Jimmy Acosta announces his plans to leave CNN and become an independent journalist. President Trump's pick for the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing an uphill battle to be confirmed and we're not going to be silent about it.
00:03:47.860That's what CNN, MSNBC and Fox News all do to you.
00:03:51.680So as I said, this is why independent journalism is doing so well among people on the right.
00:03:57.020On the left, you can't go further left than MSNBC.
00:04:00.080So I don't see Jim Acosta doing too well.
00:04:03.080New polling out from our friends at Rasmussen, surveyed just about 1,300 voters this week, actually, asked a very simple and straightforward question.
00:05:25.680But nonetheless, he's doing a hell of a job.
00:05:28.920DHS chief Kristi Noem, confirmed just a few days ago, has said that she's going to cancel the Democrats' last-minute amnesty extension to 600,000 economic migrants, is what they call them, from Venezuela.
00:05:41.020These are people who are brought in here on work visas allowed to stay.
00:05:43.620The Biden administration and Secretary Mayorkas tried to extend them an olive branch before leaving office, thinking we wouldn't all find out.
00:05:54.840We've got to give a special shout-out to our friend on the show, Tom Holman.
00:05:58.180And he's perhaps the hardest-working man, not in Washington, but in the administration, second to President Trump, of course, out on the streets of these raids.
00:06:07.380He told us what was going to happen, and it's being done now.
00:06:10.020From Chicago to now New York, the Trend Day Agua gang members, all being wrapped up and brought back to their countries, just as they should.
00:06:31.520What's happening with Jerome Powell over at the Fed?
00:06:33.720To take all this up and much more, our guest today is John Lonsky.
00:06:36.940He's the founder and CEO of the Lonsky Group.
00:06:39.380John, it's great to have you back with us here on The Great America Show.
00:06:41.600I want to start with something that kind of rocked the stock market this week, sending tech stocks into a trillion-dollar sell-off, recovering since.
00:06:48.800But the fact that traders can be so dumb and naive to news that China is beating us in the AI race with the company DeepSeek,
00:06:59.560your thoughts, first, as for China's allegations that they're beating us in the AI markets.
00:07:07.840And then next, I want to get your reaction to investors just absolutely caving to China.
00:07:14.620Yeah, it's something when you stop and think that DeepSeek could be such a shock, not only to investors,
00:07:25.520but apparently also to the artificial intelligence industry in the United States.
00:07:31.840Didn't they see something like this coming?
00:07:34.540I mean, you know, the AI industry in the United States was talking about the imperative of stepping up capital spending on AI,
00:07:45.520I think to the tune of it's about a 50% to 70% increase in 2024, excuse me, in 2025, compared to what they spent in 2024.
00:07:57.700That's a huge jump in 2024, that's a huge jump in AI-related capital spending.
00:08:02.900And yet here we have this Chinese upstart.
00:08:06.940You know, this Chinese company, again, DeepSeek, is only a year old.
00:10:46.680Well, I think investors were caught off guard, which is hard to understand because you're supposed to have experts on Wall Street that follow these high-tech companies, that follow NVIDIA, that supposedly have a deep understanding of microchips and what's realistic and what is not realistic.
00:11:09.860And, you know, touching upon the difference in cost, I mean, it's mind-boggling to think that DeepSeek developed this high-performing AI model for what they claim, I think, was no more than, was it, $6 million?
00:11:25.320By contrast, in the United States, the AI models we develop come as cheap as $100 million and can be as expensive as $1 billion.
00:11:40.540And moreover, the DeepSeek AI model supposedly uses a lot less energy than the U.S. AI models.
00:11:52.560I don't know if this, you know, it almost sounds to be too good to be true.
00:11:57.580And we know in the investment world, when a financial product is too good to be true, that turns out to be the case.
00:12:08.740But some of the, again, leaders or thought leaders in AI investing have come out, and quite frankly, they stated they find it hard to believe in the DeepSeek story.
00:12:21.820And instead, they hold, firmly hold the company, at least like NVIDIA, have a commanding lead in the development of artificial intelligence.
00:12:33.000And that lead is not going to go away anytime soon.
00:12:36.420And this lead would also hold true for other U.S.-based, U.S.-centered developers of artificial intelligence technology.
00:12:47.100So, we haven't seen any tariffs yet, as far as I'm concerned, on China.
00:12:52.000We've had threats of them on other countries.
00:12:54.460We're going to talk about that in a little bit.
00:12:56.100But we haven't seen anything yet on China.
00:13:00.220Do you think this is grounds for President Trump to finally start putting the pedal to the metal?
