They would love it. Listen, though, they gave the president that stick.

You know, that's a stupid gotcha question that the media has got to get out of the habit of asking, which is just trying to expose some kind of conflict. So the right question is what this is. This is a much simpler situation than the one we were just talking about. OK, now, I don't know why he calls the guy a terrorist. That's not what this is about with this guy.

Okay. Well, Trump labeled anybody that's from a gang that's coming in here. Well, technically, I mean, if you think about it, Chris, technically they are. They cause terror. They kill. They sell drugs. They freaking kill women, children, everything. Listen, I'm not here to defend gangbangers. I'm with you. That's an easy argument to win. All right. What I'm saying is...

So technically, that's not what a terrorist is under our law. You know that they got to be doing what they're doing to advance a political agenda. That's why people always get frustrated when we wait when a Muslim extremist does something violent here. But that's not my point. My point is this. This is simple. OK, it wasn't a mistake. All right. They didn't care about the hearing that he had coming up for his asylum claim.

When this guy has his asylum claim, he is not going to get asylum. He has no legitimate basis for it. Well, I'm afraid they're going to kill me there. No, no, no. It has got to be a specific and articulated threat to you. He should be brought back, give him the hearing so you can prove that you respect due process, and he'll go right back. That's the end of the story. This is a non, what I call a non-traversy to go after Trump, and he handed them the stick. And that's

That's what's going to happen. They're going to get him. They're going to bring him back. Don't ask El Salvador's president. It's embarrassing for us. He's got nothing to do with it. But apparently, so this guy that, mind you, CNN, I'm sorry, not CNN, the majority of the mainstream media, so this guy, the government has found out that this guy is

has not only connections, he's probably in MS-13. And none of us know, but you know what they labeled him? A hardworking father departed in the family torn apart. Maryland man, they call him. Maryland man. Maryland man. Exactly. Born and raised in El Salvador and a MS-13 gang member. 100%. Maryland man. And listen, he goes in. I don't know if we're going to show up here. He goes in on Kaitlin Collins and CNN, which I...

I normally would be like, you know, I kind of, you know, take it easy, but enough is enough. And actually I'm happy that he's doing it. Like we're talking about, think about this. How many thousands of people have Homeland Security, Tom Holman, Kristi Noem gotten the hell out of our country? I haven't heard of one illegal raping or murdering an American. Okay. Since Trump has been in, it's shocking. All right. It's amazing.

So there's one guy, one guy that everybody's up in arms with and they're making him seem just like when Soleimani, when Trump in the first administration killed Soleimani, you know what they called him in the media? He was a freedom fighter and they killed him. It's absolute horseshit and CNN should be embarrassed. How many more BS stories are we going to have to hear? They're worried about one guy, one person.

Freaking guy who was in a gang. And then Miller over here even explains, the guy went to court twice. They said he had a deportation order. That means you don't belong in here. Okay? And it's embarrassing, bro. In front of the freaking president who's saying, you want us to ship back a guy that's probably killed and murdered? Hell no. It's embarrassing. Rob, what clip do you have?

So I have two of the clips that Vinny had mentioned where Trump calls out Caitlin Collins, if you'd like that. Then I also have Bukele offers the U.S. help to detain criminals. Another clip of Bukele praising Trump for the border crisis and asked him why the media won't report on it. And then finally, Stephen Miller debunking the narrative that the Maryland man should not have been deported to El Salvador. Why don't you start off with the Caitlin Collins? Cool.

Any questions, please? Let's not start. So they're just so wrong. So that's the first one. Here's the second one. He goes back and does this again.

-Mr. President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that. You said that on Air Force One just a few days ago. And they said that it must be facilitated. -Why don't you just say, "Isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country?" Why can't you just say that? Why do you go over and over -- And that's why nobody watches you anymore. You know, you have no credibility. Please, go ahead. -President Trump --

Can you blame this guy? Could we just really fast, and I'm sorry to take more time. Can we just, like, he's fed up. How much more crap, especially from CNN? How many more mistakes? How many more lies? I had to make a list, Pat. Russia collusion. Okay, this is all CNN. Nick Sandman case, lies. Jussie Smollett, hoax, lie. Hunter Biden laptop. COVID lab theory. Joe Rogan on horse dewormer. Trump's

Fine people lying. January 6th, Kyle Rittenhouse, they lied. Hands up, don't shoot, they lied. The crying border kids photo, lie. The horse whipping at the border, lie. The most peaceful riots, lie. Fake COVID hospitalization overload stories, you guys remember that? Brian Stelter's disinformation segments, how much more... Are they never going to shift gears?

Like, are they never going to stop? I get reporting. Hold people's foot to the fire. You are literally in the White House talking about one freaking guy who is an MS-13. We lived in Cali for how long? How...

To get into MS-13, is it just you sign up and you join in? How evil do you have to be to be in this freaking gang? Yeah, they have a form. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It just boggles my mind that you're in the White House. The guy from El Salvador, who had the most dangerous country, now he has the most safest. And that's what she's worried about? This one freaking guy? Eric, it drives me bananas. You are 100% on it, which blows me away that she actually even asked that question, Chris. I mean, CNN management must have been like, what the hell is she doing?

She's a double agent because they love her in Trump land. They love her. She's got friends in that administration. She gets access. She gets information. She walks right into that. She does. She walks CNN right into an ambush. I mean, they got smoked. CNN got smoked because he points out all the things that CNN's lied about and gave Trump

the platform to say, look at these assholes. We're deporting people who rape our women, kill our children or vice versa. And CNN, you want them back. That exchange makes Caitlin Collins more popular with the media.

Because she's the new Jim Acosta. At CNN? I got to think they're going to be there saying, what the hell did you do that? Ask him a tough question he can't answer. Not something he's going to absolutely lambast CNN and you. But Jim Acosta, if you think about it, the fake news was birthed by Jim Acosta, who's not even there anymore. I have a theory on that. Trump first term didn't have the mandate and the swell and the support he has right now. He's got the American people behind him.

behind. He's got people like me at least on MAGA. But the first time, they were skeptical. They called him, you know, he was delusional. He's racist. He's this. And now he's got the American people. First time, he gave Acosta a platform to raise his Q score, Acosta's Q score. He's not doing it anymore. He's smart. He's leg sweeping these people. I'm

I believe Kaitlyn Collins is probably on her last leg because of that – the three or four things she's done recently. But certainly, if I'm CNN management, I go –

She just walked us into a slam dunk. You can look at the ratings and you'll make your decision. That's what management does. But I'm telling you, within the media culture, going at Trump gets you dap. And it's going to help. Going at him wisely, smartly. That was, that was, they alley-ooped. She gave him an alley-oop to dunk. I'll give you the other side of it, okay? And then feel however you want to feel.

He did say, I respect court orders. Don't say that. I respect judges. Okay. Nine, nothing. You got to bring the guy back and have that, uh, that hearing. Yeah. I'm not going to do it.

He put himself in the position to do that. OK, it's nine nothing. You've got to bring them back and give them the hearing. That's due process. The two most important words in the rule in the law. Do it. And then you have high ground. So she's not wrong to say you said you were going to do that. It's nine zero. It's your court and you're not doing it. That's not unfair. That's not what she said, though, Chris. That's not fair. You ask the question that way.

Patrick, you asked Chris what's the right question. Frame it that way. And then all of a sudden you and CNN look smart. Look...

Holding truth to power. Fair. You want to just be fair. She says, are you going to bring back the Maryland man? And she teased him up to hit it right over the left field fence. That's a bullshit way to ask it. And the media, especially in these settings, as we both know, that's a gotcha setting. Nobody's having a real conversation in one of these press scrums. And that's why Trump thrives in them, because he's a one-liner. The only one who's done worse in the Oval Office in the last 90, 80 days or whatever it's been is Zelensky.

Caitlin Collins is number two to Zelensky. Both got destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. I think it helps her. Zelensky, that's apples to oranges. But the – look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Why am I not covering this in a big way on my show? Because of Vinny's point, okay? I'm not in the business of defending gangbangers, all right? And why they do that with him, I don't know. You know what the next one's going to be.

is this Carmelo Anthony case. That is going to blow up in this country because it plays on race and perception. Oh, yeah. And the media is going to play it one way. The people are going to scratch their heads. I don't believe that Trump has the country with him, and I don't think this period we're in right now has helped him. But...

You know, we are very volatile right now, and people get angry real easy, and they get reasonable real slow. And you made a great point, Chris. Look at who the Democrats' heroes are right now. An MS-13 gang member, Luigi Mangione, who shot and killed a father in the middle of the street, Mahmoud Khalil, who's a Palestinian Hamas fanatic,

propaganda freaking guy, and then Carmelo Anthony, who stabbed Austin Metcalf, and now not only did they take the bail from $1 million to $250,000, he's home, and he's chilling, and you nailed it, Chris. If that was the roles reversed, and it was a white kid stabbing a black kid at a track meet, fantastic.

