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Trump's Tragic Flaw - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: 7 0 6 55 care city talk station. It being Wednesday.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you look forward to this moment in time
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  Speaker 1: as much as I do every Wednesday. It is that
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  Speaker 1: time for the big picture with Jack Atherton. Welcome back, Jack,
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  Speaker 1: my friend. Thank you so much for doing what you
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  Speaker 1: do on the 55 care. See morning show at this time.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, pal. May I mention, as I
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  Speaker 2: know you did yesterday with Dr. Jay Rizzo over that
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  Speaker 2: an education group, we all support the great empower you
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  Speaker 2: America program. is going to be having me speak tomorrow night.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't that great?
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  Speaker 2: The meeting is free. It's at Scarlet Oaks, 7 p.m.
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  Speaker 2: And if you come, folks, please say hello.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. What are you going to be talking about? Remind
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  Speaker 1: my listeners, it's empoweryouamerica.org. If you can't show up in
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  Speaker 1: person to Scarlet Oaks campus for the live seminar, you
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  Speaker 1: can log in from home. Just register ahead of time.
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  Speaker 1: Remind my listeners of your topic tomorrow, Jack Atherton.
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  Speaker 2: The issues the founders faced 250 years ago are exactly
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  Speaker 2: the same issues that we're facing in November. And right now,
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  Speaker 2: if you vote early, as I hope you do.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I headlined this morning, I pretty much started
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  Speaker 1: out the show that the Democrats are far ahead of
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  Speaker 1: Republicans in voting here in the state of Ohio. And
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  Speaker 1: the figures are a lot stronger for Democrats than they
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  Speaker 1: were in 2024 and 2022. So FYI, get out and vote.
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  Speaker 1: Vote early. Make sure you get it done because Election Day,
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  Speaker 1: you never know what's going to happen between now and then.
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  Speaker 1: Jack Atherton, you were right. Go ahead, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: In the run-up, To these midterms, we've talked about how
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  Speaker 2: the Democrat Party, including once moderate leaders more or less
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  Speaker 2: like Chuck Schumer, have sold out to socialists and radical
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  Speaker 2: Islamists in their thirst for power. Socialism is the current
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  Speaker 2: term for top-down authoritarian government, what used to be called
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  Speaker 2: monarchy or dictatorship. Contrast that with the unique genius of America,
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  Speaker 2: bottom-up government. God-given individual rights secured by limited government. That's
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  Speaker 2: what the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are all about.
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  Speaker 2: What the United States must still be about if we're
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  Speaker 2: to remain Americans. But today, let's focus on the elephant
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  Speaker 2: in the room. The elephant who will dominate every room
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  Speaker 2: until he stomps off the scene. Donald John Trump. My
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  Speaker 2: wife and I began volunteering for Trump In 2015, we've contributed,
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  Speaker 2: attended rallies, and one day when our first grandchild finally arrives,
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  Speaker 2: I hope he or she will be named Donald. If
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  Speaker 2: not the Donald, or just sir. Yet we have no illusions, Brian.
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  Speaker 2: We know that millions of Americans despise Donald Trump. Those
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  Speaker 2: are the folks I want to address this morning, hoping
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  Speaker 2: not to change their minds. but to place Trump in
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  Speaker 2: context so that they will hold their nose and vote
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  Speaker 2: Republican anyway. Let's compare Trump with the Democrat alternative and
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  Speaker 2: then to earlier figures in both history and literature, the
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  Speaker 2: Shakespearean heroes wrestling with what's been called their tragic flaws. First,
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  Speaker 2: the brief comparison with Democrats. What had been the party
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  Speaker 2: of slavery moved toward big government socialism during the Great Depression.
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  Speaker 2: Franklin Roosevelt, in 1932, believed the only way to put
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  Speaker 2: Americans back to work was to have them work for
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  Speaker 2: a vastly expanded federal government. How well that worked is
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  Speaker 2: still debated. The Depression lasted until at least 1939 and
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  Speaker 2: ended only with the general mobilization for World War II.