00:13:06.380You know, eight days into this administration, 90s into this administration, the man has done more than Joe Biden did in four years.
00:13:13.440I'm not going to take that away from him. But China is obviously the biggest problem I think we have in this country right now.
00:13:19.020You could put that with the southern border, but they go hand in hand, the fentanyl and the drugs pouring in from China.
00:13:23.420But do you think this is grounds now for President Trump to accelerate the process to finally, you know, put the pressure on China and start hitting them with some tariffs to let them know we're not going to tolerate this?
00:13:35.860Because the truth of the matter is, John, nothing happens in China without Xi Jinping and the CCP okaying it.
00:13:41.880Right. So they didn't come out with this whole development, this six million dollar company without Xi Jinping saying, OK, Xi Jinping is a very smart man.
00:13:48.700He knew exactly what it was going to do to the U.S., the economy and the stock market, maybe not in the long term, but definitely in the short term.
00:13:54.660So is this grounds for President Trump to go ahead and start tariffs on China?
00:14:00.120Well, you know, it's a warning that China is our principal adversary.
00:14:04.600But, you know, regarding tariffs, believe it or not, this Saturday, February 1st, the U.S. will impose 25 percent tariffs on goods being imported from Canada and Mexico.
00:14:20.080Yes. It might be, though, that there will be a last minute deal between the U.S. and our two principal trading partners, wherein Mexico and Canada agree to the immigration reforms and the, how should I put it, drug importation reforms demanded by the Trump administration.
00:14:45.000And perhaps, you know, maybe we'll get lucky and Trump will get Mexico to agree to re-gift fentanyl to the Chinese people somehow.
00:14:56.540So Saturday's going to, you know, how this plays out, this initial imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico will perhaps offer some insight as to how Trump's tariff policy will play out.
00:15:11.780Yeah, I think, you know, you can make and I'll remember the additional, you know, the tariffs to be placed on imports from China are 10 percent on top of existing tariffs.
00:15:25.320Well, I would think that this would make China, you know, perhaps pay closer attention to the demands of the Trump administration.
00:15:35.660It should. A Chinese economy is not doing well.
00:15:39.440It's struggling. And quite frankly, it borders on idiotic to think that the Chinese leadership, the Chinese Communist Party seeks alliances with countries like Russia and Iran at the expense of having stronger ties with their principal trading partners, such as the United States and Europe.
00:16:04.860It makes absolutely no sense. It's like the leadership in China is doing everything they can possibly do to make life more miserable for their own population.
00:16:17.520And it's also idiotic. I agree with you 100 percent on all of what you just said.
00:16:21.360But it's also idiotic that the American people, our investors, our people on Wall Street, our hedge fund managers, managers are still so slayed by China.
00:16:31.520You know, it perplexes me back to the tariffs.
00:16:35.840February 1st happened to be coming on a Saturday.
00:16:38.120So brilliant. And Trump asked to make sure they roll out on a Saturday so that the markets, they don't like it.
00:16:43.400They have a day or so to, you know, relax and wake up on Monday morning to do some news.
00:16:49.580Yeah, right. I think maybe the negotiators in China and Mexico can skip church Sunday morning and come to a deal by the afternoon.
00:16:58.580You know, when the we're talking, we're talking with John Lonsky, folks.
00:17:04.360We're coming right back with him as the CEO of the Lonsky Group.
00:17:07.120Stay with us more ahead on tariffs, the deportations and the overall U.S. economy and how how John sees it from right now to four years down the road.
00:17:17.520Stay with us. Just like all of you, I had problems sleeping.
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00:18:45.160And the basis of it all was that we sent two planes over there with illegal criminal migrants.
00:18:52.280And we asked, take your people back, please, because they do not belong in this country.
00:18:56.380They came here illegally and they're criminals.
00:18:59.620Canada, the president of Colombia, who, by the way, I don't think a lot of people know this because it wasn't really in the mainstream media, got caught with a transgender prostitute.
00:19:59.280The U.S. economy is outperforming most economies in the world today by a significant margin.
00:20:06.580And it should that gap may only widen now that Trump occupies the White House, by the way.
00:20:13.120People don't realize this, but when you're looking at countries like Canada and Mexico, believe it or not, their rate of economic growth is, I think, slower than 2%, whereas U.S. economic growth is approaching 3%.
00:20:28.460And in the case of Mexico, they need a much faster rate of economic growth given the high incidence of poverty they have in that country.
