Latest / The Rita Panahi Show / The Rita Panahi Show | 6 October

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The Rita Panahi Show | 6 October · The Rita Panahi Show

0:02
Speaker 1: Starting right now, The Rita Panahy Show.
0:07
Speaker 2: Good evening and welcome to The Rita Panahy Show. I'm
0:10
Speaker 2: James Morrow filling in for Rita. Here's what's coming up tonight.
0:14
Speaker 2: Jim Chalmers' budget. Well, the backlash is now so bad
0:18
Speaker 2: that Treasury is on the hunt for leakers in the department.
0:23
Speaker 2: But there's just one problem. The crackdown memo has been
0:26
Speaker 2: leaked as well. What an absolute shambles. Plus, could government-owned
0:32
Speaker 2: supermarkets actually make your groceries cheaper? The Greens reckon they can,
0:37
Speaker 2: but will my panel buy it? I don't think so.
0:41
Speaker 2: And a former aide to Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed
0:45
Speaker 2: has gone public with an extraordinary insight into the nominee's character,
0:50
Speaker 2: including some truly bizarre claims that I might say are
0:54
Speaker 2: a little on the nose. And finally, Brazil, well, their
0:58
Speaker 2: swing right in the first round of the presidential election.
1:01
Speaker 2: Is this the latest sign of a conservative comeback sweeping
1:05
Speaker 2: South America? Oh, and we haven't forgotten lefties losing it.
1:09
Speaker 2: Why is this man ranting? Is he okay? We're going
1:25
Speaker 2: to find out on another edition of Lefties Losing It.
1:29
Speaker 2: But meanwhile, the coalition is vowing to make deep, deep
1:34
Speaker 2: cuts to migration numbers, deeper than One Nation, as it
1:37
Speaker 2: attempts to fend off the surging not-so-minor party. The opposition
1:42
Speaker 2: will cut net overseas migration, if elected, they say, to
1:46
Speaker 2: just 100,000 people a year in the first two years
1:49
Speaker 2: of a coalition government before letting it drift out to
1:53
Speaker 2: 160,000 after that.
1:55
Speaker 3: Australia is a great immigrant nation. But Labor has lost
2:01
Speaker 3: control of our borders and has lost control of our
2:06
Speaker 3: immigration policy in this country. Under Labor, the numbers... are
2:11
Speaker 3: too high and the standards are too low. And from
2:14
Speaker 3: the moment I came into this job, I've said both
2:18
Speaker 3: must change.
2:20
Speaker 2: Now these figures are well below Labor's target of 225,000
2:23
Speaker 2: and 30,000 less even than One Nation's. migration targets. The
2:30
Speaker 2: opposition has been accused of not only copying One Nation's homework,
2:33
Speaker 2: but trying to beat Pauline Hanson at her own game.
2:37
Speaker 2: Immigration has, of course, been Senator Hanson's big cause for
2:40
Speaker 2: many decades, and the coalition has once again been caught
2:44
Speaker 2: desperately trying to catch up. The difference, of course, which
2:47
Speaker 2: voters see, is that Pauline Hanson, unlike the coalition, hasn't
2:51
Speaker 2: changed her position over the years. The Liberal Party has,
2:55
Speaker 2: but and quite significantly. Meanwhile, Barnaby Joyce made a good
2:59
Speaker 2: point this morning. Take a listen.
3:02
Speaker 4: Look, I don't want to really rubbish them. I'm really
3:04
Speaker 4: happy that One Nation are moving the agenda, and that's
3:07
Speaker 4: why they're all heading off in this direction. It's One
3:09
Speaker 4: Nation that's doing this. One Nation has, with six people
3:12
Speaker 4: in the parliament, is having a great effect on policy
3:15
Speaker 4: structure in Australia, and I'm happy about that. And if
3:18
Speaker 4: the coalition are moving in our direction, then I congratulate
3:22
Speaker 4: them on that. But let's call for what is, why
3:24
Speaker 4: they're doing it. It's because we're there.
3:27
Speaker 2: And that was Barnaby Joyce on 2GB with Ben Fordham
3:30
Speaker 2: this morning. And I think he's right, because even if
3:32
Speaker 2: one nation doesn't form government, it does serve a purpose.
