Latest / 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary / Florida's Socialist Shocker, The Fake Pollster, $40 Trillion in Debt | Last Call

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Florida's Socialist Shocker, The Fake Pollster, $40 Trillion in Debt | Last Call · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the three Martini Lunch.
0:04
Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
0:07
Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
0:10
Speaker 1: Free martinis coming up.
0:13
Speaker 3: Welcome to the last call of the week for the
0:15
Speaker 3: Three Martini Lunch. This is our weekly recap of the
0:18
Speaker 3: biggest stories of the week. In this edition, a badly
0:21
Speaker 3: underfunded socialist shocks the Democratic establishment by easily winning the
0:25
Speaker 3: US Senate primary in Florida. Median Strategies admits all of
0:30
Speaker 3: its polling was fake and the whole thing was just
0:32
Speaker 3: a social experiment. And our national debt races passed forty
0:37
Speaker 3: trillion dollars. And in our Chaser of the week, even
0:41
Speaker 3: a majority of Republicans now thinks it wants price controls.
0:45
Speaker 3: But we begin with socialist Angie nixon stunning primary win
0:49
Speaker 3: in Florida. Yesterday was supposed to be a relatively quiet
0:52
Speaker 3: primary night. We've got some big races coming up in
0:55
Speaker 3: Florida and Alaska. But the primary night was supposed to
0:57
Speaker 3: be pretty cut and dried. Did not turn out that way,
1:01
Speaker 3: particularly in the Florida Democratic Senate primary. Ashley Moody, of course,
1:06
Speaker 3: was appointed by Ron DeSantis to replace Marco Rubio after
1:09
Speaker 3: he became Secretary of State. But now she's got to
1:11
Speaker 3: win the seat here for her own in twenty twenty six,
1:14
Speaker 3: and if she wins, she'll have to do it again
1:15
Speaker 3: in two years. But the Democrats thought that they had
1:19
Speaker 3: their candidate locked in for the general election. And Alexander Vindmann,
1:23
Speaker 3: you might remember him as the witness in the Trump
1:26
Speaker 3: impeachment number one over the perfect phone call with Ukraine.
1:30
Speaker 3: And I think everybody on the right got discussed with
1:32
Speaker 3: him the second Devin Nunas said okay, so mister Vinman,
1:36
Speaker 3: and he interrupted and said, excuse me, that's Lieutenant Colonel Vinman.
1:40
Speaker 3: And so anyway, he was supposed to lap the field
1:42
Speaker 3: yesterday in the Democratic primary over socialist state lawmaker Angie Nixon.
1:47
Speaker 3: Vinman raised sixteen million dollars, Angie Nixon less than a million.
1:52
Speaker 3: But Angie Nixon, not to be confused with Richard wins
1:55
Speaker 3: more than fifty six to forty four. And she is
2:00
Speaker 3: d Essay. She says, oh, I just joined, Dessa. You know,
2:04
Speaker 3: I'm a mom, and I'm a wife, and I'm a
2:05
Speaker 3: community organizer. So you know, just the fact that I
2:08
Speaker 3: just joined. To pay no attention to that But if
2:11
Speaker 3: you want to know what Angie Nixon is like, this
2:13
Speaker 3: is her on the floor of the Florida Legislature not
2:16
Speaker 3: long ago. I think this is when they just redrew
2:19
Speaker 3: the maps gym. I'm not entirely sure. She's dressed in
2:21
Speaker 3: what I would call bright pink, with a pink megaphone
2:25
Speaker 3: to match, which of course makes you know it was
2:27
Speaker 3: totally spontaneous and not a plan protest to disrupt the
2:30
Speaker 3: proceedings on the floor of the Legislature at all. Nixon's
2:54
Speaker 3: win might also be bad news for the Democratic gubernatorial
2:57
Speaker 3: nominee David Jolly. That's expected to be a tighter race
3:00
Speaker 3: between him and Republican nominee Byron Donald. So Jolly with
3:03
Speaker 3: some verbal gymnastics last night, Jim on the one hand saying, oh,
3:06
Speaker 3: I'm nothing like the socialists, and on the other hand saying,
3:09
Speaker 3: you know, Angie Nixon and I we're not all that different.
3:11
Speaker 3: Just a matter of strategy.
3:13
Speaker 2: Is this a state Florida that can elect you as
3:15
Speaker 2: governor but also elects progressive Angie Nixon for the US
3:19
Speaker 2: Senate at the same time, Well, we're going to find out.
3:24
Speaker 2: We're going to find out. Look, I reject the DSA.
3:26
Speaker 2: I reject socialism. I'm a capitalist, and I think capitalism
3:30
Speaker 2: provides the greatest amount of economic mobility.
3:32
Speaker 1: I have been with.
3:33
Speaker 2: Angie on the trail, and I'll tell you this, She's
3:35
Speaker 2: a fighter. She leaves it all on the field. She
3:37
Speaker 2: goes in every room talking about what I talk about.
3:39
Speaker 2: Can we improve your access to housing, affordable housing, to healthcare?
3:43
Speaker 2: Do you know where to educate your kids? What is
3:45
Speaker 2: it that government can do where the private sector is
3:47
Speaker 2: unable to improve your life? Angie's out there fighting for
3:51
Speaker 2: those same values. I think she and I have a
3:53
Speaker 2: very different approach to this. Look, I reject socialism, I'm
3:56
Speaker 2: a capitalist. We'll see how Florida's voters sort that out.