00:20:37.380So the Mexicans, the Colombians have no choice but to heed the request of President Trump and for the purpose of avoiding tariffs that could prove to be quite harmful to their respective economies.
00:20:56.540Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela cannot afford any imposition of tariffs that will make matters worse for already struggling economies.
00:21:49.880But what I'm seeing this time around, John, and you tell me I want your thoughts on this, is a very calculated and focused Trump.
00:21:57.120I mean, it seems he's laser focused on what he wants to do.
00:22:01.260His team, Stephen Miller, calls most of the shots over there in the White House, doing an absolutely terrific job.
00:22:08.660They're laser focused, no shenanigans, no nonsense, no drama, nothing.
00:22:13.060It seems this time around, this is going to be a way different administration, and I think they're going to be able to move the world.
00:22:19.040What's your thoughts so far, nine days in?
00:22:21.820Well, first of all, I think the overwhelming majority of Americans applaud the deportation of criminal illegal aliens.
00:22:31.260Who is the legacy media trying to kid?
00:22:34.460I mean, this is, again, the stance that the legacy media is taking on this issue makes me think that they're going to lose even more viewers and more readers.
00:22:45.500Nobody's going to be paying much attention to them any longer.
00:22:49.720And that would even extend beyond regular news media.
00:22:53.020It might also apply to things like sports and entertainment.
00:22:56.180We could, the American, Americans could care less.
00:23:02.320Yeah, Trump is making it clear that he's going to follow through on what he campaigned on.
00:23:08.400And the reason why he won the presidency is because the American voters, by and large, agree with the changes Trump wants to make.
00:23:19.840And in the case of the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, that was a very,
00:23:25.760And that issue had a lot of support among Americans prior to the election and helps to explain why Trump won.
00:23:35.840Americans want an end to what was something worse than, worse than incompetence on the part of the Biden administration.
00:23:45.320And, you know, he had mentioned the deportations, which, John, in every poll I've seen, outside the margin of error by the tens, Americans, like you said, support the deportations of these people.
00:24:00.020In his first week in office, they've deported already 7,300 illegals.
00:24:03.940Kristi Noem is DHS chief, has canceled Mayorkas's amnesty award to 600,000 Venezuelan migrants.
00:24:15.480And, I mean, I think there's no rolling back.
00:24:18.040Now, the New York Times had a piece out last week.
00:24:22.180And, I mean, it was titled absolutely brilliantly.
00:24:24.740How labeling cartels terrorists could hurt the U.S. economy.
00:24:30.200Isolating U.S. companies from cartel activities could be almost impossible, given that the criminal groups operate in sectors like agriculture, tourism, leaving some American businesses vulnerable to sanctions.
00:24:41.420Now, we know, John, that the mainstream media is not on the side of the American people.
00:24:47.000We know Jim Acosta leaving CNN, I think, is, by the way, a great service to this country.
00:24:52.160But for the mainstream media now to be defending what they know is inherently wrong, criminal, is absolutely mind-blowing to me.
00:25:01.200Siding with the drug cartels, John, is that something you thought you'd ever see in this country from probably, like, the most popular news outlet in America, the New York Times?
00:25:16.140It's an insult to the American people.
00:25:18.160And, my goodness, you know, that's akin to having U.S. companies, based companies, cooperate with the mafia in the United States to improve market share.
00:26:23.040And, of course, the Canadians are risking a repeat of those hockey riots they had not too long ago if the Canadians are denied American beer.
00:26:32.160I don't know if it's that great of an issue, you know, big of an issue in Canada, if it really matters all that much to the U.S. economy.
00:26:41.160But more has to be done in terms of immigration reform.
00:26:48.520And, you know, more has to be done in terms of energy policy.
00:26:53.040We want to help assure that we have an adequate supply of relatively inexpensive energy coming into the United States,
00:27:01.840and perhaps in some cases natural gas being shipped to Canada if they're importers of U.S. natural gas.
00:27:09.320We have issues with perhaps pipelines that might run from Alaska to the continental United States.
00:27:18.040But I think all of these matters are going to be settled quickly enough.
00:27:21.020As I said, the Canadian economy is not performing well.
00:27:25.120You know, Pierre Trudeau, he's going to be gone.
00:27:29.340So I think there is room for improved relations between the U.S. and Canada.
00:27:35.540And who knows, if we go far enough, we might have something akin to a more flexible trade policy,
00:27:45.640a reduction of all tariffs between the two countries.
00:27:49.180But a lot of negotiations have to take place first.
00:27:52.480Well, we're now learning that Justin Trudeau in Canada is planning a, quote,
00:27:58.600pandemic-style bailout program to protect his industries in the event that President Donald Trump does impose those sanctions come this Saturday.
