China US Play Chicken; Tariffs & Business; Budget; Retribution; Deregulation | Yaron Brook Show
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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash try. Go to Shopify.com slash try. Shopify.com slash try. Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Yaron Brook Show on this Thursday, April 10th.

A little bit of a weird hour, but I had a meeting that went overtime, so I delayed a little bit. So hopefully not too bad for you. And today's show will be a little shorter than usual. Lately, the shows have been going well into the third hour. Today, we'll try to keep it at about an hour and a half. I've got some other stuff going on. But we will be back tomorrow. We will be back on Sunday. And we'll be back on Monday. So they're all going to be shows tomorrow.

Fairly regularly. We'll see what happens next week. Next week is a little problematic, but we'll see. All right. So today we're going to give you an update on what's going on with tariffs and what is going on with...

with the markets. We'll start with the markets. We'll talk about tariffs. I'll show you a video of Holden. Holden is somebody who listens to the show, who was on the show on the chat a while back and asked me about debating Charlie Cook. And I said, be careful. Anyway, we've got video of his debate with Charlie Cook or at least a minute and 14 seconds or something like that of his debate with Charlie Cook. And we'll talk about that. I'll show you the segment of it.

And let's see, we'll talk about tariffs. I want to raise an issue around tariffs that I don't think is discussed enough. Not about just tariffs broadly, but about what Trump is doing. And then we'll talk about the budget, which a budget resolution was passed in the House today. We'll talk about Trump's retribution. Just sickening. I mean, the guy is worse than even I expected he would be.

And then finally, we'll end on a positive note. How about that, people? I'll end on a positive note and we'll talk about some actual deregulation that the Trump administration is engaging in. So a few things, a few things that you will get immediate benefit from. For example, your showers are going to get a lot better if you live in the United States. Showering is going to be a lot more fun from now on. We'll talk about that. All right.

Where do we start? Well, let's just start quickly with the markets. We've been talking about the markets the last few days. So we're going to be watching the markets as we move forward. Markets are a great indication of what I think a lot of smart people think about what's going on. They're also a great way in which Trump is feeling pressure.

From every indication, Trump changed his mind about the tariffs. Well, not completely his mind, but about an element of the tariffs because of the markets, primarily the bond market, but also the stock market. And because of all the businessmen calling him or commenting on it, as we know, Trump is an avid Fox News viewer. He watches everything.

Well, Jamie Dimon was on Fox News the other day talking about the risk of recession. And Jamie Dimon knew that Trump was listening. So he kind of phrased it at, yeah, he could see the benefit of tariffs in some situations. But this was no good and was causing damage. I think slowly that chipped away. Remember, Trump's strength is other people. Trump's strength is people.

And getting a sense of other people's emotions, angst, worries, fear. Remember yesterday was asked why he rescinded the tariffs. He said they were going a little, you know, what was the term he used? I forget the term he used. But basically he ended up saying it's fear. They were too afraid. And I think he sensed that. And he got that message from people calling him up. And that's why he changed his mind. He wants he's a pleaser. He wants to please people.

He doesn't like it that the market doesn't like what he's doing. It's not the case. Yippee. That was the word used. The market was yippee, which he meant fearful. Anyway, that I think is what to a large extent drives him. So he pays attention to market because he wants to be loved. He wants to be liked. He's not just let's just smash it all up. I don't care what happens. He's

got certain people that he pays attention to and he wants them to admire him. He wants them to like him. He wants them to think he's one of the good guys. He's got MAGA. No matter what he does, he has MAGA, right? But beyond that, he pays attention. That's why he watches TV. TV gives him a sense of what people are thinking. He's a complete, complete second-handed. He's a complete second-hander.

Everything is about the reaction it gets from others. And he's surrounded himself by people who are mostly going to nod and smile and adore him and say he's God's gift to humanity. You know, maybe Bessert is the one person within the administration, Treasury Secretary, who is a little, is willing to push back a little bit, not too much, a little bit.

All right, so markets today. Yesterday, we saw NASDAQ went up 12%. S&P went up, what, 9%. It was insane. I mean, the market just shot up as if it was all over. Uncooked champagne, you know, the golden era has begun. Tariffs no longer a threat. And I think overnight, people sat back and thought about it. And the reality is that we have 145% tariffs on Chinese goods today.

They have over 100 percent tariffs on U.S. goods. China is the third largest trading partner the United States has behind Mexico and Canada. China is also, from a geopolitical perspective, important, right? And yet we are playing chicken with China. We're basically completely destroying trade with China. That can't be...

everything's normal and everything's great. So maybe 12% increase in the NASDAQ, maybe a little bit too much. We also still have 10% tariffs on everybody. Before, the other day, we had basically under 2% tariffs generally on the world. Now it's 10%. And then on top of that, we still have 25% on autos. We still have another 25% of steel. And Trump is promising that

tariffs on microchips and tariffs on other metals. And he's not giving up on a whole array of targeted tariffs. And the market today dropped significantly. So the Nasdaq dropped 4%. Remember, when a market drops by a certain percentage, when it goes up that same percentage, it doesn't go back to where it started. I'm going to give you a quick, simple example just to

So it really sinks in, right? If the market, if a stock is trading at $100 and it drops by 50% to $50, now how much does it have to go up in order to return to the previous price? If it dropped 50%, if it goes up now 50%, it's only at 75. It's still down 25%. It actually has to go up 100% in order to make up for a 50% drop. So

It's not symmetrical. A 4% drop is not the same as a 4% increase. Anyway, just thought as an aside that, I mean, it's simple math, but you should internalize that. So the market, NASDAQ was down 4%. The other indexes were down, what, 3%, something like that. S&P 500 was down, I guess Dow was down 2.5%. S&P was down 3.5%. Not good. Not good.

Not good, but realistic and much more appropriate than the euphoria yesterday. At the same time, bonds today opened up, started the morning up, interest rates down. Remember, prices go up, interest rates go down. But during the day, that slowly eroded, and ultimately bonds, 10-year bonds at least, ended up flat, so unchanged. Now,

Both the stock indexes behaving the way they did and interest rates behaving the way they did under other circumstances would be surprising because inflation numbers were reported this morning and inflation numbers were better than expected, significantly better than expected.

So low inflation should suggest lower interest rates. And that's how the day began. But then over time, people said, you know, people were still selling and the selling pressure still existed. And while bonds didn't close down, they closed up a tiny bit, basically flat. Not what you'd expect, given the inflation number. The

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Jeep is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC. And the same with stocks. Inflation down means more likely that Federal Reserve reduces interest rates. Federal Reserve reduces interest rates. Probably good news for stocks. And stocks should be up. All else held constant, but not everything. Nothing else is constant. And therefore, stocks went down. So again, the bigger picture is the stock market and the bond market.

are still viewing, are still troubled, are still problematic, are still viewing the future as really, really, really risky. And it's completely understandable. There's literally the two largest economies in the world, the two largest economies in the world are right now engaged in what people call a trade war and basically a shutting down trade with one another.