4:00
Speaker 3: So we'll get to some other election results in a minute.
4:02
Speaker 3: Jim but Cherry action to that mess for the Democrats.
4:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. Warning to viewers and listeners, this is a very
4:08
Speaker 1: Florida heavy episode. You know, as I like to say,
4:11
Speaker 1: there's a lot to unpack here. And you know, as
4:13
Speaker 1: a big vacation state, this is where you bring your suitcases,
4:15
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of that. First of all, Greg
4:18
Speaker 1: between George Conway coming like fourth out of five in
4:22
Speaker 1: a house primary up in New York and Vinman, this
4:27
Speaker 1: is not the year to run as a candidate of resistance.
4:30
Speaker 1: One point zero. I think that the Democrats are tired
4:33
Speaker 1: of everybody's like I remember in Trump's first term where
4:36
Speaker 1: I stood up against him and yes, and eventually we
4:39
Speaker 1: ended up with trumps second term. So you were not
4:41
Speaker 1: We're not playing the hits from twenty eighteen anymore, not interested.
4:46
Speaker 1: He was one of the flying Vinman brothers from that
4:49
Speaker 1: famous circus act. It turns out we will have Nixon
4:52
Speaker 1: to kick around for a few more years, at least
4:54
Speaker 1: another couple of months. But here's the weird thing which
4:56
Speaker 1: he says, Greg that she's not a longtime member of
4:59
Speaker 1: the ds that she just joined. Look, you and I
5:02
Speaker 1: have vehement, deep oppositions to you know, to the DSAY
5:05
Speaker 1: and their members, but at least they have principles. This
5:09
Speaker 1: is a bandwagon DSA member. This is a wanna be
5:12
Speaker 1: somebody who just jumped Oh I'm with them. Wait a minute,
5:15
Speaker 1: you know, Like, what's the upside of that? Is? Like, oh,
5:18
Speaker 1: now that I know that they're extreme, now I know
5:20
Speaker 1: I'm really for that. When she we saw that the
5:23
Speaker 1: footage of her on the floor of the Legislature. Greg,
5:27
Speaker 1: I just assume many listeners have been in some place
5:30
Speaker 1: in public where somebody has a meltdown, whether somebody is
5:34
Speaker 1: just freaking out because their coffee order was wrong, or
5:37
Speaker 1: they start, you know, flipping out, Like everyone just kind
5:40
Speaker 1: of awkwardly, like tries not to make eye contact with
5:43
Speaker 1: the crazy person. Everybody in the Florida State Legislature was
5:46
Speaker 1: trying to not make eye contact with her. They were
5:48
Speaker 1: just kind of embarrassed. It's just kind of a maybe
5:50
Speaker 1: if we just look at the other direction, she'll go
5:52
Speaker 1: away or something that was kind of weird. Let's also
5:55
Speaker 1: point out, like so Vinman outraised her by like fourteen
5:58
Speaker 1: or fifteen times. Vinman had all the money, and she
6:02
Speaker 1: running on I am the relatively recent DSA wackadoodle managed
6:07
Speaker 1: to beat him, which I think is, you know, rather
6:09
Speaker 1: like either the establishment is collapsing or DSA really does
6:12
Speaker 1: have excitement in the Democratic Party base. Florida is not
6:16
Speaker 1: a cheap state to run a statewide campaign in a
6:20
Speaker 1: lot of media markets, relatively high advertising rates. You know,
6:25
Speaker 1: it's eight hours from one side of the state to
6:27
Speaker 1: the other. It's deceptively large, Like this is not an
6:29
Speaker 1: easy state. No so like, you can't do this on
6:31
Speaker 1: a shoe string. So if you're a Democrat, I think
6:34
Speaker 1: you're looking at a whole bunch of other Senate races
6:36
Speaker 1: and saying I'm going to do it there. You know,
6:39
Speaker 1: Ashley Moody, traditionally, an appointed senator doesn't have the full
6:43
Speaker 1: advantages of incumbency that somebody who's running for a second
6:45
Speaker 1: term has. I think she's breathing very easily. I think
6:48
Speaker 1: this is a circumstance with Republico. Yes, we've said this
6:51
Speaker 1: about Texas. We talked about that a couple of days ago.
6:53
Speaker 1: Florida maybe the all time champion state of oh the
6:56
Speaker 1: Democrats really have a shot this year and then losing
6:59
Speaker 1: by a terrible Marge Probably christ Versus DeSantis is the
7:02
Speaker 1: all time champion. But really they had this traditional history
7:05
Speaker 1: of underperforming. The Florida Democratic Party is in a really
7:07
Speaker 1: rough shape. I see no reason why that's going to
7:10
Speaker 1: change between now and November. And I think that they
7:13
Speaker 1: really thought at least Vinman would have had that you know,
7:16
Speaker 1: national fundraising network up until you know, I think last
7:20
Speaker 1: night most Americans had never heard of Angie Dixon. And
7:23
Speaker 1: that's probably not going to be any help the David Jolly.
7:27
Speaker 1: I can't wait for them. I'm not that different from
7:29
Speaker 1: the socialist candidate ads to start running in Miami airwaves.