Forget it. That would have been the talk right now because there would have been riots in the streets, 1,000%. So it's funny who they're representing. I don't think it's a mistake by CNN. I think it's a playbook because when I was sitting there watching this and I got my hackles up and I sat back and I thought for a second –

And I said, wait a minute. This feels like Trayvon 2.0. They're trying to get me to believe that this person is who it isn't. And they paraded out the young picture of what looked like a nice kid. And it turns out that wasn't the kid that was in front of the cop. It was the one that was tatted, that had trouble with the law. And no one wanted to talk about how did that kid get from that picture of that, what looked like it's just a sweet little boy up

to this guy who had been through all this stuff and was a much different guy that ended up in a scuffle that got him killed. Yet they want to gaslight me and get me to believe that the guy was there. And Obama, oh, I don't have any sons, but if I had a son, I'd probably look like Trayvon. What was that, dude? What was that? Mistake. And I feel like... Yeah, yeah. It was a mistake. Talk about walking into a fist. He walked into a fist. Yeah. And so this gaslighting that's here, it's...

And I'll tell you, when Zazz goes to the Howlin' Company conference, he's going to brag about her. Oh, she goes up against it. She goes really quick. You should buy CNN. And by the way, she's on a rookie contract. She's really inexpensive. And we got rid of all the other bigger contracts. Right? That's how they're going to do it. And CNN is on...

Man, they have not only jumped the shark, they're for sale. And everybody knows they're for sale, which is the part that shocks me. They live in the echo chamber. They love her inside the echo chamber. Oh, you're our girl. You're a tough girl. Boy, look at you. Inside the echo chamber, they love it. But outside, you're right.

And she plays MAGA, by the way, because she used to work for the, uh, what the daily, uh, she used to work for Tucker. She's from Alabama, you know, and look, I worked with her. She was a good reporter. She had deep, deep reach into Trump world. Okay. I don't know who it is or why it is, but she gets a lot of access from them and a lot of information. And that was what made her, uh,

appealing. I like her. I get what she's doing there. I get what the play is. The problem is the ratings. And at the end of the day, you're only as good as your number in that business. People liked me. People didn't like me. I was number one. I was number one at CNN every month. I was number one. Yeah, but it's Anderson Cooper's house. True. I'm number one. Yeah, but Jake Tapper is going to be the guy who does the debates. I'm number one. You know, you are your number in that business. And if the numbers stay down, you're going to be gone.

It's just how it is. So you're saying she ain't going away anytime soon? Well, look, based on the numbers, she'd be gone yesterday. It's all about what management wants to do. Where does she rank right now? On CNN? I don't know. Behind Anderson. And sometimes behind Jake, who's on at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Look, they got to figure out their numbers there. They're not unique in that position, but they definitely have problems in their primetime lineup. And...

That's okay. Business, you know, people go up and down. They got to figure it out. I think the bigger problem is, is that really the amount of viewership she's got? Yeah. 119,000. That's it. Yeah. There's no way in the world. Yeah. That's a demo. Yeah. But that's the one that they sell. Right. And look, I'd love to have that number.

Yeah, it's a new sensation. What was it, 18 to 54? 25 to 54. Now they're selling more often 35 to 54 because the marketplace is being forced to accept that it's really people our age who have most of their disposable income. Five, 430, bear 330. I was an original gangster on the five, the center seat on the five for six years. We were set to O'Reilly. These numbers...

The whole cable news world is shrinking. These numbers are way down. Yeah, there's stratification. And that's OK, because at the end of the day, there's still going to be a flight to value and curated audiences. My concern about the culture is we're just addicted to the division. You know, like you and I will both hear things like, oh, you seem like, you know, you're like buddies. Like it was bad enough with Pat and his guys. Now, Eric Bolling, you know, we are a culture of division.

People don't want to reward cooperation, friendship, amity, disagreement without being disagreeable. They like the sides. They like the sides. Go ahead. What do you got? I think you're clearly the best on News Nation. Clearly.

I'm the best sitting next to you right now. News Nation is cast to pick a side. They haven't picked a side. We're news for everyone. I'll get fired if I pick a side. Right. I contend. I will. They'll fire me. That's why News Nation can't make ground on Fox because people want a side. That's right. And News Nation wants to be all the news for all the people, which is admirable. But we're in a bifurcated world right now. Eric, where are you at? You're now where? You're with...

The Red Sea Ventures? Well, Red Sea was bought by Fox Corporation. So my digital portion is with Fox now. But my cable portion is on Real America's Voice and YouTube and Rumble. We're live there as well. So I own the show, but I license it to Rav and also license it to Fox. He's in the right place entrepreneurially. And the country, you got to bet on the country getting past the parties. Yeah.

That's my bet. I agree with that, yeah. And it's not opportunistic. I mean, this is where I am. I don't like the parties I never have. I say the same thing on Pat's show all the time. If your name's Cuomo, I'll vote for you. If you run as a Democrat, I'll vote for you as a Democrat if you need me in the primary. But I hate the parties. They are the problem in our culture. Can Stephen A. Smith get the support of Democrats? Yes.

I think he can. Even with his... Now, he won't get it if I have anything to say about it because I care about him too much. And I don't want to see him get chewed up by that system because they'll start coming for him. Right now, he's on the Ascendant, and I think with good reason. I love Stephen A. I love what he's about. And...

But he's pick and choose the issue. He's not straight blue. Yeah, but that's the way you got to be. That's the way we are everywhere else in our life except our politics. I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be the next president. I really do. But people on my side, MAGA, don't like that because he comes from a Democrat place and –

We've become so bifurcated. The country's just going wider and wider apart. They don't want to just beat the other side. They want to destroy. They don't want to see a 2-1 baseball game. They want to see a 12-0 blowout no-hitter. But I believe those are the fringes. In our everyday life, where you are. That's rating, though. That's where the ratings are. No question. I'm not arguing that point. You win. What I'm saying is I'm betting on something bigger than that, that there are more independent critical thinkers in this country.

than we let on. Look, Pat's all... I'm sorry. Go ahead. They voted for Trump, though. Some did, yeah. Well, most. More than half. Some did. Why? Because he's a known quantity, and what was going on with the left, mostly from a cultural perspective, because I believe they got baited into a fight that they couldn't win, was more removed from normal than Trump.

The left. Yeah. The left became so crazy. Let me ask you this question. Let me ask both of you guys a question. So Stephen A. Smith, say he ends up running, okay? Will he have more momentum? Will he have more momentum running as a Democrat or as a Republican? Forget independent. I'm saying Democrat or Republican? Democrat. He can't run as a Republican.

MAGA is going to hold. Who's the heir to Trump? Is it J.D. Vance? Is it Don Jr.? Or one of the other Trumps? Who knows? Could be Ivanka Trump for that. No idea. But the throne right now is in MAGA's hands. I'm not Republicans at all. Throw out Republicans. No one even cares about the Republican Party anymore. It's the new conservative party is Trump's party. It's MAGA. It's what we are.

Stephen A. Smith, great. He would be a better disruptor of the left for us than actually running on our side. Look, I just think that Eric's right, but...

So the virtue of Stephen A., okay, and I don't mean to like canonize this guy, and I'm afraid because I know what happens. When somebody's getting elevated, there's now a price on you to bring you down, and I don't want to see that for him. So that's why I'm shy on this. But he is also a reminder that reasonable should be a commodity. Right?

It should be a commodity. The fact that, you know, you've got to be full on MAGA or you've got to want to kill Trump. You know, last night I said I want the president to be successful in making the economy stronger for as many workers as possible and to set us up for a better national security perspective.

And I didn't say President Trump for a reason, because I wanted people to just grab the concept of the office. Nope. I got savaged. OK. You say anything about Trump, you get savaged. That's the problem. Nobody is like that anywhere else in their life, except in our politics.

And Stephen A. Smith is a reminder that you don't have to be a rabid form of one or the other. And that's why I love him. See, I think Democrats are going to destroy him if he runs as a Democrat. I think they will destroy him. I think...

eventually they'll want to control what he has to say and they'll have that meeting to say, you better do this or else we have this on you. And they won't. It's what your brother wasn't willing to do. You can't do that with him. You know Steven well enough. I know. I know. You can't do that with him. It's not about you can or you can't. If you can't, then you can't run.

Because in the Democratic Party, they believe in arranged marriage. They believe in arranged marriage. They tell you, hey, Democrats, this is your president. They lost. They're down. They've never seen numbers like this. Their organization is screwed up. Nobody wants to give them money. So I don't know that they'll have as much control. But I will tell you this. You are right about one aspect of the dynamic. I would be very surprised if the next president

One, two, three Democrats that we start talking about are inside the system. On some level, they will be perceived as outsiders. Maybe there'll be an office holder, but they're not going to be seen as part of the establishment. I'm just that's that's what I mean. On both sides are cooked because they're kicking my ass so much.

the establishment side, that I know they're afraid of that. It's going to be an Oprah. It's going to be someone from the entertainment world who's got the smarts and also the charisma and the it factor like Trump. They need a Democrat version of Trump. Right now, no one's... And they keep saying, the face. Who's going to be the face? You have AOC and Bernie Sanders out there. By the way, there's no...

