The United States seizes a Venezuelan oil tanker. Is war near, or is something else happening? Plus, what is our strategy on Russia and China? First, our brand new Daily Wire talent, Matt Frad, just released a special Christmas episode of Pints With Aquinas. It s streaming now on Daily Wire Plus.
00:00:47.000Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, and Homeland Security investigations executed that seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport oil from Venezuela and Iran in defiance of sanctions.
00:00:59.000This is according to the Washington Post.
00:01:18.000So you'll be seeing that later, and you'll be talking about that later with some other people.
00:01:23.000The president did not, in fact, make clear what all those other things might be, although, of course, he has said before that there may be some operations that are authorized not just in the water, but also on the land.
00:01:33.000And there's been talk about a no-fly zone established above Venezuela.
00:01:36.000All of this is external pressure, presumably to force the possibility of a regime change in Venezuela without serious threat to American troops going in en masse on the ground.
00:01:46.000That oil tanker, according to the Washington Post, had been sanctioned by the United States, according to Attorney General Bondi, due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.
00:01:56.000And then she also shared a video that shows U.S. forces jumping out of helicopters and searching the large vessel on foot.
00:02:06.000So here you can see this gigantic oil tanker, huge oil tanker, and an American helicopter.
00:02:11.000And you can see soldiers repelling down onto this oil tanker, presumably to go look for the oil, to confiscate it, to stop the ship from moving toward its target.
00:02:25.000Yeah, again, the United States military is unparalleled at what it does.
00:02:28.000You can see these soldiers with their guns drawn toward the control booth.
00:03:09.000But we're going to, like you assume, we're going to keep the oil.
00:03:13.000Well, the president of the United States has always made no bones about the fact that he believes that if the United States is engaged in armed conflict somewhere, that we should keep the spoils that we reap.
00:03:23.000You remember he said that about the Iraq war.
00:03:24.000He suggested, hey, if you're going to actually do that war, then you may as well take the oil as some form of compensation.
00:03:30.000When it comes to the Venezuelan government shipping oil over to Iran in violation of sanctions or allowing the Iranians to combine their oil with Venezuelan oil and ship that elsewhere and ship the money back to Iran, obviously keeping the spoils would be worthwhile.
00:03:44.000One person familiar with the seizure in the administration told the Washington Post, quote, depending on what legal justification they use to seize the vessel, it could create a lot of problems for the regime.
00:03:53.000This, of course, comes amidst the Trump administration blowing Venezuelan drug boats out of the water.
00:03:59.000Venezuelan oil is one of the biggest sponsors of Cuba.
00:04:03.000Cuba, of course, has heavy sanctions on it.
00:04:04.000It doesn't have a very strong independent economy at all.
00:04:07.000The communist island nation has had extensive blackouts this year.
00:04:11.000Very little of that Venezuelan oil is going to Cuba.
00:04:14.000But if it turns out that the United States is now prepared to interdict all oil that may or may not be headed for Iran or from Iran, then this could absolutely cripple the Venezuelan economy even more than it already has.
00:04:30.000Again, according to Francisco Minaldi, a director of Latin America Energy Program at Rice University, if the Trump administration continues to seize oil tankers in a systematic way, targeting those particularly destined for China, that could significantly limit the willingness of black market fleets to go to Venezuela, dealing a major economic blow to Nicolas Maduro.
00:04:49.000And again, the economic crisis could easily precipitate some sort of palace coup or the military deciding to overthrow Maduro if you could find somebody to actually do it.
00:04:59.000A huge percentage of Venezuela's economy is dependent on oil exports.
00:05:03.000We asked our friends and sponsors over at Comet, a project of perplexity, what percentage of Venezuela's economy is dependent on oil exports.
00:05:10.000And according to Comet, Venezuela's economy is highly dependent on oil, mainly through its impact on exports and government revenue.
00:05:19.000Apparently, oil accounts for over 80 to 90% of all total export earnings in recent years.
00:05:26.000So, if that were to shut down, you'd basically collapse whatever is left of the Venezuelan economy.
00:05:32.000And that seems to be something that the United States is pursuing at this point.
00:05:36.000The president also has been making clear that he is going to put pressure on Gustavo Petro over in Colombia.
00:05:42.000Colombia, of course, is historically a relatively conservative state.
00:05:45.000Gustavo Petro, the Colombian president, is more oriented toward China, toward Iran.
00:06:38.000Mr. President, we don't like people where they kill people.