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  Speaker 2: After the war, General Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, won two landslides,
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  Speaker 2: and then John F. Kennedy won as a Democrat because
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  Speaker 2: in many ways, he was more conservative than Richard Nixon.
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  Speaker 2: Kennedy vowed to contain communism. He also slashed taxes across
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  Speaker 2: the board to stimulate not the redistribution of wealth, but growth,
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  Speaker 2: setting an example for Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. The
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  Speaker 2: big change in Democrat politics came when Lyndon Johnson launched
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  Speaker 2: his war on poverty that condemned generation after generation of
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  Speaker 2: America's poor to dependence on big government welfare. Thanks to
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump's growth policy, poverty is now at the lowest
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  Speaker 2: recorded level ever. Look it up. But moving on to
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  Speaker 2: illegal immigration, here we cannot blame Democrats alone. Establishment Republicans
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  Speaker 2: breaking with Eisenhower and Reagan began calling for open borders
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  Speaker 2: in a bid for cheap, menial labor. The Bible of
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  Speaker 2: establishment Republicans, the Wall Street Journal, as I've mentioned several
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  Speaker 2: times before, demanded a five-word constitutional amendment. Quote, there shall
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  Speaker 2: be open borders. It gets worse. A Democrat-Republican coalition demanded
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  Speaker 2: so-called free trade, which was anything but free. Tax breaks
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  Speaker 2: and one-way tariffs on America rewarded companies that moved manufacturing
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  Speaker 2: jobs to red China and other nations paying starvation wages.
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  Speaker 2: And you've just been talking about Kroger moving jobs to India.
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  Speaker 2: Enter Donald Trump, not an establishment Republican, a mega populist.
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  Speaker 2: Years before he ran for president, Trump warned that illegal
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  Speaker 2: immigration and the offshoring of American jobs and technology would
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  Speaker 2: drive down U.S. wages, drive up crime, and destroy the
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  Speaker 2: driving force of America. Assimilation. E pluribus unum. From many, one.
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  Speaker 2: The many arriving here legally from every nation in the
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  Speaker 2: world and then becoming one people by embracing the American
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  Speaker 2: idea of individual rights and responsibilities. To an astonishing extent,
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  Speaker 2: Trump has succeeded. He has completely sealed the border to
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  Speaker 2: illegal aliens, including drug dealers, terrorists, and human traffickers. By contrast,
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  Speaker 2: Joe Biden and his border czar, Kamala Harris, let in
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  Speaker 2: untold millions. Trump's also brought manufacturing jobs and higher wages
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  Speaker 2: back to America in numbers we had not seen in
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  Speaker 2: 60 years. He's cut crime to the lowest numbers in
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  Speaker 2: more than a century. Trump has made America energy independent.
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  Speaker 2: His Abraham Accords have created undreamt-of partnerships between Sunni Muslims
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  Speaker 2: and Israel. NATO allies are contributing more than ever to
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  Speaker 2: their own defense. Trump has lowered drug prices and allowed
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  Speaker 2: patients a right to try new therapies. I could go
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  Speaker 2: on and on. But let's get to Donald Trump's flaws,
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  Speaker 2: because that's what everybody seems to be focusing on, to
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  Speaker 2: the exclusion of everything else. Like Shakespeare's Roman general, a
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  Speaker 2: real person, Coriolanus, Trump is insufferably arrogant. He acts at
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  Speaker 2: times and he talks all the time, not like the
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  Speaker 2: president of a republic, but like an emperor or even
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  Speaker 2: a Greek god hurling thunderbolts. That's why his tariff policy
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  Speaker 2: needlessly roiled markets for months on end. Trump's basic aim
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  Speaker 2: was reciprocity. If Europe tariffs our cars, we'll tariff theirs.
