Trump's economic policies are not the cause of inflation, but the result of them. Inflation is not a result of spending too much money, but rather of Donald Trump's economic policy. Inflation will not be caused by the printing of money, as Keynes predicted, but by the policies that Trump is pursuing to make the economy more productive and more productive. In this episode, we will discuss the case for why this is a good thing, and why Trump should not be worried about inflation. We will also talk about the impact of Trump's trade policies on the economy, and how they are different from those of other Presidents in the past, such as George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush. And we will talk about what is actually going on with tariffs and trade with Mexico and Canada and why they are not a problem. Subscribe to our new daily economic update podcast, Business Insider, wherever you get your news and financial information. Use the promo code BLACK Friday to receive $5 off your first month of Black Friday and receive $10 off your purchase when you sign up for Black Friday, and get 50% off your entire annual plan! Subscribe today! Learn more about your ad choices. Become a supporter of the podcast: bit.ly/support-free with discount code BLACKFRIDAY at our new sponsor GuruReedReed and get 10% off for the entire year! and get 20% off the first month, plus free shipping when you become a member discount when you upgrade to $99 or upgrade to a VIP membership gets the offer starts in January! Get $99 and get an ad-free version of the Audible membership starting in January 1st, 2019. Get all the latest ad-only version of Business Insider? Get my free on Audible and Audible, unlimited access to my newbie membership starting at $99, and I'll be able to watch the entire course starting next month, and access all the best deals starting in May, starting in July, starting on my ad-Only 3 months, only 2 months get $49, and they get a discount on my service, only $19, and my discount starts in May 9th, 2019 gets full-place, and I'm giving you get $99 gets $29,99, I'll get $24,99 gets full access to the VIP discount, and a discount offers, and all other places I can get my ad is also get $39,99 and they'll get my deal starts in two months, and will get my discount offers will get you a FREE PRICING starts starts after I get my first month and I can choose my ad discount,
00:00:00.000Well, folks, Milton Friedman once said that inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon.
00:00:05.000And yet there are a lot of people who are suggesting today that really inflation is going to be a result not of printing money or spending too much money.
00:00:11.000It's going to be the result of Donald Trump's economic policy.
00:00:36.000And so that means it is now indicative that the media are trying to crush his sort of economic dreams.
00:00:42.000The idea that is being promulgated by the media is that inflation, which ate up the Biden administration, is now going to plague Donald Trump.
00:00:49.000Now, this is kind of funny because we were told by this exact same media that inflation was not going to be a factor for Joe Biden when he took office.
00:00:55.000We were told that modern monetary theory, Elizabeth Warren's bizarre and strange theory about economics, that you could endlessly spend money without ever inflating prices, without ever inflating away people's savings, that that was possibly true, that we could just keep spending money until the end of time and inflation would not result.
00:01:13.000And then, of course, inflation did result.
00:01:14.000Well, now the claim is that Donald Trump's economic policies are going to produce Trumpflation, that Trumpflation is coming.
00:01:21.000Now, the pitch on this is basically that Donald Trump is pursuing a series of policies that are going to lead to price increases.
00:01:29.000Those policies would be, in order, tariffs, tax cuts, and deportations.
00:01:34.000This is a case made by Alan Blinder over at the Wall Street Journal.
00:01:37.000He's a professor of economics and public affairs over at Princeton.
00:01:40.000He was also a member of the Federal Reserve from 94 to 96. He says, three such policies received the most attention during the campaign.
00:01:48.000Tariffs, tax cuts and mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
00:01:52.000He says, no matter how many times Mr. Trump denies it, tariffs are discriminatory sales taxes.
00:01:56.000Discriminating against imported goods is their purpose.
00:01:59.000Sales taxes raise prices for consumers.
00:02:02.000It is true that tariffs raise prices to consumers.
00:02:05.000That's literally what they are designed to do.
00:02:06.000Tariffs protect particular domestic industries against foreign competition.
00:02:12.000And what that really does, that's nice speak for, it raises prices on consumers in order to benefit one particular class of producers.
00:02:19.000So let's say that you are a steel producer in the United States, and let's say that China is importing steel at a rate that is much lower.
00:02:25.000You put tariffs on the Chinese steel, and now it is cheaper for Americans to buy the American steel than the Chinese steel, but that's at a price that is higher than they otherwise would have paid.
00:02:33.000So the domestic steel manufacturers are very happy, but the consumers of steel are very unhappy.
00:02:39.000The thing about tariffs is that like most government policies, they have a set of very specific beneficiaries and a set of extremely diffuse victims.
00:02:49.000And there's a lot of government policy is that the damage done to the broader public is mild to moderate.
00:02:56.000And the benefit to a very, very selective class is very high.
00:02:59.000But that's not exactly what Donald Trump is doing with regard to tariffs.
00:03:03.000What Donald Trump is doing with regard to tariffs is something different.
00:03:06.000To understand what he's doing with regard to tariffs, you have to understand the past of Donald Trump.
00:03:10.000So Donald Trump, for example, threatened incredibly high tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in the middle of his first administration.
00:03:25.000Well, what he was actually doing is just rewriting NAFTA in favor of the United States.
00:03:30.000The result of the threat of tariffs was the so-called USMCA, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
00:03:36.000And the changes to NAFTA were somewhat moderate.