That's a gift to you guys, by the way. Every time they speak, every time both of them speak. But when it comes to Stephen A., you made a great point, Matt. Don't stop him. Not only are they going to go after him, it's like if the Democrats – because he's saying this himself. He's saying, I'm getting approached by these politicians. I'm getting – all these people. If they're going to back you and give all that money, my only fear is, just like how you said it, when you go in, okay, God willing, if he wins – because I think he's a great guy. I'm saying I don't want – I want our side to win. But if he comes in, the promises that were made to you that you're giving back to them –

It's the policies of the policies. Are you going to reverse everything that we've been trying to do for the past four years? Because that's exactly what Biden did. They come in, everything reversed, and the country went downhill. That's my only fear is whoever they pick, whoever the new face is going to be. I can care about the face. It's what are you going to do? What are going to be your policies? That's the it would be great if that's what the debate is.

If the debate is about whose ideas make the most sense, then we win. Then we win. Who's we? We. Literally. Everybody wins. If it's about the ideas of what the country needs in that moment, we win. Good. If it's about who...

We lose. If it's about why one side you must vote for because the other is worse, if that's the analysis, we lose. That is the trend we're seeing, is that we've been going down a reductive path. I do think you do have to build in one thing to your calculus, though. I don't know that post-Trump you have a MAGA next. That can, depending on how it goes...

You could be running back to what you guys used to be, which was the character count. I don't think that's ever going to happen, but it will depend a lot largely on how the economy, how, how, you know, the borders, whether or not we're involved in any foreign wars. And if, if he does, if he stays true to, you know, you, you drill, you bring the price of oil down, you bring taxes down the economy, the demand in our economy is there. You don't screw that up. And in two, two years you hold the house and Senate together.

It's yours to lose. I mean, it's literally theirs to lose. Or if you listen to Steve Bannon and J.D. Vance becomes the president and then J.D. steps down, then you have another term of, hold on, a legal loophole. That's what Steve Bannon is just. So you talked about it on NewsNation. It's not a legal loophole. Is that legal? You can't do it. You can't have the VP who has been a two-term president.

Step up. That's the 22nd Amendment and the 12th Amendment working together. Don't allow it. You don't like Bannon? Oh, no, I don't dislike Bannon. I'm saying that I get what he's doing. It's a great political play because it's creating this aspirational idea of that's how good Trump is, that we got to figure out how to break the system. And I saw this playbook work for Bloomberg. Bloomberg in New York City took the city through a really hard time

They didn't want him to leave. So they went to the city council and changed the city charter to allow him to have another term. Now, can you do that on the federal level? Can you? Yeah. But you're not going to get a constitutional amendment for anything. The only loophole wouldn't be that one, Vinny. It would be that it's a national emergency. So he can't leave.

but not martial law because then that's military rule. And that's a very tricky space. I get why Bannon's doing it. I don't know how it could ever happen. Eric? Why not? I mean, there was... At the end of Obama...

2.0, we thought Michelle was going to win and he picked Barack as her vice president and she was going to step down and have a third term of Obama. Yeah, but you can't. The 12th Amendment doesn't allow it. We got Joe Biden's third term of Obama. But no, listen, Bannon is a provocateur. He's a good friend of mine. He's on my show every single day. The last seven minutes of my show were with Steve. We do the handoff the way Ewan Lemon used to do the handoff at CNN. I think he's brilliant. I think he is the original thought...

behind the populist movement, which is not only in America, it's sweeping the globe. What did you say? He would do what, Don Lemon? Hands on or hands off? My show ends at five and he picks up at five and we do a seven minute handoff. He's taking a shot at me. I love your big butt. I love Chris just doing a typical New Yorker. Chris goes, I love you. That was my best.

His hands were on him? I heard hands, whatever. The two of you, Bantam Ring, Baton Rouge. You know how that started, the handoff? The handoff started with Jeff Zucker telling me, you've got to stay over onto his show to kind of help mitigate whatever was going to come out of his face. Stop it. Wait, wait, wait.

Can you help him not start with a stumble? You got to help start the show because who knows what he's going to be saying. Well, one, I was the number one show, right? So you wanted to carry over. But it was his take may or may not have been something that they wanted the CNN logo underneath in that moment. So they would have me stay on just to kind of like, let's hear where he's coming from out of the box. If you don't want a take of a guy, how long was Lemon with CNN? Long time. Why would you keep him? Long time. Seven, eight? Why would you keep him?

Because in a polarized environment, in a divided environment, people who are provocative and coming from a definite point of view resonate. I mean, he checks all the bars. And by the way, Zucker's best friend

is Don Lemon's best friend, who's his agent. Oh, weird. So they had a real bond. How long was he there? That's why I didn't go full ham on Don for choosing Zucker's bullshit about what my life was over my own, even though we were friends. Because he was very close with Jeff, and he wanted to keep his job. I got it. I didn't respect it, but I understood it. What's the story with... You think CNN right now...

By the way, your lawsuit is still pending with them, right? Yes. It's not done yet? No. No. Close to getting done or not? Also, they switched out their GC.

So when you do that, never a good sign. It's it's you know, it's not a good sign for having that. And again, I say this and I know it's frustrating. I loved being at CNN. I miss the people there. I never got to say goodbye to most of them. And I wish them well. I do not have a problem with CNN. I have a problem with the two guys who decided to lie about me and let me go.

That's my beef. And I'm not even looking for a huge payday. I just need to have one comma removed from the description of me, which is fired from CNN. True.

comma, for lying about what he did. No, I didn't. And I need that away because people love. That's literally the only thing you want. Yeah, because that's what they use on me all the time is, well, you were fired for lying, right? No, I was not fired for lying. I was fired because the new owners didn't like what I was and my boss was being pinched.

And they sacrificed me. And that's okay. The way they did it was not okay. And that's all I want, is I don't want you to be able to say, Chris Cuomo's coming on today, who was fired from CNN, of course, for lying about how he helped. I don't want that. I don't want it. I don't want my kids to have to see it. I don't want it as part of my reputation, because it's not true. Have you and Zucker spoken since then or no? No. Nothing at all? No. Is CNN worth buying today?

Yeah. I think it's a very, very powerful brand. At what price? Oh, I don't know. That's your world. But you're saying CNN is worth buying today? Yeah, I think it's a really powerful brand. You think the CEO of the company, Scott Jennings, will sell? I have no idea.

I have no idea. Because you know Scott Jennings on CNN. Look, I always got along with him. I think it's really important for them. I think they should have more than one of him. We used to have like six of him. Now they only have one. And I frankly thought that they had –

other ones that were even more effective as arguers. But it's really important to have... Guys, my favorite one is, and I tell you, age is a horrible thing, Pat. What was the name of the guy who ran for president? He was Senator... Huntsman? No, big Christian. He's got like seven kids. Oh, Santorum. Rick Santorum was a great...

great presence. You know, we used to get sideways every once in a while, but disagree, but not be disagreeable. That said, what he had that I think Chris Sununu needs a little bit of to become a real thing. I think Chris Sununu has got real potential. If you poked him too much, you were going to get smacked in the head. And that's an important thing to have in debate, which is, hey, we're being respectful. When you've decided now you're not going to be respectful,

You just made a mistake and I'm going to make you very aware of it very fast. Rick had that. And I think that's an important part of the mix. But I'm happy for Jennings success and I'm happy for CNN to have balance. It's really, really important. When are we going to see a podcast with you on Lemon? Oh, I don't know. Why would I do it? Seriously. Like, why would I do it?

You think he's going to apologize to me? I should have called you? The song would like, reunite it and it feels so good. You don't think like it's a... I wish, you know, I mean, look, you know me. I have nothing but good stuff for him. I hope good things. I am a loyalty guy, okay? That's the end of the analysis for me. Doesn't mean I hate you. Doesn't mean I want bad things for you. Doesn't mean I'm looking to do bad things to you.

But you're right or die or you're not. And it's a very simple analysis. I am very lucky to have people like you in my life. I'm very lucky to call a guy, you, Tom, Vinny, Eric, you know, to have guys who are my friends who I know I'll call up, I'm going to get a straight read, and you're with me. And if you're not, you're going to tell me. That's what matters to me in life. People have different value systems. I'm not judging anybody's. I don't have, I never say bad shit about them.

And I want him to be successful. Why? Why wouldn't I? But why would I do a podcast with him? Is he going to apologize? Do it to me man to man.