3:35
Speaker 2: It's setting the agenda and forcing our major parties to
3:39
Speaker 2: act on something a majority of Australians are concerned about,
3:44
Speaker 2: mass migration. I'd call that democracy in action. Now, to
3:48
Speaker 2: discuss this, joining me now is One Nation Victoria's deputy,
3:53
Speaker 2: newly announced deputy leader Colleen Harkin and News Corp senior
3:57
Speaker 2: writer Patrick Carlyon. Colleen, first of all, to you, congratulations
4:02
Speaker 2: on your new role as deputy leader. I know this
4:06
Speaker 2: is a national issue, not a state one, but does
4:10
Speaker 2: this smack of a bit of desperation to you?
4:15
Speaker 5: Thank you for that. But I mean, even though it's
4:17
Speaker 5: a national and a federal issue, it impacts on every state.
4:19
Speaker 5: It's not like once you cross the border, these issues
4:22
Speaker 5: fall away. One Nation has had this position for decades.
4:26
Speaker 5: And yes, it does smack of desperation. One Nation has
4:30
Speaker 5: been leading the argument and the conversation about mass immigration
4:34
Speaker 5: for a very long time. And both Labor and Liberal
4:37
Speaker 5: have been dragged, you know, squealing into the conversation. And
4:41
Speaker 5: if you look at the Liberal Party figures, immediately they
4:44
Speaker 5: are lower, but they still go back to 160,000 after that.
4:49
Speaker 5: And they still have their policy tethered to housing, build
4:52
Speaker 5: more houses, bring more people in. So, you know, we
4:55
Speaker 5: still have the position that we have a net negative
4:57
Speaker 5: migration for a couple of years and then capped at 130,000.
5:01
Speaker 5: We have a huge problem with the number of people
5:04
Speaker 5: who are being brought into the country quickly. It has
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Speaker 5: a huge impact on housing, on infrastructure. schools, hospitals, everything
5:13
Speaker 5: about it. So I'm with Barnaby. I'm very pleased that
5:16
Speaker 5: One Nation's leading the argument.
5:18
Speaker 2: And, Patrick, I want to ask you about what do
5:20
Speaker 2: you reckon the internal conversations within the coalition were about this?
5:25
Speaker 2: Because it's taken them an awful long time to land
5:28
Speaker 2: on a number. Do you reckon that this has been
5:31
Speaker 2: the result of an awful lot of push and pull
5:33
Speaker 2: between the Angus Taylor's leadership and a moderate faction within...
5:38
Speaker 2: that party that are very committed to a much bigger
5:41
Speaker 2: immigration program and would make a lot of trouble for
5:45
Speaker 2: a coalition government in power were they to actually try
5:48
Speaker 2: and implement these numbers. Absolutely.
5:51
Speaker 6: Look, I think, I'm only guessing here, but I'm sure
5:54
Speaker 6: there was a lot of discussion after both One Nation
5:56
Speaker 6: and the ALP released their policies. There was a lot
6:00
Speaker 6: of criticism in both cases and the Liberals have gone
6:02
Speaker 6: off and I'm sure factored in all that criticism, you know,
6:05
Speaker 6: from business groups and from agriculture and so on about
6:09
Speaker 6: the effects of this. I think the big question, James,
6:14
Speaker 6: is is anyone listening to the Liberals at the moment?
6:17
Speaker 6: Their vote is so low at at this point in time?
6:21
Speaker 6: People have turned off, women have turned off, the suburbs
6:24
Speaker 6: have turned off the Liberals. Will this be a point
6:26
Speaker 6: of difference that actually registers in the electorate? I think
6:30
Speaker 6: that's the big question, and we will see it in
6:32
Speaker 6: coming days and weeks.
6:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if it's going to be one of
6:35
Speaker 2: those things where they make a big splash about it
6:37
Speaker 2: and then move on to the next thing because they
6:39
Speaker 2: want to get a number out there and then they're
6:41
Speaker 2: going to move on. But let's talk also about economics
6:45
Speaker 2: and the current state of our economy. Well, Our economics
6:48
Speaker 2: whiz of a treasurer, he's pouring cash into the economy
6:51
Speaker 2: at a rate of knots, but swears blind that his
6:54
Speaker 2: government isn't fueling inflation. But it's now been revealed that
6:58
Speaker 2: federal government spending under Dr. Chalmers, and remember, he has
7:02
Speaker 2: a doctorate in Keatingology, not economics, has grown more than
7:06
Speaker 2: twice as fast as forecast this past financial year. Colleen,
7:12
Speaker 2: I want to start with you here. Australians have tightened
7:14
Speaker 2: their belts quite a bit and have been forced to
7:16
Speaker 2: also by interest rates and inflation here. Where does Jim
7:21
Speaker 2: Chalmers get off thinking that he's not spending like there's
7:26
Speaker 2: no tomorrow? Is this a case of, you know, who
7:28
Speaker 2: are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
7:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, look, I mean, it is extraordinary. you know, anybody
7:35
Speaker 5: can deliver, anybody can say whatever numbers they want on
7:38
Speaker 5: a budget, but you have to actually be able to
7:40
Speaker 5: deliver it. And that's exactly what he's not done. And
7:44
Speaker 5: to just dismiss the impact that his budget has on
7:47
Speaker 5: the economy is, you know, really outrageous. And this is
7:51
Speaker 5: not like a rounding issue. This is not a small
7:54
Speaker 5: kind of error in the figures. This is double, you know,
7:58
Speaker 5: double the figures that they were predicting. So there is,
8:00
Speaker 5: and we've got three and a half thousand people in Treasury.
8:03
Speaker 5: I don't know what those three and a half thousand
8:05
Speaker 5: people do when they get it so wrong.
8:08
Speaker 2: And Patrick, you know, one of the interesting things here
8:10
Speaker 2: about this is that Labor, of course, says they're the
8:13
Speaker 2: party of government. They're proud of it. They're proud of spending.
8:16
Speaker 2: So it sends a very mixed message. You would think
8:19
Speaker 2: Perhaps they might even make a case, say, well, look,
8:21
Speaker 2: our spending is actually about supporting people and so on,
8:24
Speaker 2: but they can't even own the philosophy behind it. That's right.
8:29
Speaker 6: And look, we're looking at deficits for the next decade
8:32
Speaker 6: or longer at the moment. We've got high interest rates.
8:35
Speaker 6: They're going to keep going up, probably. We've got high inflation.
8:39
Speaker 6: We've got low productivity. And we've got a treasurer who
8:43
Speaker 6: is now being described as the highest taxing treasurer in
8:45
Speaker 6: our history. There is one solution to all those problems,
8:48
Speaker 6: and that is to reduce government spending. And to suggest
8:51
Speaker 6: that otherwise is at odds with what everybody else is saying.
8:55
Speaker 6: This government really is alone in claiming they're blaming the
9:00
Speaker 6: war in Iraq or whatever. It's about government spending. And
9:03
Speaker 6: I think people are waking up. I think ordinary people
9:05
Speaker 6: are waking up to that.
9:06
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, look, I think there is a real sort
9:10
Speaker 2: of sudden economics lesson that everybody is being forced to
9:12
Speaker 2: take at the moment because of it. But even worse
9:15
Speaker 2: than labor right now, well, they're the Greens. I love
9:19
Speaker 2: this story. They have now decided that they are going
9:24
Speaker 2: to start talking about finance. publicly owned supermarkets, according to
9:29
Speaker 2: the Greens think tank. They want to force Kohl's and Woolworths,
9:33
Speaker 2: I love this, to sell 200 supermarkets and convert them
9:37
Speaker 2: into public grocery stores. Colleen, I am sitting here and
9:42
Speaker 2: I'm sort of humming the Soviet national anthem in the
9:45
Speaker 2: back of my head as I think about this.
9:48
Speaker 7: What could go wrong?
9:51
Speaker 5: No, nothing.
9:52
Speaker 7: Nothing at all.