00:06:42.000They sell drugs, they kill them in the United States, and Colombia is a major manufacturer of drugs, meaning cocaine in particular.
00:06:51.000Okay, so the United States could obviously put pressure on the Petro regime in Colombia.
00:06:57.000The next scheduled election for president in Colombia happens next May.
00:07:01.000So there's every possibility that Petro could be in trouble as well.
00:07:03.000All of this seems to be part of a broader national security strategy pursued by the White House.
00:07:08.000That national security strategy, which we talked about at length just the other day, focuses a lot on South America, on Latin America.
00:07:17.000It focuses specifically on the idea that the United States ought to be the dominant power in our own hemisphere.
00:07:24.000So, according to that national security document, the foreign influence of China or of Iran or Russia in the Western hemisphere ought to stop.
00:07:35.000Quote, the United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity, a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.
00:07:45.000The terms of our alliances and the terms upon which we may provide any kind of aid must be contingent on winding down adversarial outside influence from control of military installations, ports, and key infrastructure to the purchase of strategic assets, broadly defined.
00:07:59.000The United States has achieved success as the national security strategy in rolling back outside influence in the Western Hemisphere by demonstrating with specificity how many hidden costs are embedded in allegedly low-cost foreign assistance.
00:08:11.000In other words, we've told other countries that if they take Chinese help, well, they may be also taking Chinese surveillance and debt traps.
00:08:20.000In the Western Hemisphere, according to the National Security Strategy, the United States should make clear that American goods, services, and technologies are a far better buy in the long run because they are higher quality and do not come with the same kind of strings as other countries' assistance.
00:08:34.000So, the national security strategy of the United States is very much a sort of muscular Monroe doctrine suggesting that the Western Hemisphere be made clear of outside influence.
00:08:47.000Alrighty, coming up, we'll get to other threats to the United States.
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00:10:11.000The box shows up, someone fires up the grill or preheats a skillet or the oven, and suddenly everybody is gathered around the table, talking, laughing, actually connecting.
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00:10:57.000Now, realistically speaking, the threats to the United States, other than immigration, which of course has been a threat, but is a threat that has been largely mitigated by closing our southern border.
00:11:05.000The threats to the United States are predominantly not from South America and Latin America.
00:11:10.000Yes, what happens in the Western hemisphere has an impact on us.
00:11:13.000What happens with regards to China and Russia has an even larger impact on us because the world is much, much smaller than it was when James Monroe was president.
00:11:21.000And thus, I find it sort of bizarre that the Trump administration is at the same time attempting to overthrow the Maduro regime via economic pressure.
00:11:31.000That appears to be what they're doing.
00:11:33.000But also at the same time, to somehow allow for the possibility of an increased Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.
00:11:49.000It is a network of allied far-left states and or Islamist states.
00:11:55.000And fighting one but making nice with the others is unlikely to result in anything to America's benefit.
00:12:02.000A broadening of the Russian sphere of influence is not going to make America stronger.
00:12:07.000And the reality is, as much as President Trump likes to dunk on the Europeans, and hell, I enjoy a good windmill jam on the Europeans from time to time, the notion that we somehow hold more in common with Vladimir Putin than we do with the Europeans, broadly speaking, is nonsense.
00:12:21.000We hold virtually nothing in common with Vladimir Putin.
00:12:25.000Contrary to popular expectation and opinion, Russia is not, in fact, a state that is wildly pro-religion.
00:12:34.000Russia is not, in fact, a state that agrees with us on foreign policy perspectives.
00:12:41.000It is not a country that seeks its own sphere of influence without any reference to the United States.
00:12:47.000It actually believes it ought to be not just a regional power, but a global power in opposition to the United States.
00:12:53.000Which is why a brand new plan apparently unveiled by the Wall Street Journal with regards to Ukraine is somewhat disturbing.
00:12:58.000According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration in recent weeks has handed its European counterparts a series of documents, each a single page, laying out its vision for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the return of Russia to the global economy.
00:13:09.000The proposals have sparked an intense battle at the negotiating table between America and its traditional allies in Europe.
00:13:15.000The outcome stands to profoundly alter the economic map of the continent.
00:13:19.000The U.S. blueprint has been spelled out apparently in appendices to current peace proposals.
00:13:23.000They're not public, but they've been described to the Wall Street Journal.
00:13:26.000Those documents detail plans for U.S. financial firms and other businesses to tap roughly $200 billion of frozen Russian assets for projects in Ukraine, including a massive new data center to be powered by a nuclear plant currently occupied by Russian troops.