I mean, Chinese are not going to buy American goods if the tariffs are 100%. Americans are not going to buy Chinese goods if tariffs are 100%. What we're seeing here, if this holds, is a delinking of the American economy from the Chinese economy. That is not economically good. Now, you could argue national security-wise, I don't think it's the right way to approach the national security issue.

this is not going to bode well for the U.S. economy or for the Chinese economy, for that matter. And it's going to be interesting to see how the Chinese economy pivots. You see, China has the advantage of now being able to sell its goods to other countries, and it has the ability to cut free trade deals with other countries. China is not being run by

by a ignoramus with regard to trade. So China could pivot and cut deals with other countries. There's already rumors that China is in negotiation with the EU to basically eliminate the EU tariff on electric cars so that China can start exporting electric cars to the EU and some kind of bilateral, again, low tariff trade deal. In spite of all the bluster, in spite of all the talk,

about all the talk about deals, can't actually do a deal because he doesn't believe in zero tariffs. He's literally against a policy of zero tariffs. He wants balanced trade. And balanced trade is literally an impossibility. Now, it's possible with some countries, but with most countries, it's just impossible. So he might cut deals with

that are pretend deals where other countries promise to buy American goods, but never actually do like he did with China years ago. But he's handicapped. America's handicapped right now. The total ignorance that Trump exhibits with regard to trade. It's shocking. I mean, literally shocking. But China probably actually has a healthier attitude towards trade than the United States does. So anyway, yeah.

This is a major global economic event. The two largest economies in the world, but he has it's not good for the world economy. It's not good for the U.S. economy. It's not good for the Chinese economy in the short run. And, you know, the stock market is reflecting that. And all you Trump accolades, you know, all you defenders of Trump, no matter what he does. Isn't it fascinating that if the market goes up, it's because of Trump?

And this is great. If the market goes down, it doesn't matter. What does the market know? We're entering a golden era and it doesn't matter. So they like the market when the market is signaling support for something Trump does. They hate the market when the market is signaling lack of support for what he does. But again, if you're a Trump accolade, there's nothing I can really say. There's nothing I can do to move you away from that. Trump is, you know, the ultimate spin doctor. His people are just masters at this.

But of course, nobody actually believes them except the people who are already brainwashed to believe everything they say. So Stephen Miller today comes out and says, Stephen Miller, Trump advisor, xenophobe, anti-trade, anti-American, horrible, horrible, one of the worst, if not the worst person around Trump. And that's saying a lot because there were a lot of really bad people around Trump. Stephen Miller is one of the worst. He was there in the first Trump administration. He's there again now.

He wrote today, you have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history. This was all planned. I mean, Trump planned to tank the stock market, then reverse and see the market increase. He planned to have 145 percent and this tariffs on China so that there was a delinking. He planned this.

to raise tariffs on all these countries and immediately reduce them and then negotiate deals. What deals? Where are the deals? Who knows? This is all planned. He thought this through. This is 4D chess, according to Stephen Miller. You have been watching the greatest economic master strategy from an American president in history. This is called nutty. As George Selgin writes in a tweet, he says, the ultimate spin.

One, make markets crash by announcing horrible tariff policy, which does just what all competent economists warned it would do. Two, back off from policy, allowing markets to rebound somewhat. Three, declare the rebound proof of the original policy success. None of that, none of that makes any sense, right? But that's exactly what they're doing. Exactly what they're doing.

All right. So, you know, in spite of the lowering of tariffs, we're still in for a rocky road ahead of us. It's still going to be difficult, and the market is saying that, and people still don't quite want to buy American bonds. I'm eager to see how the 30-year bond did today. There was a big issuance of U.S. 30-year bonds, and it'll be interesting to see what interest rates they sold those bonds at. But

We're in for a rocky time. Nothing has really changed. They've taken a little bit of the worst things off the table, but there's still so much bad out there that it's a disaster no matter how you look at this. I wanted to say a few words about one aspect of tariffs that I don't think is... Not about tariffs, about Trump's way of doing policy that I don't think is talked enough about. Think about what it takes to run a business. And some of you business owners...

and you probably know this. Think about the years you spent cultivating suppliers, cultivating relationships, building a supply chain to get the kind of goods you need, the raw materials you need, the things you resell on time in the quality you want at the time and a place that you want. Think about the effort.

that goes into, and I know some of you can't because you've never experienced it, but the kind of effort that goes into supply chain management, the effort, the time, the energy, the capital that goes into the structure of moving goods from place to place and making sure that they are in the right place at the right time for your customers.

This is an enormous aspect of any business. I mean, think about an iPhone that has, I can't remember, components from 50 different countries, 50 different countries. They have to be sourced. They have to be quality controlled. They have to get to the right factory at the right time to be assembled and then shipped. I mean, Tim Cook's, Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple. His genius is

And the reason he rose in Apple's ranks and the reason Steve Jobs brought him in and then left Apple to him in a sense of CEO is his genius at supply chain, at organizing, creating, building that supply chain. And it takes years. And in a second, with one signature, with one stupid comment, with one thoughtless regulation, government can wipe that out completely. Completely.

I mean, what does Apple do right now? Now, I know what Apple is going to do. And you'll see that in the next few days, Donald Trump will announce that Apple is exempt from the tariffs. It will go lobbying to the government to get rid of because Apple can't survive if it's going to import these things from China with 125, 145% tariff. It will get an exemption.

Oh, and unless Trump wants to play hardball with China and wants to really screw them and Apple. But I don't think he wants to screw Tim Cook. I think he cares about Tim Cook's opinion of him too much to do that. So you'll give him an exemption. But think about the medium-sized businesses that have done the equivalent of what Tim Cook has done for Apple for whatever product they're selling. How do they recreate these supply chains?

Now they have to shift to importing from Brazil or from Mexico or from somewhere else. They can't ship from China or they can't ship from Canada or wherever the tariff has to be. Think about the auto companies. You know, you remember that, you know, that some parts go back and forth to Canada seven times before they're put in a car somewhere. How do you redesign all that so that you don't go back and forth because you can't afford to pay the tariffs every time you cross the border?

Think about all the businesses that are going to be destroyed, small businesses, medium-sized businesses, that will not be able to supply good, steady customers because now their raw materials cost 25% or 145% more than they did yesterday. Think about the arbitrary power. I mean, even if you think Trump is a genius, even if you think tariffs are somehow a good idea, think of the arbitrary power that we have given the president.

to change the rules of the game on a dime. And therefore force business and to scrap the planning that they've done for 20 years and to reorient it to something else. Not because there's a war, not because we've been invaded, but because you just feel like it. Because you're Trump and you're a genius. Think about all the people right now on the supply chain management platform.