7:33
Speaker 1: Like socialism is not popular amongst Cuban Americans, and there
7:38
Speaker 1: are quite a few of them in South Florida, So
7:40
Speaker 1: you really don't want to emphasize that. I don't know
7:42
Speaker 1: if you can say, oh, Byron, Donald's has this absolutely
7:44
Speaker 1: locked up. I think Jolly will give him a tougher race,
7:46
Speaker 1: but I don't if you want to be interested, do
7:48
Speaker 1: we want to talk about James Fishback, the absolute nut
7:51
Speaker 1: job who you know, got what less than ten percent? Like, well,
7:55
Speaker 1: I'm really glad the New Yorker did that ten thousand
7:57
Speaker 1: word profile on him, Like this guy was always it
8:00
Speaker 1: was always a maniac, was always, you know, an extremist,
8:03
Speaker 1: and I don't, you know, as a writer of center guy,
8:06
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I also know the game of
8:09
Speaker 1: the mainstream media is to spotlight the worst Republican candidates possible.
8:13
Speaker 1: So thereone was like, oh my god, Republicans are a
8:15
Speaker 1: bunch of nut jobs. I should never vote for them. Well,
8:17
Speaker 1: it turns out Republicans don't like Republican nut jobs either,
8:20
Speaker 1: and we could throw in Dan Bilzarian, who used to
8:23
Speaker 1: be the Hugh Hefner guy and who basically said, after
8:25
Speaker 1: being you know, known for being surrounded by scantily clad women,
8:29
Speaker 1: is like, you know what I really need to do
8:30
Speaker 1: Holocaust denial, anti Israel stuff and intermittent praise for Hitler.
8:36
Speaker 1: That was the brand switch that he felt like he
8:38
Speaker 1: really needed. There. I got to tell you, Nazism not
8:41
Speaker 1: nearly as popular as naked women. I'm just gonna say,
8:43
Speaker 1: I've been putting that out there, extensive market research has revealed.
8:47
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's one of the other lot of House
8:50
Speaker 3: races to pay attention to. But Randy Fine, who replaced
8:53
Speaker 3: Mike Waltz in the House when Waltz originally became National
8:56
Speaker 3: Security Advisor, he beat Baalzarian quite convincingly in that district.
9:00
Speaker 1: Last night.
9:02
Speaker 3: In other house races, over in Florida, twenty Debbie Wasserman
9:05
Speaker 3: Schultz wins in what she'd been criticized for running in
9:09
Speaker 3: the black district, and so she wins with forty five
9:13
Speaker 3: percent of the vote over four black candidates. So if
9:15
Speaker 3: they had consolidated down to one black candidate, she probably
9:18
Speaker 3: would have been defeated. But apparently they couldn't do that.
9:21
Speaker 3: One of the four was Sheila Shirphillis McCormick, who of
9:24
Speaker 3: course resigned the seat because she's super corrupt and was
9:27
Speaker 3: basically forced to resign. And then also Corey Mills is gone.
9:31
Speaker 3: Corey Mills, with a lot of ex girlfriend problems, revenge, porn,
9:35
Speaker 3: allegations of assault, things like that, loses to a Republican
9:38
Speaker 3: named Ryan Elijah and Jim the little nugget that I
9:41
Speaker 3: found here. While Ryan Elijah will go up against Democrat
9:44
Speaker 3: Bail Dalton in the general election, finishing third on the
9:47
Speaker 3: Democratic side, our old friend Alan Grayson, who has been
9:51
Speaker 3: running and losing every two years since he left Congress
9:55
Speaker 3: to try to run for Senate a decade ago, and
9:58
Speaker 3: he just keeps getting w worse and worse and worse results.
10:01
Speaker 3: So he's still there, He's still alive, and even the
10:03
Speaker 3: Democrats want nothing to do with him.
10:05
Speaker 1: Well, Greg, I guess everybody needs a hobby.
10:09
Speaker 3: As you actually with Baalzarian and Fishback, who I'm really
10:12
Speaker 3: happy he did so poorly. Ari Fleischer, I think with
10:15
Speaker 3: the quote of the night on those guys, Congrats to
10:17
Speaker 3: the Republicans for taking out the trash last night.
10:21
Speaker 1: But let's also point out that, like, you know, Nazism,
10:23
Speaker 1: anti Semitism, when you're anti Zionism, just terms it to
10:29
Speaker 1: full spectrum, I hit old Jews kind of stuff. That's
10:32
Speaker 1: like really a bad we hate it everywhere. But you're
10:35
Speaker 1: gonna run for Congress in Florida on that? Have you
10:40
Speaker 1: checked out the demographics of Florida. It's not it's not
10:43
Speaker 1: like Jews are unheard of out there. They refer to
10:47
Speaker 1: Central Florida as God's waiting room, like it's all Jewish
10:50
Speaker 1: retirement communities. So like, why would you know? Now? I
10:52
Speaker 1: know the district might be a little bit different, but nonetheless,
10:55
Speaker 1: like there there's not any good state to run on
10:59
Speaker 1: that stance, but this is probably one of the worst
11:01
Speaker 1: ones to run it.
11:03
Speaker 3: Oh man, that state turned out to be a lot
11:06
Speaker 3: more fun last night than than we thought. And a
11:08
Speaker 3: lot of people asking, you know, why can't every state
11:10
Speaker 3: comp votes as fast as Florida. We knew the results
11:13
Speaker 3: pretty darn early last night. All right, Well, if you
11:15
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11:18
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11:21
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12:27
Speaker 1: M L all right, Jim.