00:03:40.000So, for example, the USMCA required that 75% of a vehicle's parts be made in Mexico, Canada, or the United States.
00:03:49.000That was an increase from 62.5% in order to remain free from tariffs.
00:03:53.000It was a moderate change, and it helped the American economy slightly, probably.
00:03:58.000It also meant that labor laws had to be strengthened in Mexico, so Mexico couldn't use its lax labor laws, things like child labor, in order to undercut American prices.
00:04:07.000It gave dairy farmers more market access.
00:04:10.000So there used to be a lot of tariffs on American dairy farmers going into Mexican markets or Canadian markets, and those went away.
00:04:17.000So the USMCA kept tariffs at zero and opened the Canadian market to US dairy, poultry and eggs, right?
00:04:23.000So basically, Donald Trump used the threat of tariffs to leverage benefits away from the Canadians and the Mexicans.
00:04:30.000And this is historically what Donald Trump has done with regard to tariffs.
00:04:34.000And the way you can tell that this is how people are looking at Donald Trump's tariff policy is because the markets have responded quite well to Donald Trump's actual economic proposals.
00:04:43.000You can see, for example, That President Trump is now hiring as a top member of his transition, Kevin Hassett, to the National Economic Council in the White House.
00:04:56.000Kevin Hassett is, by nature, a very, very pro-markets guy.
00:05:00.000He was, of course, part of the first Trump administration.
00:05:04.000Hassett will head the National Economic Council, and markets love it already.
00:05:09.000President Trump says, as chair of my council of economic advisors, Kevin played a crucial role in helping design and pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Hassett, his work is excellent.
00:05:19.000He's worked for the American Enterprise Institute previously.
00:05:22.000And again, he is seen by the markets as a pro-market guy.
00:05:26.000So you have to understand that what Donald Trump is attempting to do with tariffs is to leverage wins out of a wide variety of American enemies.
00:05:45.000Because it turns out that allowing people to keep their own money is not the same thing as simply pumping government money into the system.
00:05:52.000Allowing people to keep their own money, American consumers and American investors act with actual rationality with regard to their own spending and investment, which means they don't just blow money into the economy willy-nilly.
00:06:04.000If there is a tax cut, people Tend to use that money to not only pay off their bills in responsible fashion, but they also tend to make economic decisions that help them and their families.
00:06:14.000As opposed to the government, because the way the government spends money is it finds particular constituencies that it likes and then throws money at those constituencies.
00:06:22.000Special projects that government wants that don't have to be profitable.
00:06:26.000That can be absolutely profit neutral or negative and just tosses money at them.
00:06:30.000And that creates artificial inflation in areas where there is no concomitant productivity.
00:06:37.000The reality is that new products, new innovations, initially that means that people spend money on those innovations at a higher rate.
00:06:43.000And then as there's competition, the prices come down.
00:06:45.000That's what happens when you allow people to keep their own money.
00:06:48.000But that entire incentive structure is broken by government spending.
00:06:51.000So tax cuts and government spending are not remotely the same thing.
00:06:54.000And only a person who believes that all money basically comes from the government equates those two things.
00:07:00.000Me allowing you to keep your own money is not the same thing as me cutting you a check.
00:07:10.000Okay, finally, there's the idea that mass deportation is going to create inflation as well.
00:07:16.000But it's totally unclear exactly what that's going to look like.
00:07:19.000So in any case, Alan Blinder suggests that if you put all this together, the new Trump policies might add 2-3% to total inflation over 2-3 years, a percentage point a year.
00:07:29.000Now, the real problem here is not going to be that.
00:07:31.000The real problem here is going to be if there's an attempt to push the Federal Reserve to continue to lower the interest rates.
00:07:37.000That would be the real problem, because it turns out the Federal Reserve is generally the biggest driver of the national inflation rate, that and massive government spending.
00:07:46.000So at the same time that Trump is pushing all this, he of course is also pushing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:07:54.000Now, there's only so much that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can actually do in terms of cutting.
00:07:59.000That doesn't mean they can't do anything.
00:08:00.000It just means that it'll be a lot tougher than people think it will be.
00:08:03.000Because if you break down the American spending initiatives, the spending as a share of gross domestic product, 14.7% of our GDP is spent on mandatory programs that are already embedded in law that Trump has said he will not touch, like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
00:08:22.000When it comes to non-defense discretionary spending, that has remained fairly consistent in terms of its spending levels since the 1960s.
00:08:29.000And defense actually represents significantly less of the American GDP spend than it did back in the 1960s.
00:08:36.000We were spending about 9% of our GDP on defense spending back in 1960. Today, we spent about 3% on our defense spending.
00:08:44.000So this kind of bizarre notion that defense spending is what's eating up the budget, that is not true at all.
00:09:03.000So presumably you could get rid of some of the golden toilets of the Pentagon.
00:09:06.000The second is non-defense discretionary spending, which includes everything else, which is funding for NASA, farm programs, housing assistance, and on and on.
00:09:15.000So unless they're willing to touch some of the actual mandatory programs, unlikely they're going to be able to cut all that much.
00:09:22.000However, Trump's overall economic plans are to cut in particular areas to allow people to keep their own money and to use again.