I should have asked you what was going on. I should have heard your side. I shouldn't have just defaulted to doing what was good for me in that moment. Did he call you at all? No. Yes, but not when he needed to and how he needed to. And again, I'm not judging it. I get it. I get it. Would I have done the same thing? No, because I am reckless with my self-interest where loyalty is involved.

If Vinny's in a pinch, I'm there for Vinny. Yeah, but Vinny, he may have screwed up here. Hey, I'll deal with that later. Vinny and I will figure that out later. But this is my guy. So against anybody else, I'm with you. Then we'll figure it out. Vinny, why did you do this? What the hell are you thinking? Vinny, dinner's on you for a long effing time. But you're my guy. So would I do a podcast with him? To what end?

To what end? I don't find what he's saying particularly interesting. I'm not interested in hearing people tell me what's wrong. I'm not interested in it. I'm not interested in people telling me why they think somebody's bad.

I'm good on that. I get it. What's better? How do we get better? What's your better idea? That's what I'm doing on a regular basis. All right. So, you know, you were with Bill Maher. You and him are doing a show together. Speaking of guys who are doing it the right way. Top of class. You're with Bill Maher. You're doing a show. He just had Kid Rock on. Kid Rock invites him over to the White House. You're asking him questions, going back and forth.

And then he goes on and then he says on April 11th or whatever the date was, you know, I'm going to share with you guys what it was like to be at the White House. Yeah. Himself, Dana, Chuck, Kid Rock and the president have time together. This is his breakdown of what happened after the visit to the White House. Rob, if you got to go and play the clip. Just for starters, he laughs.

I'd never seen him laugh in public, but he does, including it himself. And it's not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it. And I thank you for that. Example, in the Oval Office, he was showing me the portraits of presidents, and he pointed to Reagan and said, in all seriousness, you know the best thing about him? His hair.

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I said, well, there was also that whole bringing down communism thing.

waiting for the button next to the diet coke button to get pushed and I go through the trap door.

But no, he laughed, he got it. Look, I get it. It doesn't matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I'm just taking it as a positive that this person exists because everything I've ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent, at least on this night with this guy. I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama twice.

But I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That's just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me, I feel it's emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days. Amen. Truth bomb. One, Bill Maher, top of class. He did the right thing going. And I agree with his description of President Trump 100%.

And people who say it was wrong for him to go see him, they're the problem. People who are saying he's been red-pilled are stupid. People who are saying he just wants to be seen a certain way don't know him. The guy is 70 years old. He's a made man. He needs nothing. He did this because he thought it was the right thing to do. And I agree with him 100%. And tonight, I got Geraldo coming on, who is...

thinks he's a hypocrite. And look, I love Geraldo. So this is my guy. Tonight, we're going to get a little spicy because I don't agree. I don't agree. Geraldo? Yeah, I don't agree with him. I think that what Bill did was right. I think what he did was right. And I think we got to defend it because we need so much more of it. You can say...

Trump, I don't like that you're doing this. I don't like you doing this. I don't like doing this. I don't like how you talk to him. I don't like it. But I don't have to hate you. And Trump is like, I don't have to tell you guys, you know him. Well, you ask Geraldo how he went four years at Fox loving Trump while he was there and then he leaves and now all of a sudden he hates Trump since he's changed his opinion. But he's known him for 25 years. Yes, he would say, I don't hate Trump. I miss my friendship with him.

I couldn't stay with him after January 6th. Trump hasn't changed any of his policies, Chris. I mean, he's literally been closed the border, build a wall, close the border, deport illegals since he walked since 2015. January 6th and how you talk about Latinos is too much for Geraldo, who is a Latino.

That's his answer. Especially with illegals. That's very convenient. Big time. Very convenient to choose January 6th because it happened after the first term of Trump where he was all in when he was at Fox. I will contend that Geraldo loves the little red dot above a camera when it's on him and he'll pretty much deliver whatever the people who are watching on the other side of that camera are looking for. And in your case, they want more Trump content.

bashing or Trump derangement. My audience does not want more Trump bashing. My audience at NewsNation is ridiculously centrist and oversampled independent. And I see in the ratings that as soon as anything starts to sniff inauthentic or gratuitous, we tank. People want to see things tested and clarified and

get a reset on the show of what would be better than this. Now, look, I love Geraldo, but tonight I disagree with him. We need so much more of what Bill did. Now, what happens is somebody says to me, oh, so you'd go see Trump? Look,

No, I wasn't going to go to Mar-a-Lago when when Morning Joe went down there for the same reason that I wasn't going to go with Tom Holman after Dr. Phil went and became an extension of the operation. I kneel for no one. OK, I do that never for anybody in any situation. And would I go to the White House? Yeah, I'd go to the White House.

Would I speak to the president? Yeah, I'd speak to the president. Did I call him when people tried to kill him? Yeah. Why? Because I don't want to see anything bad happen to him.

because he's a father and a grandfather, and I care about his family. And I don't have to like what he's doing. So I have no problem with what Bill did. It is part of the solution. Vinny, what do you think about what Bill said after going to the White House? I think it just shows that everything that people – because mind you, I saw clips of him taking Trump out of context multiple, multiple times –

as if Trump wasn't going to go back, and the fighting's happening. I'm stepping back as a comedian going, when in the history of America could a rock and roll guy, Kid Rock, be having dinner with somebody and go, you know what? I think you should meet the President of the United States. And it happens like that, and Bill Maher, who is quote-unquote a comedian, I mean, he has...

God knows how many writers writing his stuff for his show. But I think it's amazing that Trump has that much access. We're at freaking UFC this weekend. And I look at Pat and I'm like, Pat, first of all, thank you. I'm standing there and Kash Patel comes in.

Elon Musk with X. There's Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, Ted Cruz. Everybody, the accessibility to this guy, to get close to a guy, to have, like you said, Chris, you have a problem? He brought the guy into the White House and sat down and said, you know, talk to me, talk to me. For him to take somebody that's the most, one of the most far out Trump-hating TDS guys, and now he's brought him to where he's like, oh, he's actually not,

what I really thought. He disagrees, which you have to do. I want that all the time. If you don't like the policy, say it. But I think it's amazing that Jax is going to show, because you know Bill Maher is going to lose fans. I'm pretty sure people are unsubscribing and not watching that anymore because you're a traitor and you're going to the opposite side. I think what he did was freaking amazing. I still have a lot of disagreements with Bill Maher, but I think it was great.

I think it's making the country, for all the people that were like hating, now understanding that he's a freaking human being. You know what my concern was when we went to the White House?

Let me see if I have this or not. If I have it, you guys got to see it. To the White House? You know, not to the White House. When we went to, what do you call it? UFC? UFC. So somebody sends a picture. Rob, I got to send this to you. Can you pull this up? They sent a picture of Rob. I don't know if you got it or not. Us with Trump? Yeah, so they send this, and I don't know why they did this to Tom.

Okay. So this is like the design, the graphic design, creative. Rob, you've got to pull this up. I mean, that's a pretty impressive depiction of Tom Ellsworth. Tom, you've got to send this to your – you've got to send – Kemp.

She's got to watch this. Go ahead and put that picture up, Rob. Look at Tom to the left. Look at Tom to the left. Wow. Legit. I'm like all juiced. Why'd they change my shirt to Future Looks Grim? Grimster by TRT. The only guy who's even close to accurate in that is Dylan.

That's Patrick. That's Patrick. That's the oldest. Yeah. Oh, that's Patrick. That's like Guile from Street Fighter 2. Trump does look like Guile. Look at Vinny. But by the way, you did not even have... Tico to me goes and says...

The only question I got is why do they have Vinny with a beard? He doesn't have a beard. He's shaved. Yeah, that's weird. Go back to that one right there. Go back to the regular one, Rob. Vinny always has a beard. Yeah, I've been trying to be – by the way, I was going to be in front of the president. I heard he's not a big beard guy. They made you very white in that picture, by the way. Apparently I'm from Mississippi. I know. They anglicized you. You've arrived. You're an American now. Rob, can you go to the original one? Rob, can you show them the original right there? No more H-1B visas. Look at that.

I've never smiled that hard in my life for no reason. The bartender in the back is looking at him. He's so funny. The president is just so funny. No matter when you're around him, naturally he's always got a sense of humor with him. Okay, let me go with this one announcement that Chris is very excited about and supportive of. Hex said promise record $1 trillion Pentagon budget. If you want to play this clip, Rob, if you want to pull this up, the markets responded favorably on this one when this was shown today.

If you don't have the clip... I do. Just give me... I'll find it. Tom, your thoughts on the story here with Hex that promised him a trillion and how the market kind of had a little bit of a bounce. Yeah, so I kind of did a double blink when I was listening to it. I said, wait a minute. So you got Doge at the Defense Department. You're like, what, 880 or something like that right now? 880B, you know, that you're spending. And you got Doge in there. You're laying off civilians that are in supplemental administrative positions, as you defined it.