00:13:40.000Another appendix, however, offers America's broad strokes vision for bringing Russia's economy in from the cold, with the U.S. investing in strategic sectors from rare earth extraction to drilling for oil in the Arctic and helping to restore Russian energy flows to Western Europe and the rest of the world.
00:13:59.000And basically, it is saying, okay, we'll take a little bit of your money to pay for some projects and rebuilding in Ukraine, and maybe that sweetens the deal for Ukraine.
00:14:09.000But we'll then reopen the world economy to Russia.
00:14:11.000Well, if that happens and Russia has a vast influx of cash, you think they're going to sit still on Ukraine for very long?
00:14:16.000The minute that they sense vulnerability, they will move.
00:14:21.000Apparently, in a call Wednesday, President Trump discussed the peace process with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Murz and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer.
00:14:33.000The rumor is, very strong rumor, that the Trump administration has basically told the Ukrainians they need to sign on the dotted line by Christmas or U.S. support will go away, which of course would be incredibly self-defeating.
00:14:44.000Russia would love for U.S. support to go away.
00:14:48.000And by the way, the Europeans are beginning to act.
00:14:50.000The European Parliament and member state governments, according to the journal, finalized a legislative agreement to phase out all Russian pipeline gas within two years.
00:15:00.000Again, this move by the Trump administration to make nice with the Russians, it's hard to see that as anything other than a bizarre attempt to allow for spheres of influence, not just with regard to Russia, but also, as we'll discuss momentarily, with China.
00:15:15.000For Ukraine, the question is: why would you sign a deal when the United States is cutting support to Ukraine in the middle of a war now?
00:15:23.000Why would Ukraine believe that if Russia attacks again, the United States will rush back in with all of its resources?
00:15:29.000Apparently, according to Axios, Ukraine has now given the Trump administration its point-by-point response to the latest draft of the U.S. peace plan.
00:15:38.000Apparently, Zelensky's national security advisor and chief negotiator, Rustem Umarov, sent the Ukrainian response to Jared Kushner, President Trump's advisor and son-in-law.
00:15:47.000A Ukrainian official said the response includes comments and proposed amendments to make the whole thing doable.
00:16:14.000Meanwhile, what exactly are we doing with China?
00:16:17.000Now, it may very well be that right now, we have some military problems in the Far East that make China the favorite in a local or regional war in that arena.
00:16:27.000According to the UK Telegraph, China would defeat the U.S. military in a war over Taiwan, according to a top secret U.S. government assessment.
00:16:34.000U.S. reliance on costly, sophisticated weapons leaves it exposed to China's ability to mass-produce cheaper systems in overwhelming numbers, according to a highly classified overmatch brief.
00:16:45.000A national security official under President Biden, who reviewed the document, is said to have turned pale on realizing Beijing had redundancy and after redundancy for every trick we had up our sleeve.
00:16:57.000So in the brief, which examines what would happen if the U.S. went to war with China over Taiwan, for example, the USS Gerald R. Ford would be sent to that arena where it would likely be destroyed.
00:17:09.000Again, that's because China is engaged in drone warfare.
00:17:13.000Also, they have ship-destroying YJ-17 missiles that travel at eight times the speed of sound.
00:17:19.000And yet the United States continues to play a bizarre game with its defense industries where we fight yesterday's war.
00:17:26.000Apparently, the Pentagon is planning to build nine additional Ford-class aircraft carriers, but it hasn't deployed a single hypersonic missile as of yet.
00:17:35.000According to Eric Gomez, a research fellow at the Taiwan Security Monitor, he said he did his own war game between the United States and China over Taiwan.
00:17:43.000He said, even if the U.S. would win, the U.S. would suffer heavy losses, including a lot of ships.
00:17:48.000A lot of F-35s and other tactical aircraft in the theater are degraded pretty rapidly as well.
00:17:55.000He said, I think the high cost of it was really sobering when we did the after-action summaries.
00:17:59.000We were like, okay, you guys lost 100-plus fifth-generation aircraft, multiple destroyers, a couple of submarines, a couple of carriers.
00:18:07.000So, is our advantage in that arena real enough for us to take on China?
00:18:14.000Again, this is why rebuilding the military is absolutely necessary and getting creative about how exactly we do that would be absolutely necessary as well.
00:18:24.000It's also why it would be worthwhile to listen to Sham Sankar, who's been a guest on our program, the CTO at Palanzir, who's been talking for a while about modernizing our military procurement strategy and fighting future wars, not the wars of the past.