00:09:28.000If tariffs are the main thing that people are worried about in terms of inflationary policy, understand Donald Trump's purpose in using tariffs is as leverage.
00:09:38.000Even the Wall Street Journal's editorial board, which is very anti-tariff and very pro-free trade, acknowledges that that's probably what Donald Trump is trying to do.
00:09:44.000They point out the president-elect issued a broadside Monday on Truth Social, vowing 25% tariffs against all goods from Mexico and Canada and a new 10% tariff on imports from China.
00:09:54.000And then he said, quote, this tariff will remain in effect until such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country.
00:10:02.000Now, again, that is not him making a claim.
00:10:06.000That tariffs are going to help the American economy.
00:10:08.000That is him making a claim that tariffs can be wielded as a tool of policy.
00:10:13.000This is part and parcel of his broader approach to foreign policy, which suggests that economic leverage is a very, very important part of getting other countries, America's geopolitical opponents, competitors and enemies to do what we want them to do.
00:10:25.000Listen, there are always people trying to take advantage of the United States.
00:12:43.000As the Wall Street Journal points out, the tariff here is in service of Trump's campaign promise to reduce illegal migration and fentanyl smuggling.
00:12:50.000He vows to take unilateral executive action without any explicit legal rationale.
00:12:53.000Trump is threatening the countries, including two neighbors and allies, with economic harm if they don't help him solve a domestic U.S. problem.
00:12:59.000Now, again, that's the Wall Street Journal being very skeptical, but the reality is fentanyl is not just.
00:13:03.000This is where the Wall Street Journal is wrong.
00:13:04.000Fentanyl is not just a U.S. domestic problem.
00:13:20.000China has been sending over the precursor agents for the making of fentanyl.
00:13:23.000They send them over to labs that are run by Chinese scientists in Mexico to then...
00:13:28.000Cook up all of those precursors into fentanyl, and then those are shipped across the border in many cases to even Chinese distributors on the other side of the border.
00:13:36.000It is not merely a domestic policy problem.
00:13:41.000As the Wall Street Journal points out, he tried a version of this in his first term to coerce Mexico into assisting him in better policing the border, and he liked the result.
00:13:48.000Mexico went along with the Remain of Mexico program that held migrants on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande while they awaited asylum rulings.
00:14:21.000He does not want high inflation and he does not want low growth, both of which would be the impact of Of massive across-the-board tariffs without any reference to concessions from the other side.
00:14:32.000You're already, by the way, seeing the impact.
00:14:34.000So, for example, Mexico is now getting cold feet over a new Chinese electric vehicle plant after Donald Trump's win, according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:14:42.000Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD is finalizing plans for a factory in Mexico, a push that will test Donald Trump's trade policies and the Mexican government's appetite for conflict with the president-elect.
00:14:52.000BYD officials say the company is aiming to reach a deal with Mexico state officials to break ground on a factory near one of the automotive hubs in central or northern Mexico.
00:14:59.000The plans put Mexico in a dilemma made worse by Trump's threat to impose a 25% tariff on Mexican goods.
00:15:06.000BYD rivals Tesla as the biggest electric vehicle maker in the world.
00:15:09.000That's largely because, of course, BYD supplies to Chinese citizens and to people who are associated with Chinese markets.
00:15:16.000There's a major security risk with BYD, by the way.
00:15:19.000Again, Chinese technology is loaded with monitoring and intelligence gathering operations.
00:15:27.000The same thing is true with regard to BYD. Having a lot of BYD cars driving American roads would actually be a rather large security problem.
00:15:35.000Mexican officials fear a BYD plant would send the wrong message to Trump and trade hawks around him by suggesting that Mexico wants to be a backdoor for Chinese companies to sell to Americans.
00:15:43.000Mexico says it is not aiming to be a conduit for Chinese-made goods and has made strides in addressing illegal immigration.
00:15:49.000It needs to persuade both the U.S. and Canada of that when talks begin next year on extending the U.S. MCA. Mexico has to present itself with a business card that says Reliable Partner of North America, said Eduardo Solas, a consultant who previously led Mexico's Automotive Industry Association.
00:16:07.000So, Trump is already getting wins out of all this.
00:16:09.000Now, it's possible that Mexico could decide to shoot itself directly in the foot.
00:16:13.000After all, their elected president, a woman named Claudia Scheinbaum, who is essentially a socialist.
00:16:19.000She is the former deputy to Andres Manuel López Obrador, who is a very socialistic, extremely left-wing leader of Mexico, who is in hock with the drug cartels.
00:16:29.000They're all in hock with the drug cartels, the government of Mexico, because the drug cartels control the border.
00:16:33.000Well, Scheinbaum says that she's going to tariff American goods going to Mexico.
00:16:40.000The American market for Mexican goods is far larger than the Mexican market for American goods.
00:16:46.000Apparently, according to Scheinbaum, she sent a Tuesday letter to Trump saying, Well, if you don't want that, see, here's the thing about tariffs.
00:17:05.000What Trump is doing is playing a game of chicken.
00:17:07.000The thing about playing a game of chicken with someone who is widely perceived as a radical, like a crazy person, which is the way the world perceives Trump, is you don't want to play chicken with the guy who's willing to go over the cliff.
00:17:18.000That is not the game you want to play.
00:17:21.000I think they will, especially when faced with the prospect of American markets closing to Mexican goods.