00:31:45.500You know, we've had a declining rate of inflation, but that decline appears to have stalled for the time being.
00:31:51.460I think the biggest worry about inflation going forward is that Trump's economic policies proved to be too effective at spurring U.S. economic growth.
00:32:04.520And given the fact that we have a near-full employment economy, we could be looking at an acceleration of wage growth by the middle of 2025.
00:32:17.400And that would make it difficult to have the inflation rate decline towards that 2% target favored by the Fed.
00:32:27.780So if inflation is going to be a problem, it's going to be a problem only because Trump was too successful at getting America back to work.
00:32:41.600And I think people want more employment opportunities.
00:32:45.400People want to get jobs in areas other than government, where, by the way, employment may be declining, and in health care and social assistance.
00:32:53.820Now, we also spoke about Jerome Powell in that last segment of Federal Reserve.
00:33:01.940Not so much Jerome Powell, but last time we spoke, we talked about Jerome Powell and his manipulation of elections,
00:33:07.340trying to make it a little bit more favorable for Kamala Harris with his rate-playing games.
00:33:14.240It's not clear that President Trump could fire him because he doesn't really have the job.
00:33:19.420He sits on a board and he's the chairman of the board.
00:33:24.360I believe there's some remedies to get him to get out of there.
00:33:27.580Do you think he'll be able to be a ball-and-strike caller and not a politician as we've seen him be over the last four to eight years?
00:33:38.980You know, right now, at this point in time, I think the legacy media and mainstream economists are getting too carried away with the inflationary threat posed by tariffs, okay?
00:33:53.520And as I said in 2019, it turns out that tariffs did not increase inflation.
00:33:59.560I think the problem with inflation is basically having the U.S. government spend nearly $2 trillion more than what it takes in terms of taxes.
00:34:10.520Something has to be done about that huge budget deficit.
00:34:14.620We have to slow down at least the growth of federal spending, if not stall it.
00:34:19.420And that's why it's so important that Trump is undertaking these measures where he is attempting to pair to reduce the federal workforce.
00:34:32.280Any company that was spending $2 trillion more than what it was taking in in terms of sales would be cutting its workforce pell-mell.
00:34:41.420You know, as far as Jerome Powell is concerned, he's got to have to, he'll have no choice but to try to be more politically neutral.
00:34:53.520But let's face it, you're talking about that 50 basis point cut back on September 18th.
00:34:59.100One cannot help but think that the depth of that rate cut was sort of like a Hail Mary pass trying to help Kamala Harris's chances to be elected president.
00:35:10.780And, of course, that was a Hail Mary pass that was intercepted by somebody from the Trump team.
00:35:56.760Yeah, and I don't think Donald Trump or the American people or our folks on Wall Street are asking too much from Jerome Powell
00:36:03.280because too low of rates is also not good for the economy, especially in the long term.
00:36:08.960It's not good for banks who support this country.
00:36:12.480So I think what we're just asking from him is to do his job and adjust rates as he sees fit, not as he feels fit, I guess, if that makes any sense.
00:36:21.720I think the ball right now is in Trump's court.
00:36:24.640If he follows through with deregulation, if he can go ahead with strategic, helpful tax cuts here or there,
00:36:32.440I think deregulation, again, is very, very important.
00:36:35.620He can lend some impetus to the U.S. economy.
00:36:38.340So lo and behold, if you're looking for a job, you don't have to accept a job in health care or social assistance, something like that.
00:36:45.940You might be able to get a real attractive job opportunity in some other area.
00:36:51.880Before we wrap up, you brought us to an excellent point.
00:36:55.240President Trump, you know, he does something very interesting.
00:36:57.980He treats the federal government and how he runs it as he runs a business, which I think is the smartest thing you could possibly do.
00:37:05.460We've had people in government for, we'll say, the last 25 years who have absolutely ruined this country, brought us into wars, spent ridiculous amounts of money.
00:37:13.420I mean, up until two weeks ago, three weeks ago, where we're sending Ukraine more money.
00:37:16.620President Trump is now offering incentives for federal workers to offer them to take a leave and resign, giving them pay for eight months.
00:37:26.880And it's all part of his plan to shrink the federal government.
00:37:29.240But it also, when they are ready to rehire, it's the most brilliant thing that a lot of companies did during COVID.
00:37:36.320If you fire a guy or you give a guy a package who's making $100, we'll use easy numbers, $100 an hour, right?
00:37:42.440You give them this package for eight months.