00:18:37.000Well, if we are going to face down China, is it a good idea for the president to let NVIDIA sell its H-200 chip to China?
00:18:45.000According to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, President Trump's move to ease export controls on computer trips illustrates his confusing China policy to the extent he has one.
00:18:54.000In the first term, he changed America's China debate as a trade and security hawk.
00:18:58.000Eight years later, he's sounding like the post-Cold War globalist he denounces who thought the lure of commerce would make the world safer.
00:19:05.000According to the journal, one reason is that Beijing's semiconductor industrial policy has resulted in colossal waste and mismanagement.
00:19:12.000Huawei has struggled designing high-end and high-powered chips needed to train those advanced AI models.
00:19:17.000And this has frustrated Beijing, which presumably is why China keeps trying to smuggle NVIDIA H-200 chips into the country.
00:19:25.000Now, President Trump wants to allow China to just buy those H-200s without any strings attached.
00:19:35.000The 25% tax payments that NVIDIA will pay to the Treasury Department, that is not enough to pay for the possibility of a competitive China in the AI sphere.
00:19:44.000And it's hard to read that as anything other than a sort of tacit recognition of Chinese power in the Far East or Russian power in Eastern Europe, none of which is going to redound to the benefit of the world.
00:19:57.000The United States, as the world's global hegemon, you're going to miss it when it's gone.
00:20:02.000That doesn't mean that we ought to police every single thing happening on planet Earth.
00:20:05.000It does mean that we do have to push our opponents geopolitically off the ball.
00:20:09.000Well, I will say that at least the House seems to be moving towards something useful.
00:20:12.000The House on Wednesday apparently approved a $900 billion defense policy bill that gives U.S. troops a raise and codifies a lot of President Trump's national security agenda.
00:20:21.000It seeks to curb his pullback from Europe and mandate more Pentagon consultation with Congress.
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00:23:36.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve officials cut interest rates for a third straight meeting, but signaled they might be done for now in the midst of unusual divisions over the path forward.
00:23:45.000That decision to cut the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter point is aimed at protecting against a slowdown in hiring.
00:24:31.000You know, I would say point to a couple of things.
00:24:33.000First of all, gradual cooling in the labor market has continued.
00:24:36.000Unemployment is now up three-tenths from June through September.
00:24:40.000Payroll jobs averaging 40,000 per month since April.
00:24:46.000We think there's an overstatement in these numbers by about 60,000.
00:24:50.000So that would be negative 20,000 per month.
00:24:54.000And also, just to point out one other thing, surveys of households and businesses both show declining supply and demand for workers.
00:25:01.000So I think you can say that the labor market has continued to cool gradually, maybe just a touch more gradually than we thought.
00:25:12.000Okay, so that presumably is what prompted the Federal Reserve to lower those interest rates because again, there's liquidity in the economy, but the Federal Reserve has a dual mandate: keep inflation low and keep unemployment low.
00:25:23.000And so if they feel like people are losing their jobs, the idea is to inject more liquidity into the economy, put more money in there.
00:25:29.000That will cause people to spend more, which will cause more people to have jobs.
00:25:35.000Now, with that said, it's also possible that the jobs market is at least in part stagnant or shrinking, partially because of, for example, things like, yes, wait for it, tariffs.
00:25:46.000Jerome Powell pointed out that inflation on the price of goods is in fact up because of tariffs.
00:25:50.000So when you're talking affordability, the tariffs do have an impact.
00:25:54.000Total PCE prices rose 2.8% over the 12 months ending in September.
00:25:59.000And excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PCE prices also rose 2.8%.
00:26:07.000These readings are higher than earlier in the year as inflation for goods has picked up, reflecting the effects of tariffs.
00:26:14.000Okay, so, and he said the thing that he's not supposed to say, if you don't want to tick off President Trump, but it also happens to be true.
00:26:21.000When you see an increase in the price of goods that you buy at the grocery store because there is a tax on the goods coming from abroad, obviously you're going to see some inflation.
00:26:30.000So we have the beginnings of what looks like, not in major measure, but at least a little inkling of what you would call stagflation, continued too high pricing, combined with a jobs market that might be shrinking.
00:26:46.000Now, is any of that a serious problem?
00:26:49.000Again, inflation is way down from where it was a year ago.
00:26:56.000And President Trump is not wrong when he says that the economic pain people are feeling is largely because of Joe Biden.