12:34
Speaker 3: It's been a couple different primaries, specifically in the Midwest
12:37
Speaker 3: Michigan and Wisconsin, where the results did not match the
12:41
Speaker 3: late polls, not even close. In Michigan, we talked about
12:45
Speaker 3: how I'll say Ed was up easily double digits, he
12:47
Speaker 3: barely won. And then last week Francesca Hong seemed to
12:49
Speaker 3: be up in some cases close to thirty points, ended
12:52
Speaker 3: up losing narrowly to David Crowley. And now we might
12:55
Speaker 3: know at least one of the reasons why that polling
12:58
Speaker 3: was so far off. Strategies quote unquote puts out this
13:03
Speaker 3: statement yesterday. Median Strategies has concluded its polling project and
13:06
Speaker 3: will not publish additional polls. All previously published polling releases
13:11
Speaker 3: have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated
13:13
Speaker 3: as genuine polling data. Median Strategies was created as a
13:17
Speaker 3: short term social experiment examining how purported polling information could
13:23
Speaker 3: enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.
13:29
Speaker 3: Thank you for understanding. So, Jim, I think they've got
13:34
Speaker 3: the results they wanted from this. Certainly, I think ethically
13:37
Speaker 3: this is a dumpster fire, and whoever's behind this, you know,
13:41
Speaker 3: has obviously had an impact that shouldn't have happened here.
13:45
Speaker 3: But what do you make of this insanity?
13:47
Speaker 1: So Greg, the news is in reruns because maybe at
13:52
Speaker 1: least a decade two decades ago, Daily Coose commissioned Research
13:56
Speaker 1: two thousand. Tom. By the way, when the name of
13:59
Speaker 1: your organization is a year from a couple of years ago,
14:01
Speaker 1: it's probably a bad sign.
14:03
Speaker 3: You know.
14:04
Speaker 1: Twentieth century Fox is banging its head right now that
14:08
Speaker 1: like somebody look at their results and said, wait a second,
14:10
Speaker 1: based on these numbers, they don't add up. You can't
14:14
Speaker 1: have these numbers within the sub demographics, say that your
14:17
Speaker 1: sample was this and end up with the results that
14:21
Speaker 1: you did. And so they started getting challenges and research
14:23
Speaker 1: too that, you know, people writing into Daily Coasts saying,
14:25
Speaker 1: wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. These these numbers
14:28
Speaker 1: can't be what you're saying they are. Daily Coast reached
14:30
Speaker 1: out to Research two thousand, and Research two thousand just
14:33
Speaker 1: suddenly disappeared like stop answering the phone, stop responding to emails,
14:36
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So at least that you
14:39
Speaker 1: know media strategies, they say, oh, we actually were lying
14:43
Speaker 1: the whole time. It was a social experiment to see
14:45
Speaker 1: if we could get you guys to cite this stuff.
14:47
Speaker 1: Now it's kind of a you can say, ah, well,
14:49
Speaker 1: people shouldn't you know, I shouldn't pay nearly as much
14:52
Speaker 1: attention to the polls. And that's that's true to a
14:54
Speaker 1: certain extent. I would also say that this is why
14:56
Speaker 1: I tend to look things like the Real Clear Politics average,
14:58
Speaker 1: because it's not relying on one polster, which could be conceivably,
15:02
Speaker 1: you know, putting the thumb on the scale or in
15:04
Speaker 1: this case, just making up their numbers. But the you know,
15:07
Speaker 1: the idea is that hopefully if there is a bad
15:09
Speaker 1: one that ends up in real care of politics, and
15:11
Speaker 1: they basically don't trust. They don't do internal polls by campaigns,
15:14
Speaker 1: they don't do numbers released by the particular by the
15:17
Speaker 1: candidate's campaign. I'm not even sure they put partisan polsters
15:20
Speaker 1: in there anymore. Basically, you look at it, you can
15:23
Speaker 1: get a better sense of these things. But it's all
15:25
Speaker 1: there's just this enormous hunger. How's this candidate doing, how's
15:27
Speaker 1: this kind of you know? And when word came out
15:29
Speaker 1: that like Mike Rodgers was up four percentage points on
15:31
Speaker 1: Abdullah Cie, that was a very big deal and that
15:34
Speaker 1: has clearly shaped some of the coverage since the Michigan primary.
15:38
Speaker 1: You could argue that it shouldn't, but when you're talking
15:41
Speaker 1: politics with people, the one thing people want to know
15:44
Speaker 1: is how's my guy doing, how's the other guy doing?
15:46
Speaker 1: You are are we leading or are we behind? There's
15:48
Speaker 1: this enormous appetite for it, and so nature abhorrors a vacuum.