00:17:26.000Justin Trudeau is also going to be bullied into taking positions that are less antithetical to American interests.
00:17:32.000Apparently, Justin Trudeau, handsome Bernie Sanders, and Taylor Swift dancer said he spoke to Donald Trump on Monday after the president-elect shared plans to use his first day in office to slap 25% tariffs on Canada.
00:17:45.000We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth.
00:17:52.000So again, the move would hit more than $400 billion worth of annual Canadian exports to the United States.
00:17:59.000And it's all about, apparently, stressing that border security is their top priority.
00:18:03.000Again, even the Canadian socialists are recognizing they need to comply with Donald Trump's actual policy desires here.
00:18:10.000Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBronk then released a statement Monday night stressing border security is their top priority.
00:18:17.000And throwing America's weight around in the world is generally a very, very good thing.
00:18:23.000And so President Trump, the idea that he's going to create mass inflation through tariffs, it is all a leverage play.
00:18:29.000Donald Trump loves leverage and he loves to use leverage.
00:18:32.000And by the way, the same media that was cheering Joe Biden for relieving the student loan debt, which is an inflationary measure, because again, it is the government simply paying off people's debts willy nilly.
00:18:42.000That's going to go away because Donald Trump is poised to pull the plug on Biden's years long push to cancel student loan debt for tens of millions of people.
00:18:51.000According to Politico, his transition advisors and outside allies have been discussing ways to quickly unwind the various Biden-era initiatives that offer new or easier paths to loan forgiveness for borrowers, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
00:19:02.000That's something that's going to be difficult and complicated, but that is going to be pursued by the new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon.
00:19:12.000And this is now going to flow throughout the American economy.
00:19:15.000Marc Andreessen, the investor, he says, can't you feel the energy being unleashed in the system?
00:19:20.000The pedal is to the metal on the American economy.
00:19:23.000Here, for example, is the Walmart CEO acknowledging that it's time for a DEI rollback.
00:19:28.000It's time to open up the economy along every line.
00:19:32.000First, let me say, like many companies all across the United States, we've been on a journey and we continue to be on a journey.
00:19:39.000And what we're trying to do is to ensure that every customer, every associate feels welcome here to shop and to feel like they belong.
00:19:48.000And that term, belong, we've been talking about belonging now for almost two years, early 2023, we started talking about belonging.
00:19:55.000And we're going to continue to make the best decisions we can that makes everyone, our customers, our associates, feel like this is an environment they can shop in and thrive in.
00:20:04.000Okay, so that is him saying, by the way...
00:20:07.000That they're going to roll back a lot of the DEI initiatives that they are pushing at Walmart.
00:20:11.000That's John Furner, the Walmart CEO. The handcuffs are off the American economy.
00:20:15.000And when people are worried about Trumpflation, they have to understand, Donald Trump is a results-oriented person.
00:20:20.000He has always been a results-oriented person.
00:20:22.000The last thing he wants is his name on an inflationary policy that results in 5-6-7% inflation.
00:20:27.000He knows full well that that crippled Joe Biden's presidency and probably ended the Democratic rule in the White House.
00:20:33.000So he is not going to make that mistake.
00:20:34.000Now, meanwhile, he is making more excellent picks.
00:20:37.000So yesterday he announced to my great delight that he is going to choose Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health.
00:20:44.000Again, so many people who are victimized by the so-called deep state in the last administration are now leading the departments that victimized them.
00:20:52.000So Jay Bhattacharya is a Stanford health policy professor.
00:20:54.000He, of course, was the author of the so-called Great Barrington Declaration, which we talked about at length on the show at the time.
00:21:00.000It called for ending lockdowns and isolating the vulnerable so everybody who is young and healthy could go back into the workforce because his point, which was correct, is that young, healthy people getting COVID weren't going to die, at least in very large numbers.
00:21:11.000And so the idea that we should lock down entire populations was totally wrong.
00:21:15.000Anthony Fauci attempted to quash Bhattacharya, directed government resources to be used at quashing Bhattacharya.
00:21:21.000Well, now he is going to be heading up the NIH, a $47 billion agency that funds much of the nation's basic research into underlying causes of infectious and other diseases.
00:21:31.000Bhattacharya has called for overhauling the agency.
00:21:33.000His proposals include more studies that repeat other studies, which is absolutely necessary.
00:21:37.000There's a massive duplication crisis in science in which people issue a study.
00:21:41.000that study may be what they call p hacked which means that they're actually changing the internal measurements used in order to achieve what's called statistical significance to show that the study is important or useful p hacking means that a bad study becomes a titularly good study and then it's very difficult to duplicate and because there's no interest nobody gets paid for duplicating somebody else's study it's a major problem you have a bad result that's floating around for decades at a time and used as the basis for public policy
00:22:08.000this by the way is what happened to lead to, for example, the six foot rule on COVID.
00:22:13.000It was based on like old flu studies from the 1950s that had never really been duplicated and particularly not with COVID. Well, Bhattacharya is going to actually spend time and money duplicating studies, and we know that we get good results.
00:22:26.000He says, this is how you turn the NIH from something that is sort of how to control society into something that's aimed at the discovery of truth to improve the health of Americans.