And you're trying not to just drop all these arms off at NATO that now you want them to pay for. So that wouldn't be your defense budget. That would be what they're buying from Boeing and Raytheon. Okay, I get it.

But how do you get to the trillion thing? It's like I'm going to save all this money in government, and then for my enemies, I'm going to scare the hell out of you because I'm bringing it up to a trillion. This is going to be like Star Wars and Reagan. I'm going to have an even bigger weapons system that I'm going to be there and do. But the market goes –

Did I hear $240 billion in EBITDA? I think I did. And so all the indexes, all the defense indexes move and it moves the market a little bit because the market market is right now. And Eric, this is all you is sentiment driven. If the sentiment is a good mood or a bad mood, it moves around. I've never seen the VIX moving with this like volatility. And so I'm like, guess what? It's not the volatility index anymore.

it's the velocity index. It's just the velocity of dollars that are coming. You know, it's like waves, high tide, low tide. So the VIX I look at and say, you know what? I'll get back to you someday and I'll trust you VIX. But right now, all you are is a measure of velocity. And guess what? A trillion dollars of defense is a hell of a lot of velocity. Pull up VXX for a second, not VIX, VXX. There's the index. There's the VXX. Just VXX, not VIX. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. VXX, yeah.

You're right. The volatility, give it six months or a year or whatever, five years even. Look at that. Look at that spike. April 2nd. Those spikes there right at the end. That was the day that they announced the terror. And what that is, they call it a fear index or a confusion index. And people, Wall Street was generally...

blown away by the tariff announcement, even though they knew it was coming. And look, the only other time it happened recently was a massive spy. I don't even know what the event was in August of 24. It rarely ever goes to

above 80. And it went from the low 20s teens to 75, 80 and is making its way back down as people digest in this. But the general idea is it's still elevated, Tom. It's still high, meaning the market, the players, the bigger players in the market are still uncertain of the direction of the market. Is it going to tank? It could go down in other directions.

4,000 or 5,000 points? Is it going to make new record highs? Who knows? They don't know right now. And when that confusion is in the market, the VIX spikes. Why spend more on defense right now? That's what I was just going to say. That's the question. I was going to say, why number one? And number two, how many audits has the Pentagon failed, Tom? All of them. How?

Every one of them. They have a perfect record. Every single one. And then I'm just curious, Pat, what is in that bill? Are we just for defense spending? Are we spending? Are we giving it to other countries to protect themselves because they're going to help us? I want to know where that the worst timing for something like that is right now, because you're right, Chris. We own all the nukes. I'm just letting you know, I worked at a nuclear missile base. We had 200 ICBMs in the ground with up to three or four or five warheads in each area.

Cone, like this missile goes into outer space. The reentry system is here. This thing opens up. We have, and that was one base. 80% of our arsenal is swimming around in the ocean. Nobody's messing with us. Nobody is dumb enough to do it. Why all of them? I'm so confused. Why? As if we need that right now. It's the establishment war pimps wanting their money. And this is the biggest test, in my opinion, for the president.

You are a disruptor. You are the man who says, I do not have to bow to anyone. And things are going to change about who gets to stay at the trough for the longest. These are the biggest pigs at the trough. Yep. And I just don't get it. I just don't get it. The,

I don't agree with the theory, but the theory is that they're spending, whatever, 12%, 15% more than the record they spent last year, and it continues to go up, is that Trump wants to retool our military. He wants to update...

fighter jets, that costs a lot of money to do that. And that's his vision. I don't necessarily agree with Davini. I agree with you that mutual destruction is always there. And we will always have that, the upper hand on mutual destruction with any country in the world, including Russia, China, whomever.

But to to to completely, you know, come back with every nuclear sub retools, all our fighters doing the F-47, which is going to cost what, a trillion dollars. So that's that's how after he bashed the F-35, the F-47 is now going to cost, you know, whatever X of what the F-35 did, which Trump campaigned on how wasteful it was.

He is an anti-extension guy militarily, which I think is a virtue of his in terms of lining up with the American people. And this is a boogeyman. This is what the Cold War was. Look at Russia. To Vinny's point, when I went to Russia when they were doing the nuke cleanup and I was in outer Siberia where they kept them,

It was in a barn that was sealed with a wax string on wine racks. Were you wearing that tight black T-shirt when you were reporting? Every T-shirt on me is tight because I'm 225 pounds of bad intentions. But...

I was wearing BDUs when I was there. And the Russian guys had no weapons and they had mixed matched uniforms. And I was like, I don't get it. Are they a special force? He was like, no, the uniforms are hard to get here and they sell the weapons because they haven't been paid in a few weeks. We made a complete boogeyman out of them. Now they want to do it again about China. You want to cut money. The DOD is there. Okay. You want to deal with Medicaid. You want to make it more efficient. You want waste, fraud and abuse. Fine, fine, fine.

All of those boxes get checked in a big way there. And if that place wins again, then you are no better than who you replaced in terms of going after the powerful.

So it's interesting because if I'm not mistaken, the F-47 Boeing makes, right? This morning, this news came out at 7 a.m. this morning, Rob, with China. Did you guys see the story about, Rob, I sent you the story of New York Post. China halts Boeing deliveries as trade war with U.S. intensifies. Did you see that? I saw Boeing jets. Right, Boeing jets. We're not talking. So if you want to go a little bit lower.

So China has ordered its airlines to halt all jet orders for American manufacturers Boeing in response to President Trump's tariffs hitting the country with tariffs as high as 145. Beijing has additionally told Chinese carriers to not purchase any aircraft related equipment from American companies. Bloomberg News reported the order comes. The order comes after China was 125 percent. OK, go a little bit lower.

And Boeing shares dipped 3% in pre-market trading Tuesday over the pause in the shipments to China, which the company views as one of the biggest growth markets despite being dominated by rival Airbus. Can you go to Boeing stock real quick just to kind of see what it looks like? Down. What is it, 2%? Yeah, it's down 2% for the day. Interesting. Tom, your thoughts on this? On Boeing? Just the trillion, Boeing, all of it combined. So...

You know, sometimes those headlines I look at and I say, wait a minute, we were kind of expecting this because China's intra-country travel has been down. The people inside China have been traveling less because their economy has been, let me look, down. And so they've had these issues. And so.

Boeing, I think, was expecting a moderation in the deliveries of the PO that they got there. And so this headline is kind of like...

You know, we kind of saw it coming. But now they say, well, China is telling Boeing not to do it because they want to, you know, stab at the United States on this. Well, I think there's a lot of that there, too. But the point is, and Eric alluded to it, there's a lot of things going on in that economy over there that are not particularly up and to the right.

And so there's a lot of industries over there that were moderating and for them to also come in. And by the way, I don't want you to buy Boeing planes. Well, I wasn't going to buy four, three of them anyway. Well, don't buy the fourth. You know, it's, it, that's the way it felt to me. Kind of, kind of scammy. Hit that one month on that chart right there. It's April 2nd. See that day. That's the tariff announcement. Boom. So it's, it's making its way back. It's one 57 ballpark. And it was only in the one sixties, one seventies prior to that. So it,

Boeing is still going to make airplanes, sell them around the world. China is still going to be a producer. This tariff game is scary. And this is a rather flat trading window. This is not a disaster. When do we find out what's in that trillion dollars?

If you do a two-year or maybe even a five-year, watch how low Boeing gets. See, at some point, look, Boeing was down. They had those airplanes falling out of the sky. That was more detrimental to Boeing stuff than China making it. Yeah, Boeing jets were falling apart. The MAX, Boeing MAX, right? Not a good product launch.

Never good. But look, I'm just saying that this is a no-brainer. All right? You're in reduction mode right now, right, in terms of government spending. And of course everybody supports the military and want a military. And Vinny, Pat, everybody knows this, whether you're served or not. You talk to those people, they'll be the first ones who tell you that there's a lot of money wasted in that place and it's not in the right things. Of course.

And we have way, way too much infrastructure versus our warrior component. You know, it's just always benefited because there's an optic that if you put money into military, it means that you're strong. I just looked up what's in the budget for fiscal 2025.

It says $850 billion, even though he's saying over a trillion. 4.5% raise for service members. 14.5% increase for junior enlisted troops, which if you remember, Vinny, during Obama, I think the military got a raise of 1% for like four, five, six years. That's it. They didn't get a big raise. Yeah, that was it. So they're giving them a bigger raise to get people to want to join. 287 is going to operations and maintenance. 172 is going to procurement, including aircrafts like the F-35s.

R&D and test and evaluation, 142 points.

$143 billion, they're testing funds for programs like the B-21 stealth bomber and the next generation air dominance. Military construction and family housing, $17.5 billion. Defense health program, $40 billion. Nuclear modernization is another $33.5 billion. International security assistant, doesn't say the number. But I'd be curious to know where that money is going to be going. Let me get to the next story here. This one's kind of interesting, and I wonder what you guys will say about this, both of you.