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  Speaker 2: If Canada won't let our farmers sell dairy products there,
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  Speaker 2: we won't let Canada sell alcohol here. Trade reciprocity is defensible.
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  Speaker 2: But instead of relying on established laws that could have
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  Speaker 2: accomplished that, Trump got a kick out of declaring emergency
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  Speaker 2: tariffs and then withdrawing them at will until the Supreme Court,
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  Speaker 2: including some conservative justices, said, try again. And this time,
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  Speaker 2: do it right. To his credit, Trump does accept court rulings.
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  Speaker 2: So now he's relying on established law.
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  Speaker 1: Thank God.
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  Speaker 2: Mostly. How about Shakespeare's Macbeth? His tragic law, his flaw
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  Speaker 2: was ambition. Trump likes to pretend he's king of the world,
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  Speaker 2: like threatening to make Canada our 51st state. All that
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  Speaker 2: did was turn Canadians against an American ally, conservative Trump.
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  Speaker 2: Pierre Polivare, and give us the anti-American socialist, Mark Carney,
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  Speaker 2: who's doing all kinds of mischief. I could cite countless
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  Speaker 2: other examples, Brian, but let's move to Iran, because it
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  Speaker 2: could cost us these midterms. In Iran, Trump has been Hamlet,
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  Speaker 2: the prince paralyzed by indecision. Not at first. Trump courageously
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  Speaker 2: degraded Iran's nuclear capability in June of 2025. And again
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  Speaker 2: last February, after Iran boasted that it still had enough
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  Speaker 2: enriched uranium to make 11 nuclear bombs, not to mention
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  Speaker 2: tens of thousands of ballistic missiles and drones. I applaud
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  Speaker 2: Trump and Israel for finally standing up to the world's
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  Speaker 2: biggest state sponsor of terror. But just as literary critics
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  Speaker 2: have debated for centuries about why Hamlet delayed avenging his
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  Speaker 2: father's murder, Future historians will debate why, after wiping out
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  Speaker 2: most of Iran's military and rescuing our downed airmen in
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  Speaker 2: early April, the highlight of this war, Trump suddenly dithered
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  Speaker 2: and asked, to win or not to win? That is
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  Speaker 2: the question. He decided to negotiate with terrorists, even though
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  Speaker 2: there was no question that Iran would break any peace
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  Speaker 2: agreement that might be negotiated, that the mullahs and the
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  Speaker 2: Revolutionary Guard would instead string Trump along. while gas prices
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  Speaker 2: reached an average $ 4. 50 a gallon, pushing up inflation and
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  Speaker 2: interest rates. Iran has said for all to hear that
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  Speaker 2: it wants Republicans to lose the midterms so Trump can
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  Speaker 2: be impeached again by a Democrat House and perhaps this
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  Speaker 2: time convicted by a Democrat Senate. The Shakespearean tragedy is
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  Speaker 2: that victory in Iran never required boots on the ground.
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  Speaker 2: We just had to consistently, consistently strangle Iran economically, the
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  Speaker 2: way Scott Besant finally was allowed to start doing in September.
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  Speaker 2: The terror regime will fall, but perhaps too late to
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  Speaker 2: keep our own country from descending into chaos and paralysis, unless,
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  Speaker 2: and this is my whole point, unless enough Trump haters
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  Speaker 2: hold their nose and vote to keep Democrats from taking
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  Speaker 2: America the way of no longer Great Britain and the
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  Speaker 2: rest of Europe. We are not re-electing Trump. He is
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  Speaker 2: not on the ballot. But the radical Islamist Abdul El-Sayed is.
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  Speaker 2: The prophet of a multi-gendered God, James Salarico, is. The
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  Speaker 2: go-along-to-get-along professional Democrat, Sherrod Brown, is. Along with hundreds of
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  Speaker 2: other leftists who will turn all of America... into California, Minnesota,
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  Speaker 2: and New York City. Socialist paradise hellholes. We are at war, friends,
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  Speaker 2: not just in Iran. Here in America, a war Democrat
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  Speaker 2: socialists have declared on the 250-year-old American idea, limited government.