9:53
Speaker 5: Look, this is, you know, it is outrageous. It is
9:56
Speaker 5: Socialism 101. It's $ 25 billion of our money that they
10:02
Speaker 5: want to spend to then subsidise an industry and then
10:05
Speaker 5: tell us that it's cheaper. I mean, it's just ridiculous.
10:08
Speaker 5: The other component of this is they seem to be
10:10
Speaker 5: stealing the idea from Mandani in New York, who hasn't
10:14
Speaker 5: done it once yet, and even when they do do
10:17
Speaker 5: it or when they do attempt to get it off
10:19
Speaker 5: the ground, they're still going to use private enterprise to
10:21
Speaker 5: run those five grocery stores. So, you know, this is
10:25
Speaker 5: just typically of the ideology of the left that they
10:28
Speaker 5: think that socialism solves everything. It never has before and
10:32
Speaker 5: it won't in the future either. It's the redistribution of wealth,
10:35
Speaker 5: and it should be completely shot down and laughed at
10:38
Speaker 5: because it's ridiculous.
10:39
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I'm thinking, you know, Patrick, if Labor
10:43
Speaker 2: were to stay in power, which thankfully I don't think
10:45
Speaker 2: they will in Victoria, you would see sort of these
10:47
Speaker 2: Greens bread lines like in the old Moscow during the
10:51
Speaker 2: Cold War. But there's an interesting political point here too, though.
10:54
Speaker 2: You know, they seem to be, and I'd love your
10:56
Speaker 2: thoughts on this, trying to make a scapegoat of the supermarkets,
11:00
Speaker 2: which do run on very thin margins for inflation, when again,
11:05
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's the Greens or it's Labour, it's
11:07
Speaker 2: big state intervention that's making everything so difficult in this economy.
11:15
Speaker 6: Look, I want to know how you explain to Coles
11:17
Speaker 6: and Woolworths shareholders that 200 of their supermarkets are going
11:22
Speaker 6: to be forcibly acquired for a scheme that, as Colleen
11:26
Speaker 6: was saying, hasn't been tested in New York, may not work,
11:30
Speaker 6: and is demonstrably socialism writ large. I mean, it's a
11:35
Speaker 6: dreadful idea.
11:38
Speaker 6: Of its conception, it just can't work. Everyone wants to
11:41
Speaker 6: see lower prices. I don't think Coles or Woolworths are
11:44
Speaker 6: particularly popular out there in the community. The prices do
11:47
Speaker 6: seem to go up and they are the front line
11:49
Speaker 6: of inflation. But to do this, as Colleen was saying,
11:53
Speaker 6: is completely ludicrous.
11:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, it may not have been tried
11:56
Speaker 2: in Mamdani's New York, but it's been tried in East
11:58
Speaker 2: Germany and the Soviet Union. And, you know, I just
12:02
Speaker 2: somehow don't think, you know, we need this sort of
12:04
Speaker 2: Moscow on the Yarra situation here. But anyway, let's move
12:07
Speaker 2: on here. Colleen, I want to ask you about this
12:10
Speaker 2: particularly because One Nation has announced a policy that to
12:14
Speaker 2: ban all face coverings from classrooms right across the country. Now,
12:19
Speaker 2: of course, we know what this means here. All students,
12:21
Speaker 2: whether it's state, Islamic, Catholic or private schools, must have
12:25
Speaker 2: their face visible, according to the policy. The party's education spokesperson,
12:30
Speaker 2: who you happen to be here with me, you said
12:33
Speaker 2: that this means no burkas, kneecaps or other full face
12:36
Speaker 2: coverings in the school. It's a civil requirement that when
12:40
Speaker 2: a student walks to the school gate, teachers and fellow
12:42
Speaker 2: students can see Who are they speaking to? Barnaby Joyce
12:46
Speaker 2: also talked about this on 2GB this morning.
12:49
Speaker 4: It's not just Australia. There's about 50 countries in the
12:51
Speaker 4: world that have gone down this path. We need to
12:54
Speaker 4: make sure that we... Australia has an egalitarian culture. It's
12:58
Speaker 4: supported very much across the board, and we want to
13:02
Speaker 4: maintain that. It's incredibly important that we get a sort
13:05
Speaker 4: of a harmonious process in Australia. We have to concentrate
13:09
Speaker 4: on having a harmonious nation... because unfortunately we've been afflicted
13:12
Speaker 4: with some major issues and they have to be dealt with.