There are millions of them in America. I don't know millions. There are thousands of them all over America, all over businesses, scrambling to try to figure out how to survive this. All that wasted energy, that wasted talent, the wasted planning that they've engaged in for years and years and years is meaningless. Because the president thinks that it's meaningless. It doesn't care. This is why a complete separation of

of government from economics is so necessary at the very least what is necessary is to take away the arbitrary instant power that a president has to completely reshape the world and destroy the work of millions of productive people with a signing of a pen i mean this wasn't discussed this wasn't debated this didn't come up in front of congress there was no opportunity for feedback

No, Trump just woke up in the morning and said, hey, I think reciprocal tariffs would be cool or not. Think about what you do now as a business person. Put yourself in the shoes of a business person who a few days ago were panicking because tariffs on stuff that he was importing from, I don't know, Chile. Chile, I don't know what the rate is on Chile, but Israel were going to be 17 percent and now they're 10 percent. But tomorrow he doesn't know what they're going to be.

How do you plan? How do you plan for next week? Never mind for next month. Never mind for next year. Never mind the way businessmen really plan, which is for the next five, 10 years. Where do you get the new relationships? Again, supply chain management means, God, I mean, think about, I don't know, think about coffee. Think about you're a coffee shop and you source your coffee. You want to differentiate yourself from the marketplace. She source your coffee from Kenya, right?

And you, you know, you specialize in pour over coffee, special $5, I don't know, pour over coffee with beans from Kenya and maybe some beans from Tanzania. And you have it priced and you've got the relationship and you've gone to the particular farmers from which you buy the coffee and you've smelled and tasted the coffee and it's fantastic and it's exactly what your clients want. And you have contracts with them to supply you with coffee for the next few years and

And then suddenly Trump comes in and I don't know what the tariffs are in Kenya and Tanzania, but let's say the 70% were a few days ago. Can you imagine what that coffee shop owner was going through a few days ago when he thought the price of his coffee was going to increase by 70% because the tax man was going to stand between him and the coffee grower in Kenya and raise prices by 70%? He would have to raise his coffee by 70% to the consumer market.

But who's going to buy coffee at almost double the price? The demand for coffee is going to go way down. And how are we going to fix that? I guess we start producing coffee in America. I wonder how that'll taste. Let's start growing coffee in America. That's the solution. So, I mean, you can joke about it and you can make fun of it. You don't know where the coffee comes from, all this bullshit. But we're talking about people's lives and livelihood.

We're talking about the effort that people have gone to to create these relationships and to build this up. And all because of the whim of an ignorant president, it's gone. It disappears. And it's completely arbitrary. Completely arbitrary. It has real costs to people's real lives. And we're not just talking about any people. We're talking about the most productive people in American society, in the world. American businessmen.

who now have to scramble. I mean, what Trump did to American businessmen over the last week should be impeachable. I mean, it won't be, but it should be. I mean, the level of disrespect, the level of irresponsibility is stunning. Business, big business, medium-sized business, small business, these policies are unbelievably destructive to the people running and working at these businesses. And that's the great injustice.

I mean, yeah, all of us will pay a little bit more or maybe a lot more for coffee and for other things. But the extent to which we're disrupting the lives of the most productive people among us, the people who actually produce the values that we benefit from, that is a unforgivable sin that Trump has committed. I can't remember an action taken by a president that is as disruptive to the entire community of business in America than these tariffs.

Every single business is affected by them. All right. So that is what I wanted to say. You know, I don't understand people out there who are not outraged, outraged by this president. And it's, you know, answers the disruptor president. It's not about disrupting. It's about destroying.

Disrupting sounds like, yeah, we go into business, we disrupt it a little bit to make it more productive. This is not about disruption. This is about destruction. This is about creating uncertainty for the sake of creating uncertainty, but destroying the capacity of American businesses to plan and to really function and to be successful. And it is unbelievably arbitrary. By the way, you know, he's not isolating China. He's doing the exact opposite.

He is encouraging the rest of the world to trade with China and to China to trade with the rest of the world. He's isolating America. And indeed, by alienating all of our allies, by imposing tariffs on all of our allies, by treating all of our allies like enemies, he's encouraging them to align and negotiate with China. So Trump is not isolating China. Trump is isolating America. Trump is isolating the United States of America.

And it's obvious that that's what he's doing. And it's obvious that's the effect of his actions are having. So it's not about disruption. It's not about isolating China. It's about isolating America. And it's about emboldening China, what Trump is doing single-handedly. He is elevating China and demoting, deflating, I don't know what the term you want to use, the United States.

globally, in terms of global power, global significance. And in doing so, he is attacking the best of us, our businessmen, the people who have made America what it is, who keep America going. That's who he's attacking. That's who he's demeaning. That's who his policies are ultimately meant to penalize. All right. Let's see if there's anything else I wanted to say about...

Yeah, I mean, I wanted to comment on this. I've commented on it many times before. But yesterday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamie Greer was in front of the House Ways and Means Committee. And she said the following. We must move away from an economy based solely on the financial sector and government spending. And we must become an economy based on producing real goods and services by American workers and communities here. That is so dishonest.

Now, I'm all for reducing government spending much more than they would, but that is just so dishonest. It's the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. The United States produces more manufactured goods by value than any other country in the world except China. We have 4% of the world's population, but 16% of the world's manufacturing output. We produce more manufacturing value than Germany, South Korea, and Japan combined.

Germany, South Korea, and Japan combined. We have more. But no, we don't manufacture enough. And services, she said, based on producing goods and services, we have service. We are the largest producer of services in the world. So they constantly lie about this idea of we don't produce anything in the United States anymore. Trump today tweeted, this is just a hodgepodge of stuff related to the tariffs and trade,

This is a great time to move your company into the United States like Apple and many others in record numbers are doing. Apple's not doing that. There's no way it'll do that. It cannot produce iPhones in the US and it will not. Zero tariffs and almost immediate electrical energy hookups and approvals. No environmental delays. Don't wait. Do it now. And here's the thing. Even if you move your company into the United States, you're going to face heavy tariffs.

on almost all the components that you need for, let's say, Apple and the iPhone. They'll have to pay a tariff when they import the glass from South Korea. They'll have to pay a tariff when they import the microchip from Taiwan. They'll have to pay a tariff when they import all the 50 different components that go into an iPhone. Almost none of the components are made in the United States. So they'll save the tariff on the final good,

But they'll have to be tasked on all the pieces. Not clear which way is better. Again, just sheer ignorance and stupidity. One other thing I want to say, oh, let's do this. I want to show you Holden's video. We're going to show you Holden's video. Oops. And then we're going to have to speed it up. All right, here's Holden's video. Holden is a listener. He's a college student.

And he went to one of these events where Charlie Cook has a microphone and people challenge him and do little debates with him. And he asked me about it. And I said, yeah, just be ready for the fact that Charlie will lie and say whatever he wants with great confidence. Charlie is the ultimate MAGA. He has figured out that if you say you can invent anything you want, you can make stuff up. You can just and if you say it with confidence and vigor, you're

What are you going to do? So, you know, this is the challenge that Holden faced. And this is exactly what happened. All right, let's watch this quickly.