00:27:02.000As we've discussed, the vast majority of the inflation that people are currently feeling, meaning like the much higher prices now than there were in 2019, a huge portion of that happened under not President Trump, but under Joe Biden.
00:27:14.000I inherited very simply the highest prices in history, and I'm bringing them down really fast, led by energy.
00:27:23.000And when energy comes down, everything else comes down.
00:27:26.000But I've only been here a short while, and we gave them a beautiful, beautiful thing, and they destroyed it.
00:27:32.000They would have destroyed our country had they been allowed to stay.
00:27:36.000If we didn't win this election, if we had Kamala, who's the same as Joe, low IQ people, but if we had Kamala, you would have a country that would be right now in ruins.
00:27:56.000With that said, Democrats are, of course, jumping on the political train that is taking them somewhere.
00:28:01.000And that is suggesting that President Trump is uncaring about the economy.
00:28:05.000And Chuck Schumer, who, again, helped preside over much of this for Joe Biden, is out there rallying against the president.
00:28:11.000What was Donald Trump's solution to affordability?
00:28:15.000Well, last night, Trump said parents should buy their kids fewer dolls for Christmas.
00:28:20.000We're not talking about fewer dolls for Christmas.
00:28:23.000We're talking about necessities like food, like medicine, like fixing your car when it gets damaged, like maybe going to see the grandkids who you haven't seen in two years because you can't afford the trip.
00:28:40.000He said kids at school should have fewer pencils.
00:28:44.000And then he repeated his favorite, that his favorite word was tariffs.
00:28:50.000Does he understand that these tariffs are raising prices through the roof?
00:28:55.000Now, again, one of my great annoyances here is that Chuck Schumer is not one to talk.
00:29:00.000With that said, obviously, if people are concerned about affordability, then you do have to get rid of the policies that are likely to continue to cause inflationary policy.
00:29:09.000Now, Jerome Powell is going to be gone pretty soon.
00:29:11.000Kevin Hassett is the person most likely to replace him over the National Economic Council.
00:29:16.000He also is blaming Democrats for people's dyspepsia about the economy.
00:29:22.000I'm not saying Republicans are wrong when they say this.
00:29:23.000I'm saying it's not an effective political tactic, generally speaking.
00:29:27.000The pot of light is that the Democrats are out there saying things that are false and like they're not holding up charts telling you what's going on.
00:29:34.000But, you know, we have a chart that showed that the typical family buying a new home saw their mortgage rate go up at an annual rate by $14,000 because of Biden's inflation and the high interest rates that followed from it.
00:29:47.000And so people who have to pay $14,000 a year more just to have their home, of course they were harmed a lot by Biden.
00:29:54.000But already because we've been getting closer to a balanced budget and leading interest rates down even before we control the Fed more, that we've saved a couple thousand dollars of that $14,000 already.
00:30:10.000If, however, you wish for people to see you as an affordability presidency, then you need to announce more policies that lead to affordability.
00:30:17.000Hassett is likely, again, to chair the Federal Reserve in the near future.
00:30:20.000And he says that the Fed has been way behind on reducing rates.
00:30:24.000The reality is that our inflation rate is still riding 50% higher than it normally is supposed to.
00:30:29.000So hard for me to believe that they've been that wrong in refusing to reduce the rates.
00:30:34.000The fact is that they've been way behind getting the rates down.
00:30:39.000The economy is doing well, but because of all the supply-side action that we've taken, we've got high growth with declining inflation.
00:30:47.000And so they've got plenty of room to cut rates.
00:30:50.000They'll do a little bit this time, but they'll probably need to do some more.
00:30:55.000So, you know, we'll see if that's true.
00:30:57.000But again, if you are reliant, if yelling at the Federal Reserve or changing Federal Reserve policy is your way of somehow establishing economic affordability, and you're talking about lowering the interest rates, not increasing them.
00:31:09.000You're not going to do the Paul Volcker thing under Ronald Reagan, where inflation is running in double digits.
00:31:14.000And so you radically increase those interest rates to get the extra money out of the economy.
00:31:18.000If you're talking about how affordability is a problem, now let me lower the interest rates.
00:31:26.000Now, meanwhile, again, Democrats are making hay over problems they created in the first place.
00:31:30.000This is particularly true when it comes to health care.
00:31:33.000So, some frustrated Republicans, according to Politico, are going to force a vote on extending Obamacare health insurance subsidies expiring in just three weeks.
00:31:42.000These are all Republicans from swing states.