00:22:34.000So another excellent pick for President Trump, but you need to make excellent picks when it comes to filling your offices.
00:22:39.000Look, choosing the right candidate for any office is a huge responsibility.
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00:24:39.000Meanwhile, on the foreign policy front, everyone knows Trump is coming and that is shaping all the reactions in ways that are both good and bad.
00:24:46.000So last night, Israel announced that it would approve a ceasefire with Lebanon.
00:24:51.000It's really a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
00:24:53.000There's always this big issue with regard to the war in Lebanon for Israel, which is that the Lebanese government is basically a meat puppet for Hezbollah.
00:25:00.000So if you're going to war with Hezbollah, are you at war with the Lebanese government?
00:25:03.000Are you trying to strengthen parts of the Lebanese government at the expense of other parts of the Lebanese government, namely Hezbollah, which is not just a terrorist group.
00:25:10.000It's a political party in Lebanon and the political party that is most in control of many of the military resources and provide an actual threat to the Lebanese armed forces.
00:26:11.000Far too many civilians in Gaza have suffered far too much.
00:26:15.000And Lamas has refused for months and months To negotiate a good-faith ceasefire and a hostage deal.
00:26:24.000And so now, Hamas has a choice to make.
00:26:27.000Their only way out is to release the hostages, including American citizens, which they hold.
00:26:34.000In the process, bring an end to the fighting which would make possible a surge of humanitarian relief.
00:26:42.000Over the coming days, the United States will make another push, with Turkey Okay, so let's point out at this point that his immediate turn from Lebanon to Gaza is a great indicator as to what Joe Biden is, which is a complete befuddled moron when it comes to foreign policy.
00:27:10.000When he says that he's going to attempt to achieve a ceasefire with the help of Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar, Those are all cutouts for the Iranian position at this point.
00:27:18.000Qatar was always a cutout for the Iranian position, which is why Hamas was housed there.
00:27:22.000Hamas leadership left Qatar and went to Turkey, which is another one of the nations that he has called.
00:27:27.000Turkey has said that Israel is conducting a genocide.
00:27:29.000That is said by the dictator Erdogan, who has been the provoker and the instigator of massive human carnage in the Middle East, including in Syria and including in Armenia.
00:27:43.000Egypt, meanwhile, will not open its border, the Rafah Crossing, to allow any of the Palestinians out, even temporarily, so they can be in a safer place, because they don't want Palestinians, not one of them.
00:27:52.000And those are the people who are going to be brokering some sort of deal in the Gaza Strip.
00:27:58.000So, in order to understand the dynamics of this particular ceasefire deal, you have to see what everybody's saying about it.
00:28:03.000So, what Biden is saying there is something that's slightly different from what Netanyahu is saying in Israel.
00:28:07.000So, Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a statement last night, and he said, the duration of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon.
00:28:14.000He said, He said, He said, And then he suggested that a wide variety of achievements have been actually done by the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces, which of course is true.
00:28:44.000I mean, let's just point out that in Lebanon, Israel lost a grand total in terms of killed in action of 79 soldiers while completely destroying 80% of Hezbollah's entire arsenal, killing all of its leadership, legitimately all of its leadership, like three levels deep, and wiping out its presence on Israel's northern border.
00:29:01.000It's an amazing military accomplishment, like one of the great military accomplishments of modern history.
00:29:07.000So what exactly has Israel done, according to Netanyahu?
00:29:09.000We destroyed significant portions of Iran's air defense, missile production capabilities, and key elements of its nuclear program.
00:29:15.000Preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons remains my top priority.
00:29:18.000So one of the things that's happening here is that Netanyahu is attempting to rearm rest-up forces in case of a potential conflict with Iran more directly if Iran continues to pursue a nuclear program.
00:29:29.000We dismantled Hamas brigades, according to Netanyahu, killed approximately 20,000 terrorists, eliminated senior leaders, and freed 154 hostages.
00:29:36.000We remain committed to bringing all abductees home and eradicating Hamas.
00:29:39.000So in other words, there's not going to be any sort of deal where Israel gives up control of the Gaza Strip to Unifil or to any other sort of Hamas cutout.
00:29:49.000We have neutralized hundreds of terrorists, destroyed terror infrastructure, and reached every stronghold of terrorists.
00:29:53.000That's been a front that has largely been ignored by the international media.
00:29:57.000There have been a massive number of attempted terror attacks in the so-called West Bank, that's Judea and Samaria, against Jews who are living in those particular areas.
00:30:05.000And Israel has performed extraordinary anti-terror operations in places like Janine and Nablus in order to ensure security.
00:30:12.000Yemen, says Netanyahu, we struck the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah with unprecedented force.
00:30:17.000Iraq, we successfully thwarted numerous drone attacks and continue to address challenges there.
00:30:21.000Syria, we systemically block Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian army from transferring weapons to Lebanon.
00:30:26.000Assad must understand he's playing with fire.
00:30:28.000So there he is threatening Assad, do not try to rearm Lebanon.
00:30:37.000We have set them back decades, eliminated Nasrallah and senior operatives, destroyed most of their rockets, dismantled their terror infrastructure near our border.
00:30:43.000Strategic targets across Lebanon have been hit.
00:30:53.000So again, the idea here is that Israel needs to rearm and rest up and remain fresh and consolidate resources for a possible conflict with Iran.