13:16
Speaker 4: And they cannot be dealt with lightly. They have to
13:18
Speaker 4: be dealt with in a more stringent form.
13:21
Speaker 2: Colleen, I'm pretty interested in this policy here. Why do
13:25
Speaker 2: you think that this is particularly an issue right now?
13:31
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, it's like everything else, that over a
13:34
Speaker 5: period of time people tolerate things and realise that perhaps
13:37
Speaker 5: that wasn't such a great idea and that then you
13:39
Speaker 5: have to actually work harder to get it back to
13:42
Speaker 5: where it was or where you want to be going
13:43
Speaker 5: in the future. Social cohesion is incredibly important for our communities,
13:48
Speaker 5: but also more particularly right now is it for boys
13:51
Speaker 5: and girls to grow up knowing that they have equal
13:54
Speaker 5: standing in Australian culture. And that's not negotiable. And learning
13:58
Speaker 5: those sorts of things starts in school where you learn
14:02
Speaker 5: to socialise with, you know, if you're a female, you
14:05
Speaker 5: learn to socialise with the boys, have conversations, make friendships,
14:08
Speaker 5: all of those sorts of things that we have in
14:10
Speaker 5: the past taken for granted and are not necessarily agreed
14:14
Speaker 5: to by all different cultures. And this goes back to
14:17
Speaker 5: the issue of who are we as a country, what
14:19
Speaker 5: do we value and what do we want to make
14:20
Speaker 5: sure that children inherit? And so one of the key
14:24
Speaker 5: features of this is the equal standing of females. And that,
14:27
Speaker 5: as I said, is not negotiable.
14:29
Speaker 2: And Patrick, you know, one of the interesting things about
14:31
Speaker 2: this sort of policy is that many of the countries
14:35
Speaker 2: that have imposed this sort of ban are actually Islamic countries.
14:40
Speaker 2: That's right.
14:41
Speaker 6: And look, a lot of European countries, and as Colleen
14:44
Speaker 6: was saying, this goes back decades. These countries put bans
14:48
Speaker 6: on burqas in certain contexts going back to the 1980s
14:50
Speaker 6: and the 1990s. They're not controversial decisions. And it is
14:56
Speaker 6: very interesting, as you point out, a lot of Muslim
14:58
Speaker 6: countries have embraced it as well. It is a symbol
15:02
Speaker 6: of oppression, let's be honest. It's religious oppression. Genesis is
15:07
Speaker 6: sort of questionable. It is about equality and making sure
15:12
Speaker 6: that that can't this kind of oppression can't continue is
15:16
Speaker 6: really critical. I don't think you're going to get a
15:18
Speaker 6: lot of people pushing back on this, to be honest.
15:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, I think you're right. Hey, I just
15:22
Speaker 2: want to just quickly touch on one last story here.
15:25
Speaker 2: This is a very important story here in Sydney in
15:27
Speaker 2: New South Wales. A former army general has joined the
15:30
Speaker 2: growing call from a number of corners, including the Labor
15:34
Speaker 2: state government, urging the federal government... not to sell off
15:39
Speaker 2: Sydney's historic Victoria Barracks. Colleen, let's start with you on
15:43
Speaker 2: this here. It just seems appalling to me that this
15:46
Speaker 2: incredible asset is being put on the chopping block by
15:51
Speaker 2: a government that doesn't seem to understand anything about, A,
15:54
Speaker 2: what it represents, and, B, why it's still useful today.
15:58
Speaker 7: Yeah, look, what I.
16:00
Speaker 5: Find interesting about this is the sort of cavalier dismissal
16:05
Speaker 5: of this asset. It seems to me like a really
16:09
Speaker 5: quick cash grab for the $ 1. 8 billion that apparently it's worth.