00:31:45.000They're all set to lose their seats, probably, if there's a gigantic spike in the health insurance rates.
00:31:51.000According to Politico, at least six Republicans have signed a discharge petition filed Wednesday on a bill authored by Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Jared Golden of Maine that would extend the expiring tax credits for two years while imposing some new eligibility requirements.
00:32:05.000Fitzpatrick said it's a time-sensitive matter.
00:32:08.000You try to do things through the normal course.
00:32:10.000You try to do them through regular order.
00:32:13.000This is a move to sidestep Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, who, of course, is trying to unify against extending those subsidies.
00:32:20.000And you can see why the Trump administration and the Speaker of the House, they're not interested in continuing to spend money like water the way the Democrats have.
00:32:28.000It also happens to be the case that if those insurance rates spike, Republicans will be blamed at the polls.
00:32:36.000Representative John Rutherford of Florida said, quote, if we fumble this health care ball, nothing else is going to matter.
00:32:40.000If we don't win the majority in the midterms, none of it matters.
00:32:46.000Well, Speaker Johnson has presented another menu of options to Republicans.
00:32:53.000But that menu of options seems to be relatively non-popular with other Republicans who are in those swing state areas.
00:33:03.000According to Meredith Lee Hill of Politico, House Republican leaders presented no firm plan yesterday for advancing health care legislation as anxiety rose in GOP ranks over the impending expiration of key Obamacare subsidies at the end of the year.
00:33:17.000So there are some 10 policies that could get votes in the coming weeks or months.
00:33:21.000Some were specific, like expansion of AHSA's health savings accounts or overhauling pharmaceutical benefit manager oversight.
00:33:31.000The most likely scenario here is a partial extension of the Obamacare subsidies for, say, a year or two years in exchange for some policies, like, for example, the gradual sunsetting of that and the addition of new health savings accounts, for example, or the higher funding of health savings accounts.
00:33:51.000Meanwhile, President Trump correctly slammed Obamacare at the White House, saying, you know, it's weird.
00:33:55.000You guys keep coming back to me for money after telling me it was all going to work.
00:33:58.000Well, the Unaffordable Care Act, which is Obamacare, they call it now the unaffordable because it's unaffordable.
00:34:04.000It used to be called the affordable, but it was never affordable.
00:34:08.000It was basically designed for the benefit of insurance companies.
00:34:11.000And what we're doing is we want all of the billions and billions of dollars that went to insurance companies to go directly to the people and they can buy their own health care.
00:34:32.000And again, he is not wrong about this.
00:34:34.000However, the American people, you know, once you get people dependent on government benefits, very difficult to get them non-dependent on those government benefits again.
00:34:43.000Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, she's taking full advantage.
00:34:48.000The plan that we're offering is something that they've had in place before that allows people who are on the Affordable Care Act, 20 million people, to be able to get their insurance premiums that they can pay for and continue their plan.
00:35:03.000The plans they have is just a made-up thing that is not going to help these people for what they need to be able to afford insurance.
00:35:12.000Now, again, your plan seems to be continuous subsidies for literally ever.
00:35:17.000But this is why Republicans in the end are going to have to offer free market-based solutions that are at the state and local level.
00:35:23.000Because once you start playing this game, once you start playing the we can make everything more affordable at the federal government level through subsidies game, you're never going to outbid the Democrats.
00:35:48.000Thankfully, there's no organization better positioned to educate young people about the true history of this country than Prager U. For years, young Americans have been fed a steady diet of misinformation, taught to believe this country is racist, sexist, and bigoted.
00:36:03.000They tell the whole story, the good and the bad, but always with accuracy and appreciation for the patriots who sacrificed everything to create the greatest country in human history.
00:36:11.000Through powerful storytelling, engaging videos, and family-friendly resources, PragerU is reaching the next generation.
00:36:16.000Millions of young people are finally hearing a message that inspires pride, not shame.
00:36:20.000And here's something you need to know.
00:36:22.000While plenty of nonprofits line up for government money, PragerU refused it, even when partnering with the White House.
00:36:27.000They will not let the government fund their message.
00:36:29.000That's why they rely on patriotic Americans like you.
00:36:50.000Also, the Daily Wire Shop's best deals of the year are still live right now, and we're taking up to 70% off conservative gifts for everybody on your list.
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00:38:44.000The site goes up and all funds go to the United States government.
00:38:49.000Could be a tremendous amount of money.
00:38:51.000It'll also be able to help people like this keep, as an example, just one example.