00:31:04.000Okay, that right there is a critique of Biden.
00:31:12.000The reason they have to replenish and upgrade forces with advanced weaponry is because Biden's been slow-walking this.
00:31:17.000Basically, what Netanyahu is doing here is he's attempting to allow for the Trump administration to come in and remove the arms embargo that Biden has placed on Israeli soldiers.
00:31:27.000I happen to know from insiders on the ground over here that a significant number of Israeli troops have died due to lack of resources thanks to the Biden administration's slow-walking basic, basic things.
00:31:39.000Like, for example, artillery rounds or bulldozers that are necessary to take out infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
00:31:46.000So Netanyahu is saying openly here that Biden has basically slow-walked the aid and we're getting past Biden.
00:31:55.000Since the second day of the war, Netanyahu says Hamas has relied on Hezbollah joining the fight.
00:31:59.000With Hezbollah out of the equation, Hamas is now left isolated, allowing us to increase pressure on them and aid in the sacred mission of freeing our hostages.
00:32:08.000Hezbollah said at the very beginning of the war, when they opened up rocket fire on northern Israel, Nasrallah, who's now dead, the leader of Hezbollah, he said, the Lebanese front will not rest until a truce is reached in Gaza.
00:32:22.000So now it turns out that Hamas is isolated.
00:32:24.000Now, that does not mean that Joe Biden is not going to attempt to force Israel and cudgel Israel into some sort of agreement with regard to Hamas.
00:32:32.000One of the things that Netanyahu was attempting to avoid here was the U.S. on Biden's way out abstaining from some sort of U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its action inside Lebanon.
00:32:43.000And probably the bargain here was he gives Biden the so-called win of a ceasefire in the north, and then Biden vetoes any attempted U.N. Security Council resolution with regard to Lebanon or Gaza.
00:32:55.000Now the question is going to be whether Biden even remotely keeps his word.
00:32:58.000I would assume that's the deal that's happening behind closed doors there.
00:33:01.000And as Netanyahu makes very clear here, this is a ceasefire.
00:33:14.000Any attempt to arm up across Latani River will result in a triumvirate of sources.
00:33:20.000Now, I guess the US, the French, the Lebanese armed forces, and finally Israel assessing whether the violation has taken place.
00:33:27.000Now, the problem for Israel here, of course, is that Biden has an interest in assessing that no violation of the agreement has taken place.
00:33:33.000But this is what Netanyahu and the Israeli government also know.
00:33:46.000All sorts of Iranian-made weaponry and Russian-made weaponry across the Latani River.
00:33:51.000The U.S. will give Israel the go-ahead and Israel will have the weapons to actually do what it needs to do to finally finish off Hezbollah in that area.
00:33:59.000And by the way, Israel already is occupying that area.
00:34:01.000Basically, this agreement means that Israel's troops are supposed to pull back of the so-called blue line that's the border between Lebanon and Israel.
00:34:08.000And the Lebanese armed forces, which are supposedly not affiliated with Hezbollah, although there's some sort of complications there, are going to fill that gap.
00:34:15.000And then, if Israel intelligence, which is excellent in this region, actually senses that there's rearming or shipment of new military materiel across the Latani River...
00:34:25.000Then Israel will appeal to this sort of group of four.
00:34:28.000And at that point, Israel will be able to go in.
00:34:30.000Now, that means for the next two months, it's going to be very difficult for Israel to do anything.
00:34:35.000Because again, Joe Biden is not going to greenlight anything.
00:34:37.000But Netanyahu knows that, which is why, again, it is a 60 day ceasefire.
00:34:55.000Because number one, he knows they're not going to, because they don't feel safe yet, nor should they.
00:34:59.000And two, there is the presumption that without the Trump administration there to actually guarantee that Israel can do what it needs to do in southern Lebanon, The agreement isn't worth the paper that it's printed on.
00:35:10.000So that is the story with regard to the ceasefire.
00:35:13.000Senator Ted Cruz points out that it's clear the Biden administration is the source of all of the instability in the region.
00:35:50.000Go to dailywire.com slash blackfriday.
00:35:53.000Now, as we say, the reason this agreement is coming about is because of American pressure, but not in a good way.
00:35:58.000It's not because America is pressuring for an end to the war that secures Israel.
00:36:01.000It's because Joe Biden has been pressuring Israel not to finish off terrorists since basically December of last year.
00:36:07.000He's stopped Israel from pursuing everything it needed to pursue in Gaza every single step of the way, while leaking Israel's actual military plans to the New York Times and Barak Ravid on a consistent basis at Axios.
00:36:19.000The same thing is true with regard to Lebanon.
00:36:21.000Senator Ted Cruz points out, I am deeply disturbed by both reports that Obama-Biden officials exerted enormous pressure on our Israeli allies to accept this ceasefire and by how those officials are characterizing Israel's obligations.
00:36:33.000The way that Biden is characterizing the obligations is that Israel now has to pull south of the blue line and that the United States will maybe sort of kind of guarantee that Hezbollah doesn't come in, but maybe sort of kind of not.
00:36:43.000And that basically the new status quo is that the war is over, whereas Netanyahu is obviously characterizing this thing as what it is, a ceasefire.
00:36:53.000And if it is violated, Israel will go back in.