Kristi Noem urges people to get real IDs to keep our country safe. This is a Breitbart story. Department of Homeland Security, DHS, Kristi Noem encouraged Americans to get real IDs stating in a video on X, which here's the clip. Rob, if you want to play the clip first and then I'll get into the rest of it.

Hi, I'm Christine Holm, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. If you plan on traveling, we need your help to prevent delays and to prove your identity. Get a REAL ID. Starting May 7th, you will need a REAL ID to travel by air or to visit federal buildings in the United States. These IDs keep our country safe because they help prevent fraud and they enhance security. Please do your part to protect our country. Go today and don't delay.

To learn more, go to dhs.gov slash real dash ID. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Every day, thousands of Comcast engineers and technologists like Kunle put people at the heart of everything they create. In the average household, there are dozens of connected devices. Here in the Comcast family, we're building an integrated in-home Wi-Fi solution for millions of families like my own.

It brings people together in meaningful ways. Kunle and his team are building a Wi-Fi experience that connects one billion devices every year. Learn more about how Comcast is redefining the future of connectivity at ComcastCorporation.com slash Wi-Fi. Chris, what do we know about these real IDs so far? I don't know what there is to know that makes them suspicious. I have one. Eric. Same. It's a great idea. This is obviously the precursor to requiring an ID to vote, which is great.

Tom. I agree. We've had real ID standards since Texas. We have one with the star in Texas. And when I came down here, I noticed my new driver's license here had the star. And I think it's a good thing. And by the way, I'll add something. When I went from California to Texas...

I remember this. And I surrendered my California driver's license. They say, I'm sorry, that's not an acceptable form of ID. Why? Because it's been compromised because you can get it as a general ID, and so we need a birth certificate or something. So I actually went and got my Social Security card.

how tattered it was. It's a plastic envelope. I came back. Is this good enough? And this is my passport. Yes. But it was so funny that you couldn't get a driver's license in Texas in 2015 by trading in a California license. Cause they said, that's not good. So it's funny. Yesterday we're in a meeting and one of our guys like, man, let me tell you this real ID stuff's a big concern. You got to be careful with it. They're doing this. He's kind of given his own field. And then Danny canal, then he's like,

Do you have a Florida ID? Yeah. He says, you know, if you have a Florida ID, it's a real ID. He says, really? Take out your ID. He says, yeah, that star is real. I said, oh, cool. I got a real ID. It was the funniest moment for a second because at first it was like, hey. Big brother. Yeah, exactly. Skepticism is the lowest form of intelligence. That's us because we have it because they updated the system. But I think forcing everybody to do it, it isn't about security or stopping fraud. It's about control. The last time we saw it was with the Patriot Act.

where they were locking down on everybody. They're wrapping it in this polite language of we want to help you fly, but they're building a federal tracking system. That's what it comes down to, and they're making people do it. You can't go into a... If you don't get it, Chris, you can't go into a VA. You can't do any federal building, any federal...

federal court system, anything, you can't go into the building. And I think it's an excuse. Well, what I'm saying is they're forcing people to do it because they want to track everybody in this sense. So you need to have an ID to vote, but you don't think the government has the right to know who's in the country? No, they know who's in the country, but a real ID, this is overstepping a little bit more because of all

All the stuff that you don't want to entail to get? Yeah. I actually have the form on my phone right now because I went for the enhanced one. It's all regular bullshit information, Vinny. There's nothing discreet in there. I just think, you know... Vinny, I got the form on my phone. There's nothing different of it? So a regular ID, what's the upgrade to the real ID? You've got to show where you live. You've got to show a tax thing, a W-2. And...

Your car registration. So what's the difference between just your regular identification? They have to know where you live. They have to know, you know what I mean? All your social everything. You submit a couple of more things that prove who you are. I mean, I think you got a little boogeyman. Anytime that they're trying to say, like, listen, this is the, we want this. Let me ask this question, though. We had a podcast somewhere about a year ago. Rob, I don't know if you remember this, but this lady, her name is Candace, I believe.

And this other guy, what's his name? Chris. Yeah. Do you remember these? There was like this moment on this podcast where there was a conversation about IDs. Yeah. About voter ID. Do you remember this? I'm trying to remember this podcast. I do. I remember fine. Look, I get the policy arguments against wanting voter ID. I get it. Let me tell you this. I get it. Here's where I'm going. Here's where I'm going. Rob, if you want to, do you have it? Just press the clip. See if it gets to it or not. But, uh, uh,

I just hope we don't get a flag for playing a clip on another channel. Is that it, Rob? Is that the part? That's where it peaks. Let's see it. I was 16 years old because I wanted to drive and pick up my boyfriend. I get it. And those are the reasons people get IDs. That simple. I love you too. I get it. What I'm saying is...

I don't know when we're going to. It's a 30-minute clip. If you guys want to see, go watch it. I get the arguments that they make against voter ID. The people who won't have one who wind up not voting are the same people Republicans don't want to vote. That's the political argument. It's funny because this kind of gets a conservative to be against it and gets a liberal to be for the ID. I'm not a liberal. Just hear me out for a second. What was the word I used? It was a...

a reasonable leftist or what was a tolerable leftist? Some world leftist. Common sense leftist. But anyways, today it's a free agent. It's a different story. They're both chooches. But check this out. Check this out. What if, Chris, they take the next step with these IDs? What's the next step? The next step is that 100% of people in America need an ID to vote.

Yeah, you're going to have a big political fight. The left is going to say that you're disenfranchised. And now they may have allies with Vinny. By the way. That's the point. You understand what just happened? This was so funny what just happened right now because he's sitting here saying, what's wrong with the United States?

I'm like, it's more control and more databases. I was never against the government. I was never against it. You are funny. I'm ready. Hold on. I'm so ready. Wait, wait. There's so many conservatives with Vinnie on this libertarian say, get out of my life. And then, but wait. Yeah. Let's talk about gun registries then.

Well, now we don't want it. We have a gun registry. No. When you go, there's a federal registry. You and I both had to sign up. Wait a minute. That's not true. When you buy a weapon, you have to fill out paperwork for the federal government. They make a phone call and do a check on you. There's a waiting period. It depends on what kind of weapon and where you are. You can purchase guns legally without having a background check.

Where? Gun shows. Look, that's the loophole, right? Right. But my point is, I'm a conservative. I'm saying keep your registries off my Second Amendment. Yet I also want...

a voter ID, a real ID to vote. I mean, there's a bit of a hypocrisy there. I don't think it's hypocrisy. I think it's conditioning. Okay. I think that we are a gotcha culture that you have to line up with a side. And if you're going to go against the side, you got to say something that kind of keeps your legitimacy with them. You know, like Yellen. Oh, I agree with Yellen on this, but she's a terrible leftist who was, you know, you got to keep, you got to keep your dap with your side. Okay.

which is part of the problem. I'm telling you, when you buy a weapon, you have to go through the federal register. Maybe not at a gun show. I don't know. I bought my weapons at stores. But, you know, fine. You want a background check everywhere. I don't have a problem with that. Most responsible gun owners don't. Our beef is with how people keep their guns and let people get access to them and don't store them safely, and then you have bad things.

The voter I.D., I'm just laying out to you what the resistance is. The resistance is that you want voter I.D. because the people who don't have an I.D. are the people who don't vote for you. That's their argument against or the people who don't have an I.D. aren't citizens in the country. And that's the counter.

And then you get into the counter, Chris. It's not like a little, you know, caveat there. It's except that every time they look, we just had Elon Musk has discovered two million people, two million illegal. I'm sorry. Doge discovered two million people with Social Security numbers and they were illegals. OK, Social Security. Now, first of all, why?

Here's the answer. Because employers take illegal workers and get them into the system because they have to pay FICA for them.

And that's why they do it. It's not a boogeyman. It's not a gotcha. You want to say they vote. Every time they have looked at it, conservative organizations, they found 150, what they believed may be people who shouldn't have voted, voted out of 27 million ballots. Maybe. I'm not sure that number is right. I'm not going to agree with that. You got the guy right there. They have many millions maybe who are receiving Social Security benefits. Yes.

Yes. Who aren't even legal citizens. They pay in. They don't necessarily receive benefits. Sure they do. When you hire them, you've got to pay the FICA. They...

Chris, Google it. How many people with a shiny head are doing landscaping jobs or cleaning hotel rooms? There's no question that there are people who aren't doing. I don't think they get the benefits more than they pay in. To be honest, I don't think so. Now, look, I have no problem with the border policy. I was on this show and everywhere else saying that Biden handed the election to Trump. I don't believe that Trump won. I believe that Biden and the Democrats lost it.

And that issue was a big part of it. And I think you've got to give him his props for doing what he said he was going to do.