And then I'll comment on it. So here we go. I would like for you to have a more principled position on tariffs and criticize Donald Trump. By the way, Holden is wearing a I love fossil fuel T-shirt. You got to love that. Right. Got to love that. Holden, good for you. Or his tariff. I'm super pro tariff. So why would I criticize it? Because they make us poor. OK, so let's let's let's play that out. If that is correct, how did China get so rich? So if that's correct, how did China get so rich?

assuming that China is rich because of the tariffs. When China was poor, 1978, average tariffs in China were between 50 and 60%. As China became richer, tariffs went down. Now, you could argue about causation and correlation, but the reality is that China, as of 2018, tariffs had dropped to 8%.

And indeed, if you exclude America, Chinese tariffs are now at 6.7%. Not as low as they should be. It should be zero. But they're pretty low. China didn't become rich because of the tariffs. China became rich in spite of the tariffs. And China became rich while reducing tariffs dramatically over time. So now, does Charlie Cook know that? Yes, deep down, he does. He knows that.

But he's mouthing the tribal thing that you're supposed to do. One of the great, one of really the most horrible things to have happened to so many of our commentators, intellectuals out there, is they've shut down their mind. Charlie is a good example of somebody who shut down his brain. And he now has become just a mouthpiece for the tribe. He gets his instructions from whoever at MAGA, from the president on down, from Miller, and he just mouths it.

Well, China has a free, they liberalize their economy. They got a stock market. You are not allowed to import American goods in China. How are they so rich? That's not true. China imports a lot of stuff from China, from the United States, a lot of stuff in the United States. Indeed, they are placing tariffs in retaliation to Trump's tariffs on the things that they're importing from the United States. They used to import chip design from the United States.

They've imported agricultural product from the United States. They've imported farm equipment from the United States. They import a lot of things from the United States. So again, Charlie's just making that up. They don't import anything from the United States. You're not allowed to. That's just not true. The reality is that tariffs on U.S. goods were 8% in 2018. And then Trump launched tariffs on China.

And as a consequence, China retaliated. Stupid policy, but that's what they did. And those tariffs slowly increased through the Trump administration from 8% to 26% by the end of 2019, pre-COVID. Biden never reduced U.S. tariffs on China, so China never reduced its tariffs on U.S. goods. But they were at 8%, just like the rest of the world, in 2018 before Trump intervened.

And the rest of the world has seen tariffs with China go down to under 7%, whereas the United States has seen tariffs go up to 26%. But there's no ban on Chinese buying American goods. It's just not true. Now, I don't know if some of this was cut out.

I don't know that Holden knows that. So that's why he's not mentioning it. Because they have developed capital. They're not liberalized. So how'd they get so rich? They've become more economically free. Over the last 30 years, they've made an incredible transformation. So why can't we do the same? Just because China is making a mistake doesn't mean we should make the same mistake. China would be richer if they didn't have tariffs. First of all, number one, the optimal goal is not just to improve GDP or be rich.

Of course. Number two. Oh, so one, forget about GDP. Forget about rich. Forget about wealth. That's not the goal. What is the goal exactly? That's not the goal. So forget about that. That is such a con, right? He's been arguing that China got rich through tariffs. And now he says it's not important to be rich because Holden has shown, hey, they liberalized the economy and they got rich. Of course. Number two, it's about worker well-being, middle class flourishing. Yes.

Where do you think worker well-being is greater? Is worker well-being not good in the United States? Is Americans not flourishing compared to pretty much anybody else anywhere else in the world? Where does he get this? Number three, can you point to times in American history where the middle class did great almost every time we had tariffs? Okay, but that's correlation, not causation. No, it is. No economist agrees with you. You're wrong about this. But I'm sorry, that's...

First of all, that's not true. Some agree. Most do not agree. But a lot of these economists are bought and paid for by the corporate class, and they've been wrong about almost everything the last couple of years. They're the ones that said Trump was going to wreck the economy, that Biden was the best president ever to come to the economy. So I reject a lot of the experts when it comes to this. None of that is true. So he's just such a demagogue. He's such a mindless demagogue, Charlie Cook. It's really awful. Really, really, really awful. Whoops. What happened there? All right. Just want to show you that. Hold on.

Good for you for standing up to Charlie Cook. It's too bad that he edited it in a way that didn't give you enough time to express yourself. I'm sure you said a lot of really good things. Has there ever been a time when the American middle class has done well? Yeah, right now. The American middle class is doing better right now than it's ever done before. The American middle class today is richer than it's ever been before.

Indeed, the American middle class is smaller because so many people in the middle class of the past have become rich. Now, the American middle class could be doing a lot better by doing what has made America rich, liberalizing, reducing taxes, reducing regulations, not increasing taxes. The American middle class will do a lot worse in a world with unrestrained tariffs. All right. It's stunning to me how far, how far...

Charlie Cook has come in his descent from being pro-capitalism once a long time ago. There was a headline in Reuters today, EU-China stock talks on lifting EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. I think those talks will accelerate. We're not going to talk about that. And yeah, OK. Enough on tariffs. Budget. House today passed a budget resolution.

Conservatives basically folded under pressure from Trump and Johnson. The conservative wing in the Republican Party insisted that this budget resolution have significant spending cuts in excess of $1.5 trillion. They really wanted $4 trillion. Remember, every number I give you, over 10 years, right? So this is not tomorrow, $4 trillion cuts. Over 10 years.

But the resolution was a resolution that already passed the Senate. And that resolution only guaranteed cuts of $5 billion, not trillion, billion dollars, and with an aim of $1.5 trillion, but no guarantee of that. And yesterday, this was going to come to a vote. And a bunch of conservatives said, we're not going to vote for it. And the Republicans didn't have the votes to pass it. Today, pressure was put on them.

And they all, with the exception of two Republicans, Massey from Kentucky and Spatz from Indiana, all the rest voted for it. And again, this is a resolution. This is a budget that cuts no real spending, cuts no real spending, that increases the deficit by trillions of dollars, increasing government borrowing by trillions of dollars. This is one reason why

If I were in the bond market, I would demand much higher interest rates because the only indication to reduce interest rates is, no, they're getting the house in order. They're going to get to a balanced budget. Ultimately, we need a surplus because you need to pay off the debt. This is the exact opposite. This is a guarantee for more spending, more deficits, more debt. And I don't know what Doge is doing, but...

it's having no impact on the actual budget that is being passed by Congress. Zero. Nada. None. So the one thing that Trump... Again, Trump came in with a mandate, I think, to do crazy stuff. He could have done good crazy stuff, like cut spending, really cut spending, but he's not going to. He's not going to. Instead, Trump is very much committed to, we'll call it retribution, going after people he doesn't like. So...