00:36:55.000As Cruz points out, this pressure and these statements are further efforts to undermine Israel and constrain the incoming Trump administration.
00:37:01.000Obama-Biden officials pressured our Israeli allies into accepting the ceasefire by withholding weapons they needed to defend themselves and counter Hezbollah and by threatening to facilitate a further, broader, binding international arms embargo through the United Nations.
00:37:12.000Obama-Biden officials are already trying to use Israel's acceptance of the ceasefire to ensure Hezbollah and other Iranian terrorist groups remain intact across Lebanon and to limit Israel's future freedom of action and self-defense.
00:37:22.000Administration officials, including Secretary of State Blinken, today even downplayed Israel's rights under the ceasefire to strike terrorist groups in Lebanon when those groups pose imminent threats.
00:37:30.000These constraints have been rejected by our Israeli allies.
00:37:33.000Prime Minister Netanyahu has said under the ceasefire, Israel retains full freedom of action to counter Hezbollah if the group attacks Israel or tries to rebuild its terrorist infrastructure.
00:37:41.000The United States should allow and assist Israel in doing so.
00:37:52.000That said, providing weaponry to America's allies so they can destroy terrorists seems like a pretty obvious idea.
00:37:59.000It is also worth noting at this point the corruption of the media in covering this entire war.
00:38:03.000So there's an amazing report out from Cassie Akiva over at Daily Wire titled How Hezbollah Scared Journalists Out of Embedding with the IDF in Lebanon, pointing out that in October, journalists from leading mainstream media outlets embedded with the IDF on tours in Lebanon.
00:38:18.000When Hezbollah threatened legal action against the journalists, they all abandoned ship, and a month later, none have returned.
00:38:23.000The IDF had organized tours on September 30th, October 11th, and October 13th to expose Hezbollah's vast terror infrastructure.
00:38:31.000Reporters were given a firsthand look at tunnels and weapons caches hidden in villages and other Hezbollah resources Israel faces.
00:38:37.000Outlets that joined included the BBC, CNN, Fox News, AP, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
00:38:47.000Hezbollah then threatened these reporters and reporters that were in Lebanon.
00:38:51.000And so all of these news outlets stopped embedding with the IDF to actually go look at the problem.
00:38:56.000Once again, demonstrating that freedom of the press in the Middle East is a lie.
00:39:00.000Not on the Israeli side, where they provide incredible transparency into ongoing military operations.
00:39:04.000But on the other side, where Hamas officials, for example, have their offices next to the AP and threaten them with death if they report things that Hamas doesn't like, and Hezbollah threatens the same thing for associates of journalists from major media outlets.
00:39:18.000Hezbollah, for example, condemned the BBC, suggesting that they had violated Lebanese sovereignty.
00:39:25.000So an Israeli government official granted anonymity told the Daily Wire several reporters said they could no longer participate in the tours for fear of the safety of their colleagues working in Lebanon.
00:39:32.000Not a single mainstream outlet has accepted an invitation to embed since Hezbollah issued its letter.
00:39:38.000Again, this is just an indicator of how cowardly the media are.
00:39:41.000In other words, the worse you are to the media in the Middle East, the more the media lick your boots.
00:39:46.000Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which continues to futz around with the UN, ignores the fact the UN continues to be one of the great anti-Semitic institutions in the history of planet Earth.
00:39:56.000The Wall Street Journal, their editorial page, points out that the UN has now fired a special advisor on the prevention of genocide named Alice Rerumu Nidoritu.
00:40:06.000Because she said, quite properly and realistically, that Israel's actions in Gaza are not a genocide.
00:40:12.000The publication cited her 2022 paper on when to refer to a situation as a genocide and says the UN should actually, you know, use the correct usage of the term.
00:40:22.000She points out that this encapsulates genocide, the Holocaust, genocide perpetrated by Hutus on Tutsis in Mwanda, Serbian attacks on Bosnian Muslims, the killing being carried out in Sudan.
00:40:32.000But she refused to declare, correctly, that Israel was engaged in a genocide, so basically the UN fired her.
00:40:37.000These are the international institutions that Joe Biden wants to make the West subjected to.
00:40:47.000Okay, meanwhile, the Democrat infighting continues.
00:40:51.000Kamala Harris, I don't know who did her dirty on this one, but somebody decided it would be a great idea to film Kamala Harris drunk talking to the American people.
00:41:00.000There is no world in which she has not sloshed beyond all recognition in this video.
00:41:23.000I just have to remind you, don't you ever let anybody take your power from you.
00:41:30.000You have the same power that you did before November 5th.
00:41:36.000And you have the same purpose that you did.
00:41:40.000And you have the same ability to engage and inspire.
00:41:47.000So don't ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.
00:41:52.000I mean, the wine glass here is just off camera.
00:41:55.000Don't let anyone take your power from you.
00:41:56.000Well, lady, I don't know what you're talking about, but I hope that you're enjoying your life more now that you're no longer going to be president of the United States.
00:42:03.000Meanwhile, Michelle Obama is out there marketing books on anti-anxiety.
00:42:07.000So things are going well inside the Democratic Party.
00:42:26.000This is the first time I've held it myself.
00:42:29.000This is a timely gift or purchase for yourself because this is a workbook that takes you through some techniques and exercises based on some of the insights I shared with you all in the light that we carry.