I have no problem with any of that. I'm saying there is no inconsistency for me in saying I have no problem with a real ID. I'm telling you, I'm trying to find the application. So then why don't we get that for everybody? Let's get it for everybody. I'm telling you, I have no problem with it. I'm telling you politically what it'll be. I know it will be. But if we got everybody to get real IDs, everybody to get real IDs to vote, can you imagine 16 years later?

If they get real IDs for everybody to be able to vote. If everybody has them, you have no issue. It's that you won't give them to everybody. That will be the problem is that you have to go in or you have to fill out the form. It's like the thing with Social Security. You just said, why are you worried about a boogeyman, Chris? There is no boogeyman. It's just an ID. Why do you look like you're worried? This is not one of those boogeyman stuff. You're overthinking this, Chris. I'm not worried. I'm saying if everybody gets one, you don't have a problem.

The question is, who doesn't go and get it? Then it's your job to sell them on going and getting the ID to get a vote. It's not that big of a deal. It's just a form. You know, they can do it. You just said it's easy. So I'm glad that from a year ago to today, Chris now believes everyone needs an ID to vote. I have not changed. I told you what the arguments were against it. I got two real IDs. One in Florida, one in Texas. Chris, your fellow liberals are going to be so pissed off that you're disenfranchising the illegal voters that they worked so hard to import. I cannot believe that.

You guys call me a liberal. You know how hard we worked to get 20 million illegal people into this country and now they're being disenfranchised? Damn it. You guys call me a liberal the same reason liberals use conservative as a bad word. Because it allows somebody to be your opponent.

I'm not your opponent. I'm being reasonable. I'm completely messing with you on this one. No, he's not. Tom's not messing. Tom is a dead serious. You saw that photo of him? He's serious all the time. I'm going to put hands on Tom as soon as possible. Oh, my gosh. You should. You should. It's like a handoff. It would be a handoff with you and Tom. Is that the way you put hands on Don Lemon? Let's go to this next one here. All right. I want to see what's going to happen here. I don't want to either way. Iran and U.S. envoys hold first negotiation over Tehran's nuclear program.

and talk face-to-face, okay? Rob, if you got a clip on this, U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Ar-Rachi held the first face-to-face talks since the Obama era with the White House stating, special envoy Witkoff's direct communication today was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.

Trump's commented on Air Force One. Is this the one that you have, Rob? Yes, I have two. I have President Trump and then I also have Pete Hegseth discussing what would happen if they don't come to a deal. Go to Trump first and then we'll go to Hegseth. Go for it. You can't have nuclear weapons. And I think they're tapping us along because they were so used to dealing with stupid people in this country. And I had Iran perfect. You had no attacks you would have never had October 7th in Israel. The attack by Hamas,

Eric.

I think he's being very nice. I think Iran is a state sponsor of terror. They've always been. They will never not be. I think he's right. October 7th wouldn't have happened if Trump were president. I don't think Russia would have attacked Ukraine if Trump were president. I don't. Yes. Try and prohibit them from getting a nuclear weapon at all costs. I'm not sure it's going to happen. But I think the smarter thing to do is continue the massive sanctions on that country until they expire.

I don't know, Patrick. They're run by religious fanatics, and they hate the West, and they hate everything we're about. I don't think there's any changing their mind, and certainly not in our lifetime. I think a tough hand with Iran is better than trying to negotiate with them. Here's exit, and then, Chris, I'll come to you. Go ahead, Rob. We've had direct talks yesterday. They began in the past. It's been indirect talks with a mediator, but there's Steve Witkoff meeting with the foreign minister of Iran. What can you tell us?

Well, I can tell you that President Trump is dead serious on this issue. He's dead serious that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. He's said that for 20 years. He's been consistent. That is clear. He's dead serious that he wants it done at the negotiating table. He wants it done peacefully.

And that's why he's going straight to these talks. He set that deadline. These were productive talks yesterday. I don't want to get ahead of our skis. Steve Woodcock does a fantastic job, but it was a good step and they're going to they're going to go at it again on Saturday. But he's also dead serious that if we can't figure this out at the negotiating table, then there are other options to include my department to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear bomb. We hope we never get there. We really do, Maria. But.

What we're doing with the Houthis and what we're doing in the region, we've shown a capability to go far, to go deep, and to go big. And again, we don't want to do that. But if we have to, we will to prevent the nuclear bomb in Iran's hands. Chris. Amen, brother. Chris. One—I have thoughts on this, but—well, let's do this. You have a different set of perspectives. I want to hear it first, then I'll tell you. Okay. Yeah.

For me with this, obviously right now everybody is thinking. Remember how I said the whole thing with negotiating with China? Okay, here's the terms. This is how it's going to work. You're going to do this and we're going to agree to this. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. You're going to do this and we're going to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And you're going to do this and we're going to do this. Oh, for sure, absolutely. All right, here's a deal. Let's sign. And we leave.

We hold our end of the bargain. You don't hold your – you think Iran doesn't already have one if not close to it? If you don't think they have one or they're not close to it, you're part of the naive community. Of course they have it. They're saying the number they were looking at was the – the limit set, Rob, if you can pull up the limit set for nuclear negotiation with Iran is at 3.67%. I think it's the number for enriching uranium. They're at 60%.

And the negotiation was at 3.67%. Over the last 15 years, Iran would reduce the stockpile of low and rich uranium by 97%. They haven't. They're not listening to you. So, well, maybe they're taking time because they really want to negotiate this. Khamenei said, I'm neither overly optimistic, neither pessimistic. So here's the reality of it. Let's just say you do deal with them.

How are you going to hold them accountable that they're not doing it? Let's actually find that part out. Okay. Yeah, we're not building a nuclear weapon. How do you know? How do you audit them? How do you find out? Remember, we tried to do that with them once. How do you do it? They didn't let us. We had inspectors. I know. I remember that. And they shut the door. They shut the door. So how do we know anyways? They don't. This isn't about negotiating with Iran. This is about saying, cut the shit. We put a second nuclear strike force in the region sitting there right now. We're going to show a force and have them...

I don't know. I don't know, Pat. Maybe Israel goes in and does what they did in 1982 where we were playing games with Iran and Israel in the middle of the night when they wiped out their whole nuclear program. Here's what happened. A lot of people that have foreign nationals, a lot of people that have

folks living in Iran right now for deals, they're moving their folks out. They're saying, come home. Whether it's Europe, Asia, Middle East, they're saying, come home. Tensions are too high. They may be attacking the nuclear facility that they have. That threat is there. The ships are already out there close to Iran anyway. So it's like they're close enough to be able to say, we can do something. But it's one of two things.

Either you know they got a nuclear weapon. You're not negotiating. You just need this as an excuse to attack. Either that's one. Or two, you are naive and you believe they have nuclear weapons or getting close to it. And you're trying to find a way to negotiate with them to get something done. I don't think that's the case. So which one is it?

Are we opening up for Israel to do what they want to do? Does Israel want to do something? Would Israel like to attack their nuclear facilities? Do you think Israel, as strong of an intelligence unit that they have, that they claim they have,

that, you know, we've all seen it and read about it. Do you think they already have some insiders that know exactly where the, like, what do you think are the chances of them knowing exactly where the, where the facilities are? Perfect. I'm going a hundred percent. I know I'm not supposed to say it. I'll take the over. Yeah. Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. This

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Okay, so let's say we're sitting there saying they know. All right, do you think Israel is going to wait on U.S.'s lead on how to negotiate this? Or do you think Israel's reputation is they may be saying, let's put this out there, give us the permission to go in and do the job. No, permission. Give us the support. Give us everything we need. Just give us the wink that...

We're not going to put your fingerprints on it. We'll take care of it like we did in the fine support, the fine support and assets, Intel, everything, whatever they need to get it done. They're going to get the Intel. They already have the Intel. OK, so yeah. So this is all I would agree with. If your thesis is or if your conclusion is that this is doing all the diplomatic steps that they need to take.

and then figure out the best, the CIA can't do it. They're too exposed right now. If it happens, it would have to be through Israel. - Iran needs somebody to get behind because even with this, let's just say they do something, something happens to Khamenei, who's gonna replace him? Somebody else from the same exact regime. So they need, like someone within Iran needs to step up, or from the outside, someone with a strong backbone

who wants the job has to rally and win the people over, or someone needs to come to, a group of people need to come. Like who were we talking to the other day? Oh, J.D. Vance's brother was here yesterday, and we're having a great time. We're giving a tour of the property. He wanted to see the place. Corey, we're having a conversation together, and they said for many, many years the family was saying, J.D., you ought to run.

And JD didn't want to run. But for many years, like, yeah, I'm just a business guy. No, you ought to run. You ought to run. Finally, it's like, listen, I'm getting so much support that I'm running. You know, sometimes guys like really, really want to run and you can feel the ambition. Then there's the guys that don't want to run. But you're the right guy for the job, right? Okay. Iran needs to get behind somebody to rally to change the flipping climate that's in Iran. FYI, if Iranians are watching this, you only have three and a half years left. That's it. You have three and a half years.