16:13
Speaker 5: But it is a working facility and people in the
16:16
Speaker 5: military who know what it is used for have said
16:18
Speaker 5: that it is strategically important locality. So I don't understand
16:23
Speaker 5: how people in the government whose position it is who
16:25
Speaker 5: keep telling us that these are dangerous times are not
16:29
Speaker 5: looking a little bit further down the track to listen
16:31
Speaker 5: to the military who are saying we need these facilities
16:34
Speaker 5: in these locations. It just seems to me like they
16:36
Speaker 5: just want the money and toss it aside for something else.
16:40
Speaker 2: It's just shocking to me. We're going to leave it there, guys.
16:42
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Colleen Harkin and Patrick Carlyle. Thank
16:45
Speaker 2: you so much. Well, we all know Treasurer Jim Chalmers
16:51
Speaker 2: has botched the budget, but how bad does it have
16:54
Speaker 2: to be for the Treasury Secretary to send a missive
16:57
Speaker 2: to staff demanding her officials dob in anyone suspected of
17:02
Speaker 2: leaking bad news about it? Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson is
17:07
Speaker 2: pursuing an internal crackdown on staff as scrutiny on Jim
17:11
Speaker 2: Chalmers and the department's handling of the budget's controversial tax
17:15
Speaker 2: hikes still keeps going on. The irony is this memo
17:20
Speaker 2: itself has been leaked to the media. To talk about this,
17:24
Speaker 2: let's bring in EQ Economics Managing Director Warren Hogan. Warren,
17:29
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me here. I think
17:32
Speaker 2: it's quite extraordinary, this, isn't it, that suggests to me
17:36
Speaker 2: that there's a bit of tension between the government and
17:39
Speaker 2: the department over this dog of a budget, which we
17:42
Speaker 2: are still suffering through.
17:43
Speaker 8: Yeah, good evening, James. Yeah, I think there is certainly
17:47
Speaker 8: some tension there, but I'd say there's tension within the
17:50
Speaker 8: Treasury as well.
17:52
Speaker 9: And it's not clear.
17:53
Speaker 8: whether or not there's any political motivations on the part
17:56
Speaker 8: of Treasury staff, but I think it does speak to
17:58
Speaker 8: the fact that this was rushed. There are concerns from
18:02
Speaker 8: Treasury officials about that fact and the fact that it's
18:05
Speaker 8: not making the institution look good in the broader public's eyes.
18:09
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, we saw all of that controversy
18:11
Speaker 2: over whether or not they even did modeling for various things,
18:15
Speaker 2: whether that modeling was correct, and the failure to release it.
18:20
Speaker 2: Are you saying here that Treasury fears that it's being
18:22
Speaker 2: tarred with the brush of Jim Chalmers and the government's
18:27
Speaker 2: own sort of failure to do their own due diligence
18:29
Speaker 2: around the consequences of many of their measures?
18:33
Speaker 8: Look, I think that's right. I mean, in the end,
18:36
Speaker 8: the government bureaucracy and the various departments working for the
18:42
Speaker 8: government of the day. But by the same token, they
18:45
Speaker 8: have a responsibility to inform our political leaders of due
18:49
Speaker 8: process and, you know, when there's a bad idea to
18:52
Speaker 8: make sure they understand it's a bad idea. And of course,
18:55
Speaker 8: these lines get blurred. And we know that for economic policy,
18:59
Speaker 8: the credibility of the institutions and the leaders of those institutions,
19:03
Speaker 8: whether it be the RBA, the Treasury, is critically important.
19:07
Speaker 8: And unfortunately, in this country and others, we are seeing
19:11
Speaker 8: that credibility being eroded away. And of course, our Treasury
19:14
Speaker 8: once had a very high position of credibility in our
19:17
Speaker 8: community some decades ago.
19:19
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, once upon a time. But, you know, it's
19:22
Speaker 2: really interesting here how, meanwhile, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, keeps
19:26
Speaker 2: trying to spin things, not just blaming, you know, the
19:30
Speaker 2: war in Iran or whatever. The wind was blowing the
19:33
Speaker 2: wrong way for all of his failures in this regard. But,
19:38
Speaker 2: you know, this weekend he was telling us that spending
19:41
Speaker 2: is not causing any inflation problems. Have a look at this.
19:45
Speaker 8: There are a whole range of factors at play here.