00:37:43.700Because now, when you're ready to hire again, you go ahead and bring in two or three guys who are making $50 an hour or $33, $33 an hour who are doing the same job.
00:37:52.800You've got now three guys who are doing for the price of one.
00:37:55.180I think it's the most brilliant thing you could have possibly done.
00:37:59.580Well, you know, that's often done in the private sector.
00:38:01.660When a company suffers through an unexpected drop in sales, they will go ahead and lay off seasoned employees, highly paid seasoned employees, and then turn around and hire younger, lower paid employees.
00:38:18.280And, of course, this provides an opening for young people to go ahead and prove themselves in the corporate world.
00:38:26.580And so this is what he's trying, perhaps, to do with the federal government.
00:38:30.560But I would go a step further for now, given the fact we have such a huge budget deficit.
00:38:35.340Let's see if we can get by with a smaller federal workforce.
00:38:42.440Let's see if we can significantly improve the labor productivity of federal government employees.
00:38:51.340You know, John, the federal government, I think, is the largest employer in the country, right?
00:38:55.100Well, I guess, you know, in and of itself, it would be, and let's not forget, all of the subsidies, all the government spending that many businesses in the private sector benefit from.
00:39:08.440I'll give you one example would be the strongest performer in construction spending is the amount of money now being spent on the construction of manufacturing facilities.
00:39:20.800By strong, it's the biggest growth rate compared to the previous year.
00:39:26.260And the reason why you have so much money being spent by the private sector on manufacturing facilities is in large part the consequence of the subsidies offered for the construction of microchip fabrication facilities for the construction of green energy related projects.
00:40:35.900When you look and you see guys like Paul Ryan over there, it makes you wonder why Jamie Dimon and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America are over there.
00:40:42.600But President Trump was on a video conference and sent a message to these folks because we learned in 2020 that they were Bank of America.
00:41:02.920You know, let's get back to the American values.
00:41:06.460Do you think these private corporations will start to adhere, the Walmarts of the world, the J.P.
00:41:12.020Morgans, the Bank of Americas, the Amazons of the world, start to adhere to getting out of the game of politics and hiring people, regardless of they're Republican, regardless of they're conservative or Democrat or whatever it may be?
00:41:24.740Yeah, that's not a bad idea to hire the best qualified person for any opening you might have in a company.
00:41:32.540If you want to go ahead and maximize shareholder wealth, where are the shareholders?
00:41:36.560Why weren't they complaining about this type of behavior?
00:41:42.280When a corporation or business practices censorship in any way, that has the way of sort of like finding itself, coming down into how companies perform in corporate-related tasks.
00:42:01.480People will be less afraid to speak up on more mundane matters involving how to improve operations if they're fearful that their employer might discover that they are a conservative.
00:42:18.240Once you start creating a climate of fear, as far as free expression is concerned, it has ramifications that often go well beyond just politics and can actually adversely affect the operation of a company.
00:42:37.700You'll end up with a company just full of yes-men.
00:42:42.300And believe me, that's a very dangerous situation for a company to be in.
00:42:47.440That could be very harmful to their near-term and long-term prospects.
00:42:52.980John, before you wrap up, you brought up such a good point about the hiring of people for their merit and who they are.
00:42:59.160A question that perplexes me every single day, and it's a very simple one, yet so hard.
00:43:04.000I don't want to know if there's aliens out there.
00:43:05.820I don't really want to know or care to know if we really put a man on the moon or any of these crazy things that people want to know.
00:43:36.540And if I'm a person of color and they're asking me whether, it's sort of like they're telling me that maybe I need some special consideration.
00:43:55.460When they start asking you those questions, ethnicity, racial background, sexual preference, they're in a way, you know, trying to provide you with some extra benefit.
00:44:06.580Because they don't think that you, on your own merit, that you compare to other applicants.
00:44:15.580It's, I think you're absolutely right.
00:44:19.520You know, one of the first things that the great Lou Dobbs told me, John, when he hired me, after he hired me, we started discussing what I wanted to do with my career.
00:44:27.080And I told him I wanted to go to television.
00:44:28.720And he said, you know, I want to, I want to tell you something, John, you know, you're brilliant.
00:44:32.940You're going to do great in it, but you're going to have a very hard time.
00:45:30.420And I don't think the majority of Americans see color as as anything other than a skin tone doesn't differentiate us.
00:45:37.320John, we're all the same on the inside.
00:45:38.740And I hope these colleges and these these private sector jobs and these government jobs wake up and realize and get this crap out of here and let America be America.