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  Speaker 2: And as Shakespeare warned in Julius Caesar, war gives the
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  Speaker 2: right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please
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  Speaker 2: upon the vanquished. Friends and countrymen, resist being vanquished. Save
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  Speaker 2: America by voting Republican. What do you say, my anything
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  Speaker 2: but tragic friend?
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  Speaker 1: Wonderful as always, Jack. And I'm just sitting here writing
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  Speaker 1: down all kinds of comments and response and multitude of
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  Speaker 1: points you made. But, you know, the weirdest thing about
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  Speaker 1: it is I step back from people who just for
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  Speaker 1: whatever reason are against America or hate Trump and therefore
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  Speaker 1: would vote against their best interest, Jack Atherton, has there
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  Speaker 1: ever been a more successful government experiment in the history
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  Speaker 1: of mankind compared to the United States of America? I
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  Speaker 1: think we can all answer resoundingly no. The problem is,
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  Speaker 1: much in the way that the left treats Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 1: they don't focus on all of the great things that
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  Speaker 1: you just ran down. And that list of great things
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  Speaker 1: he's accomplished was not exhaustive. You could have gone on longer.
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  Speaker 1: They focus on the crazy. They focus on the flaws,
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  Speaker 1: much in the same way they treat America. They don't
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  Speaker 1: look at how massively successful we have done, all the
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  Speaker 1: money that we make and goes out into the world,
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  Speaker 1: all these social programs that wouldn't exist but for our
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  Speaker 1: tremendous wealth that they continue to want to confiscate. They
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  Speaker 1: fail to appreciate that the experiment is working, so we
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  Speaker 1: don't need to change that. The exclusion of everything else.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to focus on the original sin of slavery.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to focus on the Tuskegee experiments. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to focus on fill in the blank where America was bad.
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  Speaker 1: And that makes America bad and unworthy to continue to exist.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, man. That is a propaganda campaign being waged
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  Speaker 1: against the country that people just can't see through and
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  Speaker 1: pay closer attention to all the great that we have
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  Speaker 1: done and continue to do in this country, Jack. It's
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  Speaker 1: just mind-boggling to me, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, and he was
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  Speaker 2: pretty cagey about himself and his own background and about
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  Speaker 2: his aims. He said there would be no red states,
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  Speaker 2: no blue states, but he also alluded, and we didn't
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  Speaker 2: quite know what he meant at the time, to his
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  Speaker 2: desire for a fundamental transformation of the United States. And
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  Speaker 2: he was talking about socialism. Now, there's no mystery left.
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  Speaker 2: The Democrats are telling us exactly what they want to do.
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  Speaker 2: And This is not like, we mentioned Richard Nixon running
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  Speaker 2: against Jack Kennedy, and they were arguing about two tiny islands,
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  Speaker 2: Kimoy and Matsu, and what they were going to do
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  Speaker 2: about them. This is as stark a difference as you
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  Speaker 2: can possibly face, whether you want a bottom-up government or
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  Speaker 2: a top-down, big government, socialist, totalitarian government, because that's what's
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  Speaker 2: coming on the way, folks. And however much you may
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  Speaker 2: dislike Donald Trump, you can't vote for these people.
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  Speaker 1: Heed Jack's warning. Please, dear God, get out and vote.
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  Speaker 1: Help us save the country from the evils of socialism
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  Speaker 1: and communism. Jack Atherton, brilliant as always. We are collectively
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  Speaker 1: blessed that you are around to provide this valuable information
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  Speaker 1: and breakdown, my friend. I look forward to next Wednesday
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  Speaker 1: as I always do. And between now and then, of course,
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  Speaker 1: best of health and love to you and your better half.