Today, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to probe, investigate officials who opposed him in his first term. He's specifically targeting former cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs. You know what Chris Krebs' sin is? He was the head of cybersecurity in Trump's first term. Why is he sending the Justice Department to investigate Chris Krebs? Because after the 2020 election,

Chris Krebs came out and said, from cybersecurity, this election was completely safe, completely legit. There was no hacking of the voting machines. And this election was legit for that, for doing his job. Trump wants to investigate him. Now, again, in my view, an impeachable offense. And then he wants to go after former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor because he wrote pretty nasty things about him.

He's the guy who wrote the famous New York op-ed titled, I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration, signed it anonymous, and then ultimately wrote a book chronicling his experiencing within the Trump White House, not very positive ones. He was one of the people who was considered the adults in the room. For that, he is not going to be investigated by the Justice Department. Trump has called them both treasonous.

I mean, words escape me. Again, I don't understand how people are not outraged by this. Now, you might say, well, but nothing will happen to Justice Barr. No, the Justice Barr now is basically just an extension of Trump. It's no longer objective. There's no rule of law in America today. If you insult Trump, if you go against Trump, you will have your life turned over. You have your security clearance taken away.

If you're a law firm, you will be you will suffer millions of dollars of damages because your security clearance will be taken away. Your business will be taken away. I mean, this is unbelievable in terms of behavior and worse than anything. Any of these other presidents, including Biden, did this is retribution to executive order. Talk about retribution.

The secretary of the Secretary, she's not in the interior of Homeland Security. Noam, you know, the former governor of South Dakota, said yesterday that Venezuelans, the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to hold should be detained there for the rest of their lives. These people were not convicted in a court. They have not faced the judge or jury. They have not gone to trial. And she wants to give them justice.

life sentences in a foreign brutal jail. I mean, this is an administration that cares nothing for individual human life. Now remember, 75% of the people who were sent to El Salvador have no criminal record at all. I mean, they might be gang members, but they have no criminal record at all. They've never been in front of a judge and a jury in a trial. In it, they're now sitting in one of those brutal jails in the world in El Salvador. For the crime...

of being Venezuelans and having the wrong tattoos for life, maybe life in prison with no trial in America today. I don't know what you call this other than authoritarianism, brutal, brutal authoritarianism. And yeah, some people out there are still going to defend them, still going to defend them.

All right. It's hard for me. I know it's hard because I really see the evil of this administration so clearly and so strongly. And I take it personally because, you know, I know the damage this is doing to America. I know the damage it's doing to businessmen. I know the damage it's doing to our freedoms, our liberties, our individual rights. I know the damage it's doing to the rule of law.

that it's hard to stay silent, and it's hard not to be upset, and it's hard not to be infuriated by this. I'll tell you what makes it even more difficult is the fact that so many people out there will defend him no matter what, continue to defend him no matter what. And even if they're not defending him, can I take all this lightly? Eh, big deal. So few businessmen have been inconvenienced. He's a little disruptive. God help us from his supporters.

Deal with Trump and his supporters, though. Really, at this level, beneath contempt. If they justify these kind of actions. All right, let's end on a positive note. Something his administration is doing that's positive. I promised you yesterday. So a number of things today. Part of the pressure that the United States is putting on other countries as part of all these discussions is they're trying to get rid of... So, you know, under Biden...

And as part of the climate change attacks, there's been a real effort to start taxing shipping with some kind of carbon tax. Trump is basically telling countries out there that the United States rejects this, will not accept it, and they need to stop talking about it. It will not happen. And that's great. That is ultimately really good to get that off. I mean,

companies are trying to build electric ships, which is just not practical and insane unless it's nuclear power chips, but those would be too expensive. And, and which regulator is going to prove that unless it's for the Navy. Uh, and, um, they're now making it clear that the United States is not going to accept any international environmental agreement that, uh, that he feels burdens the U S, uh, the U S interests and burdens to American people. Now, uh,

Again, by accident here, he'll probably do something good. He signed an executive order today called zero-based regulatory budgeting. Basically, he is instructing all departments to create a sunset for every regulation on the book has to have a sunset. And in order to extend it beyond the sunset, it has to be explicitly reviewed and extended.

reviewed and extended. So any and there's a whole list in this of from the Atomic Energy Act and National Appliance Energy Conservation Act. These are from one is for 54, one is from 87. The Federal Power Act from 1935, the Natural Gas Act from 38, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 82. I'm just picking at random Energy Policy Act of 2005.

the Marine Mammals Protection Act of 1972. Each one of these, the regulations that were written in response to these acts are now going to have to be reviewed. There's going to be a sunset, and in order to renew them, there's going to have to be a renew and explicit action. I think this is great. Short of scrapping all these acts, which is what they should do, but that would require Congress, this is a way to...

sunset, many regulations that are on the books and give an opportunity to actually look at and discuss and debate and think about different regulations. So this is, again, the kind of actions you can take at the regulatory agency level, at an executive order level. This is consistent, I think, with separation of powers to actually reduce the power of the regulatory agencies.

The House, this one is unusual because this actually the Senate and the House voted on this. So under Biden, the Congress passed laws or pass laws that were approved by the House and Senate, signed by Biden, that Republicans just overturned, which is wow. I mean, this is what they should be doing every single day.

Every single day, they should take a law that was passed, a regulation that was passed, and they should overturn it through Congress. So, for example, Joe Biden had a regulation that capped bank overdraft fees. They've just overturned that. He also gave officials the power to supervise the legal compliance of tech companies' digital wallets and payments apps. So regulations relating to digital wallets and payments apps. Today, Congress reversed that.

So this has gone through the House, the Senate, and I think Trump is going to sign this. So with regard to some bank irregulations, we're seeing a little bit, teeny bit, teeny little bit of actual deregulation going through Congress. This is good. More, please. More, more, more. Finally, another executive order from Trump. This one maybe will have the greatest impact on your lives of all of these executive orders. He signed an executive order with a

with a familiar and elusive goal. And that goal is, and I'm quoting, undoing the left's war on water pressure. And I'm adding in the shower. He directed the energy secretary, Chris Wright, to roll back Obama and Biden era rules, limiting pressure in showerheads. In particular, he railed against efficiency standards, getting in the way of grooming his dog, I guess. Kofir, is that a dog?

Quote, in my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair. No, so not his dog, his hair, grooming his hair. I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes till it gets wet. It comes out, drip, drip, drip. It's ridiculous. So the president of the United States has authorized this.

And I'm with him 100%. I hate showers that have a low, you know, velocity of water. One of the benefits of traveling is you get to experience real showers in Europe and in Israel. The water pressure is amazing. And you realize how pathetic it is in the United States. Well, have no fear. Trump is going to fix it. And you can now have proper showers. Although I think some of these regulations at the state level,

But let's hope he actually achieves this. Chris Wright, go for it. I want pressure in my shower. Anyway, I will try to give you a roundup on a regular basis of all the deregulatory actions that are happening on a day-to-day basis. Some serious, some a little humorous like this one. We will see. In the meantime...