00:42:44.000So I encourage you, particularly during this time, during the holiday season, during a time where we feel a little out of sorts, a little anxious, I urge you to pick this book up and just walk through some of the exercises and also do it in some groups.
00:43:00.000I mean, I know there are a lot of great book groups out there and you guys might find that using Some of these exercises, techniques, and tips as a form of conversation.
00:43:17.000Meanwhile, Jen O'Malley Dillon, who is the campaign manager for the gigantic failed Kamala Harris Hindenburg of an effort, she was on with the Pod Save America bros.
00:43:26.000Again, these people are combined, single-handedly responsible for making Donald Trump president twice.
00:43:31.000Here she was explaining that they actually didn't do anything wrong.
00:43:34.000Actually, when they basically hid Kamala Harris from the media for months at a time, that wasn't doing anything wrong.
00:43:40.000I would say, I mean, look, I am not a media hater by any measure.
00:43:46.000And I think that, you know, we women don't get far in life talking about double standards.
00:43:59.000Two weeks talking about how she didn't do interviews, which, you know, she was doing plenty, but we were doing in our own way.
00:44:05.000We had to, you know, be the nominee, had to find a running mate and do a rollout.
00:44:11.000I mean, there's all these things that you kind of want to factor in.
00:44:14.000But real people heard in some way that we were not going to have interviews, which was both not true and also so counter to any kind of standard that was put on Trump that I think that was a problem.
00:44:28.000And then on top of that, we would do an interview.
00:44:31.000And to Stephanie's point, the questions were small and processy and about like dumb.
00:44:39.000They were not informing a voter who was trying to listen to learn more or to understand.
00:44:46.000And I'm not here to say that the whole system was focused on us incorrectly.
00:44:51.000I'm just saying, again, of the things we need to explore as we move forward as a campaign and as a country, that does a disservice to voters.
00:44:58.000And I think back and think we should have signaled more of our strategy early on about podcasts and who we were trying to reach.
00:45:08.000Meanwhile, David Poof, another campaign advisor from the Obama team, he was out there suggesting, you know, the real problem is just very hard for Democrats to win the battleground states.
00:45:28.000By the way, in most battleground states, that conservative number is over 40. So in every battleground state, there's more conservative than liberals.
00:45:35.000So in Pennsylvania, if experts are to believe, Trump won conservatives 91-8.
00:45:57.000And obviously, I think in Milwaukee, Just to use that as an example, we hit our turnout targets, fell a little bit short in Philly and Detroit.
00:46:06.000You've got to couple that with dominating in the middle, not just winning it a little.
00:46:10.000We have to dominate the moderate vote.
00:46:13.000And I think as we look ahead to 26 and 28, particularly where you have seen drift amongst non-college voters generally, particularly those of color specifically, we obviously have to get some of that back.
00:46:23.000We can't afford any more erosion there.
00:46:27.000Maybe you should actually, you know, appeal to moderates then by being moderate.
00:46:30.000I know it's a very, very weird thought.
00:46:32.000Meanwhile, the Hollywood types are completely melting down.
00:46:35.000Alec Baldwin, who when he's not shooting cameramen, is apparently on press junkets.
00:46:40.000He was out there explaining that Americans are really uninformed, which is something to hear from Alec Baldwin, short-lived MSNBC host.
00:46:48.000In my country, without going into significant detail, half the people in the country are happy, and half the people in the country are very unhappy.
00:47:00.000There's a hole, there's a vacuum There is a gap, if you will, in information for Americans.
00:47:10.000Americans are very uninformed about reality, what's really going on.
00:47:14.000With climate change, Ukraine, you name it, all the biggest topics in the world, Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information.
00:48:16.000Americans who don't travel, who 80% don't have a passport, who are uneducated, are in there...
00:48:26.000extraordinary naivete oh my god can we can pause here just for a second i want to point out that she doesn't know bleep all about history like truly nothing about history okay the united states was founded in 1776 with the declaration of independence which means that the united states is now approximately 250 years old how old is the nation of italy like as an actual consolidated entity she certainly does not know the answer to this She's acting as though the United States is really young and Italy is really old.
00:48:52.000The Resurgimento which was the actual unification movement in Italy completed in 1861 The nation of Italy, as currently constituted, the country of Italy, as currently constituted, was formed almost 90 years after the United States was formed.
00:49:25.000Is the icing on the birthday cake of Hollywood-level idiocy here?
00:49:28.000Here she is suggesting that Donald Trump's an autocrat because he's found a scapegoat.
00:49:32.000Because if there's one group of people who are tolerant, accepting, open-minded to all sorts of political viewpoints, it is the ladies of the view.
00:49:41.000So we're all thinking, like, oh, he's talking about cats and dogs and crazy stuff, but a lot of voters who aren't tuning in to the day-to-day news are seeing these targeted ads that are reaching them where they are.
00:49:49.000Fear-mongering ads about trans people.
00:50:06.000I mean, there is a way around that, which is that when he points out that illegal immigration is bad, that's not him scapegoating, that's a policy critique.
00:50:12.000But again, keep going down this route, folks, and see how it works out for you.
00:50:16.000All right, coming up, we'll get to some pretty hilarious media meltdowns.
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