00:38:56.000There are a lot of examples, people just buying that.
00:38:58.000It's somewhat like a green card, but with big advantages over a green card.
00:39:04.000So apparently, Howard Luttnick believes that this will raise $100 billion to lower taxes or pay down the federal debt, according to Politico.
00:39:12.000Howard Luttnick, the commerce secretary, said we were taking in the bottom quartile.
00:39:16.000We're going to take only extraordinary people at the very top instead of people trying to take jobs from Americans.
00:39:21.000So apparently, it's similar to the green card model.
00:39:24.000The individual will pay global tax just as a U.S. citizen or permanent resident would.
00:39:28.000Individuals will be charged $1 million for the gold card, $2 million for corporations sponsoring an employee in addition to a $15,000 vetting fee.
00:39:36.000There's also going to be a Trump platinum card.
00:39:38.000All these, by the way, do have the president's face on them.
00:39:40.000But that one's not coming anytime soon.
00:39:42.000It would apparently cost $5 million and allow holders to spend up to 270 days in the United States without being taxed on their non-U.S. based income.
00:39:52.000It'll be interesting to see how many people take the United States up on it.
00:39:55.000Better to have people paying a million dollars to get the Trump gold card than to continue to import refugees from various areas of the world who are then wildly dependent on welfare.
00:40:05.000New report out of the Center for Immigration Studies.
00:40:10.000More than eight in 10 households headed by Somali refugees in the state of Minnesota are on one or more forms of American taxpayer welfare.
00:40:17.000The data is based on 10 years of data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, and it shows drastic disparities between native-born American households and Somali-born households in Minnesota, where nearly 80,000 residents have Somali ancestry compared to zero who had Somali ancestry back in 1990.
00:40:34.00081%, 81% of all Minnesota households headed by Somali refugees are on one or more forms of welfare, including 27% on cash welfare, 54% on food stamps, 73% who are on Medicaid.
00:40:50.00021% are on one or more forms of welfare.
00:40:53.000So yeah, we may not be importing the people who are the greatest assets to the future of the country.
00:41:00.000Meanwhile, it is always amusing whenever there are Republicans who appear with Democrats to watch Republicans go out of their way to condemn bigotry on their own side.
00:41:08.000Very often this happens, not always, but very often.
00:41:11.000And to watch Democrats then completely ignore the bigotry on their own side.
00:41:14.000So there was a sit-down recently between Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who's a quite moderate Republican in Utah, and Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania.
00:41:26.000Josh Shapiro said that it's very important that all leaders must condemn all political violence.
00:41:31.000This is for NBC's Finding Common Ground series.
00:41:35.000Let's be clear: political violence has hit people on the left and the right.
00:41:41.000It's been engaged in by some people on the political left and the political right.
00:41:46.000Let's remember when you pick up a gun and try and shoot someone, you are not sane and rational and a linear thinker.
00:41:53.000And so sometimes your views can be characterized on the political right or the political left.
00:41:58.000In just the last few months, you've seen Charlie Kirk, a conservative, and Speaker Hortman in Minnesota murdered people on the left and right in my home state.
00:42:12.000You've seen an assassination attempt on the president of the United States on the right and myself and my family on the political left.
00:42:22.000We need to begin by saying that all leaders must condemn all political violence, not cherry pick which violence to condemn and which violence to accept.
00:42:36.000So, again, all of that is well and good.
00:42:40.000The only problem, of course, is that Democrats, then when asked for specifics on who on their own side, they will condemn, they can come up with no one.
00:42:47.000It's very easy to say, I condemn political violence on the political right and I condemn it on the political left.
00:42:51.000But then when it comes time to name names, then all of a sudden everybody goes silent.
00:43:15.000So Chuck Schumer was at a congressional menorah lighting ceremony in Washington, D.C.
00:43:19.000And again, as an Orthodox Jew, Chuck Schumer's continual attempts to call upon his ethnic Judaism in order to cover for his shameful behavior in office is of high irritation to me.
00:43:31.000He condemned anti-Semitism and Nazism and other forms of bigotry.
00:43:35.000He has yet to say a word in anger about any of the anti-Semitic nonsense in his own party, ranging from Zarn Mamdani in New York to Ilhan Omar.
00:43:46.000The evil forces of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and other forms of hatred and bigotry are running rampant in our society.
00:43:56.000And too many, far too many, are silent against these threats.
00:44:02.000But when it comes to anti-Semitism, silence is dangerous.