That is the news for Thursday, April 10th. All right, we're going to go to your questions. I fear that there are too many questions for me. If I don't cover them all today, I'll cover the rest of them tomorrow. So please hang in there with me. I do have limited time today. So let's jump in.

quickly and you guys remember who my sponsors are and you guys remember to go to patreon and you guys remember i'm asking don't ask more questions just because time limitations but you can do stickers stickers are great stickers are great all right vadim asks this is a long question a budding dictator in training trump challenged the experienced dictator in a duel of who can brutalize their own people more

Chinese one responded, are you kidding me? Tariffs? I swear in the blood of my own people for leisure. Trump had to back down. In a game of oppressing his own people, U.S., which has founded on the principle of subjecting might to right, an aspiring dictator cannot win. America's strength and power, and fear of that power by the surrounding thugs, can only come from protecting its own individuals.

who inhabit and work in it, who can then rise and fight for their freedom, if need be, but never from brutalizing them. There's no question they've had in, but look, I agree completely. I mean, in a game of chicken between the United States and China, the United States is going to blink first because the people in the United States are free to protest, are free to sell their stocks. China cannot officially prop up their stock market. The United States, we don't do that.

You know, China is much better at brutalizing their own people. America is not going to be good at it. And if too much of it is done, the American people will, I think, still, to some extent, rebel against it. Now, you can brutalize illegal immigrants. Americans seem not to care. You can you can brutalize even legal immigrants. Americans don't care that much.

But if you start brutalizing Americans, you can brutalize businessmen. Americans don't care. But if you start brutalizing average Americans, particularly in their pocketbook and in their consumption habits, beware. Beware. Anyway, scary times. Scary times with dictator wannabes in America of all places. David, I can understand ignorant people loving everything Trump does. But how to explain a brilliant historian like Victor Davis Hanson?

I'm disgusted by his psychopathy. I don't know how to pronounce that word. He should stick to history, your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you completely. But look, Victor Davis Hanson has been very good history, I think, particularly military history. But he has never been good as a cultural commentator.

He's always been a kind of xenophobic conservative when it comes to that. I did one event with Victor Davis Hanson years ago at Berkeley, of all places. And even then you could tell the real differences between me and him, even though we agreed on how to fight a war and what was necessary to do in the Middle East at the time that was the issue. Hanson, you know, really resents immigrants.

He loves the idea of farming, of working with your hands. His ideal is the farmer soldier. He's got kind of a romantic vision of the toilet. He's a conservative and a very narrow-minded, ultimately, when it comes to his conception of what a good life is, a good society is. He's a collectivist, very much so, a collectivist, not an individualist, as most conservatives are.

And that undermines his ability to think properly about these things. He also has the view of, I don't agree with everything that Trump does. I don't think Victor Davis Hanson does agree with everything Trump does. But he says to himself and to others, I think, but with such desperate state, he believes America is such desperate conditions that this is what we need. We don't have any choice. This is we need somebody like this.

I think it's disgraceful and sad that somebody as smart as him has these views and is willing to tolerate this. He should be a major critic of Trump's. I think to some extent he knows. I mean, one of the things I've noticed is Neil Ferguson, also at the Hoover Institute, like Victor Davis Hanson, generally a conservative with definite collectivistic tendencies, is critical of Trump.

in a thoughtful way and much more detached than I would be, but he's willing to be critical of Trump. Victor Davis Hanson is not. And I would be curious what he thinks about. I think he just thinks that, yeah, we need to disrupt everything. We need to, in some sense, destroy everything to build anew because the character of America is rotten. The character of Americans is rotten.

They don't have those classical virtues that he imagines all Americans had in the 1950s as we were treating black Americans like, you know, horribly. Somehow we were a virtuous society back then. That's another thing I'll comment on more in the days to come is this romanticization of the 50s, which I find just despicable and ridiculous.

How would trade deficits be calculated on a gold standard since the trading partner would not be obligated to buy in that country if gold was the money? Well, you still have trade deficits, right? So let's say somebody... People in China bought a lot of American things and we didn't buy anything Chinese. Then gold would flow from China to the United States, right? And China would...

In a sense, if that's all they did, ultimately, they would deplete the gold that they had unless they produced stuff that they sold to somebody who provided them with gold. So what happens is trade, you can track trade through the flows of gold or silver, whatever the currency happens to be, right? And

The United States, because it had a lot of gold, would be in a position to start buying products from other countries. And because it had all this gold, it could then start buying from other countries. And the gold would flow to those countries as we imported stuff. And it would just be, I mean, the trade deficit would be the net of whether gold is flowing out or into a particular economy.

Right now, of course, having more gold in your country affects interest rates. It affects return on investment, affects savings. And ultimately, you know, the gold standard causes all this to balance out. I'll do a thing about trade in a gold standard. It's a good idea. I'll run through an example for you guys on how it would work and how it how gold actually helps balance everything out in there. How would I would now say?

You know, if with paper money, it distorts and perverts all this because we can continue to print the money. The issue is as long as farmers demand dollars, we can get away with it. When farmers stop demanding dollars, we are going to be in real trouble. OK, I'm going to do a gold trade example and run it, run it by you. Written it down. Thanks, Paul.

Michael, will government spending cut into scientific research actually be a good thing, allowing the free market and meritocracy to more readily enter the field? Will we see more scientific breakthroughs because of it? I don't think so in the short run, because I mean, in the in our ideal world, government has shrunk dramatically. Taxes have shrunk dramatically. People have more money. Corporate taxes maybe are zero and government has stopped funding science. But

people, businesses, and individuals have a lot more money themselves because government is not taxing them as much or not taxing them anywhere near as much. And therefore, they can then allocate a percentage of their wealth to medical or other kinds of research. But if all you do is cut government funding of science and you don't cut people's taxes,

then where are they going to have the money to invest in research? They're going to have to allocate it from something else. Businesses are going to have to spend less on something and now spend more on this. Put it this way, it has to be done ultimately, but it's far from the first thing I would cut. It's in a sense the last thing I would cut. I first want a thriving growth, lots of profit,

reduce taxes, reduce government spending, and then say, okay, now the private sector can take care of science and get rid of it. That would be the order I would do. I wouldn't start with it. I think it's a huge mistake. Now, again, it could be done a lot better than it's done now by the private sector. The private sector has to have the capital to be able to do it. And for that, you have to reduce taxes. Not your average algorithm. Is economic freedom viewed as too harsh of a platform to win elections on?

Cutting off freebies is considered too mean spirited as the rounding up and deporting thousands of people isn't harsh and mean spirited. Yeah, but they're not citizens. And part of Trump's campaign, part of the rights campaign over the last decade has been to dehumanize immigrants, to make illegal immigrants in particular less than human.