15:52
Speaker 1: Right if people don't have the numbers, somebody will come
15:55
Speaker 1: along and say, look, I got the numbers, and they'll
15:57
Speaker 1: create the narrative that they want to. Throughout the Democratic
15:59
Speaker 1: primaries this year, there's been this question. Was Abdulahl Saed
16:03
Speaker 1: as far ahead as he seemed to be? Was Francesca
16:06
Speaker 1: Hong is ahead in the Wisconsin governor's races she seemed
16:08
Speaker 1: to be. And at least we know in the case
16:10
Speaker 1: of median strategies, they're median liars that this basically this
16:15
Speaker 1: is not the like they just made up their numbers
16:18
Speaker 1: and you know, I think this is very dishonest. I
16:20
Speaker 1: think anybody associated with Median strategy should have rotten fruit
16:23
Speaker 1: hurled at them in the streets and they should be
16:25
Speaker 1: called liars and all that stuff, and probably anybody who
16:28
Speaker 1: put a lot of stock. Like the other thing is
16:30
Speaker 1: also like when I cite polls, I'm generally like Fox
16:33
Speaker 1: News has been around and been doing this for years
16:35
Speaker 1: and years. I've gotten a little skeptical Quinnipiac, I think,
16:38
Speaker 1: particularly in their national poll. Basically any college poll generally
16:41
Speaker 1: has college students calling up people and if it's a
16:44
Speaker 1: cute girl, well yes, I am supporting the Democratic candidate.
16:47
Speaker 1: Why do you ask? How do you do it? After
16:49
Speaker 1: this survey? You know? But by the way, that was
16:51
Speaker 1: what happened in two thousand and four, where the first
16:54
Speaker 1: initiative but the word the word was the first exit
16:57
Speaker 1: polls were way off and nobody should be using them
17:00
Speaker 1: because the earlier report was John Carey was winning South Carolina.
17:03
Speaker 1: And if you know anything about South Carolina, we just
17:05
Speaker 1: talked about it it last Martiti. This was not a
17:09
Speaker 1: it's a deeply republican state. The moment and what it
17:11
Speaker 1: was was you had, like, you know, college student girls
17:13
Speaker 1: who were doing the exit poles, and these guys are like, yes,
17:16
Speaker 1: I do it for John Carey. You want to grab
17:18
Speaker 1: something up to this, you know, and that was how
17:20
Speaker 1: you ended up with this, you know, numbers that were
17:21
Speaker 1: wildly terribly wrong. I don't know. It sounds like, in
17:24
Speaker 1: the case of the media strategies to just make it stuff up.
17:26
Speaker 1: But it's kind of this giant warning sign, this flashing
17:29
Speaker 1: caution sign for the media. Don't put too much stock
17:32
Speaker 1: into the numbers of a pols or that you've never
17:34
Speaker 1: heard of before.
17:35
Speaker 3: Now that's a good point. Somebody said yesterday on x
17:37
Speaker 3: that polls at this point are used more to influence
17:40
Speaker 3: races than to reflect them. I think there might be
17:43
Speaker 3: something to that, especially if you're completely fabricating your results
17:46
Speaker 3: like that.
17:47
Speaker 1: But they're going to.
17:48
Speaker 3: Have an interesting report if I don't know if this
17:50
Speaker 3: was a college thing or if this is some sort
17:52
Speaker 3: of other social experiment, but I think they're going to
17:56
Speaker 3: have a pretty long paper to write here, because I
17:57
Speaker 3: think it did influence the race. It certainly got to
18:00
Speaker 3: Evers and a lot of other people panicking and kicking
18:03
Speaker 3: other people out of the race, and.
18:05
Speaker 1: One guy left. Yeah, you know what, was the objective
18:08
Speaker 1: to convince people that Hong was very, very popular when
18:11
Speaker 1: she wasn't, and did that prompt the Evers of the
18:14
Speaker 1: world to come out and say, oh, we've got to
18:15
Speaker 1: stop her. So look, if you're gonna lie, lie, that
18:19
Speaker 1: the candidate's up by like ninety so there's no way
18:21
Speaker 1: to know. There's no point even bothering exactly.
18:25
Speaker 3: All right, Well, maybe the people buying that social experiment
18:28
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Speaker 3: dot com slash three m L. This week we also
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Speaker 3: learned that our national debt has reached another humiliating milestone. Congratulations, Congress,
19:37
Speaker 3: congratulations both parties. Really forty trillion dollars in debt officially,
19:44
Speaker 3: and that doesn't even take into consideration unfunded liabilities and
19:47
Speaker 3: things like that, but forty trillion dollars, and we've been
19:51
Speaker 3: careening faster and faster towards that number. Of course, in
19:54
Speaker 3: recent years, usually the people pointing out that the debt
19:59
Speaker 3: is a big problem are either dismissed as kooks are
20:02
Speaker 3: they're ignored altogether, because neither party wants to make the
20:05
Speaker 3: case to voters that we need to cut their favorite programs,
20:08
Speaker 3: so we just keep spending. But as we know, social
20:10
Speaker 3: Security is going to be in trouble pretty darn soon.
20:12
Speaker 3: Medicare is pretty much on the same schedule. But one
20:16
Speaker 3: of the last people speaking out on this. Arizona Republican
20:19
Speaker 3: Congressman David Schweikert recently was defeated in the GOP primary
20:22
Speaker 3: for governor out there in Arizona. But listen to some
20:26
Speaker 3: of these numbers about how fast our debt's piling up.
20:29
Speaker 4: We are now at two trillion, twenty two billion dollars
20:33
Speaker 4: in borrowing this fiscal year, this total year. The original
20:37
Speaker 4: projections were like one point six one point seven trillion dollars.