00:44:05.000When we stay silent, that's when the poison of anti-Semitism spreads like wildfire.
00:44:11.000We have seen that throughout our history.
00:44:13.000Okay, well, I mean, you did stay silent on your own side, and you remain silent on your own side.
00:44:18.000If you actually want to fight bigotry, you actually have to call it out on your own side.
00:44:22.000I know, difficult lessons for everybody to learn.
00:44:25.000Okay, meanwhile, the Warner Brothers deal continues to be a little bit up in the air.
00:44:29.000Netflix, of course, had issued a deal that was taken up by Warner Brothers, but the deal is still up in the air.
00:44:40.000According to The Verge, Netflix is still the frontrunner to become Warner Brothers' new owner, but the war for control of the legacy studio is not yet over.
00:44:47.000Paramount Skydance has now made its own outsize offer for the company.
00:44:50.000It would give CEO David Ellison even more control over the news and entertainment landscape.
00:44:54.000While Warner Brothers Discovery has repeatedly turned down Paramount Skydance's previous offers, Netflix's bid could also fall apart because it is subject to regulatory scrutiny by the FTC and the Department of Justice.
00:45:07.000Apparently, Warner Brothers has signaled it's open to the Netflix $82.7 billion acquisition proposal, which would include both stray cash and stock options, and would follow the split of Warner Brothers Discovery into two companies.
00:45:22.000Netflix would only acquire part of the company, would not acquire, for example, CNN.
00:45:28.000Paramount Skydance is trying to buy all of it for $108.4 billion in cash, like with no stock.
00:45:36.000That deal would give Paramount Skydance control of Warner Brothers movie and TV production studios, the HBO Max brands, and unlike Netflix's proposal, all of WBD's cable networks like Discovery Channel and TNT as well.
00:45:51.000So really interesting to see how this is going to work out.
00:45:56.000So apparently, there is talk that if Larry Ellison and David Ellison take over Warner Brothers, including CNN, that there will be changes made to CNN in the same way as changes were made by the Ellisons to CBS News, which, by the way, for the country, it'd be great.
00:46:12.000CNN has been for a very long time a dying channel on the verge of collapse that is very left-oriented while claiming objectivity.
00:46:22.000Apparently, in recent days, David Ellison offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he would make sweeping changes to CNN.
00:46:31.000Now, again, we will have to see what legal boundaries are tied up here.
00:46:37.000It seems difficult for me to see how Paramount ends up pulling this out, given that Netflix has already been accepted by WBD.
00:46:47.000President Trump, for his part, of course, on a political level, would love to see Paramount acquire Warner Brothers.
00:46:54.000He said that he believes that any deal for Warner Brothers has to include CNN right now.
00:46:58.000Of course, Netflix doesn't want to buy CNN because, you know, frankly, who would unless you want to change it?
00:47:04.000But I think CNN should be sold because I think the people that are running CNN right now, CNN right now, are either corrupt or incompetent.
00:47:13.000And that may not be a factor in decision making because you know we've got some.
00:47:16.000Well, in my mind, but I can be talked out of that by some very talented people that we have, antitrust people.
00:47:23.000But I just think that the people that have run CNN into the ground, by the way, nobody watches, very few people watch, I don't think they should be entrusted with running CNN any longer.
00:47:34.000So I think any deal it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it.
00:47:42.000Now, generally, you know, I do not think that the government should be involved in these sorts of decisions, and that generally applies specifically here.
00:47:48.000Regardless of my personal feelings on which corporation would be better for the country in terms of acquiring Warner Brothers.
00:47:56.000And again, I'm a fan of what the Ellisons are doing.
00:47:59.000I do not think that the federal government should be using its regulatory leverage in order to make certain deals that it finds more politically palatable because I don't like it when the shoe is on the other foot.
00:48:10.000With that said, Bernie Sanders ripped into Jared Kushner because Kushner is involved in that takeover bid of WB.
00:48:16.000He tweeted a handful of giant corporations already control much of the media.
00:48:21.000He vows to be involved in allowing his billionaire allies, his son-in-law and the Saudis, Qataris, and Emirates, to buy Warner Brothers.
00:48:26.000That's authoritarianism, not democracy.
00:48:29.000Well, I mean, it sort of depends on the outcome.
00:48:32.000But also, I noticed that Bernie Sanders is not particularly concerned about the other giant corporation that is trying to, you know, take over Warner Brothers.
00:48:40.000So I guess certain giant corporations, according to Bernie, are better than other giant corporations.