They're all gang members. They're all crooks. They're all criminals. It's why they emphasize the crime when something happens, even though the statistics don't show at all that illegal immigrants increase crime. They emphasize that because it's a form of dehumanizing them. And therefore, once they're dehumanized, you can do anything to them, including deporting them. I mean, the reality is that altruism doesn't allow us

to be free marketers? What about the poor? What about the greedy businessmen? They're going to exploit us. What about the greedy businessmen that can create and sell products that are going to kill our children? You need a culture that respects self-interest, respects the businessman, respects the individual's ability to produce for themselves and create their own standard of living. You need a culture that has self-esteem,

and self-confidence to be willing to say, we don't need regulations and we don't need welfare. That is a very, very different psychology than our culture today. Oh no, we need to be protected. What will happen? They'll exploit us. You need a culture that trusts self-interest and rejects altruism. So economic freedom is impossible because the culture is altruistic, because the culture despises self-interested businessmen, doesn't trust self-interested businessmen.

And doesn't believe people can take care of themselves. They need a government run safety net. And doesn't care about illegal immigrants because we've done a good job of dehumanizing them, making them seem like violent animals. Doron says, hi, Iran. When are you coming? When are you in Denver, Colorado? I would like to go. The seminar in Denver has been postponed. It will not be in May.

I expect it will be in November. I will let you know when it's happening, but it will not be in May. It'll probably be in November. I'm trying to finalize the details to give you plenty of notice and see how many people sign up for it. It'll be on a weekday, like on a Thursday afternoon or Friday afternoon, maybe a Friday afternoon. And so...

But it will be in November or January or maybe November and January. We will do one in November, one in January. Jennifer, Neil Peart, quote, when they turn the pages of history, when these days have passed long ago, will they read to us, will they read of us with sadness of the seeds that we let sow? Yeah. I usually send you happy quotes, but this one so fits right now. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. And we're letting him get away with it. So I'll ask, what are you doing to stop this bastard from doing what he's doing? Thank you, Jennifer. Andrew, Rand's on record against tariffs per AOI clip. Her take was nuanced, but also classic Rand in that she's clear that, of course, she's anti-tariffs. When she says complete separation between state and economics, she means complete. Absolutely. And she's against taxes. I mean, of course, she's against tariffs.

I mean, it's a massive new violation of rights that didn't exist yesterday. How can you not be against it? All right, let's go to the $5 and so questions. No more questions, guys, because I'm running out of time and I won't be able to answer them all. All right, Robert, I'm still shocked that there's not more outrage from Trump's statement that he would like to have U.S. citizens deported to El Salvador. Yes, I mean, it's shocking. He did mean...

criminals, U.S. citizens who are criminals, and that they would be, it was cheaper, in a sense, to have them in jail. But just think about that, outsourcing. You don't want to outsource production, but you want to outsource the treatment of our criminals. You want to take them to a place where they have no, no rights, nothing, where they can be treated as horrifically as the Salvadorian government wants to. Just horrific. Krish.

Thanks for doing trade on a gold standard question. Have you heard of a company called monetary metals? They pay a yield on gold, uh, lend or lease gold companies that mine or use gold as an input, uh, keen to your thoughts. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I know them and I think what they do is, uh, is, is good. I think this idea of, uh, getting interest on gold is, uh, is a good thing. Um,

So the fact that they pay a return on the gold. So, yes, I haven't dug deeply into their business model, but I know the people associated with it. It seems like a good, legit venture. And, you know, I'm all for making money on gold if you can. Armin just came in with a $100 sticker. Thank you, Armin. Really, really, really appreciate the support. Thank you. We had other stickers. We had Enric.

And Krish and Wes came in with $50. Thank you, Wes. And Tasos, thank you. And let's see who else we had. Catherine. And yeah, I think that's it. I think I got all the stickers. Hopefully I got all the stickers. All right. Equal to reality. It's sad to see the United States burn like this. Trump plans to deport citizens as pure evil. I was planning to move to the U.S. from the U.K., but now I have doubts.

Yeah, I mean, it's challenging. It's harder. It's harder. I would wait a little bit before making a final decision. But look, let me just say this because I know I'm so pessimistic and I think I really am. In spite of Trump, I do think this country will survive. I don't know exactly how, but our businessmen are amazing. We won't survive because of politicians. We won't survive because of Washington, D.C. We won't survive because of, I don't know, MAGA.

If we survive, we'll survive because of the flexibility of our businessmen, their ability to produce in spite of everything, their ability to create out of nothing. You know, we will survive because they'll figure out the supply chains. They'll figure out how to get around tariffs. They'll figure out how to survive and allow us to not thrive, but survive in this environment. Don't get too down. This is not the end of the world. America is not finished yet.

It's not ending. It's not. Trump is not a dictator yet, and he's probably not going to be in the next four years. While what he's doing is outrageous and should piss you off. At the end of the day, everything I've said about your control over your own life, the fact that America, you know, it might stagnate. We might go into a recession. America survived recessions in the past. This might be worse. It might be longer. We might have stagnation for a while. I predicted stagnation forever.

And I think that is our fate. But the reality is that, you know, our businessmen are too good, too smart, too flexible and too motivated by their own self-interest and the profit motive to capitulate to the idiots in Washington, to the morons running this country right now.

And, you know, we survived Trump for the first time. We survived Biden. We survived Bush and Obama. Trump's second time is a unique particular evil that we have never seen before in America, I think. But I do think America will survive it. I do think America will survive it. We are I don't think we're going to get inflation again.

We'll see what the Fed does and what Trump does. But so far, there's nothing to suggest inflation in what's happening. Tariffs don't cause inflation, in spite of what you're hearing from everywhere. Tariffs cause relative price changes. Some prices go up. Other prices will have to come down or go to zero. In other words, you won't buy them. They'll come off the market. But the basket of goods does not all go up. Imports are only 14% of GDP.

Most of the stuff is made in America. So again, it's all relative prices. It's not absolute prices. It could be inflation if they decide to spend like crazy. And if they decide to monetize the debt, then there'll be inflation. But it's not because of tariffs. And America will survive this, will survive this. And I still think the courts are going to save us from some of the worst things that Trump is doing. Our courts are better than

than Trump. Our courts are better than this administration. I like numbers. You suggest that Trump was crashing the economy partially to teach 2020 voters a lesson. Would you like a chance to walk that back? No, I don't think so. I think there was. I think he wants to get back at people. I think it's part of his retribution. I think to some extent he was like relishing the stock market collapsing and all those people panicking and feeling bad and being afraid.