Under him, Trump, he's not going to do the job for you guys. He said it on the podcast. But the climate is ripe right now that if you guys do your part and you get behind somebody and somebody with courage that's willing to come and do something in Iran, you guys have a fighting chance right now. Maybe you haven't had a chance like this. You had a couple in the last 15, 20 years. This is a chance for somebody in Iran to step up a voice or for you to rally behind to say we want things to change.

The president's not going to do it for you. Trump's not going to do it for you. Nobody else is going to do it for you. It has to be internal. If you get close to the finish line, then somebody can help you. But you have to show that you're getting close to the finish line. Nobody else is going to do that part. You've got to go that close to it. Then if you do, then the other person's going to be like, great, it shows that you're interested.

It shows that you're committed to it. It shows you won't go through the pain. But I think if Iran, similar story for me with China, the reason why I'm supportive with the tariff stuff that we're doing right now is because I know somebody else has to deal with the tariffs with China in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. You're not going to have another guy like Trump in a while. You're not. You got one right now.

And it's not, hey, come cause a war. No. Why don't you guys do something there to want to change the revolution? Get up there again. Start making some noise. This is the time for Iranians to want to do it. I don't say it's an easy thing. I'm not sitting here saying, hey, how come you're not thinking about the livelihood of our families and all this other stuff? I don't say it's going to be easy. All I'm saying to you is if you want Iran to change.

So when we think about the Middle East pre-79, the Middle East was pretty peaceful. They didn't have a lot of issues in the Middle East pre-79, Khomeini coming in. Ever since 79, Khomeini came in. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard came in. The Middle East has been in shambles. Not Iran. The Middle East has been in shambles since 79. It's been 46 years now.

What if some of the folks out there start rallying behind some names? We'd love to know some of these names. Right now, if I told you who's the voice, who would you say? We don't have a lot of names. Who is it?

Who's going out there? Who's holding meetings? Who's going across out there at Dubai holding meetings with a lot of different leaderships coming through? Who's doing that? I don't know. I don't think a lot of it's happening or else the rest of the world will be talking about it. But I think Iran has a chance to do something with it right now. And this discussion, I think at any point, if the speculation is that these guys, Israel, is hoping to kind of like set it up for us to attack, at any point something can happen there. And I don't think it's going to be we're trying to negotiate a nuclear deal.

I don't think so. That's my opinion. I may be wrong. That's where I'm at. I mean, great. It's just, and again, we talked about it, what, two podcasts ago. It's about the people. And everybody's always talking about, when we talk about, when we criticize Israel, you criticize Iran. It's not the people that are living there. It's the government. So when you're saying, like, for people to step up,

That's a really dangerous thing. Like, imagine going against that government. But I think it's a necessary thing. Easier said than done because we're here and you guys are over there. But it has to happen. Okay? Dude, my mom and dad are from Iran. Pat's from Iran. You guys already know how we feel about you guys. But somebody, a movement, something has to spark.

or else it's never going to change. And what a great freaking point. This bull that's in this matador Trump, he's who knows what's after him. But right now, right now is the thing. And I just pray to God that, you know, you guys have the support and it'll come. But you guys have to step it up. It'll be nasty though. Oh, it's going to be ugly. You probably have to lose one or two or more people for it. Oh, for sure. I'm looking at Navalny in Russia. They lose him every day. Yep.

They lose them every day. Last night I had Giselle Chumad on. Her father was stolen, falsely convicted, tortured, executed. Biden couldn't get him back. Trump couldn't wasn't, you know, wasn't here. And they then sent the body back. His tongue was cut out. Parts of them are missing.

These are terrorists. OK, so to Pat's point, can't be trusted. I will say that political payback is sometimes gratuitous. Leaving that deal was a mistake. It was all you had. And now you'll be lucky to get a deal that looks like that. To your point, it probably won't be a deal at all.

You don't know any names because they'd be dead. That's why you don't know any names about who may be bubbling up to have a populist revolt, because this is an oppressive regime. I don't know what the answer is. Israel needs American support because they don't have the munitions that we call those bunker busters to go deep enough to get where it has to go. America has them. So we would be involved militarily on it.

If you keep them from getting a nuke now, do you keep them from getting a nuke forever? No. There has to be regime change there. And I don't think we know what to do. I don't think Trump knows what to do. I think talking can't hurt. But to your point, they can't be trusted. No way. No way. No. I mean, look, I put Iran and China in the same place.

I put it on China at the same place. We had Richard Warner the other day, and he's talking about the fact that, you know, Deng Xiaoping, who was a guy back in the days who was a pragmatist, he went to Japan and said, hey, I know we don't have the best relationship right now. How did you kind of fix your economy? And he says, hey, we've got 5,000 banks, 5 million loan officers doing 35 loan applications per week. Deng comes back, starts working on the banks. The economy changes. Everything changes. Xi is not Deng. Deng is willing to go talk.

Xi is not that guy. If Xi wants to do something with U.S., Xi would have come to U.S., sit down and have a conversation with. If we get that meeting taking place, okay, then maybe sentiment changes, situation changes. But hey, if I'm Trump, you know what else I'm doing? You want to kind of fix the tariff? Allow all our social media companies into China. Why are you worried about it?

Allow our social media companies into China. Allow Facebook, Google, YouTube. Allow all of us in China. Why are you worried? Let's kind of make this thing work. It's not going to be happening. So the way they're negotiating...

There's a lot that can be done, but we'll see what's going to happen. I'd rather deal with China than Iran. Yeah, me too. Iran has absolutely no upside to the world. No, China doesn't say death upon America. China just doesn't like the Western ideas that we have, and they're still clinging on to communism. And the sanctions squeeze the people. That's the one problem with the sanctions is you squeeze the people. Life becomes horrible for the people that you want to help.

Yes. It's hard to do. It's hard to do the right way. Anyways, great podcast. I'm glad we did this. This was actually fantastic. It was great to have both of you guys on as well. And we learned something today. I had no clue.

Chris was a big advocate of IDs. Honestly, I had no clue. I did not think he was going to become a spokesperson for real IDs. Christy, no. You have somebody here that you may want to reach out to. Chris Cuomo. I brought Chris something. I brought him a t-shirt. Notice how he waited. Steve Bennett is my spirit animal. He's coming around.

You're on your way. I'll tell you what. This is a trade-up from... I took my family on safari, and everybody picked a spirit animal, and there's this stupid little antelope called the dick dick, and I let my kids name my spirit animal, and they said, you're the dick dick. What is it called? A dick dick. That's it. A dick dick. You're serious.

That was a rough day. So this is a big come up. It's a big come up. Well, they run 26 miles an hour. That's pretty fast. That's a fast dick dick. You know what it reminded me of? The movie Couples Retreat where he's giving everybody the spirit animal and he says, for you, he says, tell me, tiger, lion, what do you have? An ass. You are stubborn. You're loyal. I'm going to be the best ass I can be.

I didn't sponsor the best. Anyways, it was great. Rob, gang, if you want to come to us Thursday night, remember, go to...

Boardroomcigarlounge.com. We're going to put the link below as well. We'll be there together Thursday night, 7 to 9 p.m., and then afterwards, VIPs, you'll come to the Cigar Lounge. For those of you guys that come at 6 o'clock, the bar will be open, and you'll get tours at the Cigar Lounge for some of you guys that want to become members. Obviously, there's an application and background check process, and nobody can have a phone in the Cigar Lounge, but you get a private tour. And, Rob, let's also put the link to Eric Bolling's show and Chris's show below for those that want to go check them out.

Eric Bolling, we'll put the link to, is this the one? You can go to ericbolling.com or, you know. Why don't you just put ericbolling.com? We're also both on Manect. Oh, yeah. We're on Manect. Are you? Really? I know you are. You're on Manect now? Just signed up. Perfect. Ask Eric any questions you may have on Manect. Rob, if you got his QR code, do you have it? I don't have that. Okay, just go on Manect.

Search his name. Rob, put the link at the top for them to ask any questions. Look at those studs. Look at those handsome devils. By the way, 420 on Thursday, huh? Yeah. That day on purpose. Well, I wasn't going to say it publicly. Yeah. We're in a cigar lounge, Eric. What's in those cigars? We're in a cigar lounge. I'm willing to bet here nobody knows more about 420 than Tom Elsworth. Tom is a Rastafarian. Nobody knows more. Tom's history before he became a Christian man. Tom was a...

The movie Cheech and Chong was based on Tom's, it was a documentary on Tom. You can't be Christian and like a little bit of the Yerevan. But if it's like the organic stuff without anything being added to it. Sort of the weed sommelier of the 80s. Yeah. What was Jesus doing those 40 days? Cheech, Chong, and Tom. How do you connect with God? And Dick Dick. But anyways, take care, everybody. Have a good one. Bye-bye.