20:42
Speaker 4: We're heading to borrowing two point three trillion. I know
20:47
Speaker 4: these it's hard to see, twelve zeros. I know no
20:50
Speaker 4: one cares, but just understand this is really crappy. Maybe
20:57
Speaker 4: we all understand this number at the current rate of
21:01
Speaker 4: total borrowing. Remember, net borrowing is borrowing from the public.
21:04
Speaker 4: Grosst borrowing is borrowing from the public and from the
21:06
Speaker 4: trust funds. Anyone want to take a guess how many
21:09
Speaker 4: days it takes us to borrow another trillion dollars one
21:13
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty three days. Every one hundred and twenty
21:16
Speaker 4: three days we're taking off another trillion dollars.
21:18
Speaker 3: Jim, you could throw a bunch of PhD economists out there,
21:21
Speaker 3: but I think that's really crappy is about the best
21:23
Speaker 3: way to sum up the irresponsible spending what we've seen
21:26
Speaker 3: it for decades.
21:26
Speaker 1: Now, you beat me to the joke. I was going
21:28
Speaker 1: to say, that's a complicated economic term, but I think
21:31
Speaker 1: everyone Yeah, so, Greg, you and I have been doing
21:34
Speaker 1: this podcast since twenty ten. Yeah, right, twenty ten. You know,
21:39
Speaker 1: at that point, Republicans were up in arms, and I
21:42
Speaker 1: would argue at that time justifiably because the deficit had
21:45
Speaker 1: reached one trillion dollars per year and it was considered outrageous, like,
21:49
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, how can you possibly Well, we're now
21:51
Speaker 1: at an era where like two trillion per year is standard. Right,
21:56
Speaker 1: The deficit was in the ballpark of twenty trillion when
21:58
Speaker 1: Obama left office. Since then, we've had one term of Trump,
22:01
Speaker 1: one term of Biden, and we really haven't incompleted two
22:04
Speaker 1: years of Trump, and in that time we have doubled it. Now,
22:08
Speaker 1: we had COVID in there, which was going to be
22:10
Speaker 1: a big, you know effect that was going to reduce
22:13
Speaker 1: tax revenues. Is the economy tanked, it was going to
22:15
Speaker 1: put on a whole bunch of new expenses upon the government, indisputably,
22:18
Speaker 1: but two trillion a year becoming normal, and everyone's like,
22:21
Speaker 1: ah because and I keep saying, if the deficit and
22:25
Speaker 1: the debt look like Godzilla, we would do something about it.
22:30
Speaker 1: It's the thing is that it's not something that's tangible,
22:32
Speaker 1: it's not something that's visible, and as a result of it,
22:35
Speaker 1: people just kind of it's just this thing. Well, as
22:37
Speaker 1: you know, we pointed out for several years now, we
22:39
Speaker 1: pay more on interest on our debt than we do
22:42
Speaker 1: on national defense, which is one of the reasons why
22:44
Speaker 1: people like, oh, you know that. You know, usually it's
22:47
Speaker 1: voices and the left like I just cut defense spending,
22:49
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. That's really not where the problem is.
22:51
Speaker 1: And at least for that you can see, ah, well,
22:53
Speaker 1: we got that aircraft carrier for that money we spent.
22:55
Speaker 1: We're getting these troops for this money that we're paying them,
22:57
Speaker 1: and things like that. Money on the debt, the interest
23:01
Speaker 1: payments are what you're paying for all the dumb, bad
23:04
Speaker 1: borrowing you did in previous years. So as the debt
23:07
Speaker 1: gets higher, you have to pay more and more on
23:09
Speaker 1: interest in the debt, and you really can't borrow to like,
23:13
Speaker 1: in effect, we are borrowing to pay off the interest
23:15
Speaker 1: on the debt for the money we borrowed before. But
23:17
Speaker 1: that money's got to come from somewhere. So the expenditures
23:20
Speaker 1: keep going higher and higher. The tax revenue did it
23:23
Speaker 1: go down a bit because of the tax cuts that
23:24
Speaker 1: were inactive at the start of Trump's second term. Yeah, yeah,
23:27
Speaker 1: that was a factor. I would have preferred to not
23:29
Speaker 1: quadruple the state and local tax deduction. I knew it
23:32
Speaker 1: was probably going to go up to get a deal,
23:33
Speaker 1: but they know. But by and large, this is entitlements,
23:36
Speaker 1: and you and I have you know, talk Tiller blue
23:37
Speaker 1: in the face on this, Medicare, Medicaid, and social Security,
23:41
Speaker 1: you know, particularly for social Security. You know, I don't
23:44
Speaker 1: understand why if you have a net worth of a
23:46
Speaker 1: million dollars the government is obligated to keep paying you
23:48
Speaker 1: old age benefits. I think at that point you're fine.