And then he decided, yeah, it's probably not in my political interest to let it crash too much. So I'll reverse it. But I think, do I think that Trump relishes the fact that what he calls the globalists are suffering because the stock market's going down? I think he does. And do I think a part of it is he wants to punish them for 2020 and for business support of Biden or all that stuff? Yeah, I think he does want to do that. So no, I'm not walking it back. I think that Trump is vindictive.

as you've seen with executive orders. And I think part of that is now he doesn't want to crash it too much because he doesn't want it to hurt himself. But he wants it enough. He wants to cause enough pain so that the people he doesn't like suffer and that it forces them. And this is the key. I think it forces them to come groveling to him. I've talked about this for years. Trump wants them to come and kiss the ring. He wants them to grovel.

He's doing this to foreign leaders. He wants them to come and, quote, negotiate. Negotiate doesn't mean negotiate. It means kiss the ring. It means come and give the appropriate respect to the godfather. And that's what he's doing to business leaders. You know, Cook has always been nice to Trump. He's never said a bad word about Trump. I think Apple will get an exemption from the tariffs as a consequence. And Trump loves the idea of being this central planner-in-chief.

This mafia boss who everybody comes to asking for favors and some he grants and some he doesn't. And he plays with them. He likes to play with people, play with their future, play with them. It's just horrible beyond words in my view. So no, I'm not taking that back. James, Trump got rid of the EPA ban on high pressure showerhead's.

Will this, along with the elimination of plastic straws ban, outweigh the tariffs? He didn't get he did not get rid of the EPA ban, by the way. He just instructed the energy secretary to work to find a way to increase the pressure in our showers. By the way, you're asking questions that I cannot answer today. These questions will have to be answered tomorrow. So I'll keep the questions over for tomorrow. Paul, do you think MAGA will eventually fizzle out like the Tea Party did yesterday?

No, because MAGA actually has an orientation and it is being captured systematically by, I think, ultimately beyond the worship of Trump. It's been captured by national conservatism. It's been captured by Christian conservatism. So MAGA will have an ideology versus the Tea Party that had none.

And so I think MAGA is going to survive in one form or another. I think Christian conservatism is here to stay. It is the dominant power on the right. It is the impact on the right. Michael Sanders, Ben Shapiro just posted capitalism is the best system, but it's not a religion. What a coward. Yes, he's a coward. And he knows he's a coward. Trump is normalizing fascism in the GOP. It's pathetic fascism.

Graham just got here from finishing the new Rogan podcast with Dave Smith and Douglas Murray, and it was so awful. Douglas does an okay job, but it amazes me how evasive Dave is. But now I'm here, so all is better. Actually, you're here, but I'm leaving, so the show is ending in like five minutes. Thank you, Graham. Yes, Dave Smith is horrible.

I'm surprised Douglas Murray was willing to do it with him. Dave is evasive because he's an evader. He's fundamentally an evader. He holds ideas that are incompatible with reality, incompatible with liberty, incompatible with freedom. And it's a disgrace that he holds the kind of that he is the guy that everybody looks for and that he, you know, he is the guy Rogan brings in as an authority on anything. He's pathetic.

Not Javits algorithm. How is Netanyahu a bully? I mean, he bullies everybody. He's a bully in Israeli politics. He's been a bully.

Since he became prime minister, he's a bully in the same way that Trump is. Everybody has to come and kiss Netanyahu's ring. He's all about power. He manipulates the political system in Israel to attain power, disregarding the interests of Israeli citizens, disregarding their rights and their liberty and freedom. He's a bad guy. He's always been a bad guy. And in a trade war with Trump versus China, who are you for?

I'm for neither one. I'm from neither one. I hope they both rot in hell for engaging in a trade war. There is it's not a war and it's not a war of Trump versus China. It's a war that they're engaging at my expense, at your expense, at the Chinese people expense and the American people's expense. It is a massive violation of individual rights for them to engage it. And I'm against both of them.

And I'm primarily against Trump because Trump started it. The trade war was started by Trump. It was started by Trump in 2018, and he doubled up on it now, you know, with his original fentanyl tariffs and all the tariffs he's put in place since then. So I'm against Trump. I'm not for China because China's response to the trade war should have been zero tariffs. I think it's crazy for them to engage in raising tariffs on American goods, right?

Because I think that's suicidal policy for anybody to engage in. But what I care about and what I have influence about a little bit is Trump. I have no influence on China. And we have to acknowledge the fact that in spite of the fact that China as a regime is more evil than the American regime, Trump is the one who initiated this war for no reason, no reason other than his own.

other than his irrational, irrational hatred of trade, irrational hatred of trade deficits. And yeah, I mean, the fact that it's China and China's a bad country is irrelevant. In the 1980s, he would have done the same thing to Japan, which was a free country. So it's just Trump's irrationality. TAFs are bad no matter who puts them on. They're just a bad policy for whoever puts them on. They're wrong.

They're not right when China does it and wrong when America does it. They're wrong for everybody to do it. Liam, if that kid has successfully removed Orange Man that day at the rally, would we be better off? No. This is what Americans want.

This is America's what vote was what they voted for. So whether it's Trump or somebody else and what would have been the consequence of Trump being killed, what would have that done to American politics? No, violence is never the solution. And that never makes us better off. The initiation of violence like that. Harper Campbell, the GOP in Congress must be putting pressure on Trump to

that they won't win re-election if it continues being an unhinged maniac. But he is an unhinged maniac. That is his character. That is who he is. There's no other Trump. There's no alternative Trump. The GOP is putting pressure on him on certain policies, but he's not listening to them. He doesn't care. He listens to businessmen complain. That's what he listens to, and beg and grovel. That's who he listens to.

Clark, do you think Trump got tariffs out of his system? Now he's going to focus on deregulating the rest of his term. No, I don't think it's out of his system. And I don't think everything he does from now on is going to be good. I think there's still a lot of bad that Trump can do beyond tariffs. A lot of things that he believes in that are really, really bad beyond tariffs.

Clark, do a lot of New Yorkers have a zero-sum mindset? They always think they're being ripped off and have to screw you first so you don't get screwed. No, I don't think New Yorkers are like that at all. New York is one of the bastions of American markets. It's a bastion of American finance. Finance is not zero-sum. American financiers don't act as if it's zero-sum.

Trump is Trump. He's unique. He's different. But no, I don't think you should paint New Yorkers that way at all. All right, guys, I have to run. I told you I would have to leave early. So I'm keeping these questions. Don't worry. They're not going to disappear. They're not going to go away. I will answer them all tomorrow. I think I'm less constrained tomorrow. So I will see you all tomorrow. Let me just tell you what time tomorrow is.

God, I don't have a lot of time tomorrow either. All right, tomorrow, same time as today, it'll be at 4 p.m. So I will see you guys tomorrow. Again, it'll be about a two-hour show, but your questions will get priority. They will be the first ones I cover. And maybe I'll talk less and answer questions more given how many questions you actually have. I will keep more time for that. Thank you, guys.

See you tomorrow. Have a good evening. And yeah, hang in there. Don't let this stuff pull you down. Don't. It's not worth it. Life is for living. It's not for being depressed over political stuff you cannot have a direct impact on.