23:50
Speaker 1: I think Warren Buffert's going to be okay. We could
23:52
Speaker 1: argue about what that income level is, but that's one
23:54
Speaker 1: way to reduce the expenditures and social security. But when
23:57
Speaker 1: you do that, a crowd of senior citizens like the
24:00
Speaker 1: like the cast a cocoon will break through my wall,
24:02
Speaker 1: like the Kooliad guy and beat me with their canes
24:05
Speaker 1: and their walkers, and you'll run their wheelchairs over me
24:09
Speaker 1: because I am a terrible young person. Yes, despite the hair,
24:12
Speaker 1: I like to think myself as a young person who
24:14
Speaker 1: wants to reduce Social Security benefits right, and everyone's like, no, no,
24:17
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. Well, okay, if we
24:19
Speaker 1: don't do this by twenty thirty two, I believe is
24:22
Speaker 1: the most recent number, which is like, you get elected
24:24
Speaker 1: president next year, this happens on your watch. We are
24:27
Speaker 1: fresh out of later. There is no time of kicking
24:30
Speaker 1: the can down the road. In that case, you end
24:32
Speaker 1: up with what I believe in eighteen percent across the
24:34
Speaker 1: board cut at least, yeah, and some some have set
24:36
Speaker 1: it closer to twenty twenty three percent. So here social
24:39
Speaker 1: Security is going to get cut one way or the other.
24:41
Speaker 1: The question or we're going to raise taxes way more
24:43
Speaker 1: and have a much more sluggish economy because we've increased
24:46
Speaker 1: the tax burden. The other thing. I'm kind of struck by,
24:49
Speaker 1: Greg as we see it's good. The good news is
24:51
Speaker 1: this is front page store of top of the headline
24:56
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, Like, this is big news. People are
24:58
Speaker 1: forty trillion is a big number that people are sitting
25:00
Speaker 1: up and taking notice of Everybody seems to think like, well,
25:03
Speaker 1: if I win the blame game, the problem is solved. Well,
25:07
Speaker 1: first of all, as I mentioned, this has happened under Trump,
25:09
Speaker 1: this has happened under Biden, This has happened with Republican
25:11
Speaker 1: controlled congresses, this has happened with Democratic controlled congresses. But
25:15
Speaker 1: they're really edge like, well, if I win the blame game,
25:18
Speaker 1: my work here is done. No. No, you are still
25:20
Speaker 1: left with the problem of a fifty trillion dollars debt.
25:22
Speaker 1: Nothing gets better even if you win the blame game.
25:25
Speaker 1: So you know, there's this adamant attitude amongst Democrats and Republicans.
25:30
Speaker 1: We're not going to do anything about it. We're going
25:31
Speaker 1: to justice the other side, and we'll deal with it
25:34
Speaker 1: next year and next year never comes.
25:37
Speaker 3: I mean, we've been talking about this forever. I always
25:39
Speaker 3: talk about the commission Bill Clinton set up in the
25:41
Speaker 3: late nineties that nobody ever listened to. That was the
25:43
Speaker 3: John bro Commission. Bill Clinton turned eighty yesterday, by the way,
25:46
Speaker 3: so that should make you feel old. And then I
25:48
Speaker 3: think George W. Bush had the Alan Simpson Erskine Bowles Commission,
25:52
Speaker 3: which had a bunch of recommendations and nobody listened to
25:55
Speaker 3: that and so on. No it ghost.
25:57
Speaker 1: I mean has the stock market gone on up since
26:00
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties and two thousands? Yeah, So like if
26:03
Speaker 1: you'd taken some of your social security taxes and put
26:07
Speaker 1: it into a four oh one k or something, would
26:09
Speaker 1: it have gone up since then or would it have
26:11
Speaker 1: gone down? So I think it would have gone up
26:13
Speaker 1: a lot. It would have been way more so. Yeah, yeah,
26:16
Speaker 1: before his Democrats saved us from that terrible idea of
26:19
Speaker 1: having way more money in our retirement. Yeah.
26:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, And some Republicans were skintish to go along with
26:24
Speaker 3: it as well. I remember in two thousand al Gore
26:26
Speaker 3: called it a risky scheme to invest a timey fraction
26:30
Speaker 3: of your social Security payment.
26:31
Speaker 1: There was some old lady who said, are you know MYRNA?
26:34
Speaker 1: Are you going to become a day trader and all
26:35
Speaker 1: that stuff? Like, you know, al Gore is a very
26:38
Speaker 1: wealthy guy, so he does know how money works. So
26:41
Speaker 1: what it is is most in time with the four
26:42
Speaker 1: o one k you know rough ira. Individual. By the way,
26:45
Speaker 1: the difference between myself and Michael Brennan Doherty is it
26:47
Speaker 1: when I say ira, I mean individual retirement account. There's
26:51
Speaker 1: another IRA that Michael is more enthusiastic about. It is
26:54
Speaker 1: I love the guy, and I'm really glad he's around
26:57
Speaker 1: the But but the things like you usually it's like
27:00
Speaker 1: buy and hold, right, you take it, You collect evidends
27:03
Speaker 1: on the stocks, your mutual, your your people running your
27:05
Speaker 1: fund will then use it to buy more shares of
27:07
Speaker 1: that stock. Usually you're enough funds, you're diversified. You don't
27:11
Speaker 1: have everything in Coca Cola stock or Amazon or something
27:14
Speaker 1: like that. You're accumulating assets, you're in cubilating more over time.
27:18
Speaker 1: And the whole idea is not that your retirement savings
27:20
Speaker 1: shoot up in one year. The idea is that it
27:23
Speaker 1: goes up gradually decade over decade, and by the end
27:26
Speaker 1: of it you're like, oh wow, I've got this really
27:28
Speaker 1: nice nest egg and then solid security, supplemental security and
27:32
Speaker 1: cup supplemental. It's right in there. You're not supposed to
27:34
Speaker 1: be living on social security and retirement. Then all of
27:37
Speaker 1: a sudden you can retire comfortably. But nobody wants to
27:40
Speaker 1: do that, and al Gore felt the need to demonize
27:42
Speaker 1: it back in two thousand. Back what actually ironically investing
27:45
Speaker 1: was getting really popular thanks to the dot com boom
27:47
Speaker 1: that almost immediately imploded right after that.
27:50
Speaker 3: I don't want to risk my money and scheme like
27:52
Speaker 3: that on Wall straight from George W.
27:54
Speaker 1: Bush down Johness.
27:55
Speaker 3: Industrial Average began around ten thousand and seven eighty three.
27:59
Speaker 3: In January two thousand and five, which is right after
28:00
Speaker 3: the Bush reelection. That's when you really made the push
28:03
Speaker 3: for privatizing some some fraction of Social Security, and really
28:08
Speaker 3: at that point neither party wanted anything to do with it.
28:10
Speaker 3: If Republicans acted all the time like they do when
28:13
Speaker 3: they're Democratic presidents, I think we would have probably done
28:16
Speaker 3: pretty well in this situation. But the problem is is
28:18
Speaker 3: that when they do have power Bush administration, Trump administration,
28:22
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden they're not as tight with
28:24
Speaker 3: the belt so and the Democrats will always outspend you.
28:27
Speaker 3: No matter what you want to do, the Democrats will
28:28
Speaker 3: always always be able to outspend you.
28:30
Speaker 1: Happy happy first day everyone.
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Speaker 3: debt of forty trillion dollars w isn't depressing enough. Americans
30:01
Speaker 3: of all political stripes also think they want price controls.
30:05
Speaker 3: Guest host Charlie Cook and I reacted to that news
30:08
Speaker 3: on Monday the latest CBSU gov poll, Would you approve
30:12
Speaker 3: or disapprove of government price controls? That's a pretty broad question,
30:16
Speaker 3: but overall, just fundamentally, the answer should be no. Pretty obviously,
30:20
Speaker 3: Democrats say yes seventy five, twenty five, independents say yes
30:24
Speaker 3: sixty two thirty eight, and even Republicans fifty four forty
30:28
Speaker 3: six say yes. So, Charlie had a time when the
30:32
Speaker 3: socialists are trying to shove their foot in the door
30:35
Speaker 3: here in our politics, these numbers are not encouraging that
30:38
Speaker 3: people are smart enough to just tell them no and
30:40
Speaker 3: slam the door back in their face.
30:41
Speaker 5: No and I'm happy to blame the public to some extent,
30:44
Speaker 5: but I think we have a cost of politicians, and
30:48
Speaker 5: this includes some on the right who are repeatedly and
30:53
Speaker 5: in many cases cynically telling people things that aren't true. Now,
30:58
Speaker 5: of course, that's always been the case to some extent.
31:01
Speaker 5: But the problems that this country faces are real and complex,
31:08
Speaker 5: but they are largely not the problems that the politicians describe.
31:12
Speaker 5: One example of this would be social security. We're not
31:17
Speaker 5: running out of money in social security because we spend
31:20
Speaker 5: too much on defense. Defense is about sixteen percent of
31:23
Speaker 5: the budget at the federal level. People are not struggling
31:28
Speaker 5: with increasing prices thanks to years of inflation because billionaires
31:33
Speaker 5: exist and the issue on the supply side of the
31:37
Speaker 5: economy cannot be solved with government imposing price controls. And
31:43
Speaker 5: the fact that we now have so many people in
31:47
Speaker 5: positions of influence and authority telling people otherwise is a
31:51
Speaker 5: huge issue. It's also an issue that will spiral because
31:57
Speaker 5: if politicians say that, and then people believe that, then
31:59
Speaker 5: people are more like to reward the politicians who say that,
32:02
Speaker 5: And I don't quite know how you get out of this.
32:06
Speaker 5: So this is a big problem. But It's a problem
32:09
Speaker 5: that has both a supply side and a demand side,
32:13
Speaker 5: cause there's very few people at the moment who are
32:18
Speaker 5: willing to tell the public the truth. And I don't
32:21
Speaker 5: mean when I say the truth what I Charles Cook
32:24
Speaker 5: thinks is best. Of course, I want my politics to prevail,
32:28
Speaker 5: but I'm talking about things that are just factually untrue,
32:33
Speaker 5: like the issue with the federal budget, like what you
32:39
Speaker 5: could do if you did raise taxes on very rich people.
32:44
Speaker 5: You know, these are math questions, back to our third topic,
32:48
Speaker 5: and we just don't talk about them properly. As a country.
32:50
Speaker 5: We will not honestly engage with these questions. And so
32:54
Speaker 5: we live in this fantasy land. And this is just
32:57
Speaker 5: another of those fantasies that if you allowed the government
33:00
Speaker 5: to tell you. I don't know what they want, price
33:01
Speaker 5: controls on airplanes, bananas, But whatever it was that they're
33:05
Speaker 5: suggesting that it would work, it won't work. It will
33:09
Speaker 5: either do nothing or more likely, it will make the
33:11
Speaker 5: problem worse.
33:12
Speaker 3: That's the last call of the week for the Three
33:14
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33:17
Speaker 3: through Friday. Also, please leave us a review.
33:19
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33:23
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33:26
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33:37
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33:39
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