19:48
Speaker 3: Budget settings are not the primary driver of prices in
19:51
Speaker 3: our economy.
19:52
Speaker 9: There's a whole bunch of other things going on.
19:54
Speaker 2: Now, I'm sorry, Warren. We now know analysis shows that
19:58
Speaker 2: spending has been double, growing at a double speed from
20:02
Speaker 2: the previous government. How can you say this with a
20:05
Speaker 2: straight face?
20:06
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, obviously there's skills politicians need and our Treasurer
20:12
Speaker 8: has them, but it's this problem with credibility, I think,
20:16
Speaker 8: that we're talking to here, and that is the Australian
20:19
Speaker 8: people are only going to give you the benefit of
20:23
Speaker 8: the doubt for so long. And the problem the Treasurer
20:26
Speaker 8: has got is, unlike, say, a year ago or two
20:29
Speaker 8: years ago, the broad consensus of mainstream economists are saying
20:34
Speaker 8: government spending is a core issue. reason we have a
20:37
Speaker 8: persistent inflation problem different to other countries. And then pushing
20:41
Speaker 8: back on that just doesn't gel well. I think, you know,
20:45
Speaker 8: a year or two ago, when there was a smaller
20:46
Speaker 8: group of us calling it out, they could do that.
20:49
Speaker 8: And there was ambiguity, but not now. And I think
20:51
Speaker 8: that was the political misjudgment last week. And of course,
20:55
Speaker 8: it just doesn't look good for, again, the credibility of
20:58
Speaker 8: not just the Treasury himself, but the Treasury and the government.
21:01
Speaker 2: Indeed. And I mean, so then you've got the mid-year
21:04
Speaker 2: economic review or forecast coming out later this year, updates, sorry,
21:09
Speaker 2: the updates coming up. Are we expecting that there's any
21:14
Speaker 2: place that Chalmers will actually be able to manage to
21:17
Speaker 2: do an actual cut here? Because I'm also concerned that,
21:20
Speaker 2: you know, servicing the interest on this debt gives them
21:23
Speaker 2: less and less room to move.
21:26
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, the debt issue is getting really problematic around
21:29
Speaker 8: the world with this rise in long-term interest rates that's happening.
21:33
Speaker 8: We've seen a major sell-off in global bond markets led
21:36
Speaker 8: by the US, but all over Europe and ourselves. And
21:39
Speaker 8: the cost of every dollar of government debt is going
21:42
Speaker 8: up every year. Look, in terms of cuts, I can't
21:46
Speaker 8: see anything remotely resembling the magnitudes or the conviction that
21:50
Speaker 8: we need. We need a 10% plus cut in recurrent
21:54
Speaker 8: government spending. And there is no way this government has
21:56
Speaker 8: that within them, especially in a mini budget or a
21:59
Speaker 8: mid-year update. And of course, again, the credibility issue. This
22:03
Speaker 8: is a government where a number of their senior ministers
22:05
Speaker 8: have talked about how much cutting they've done. but not
22:08
Speaker 8: also talked about new spending, which means the net effect
22:12
Speaker 8: was either zero or actually a net spending. So, you know,
22:15
Speaker 8: it's all too tricky by half. And I think they've
22:18
Speaker 8: sort of blown their credibility.
22:20
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, they've blown their credibility. But, you know, you
22:22
Speaker 2: talk about this need for a massive 10%, say, I
22:26
Speaker 2: think that's probably even conservative cut to recurring spending. But
22:30
Speaker 2: The politics of it are, of course, really, really vexed.
22:33
Speaker 2: Do you think, though, that with the rise of One
22:36
Speaker 2: Nation and people now being furious about feeling like, even
22:39
Speaker 2: if they don't quite understand why, but feeling like we
22:42
Speaker 2: are getting poorer, both individually as a nation, that there
22:46
Speaker 2: is going to be some appetite now for them to
22:49
Speaker 2: bite the bullet, potentially, and say, we have to reform
22:53
Speaker 2: in the same way that some other labor governments have?
22:58
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, we know that Paul Keating post-Banana Republic speech
23:01
Speaker 8: did some serious cutting, but that was measured at around 1%
23:05
Speaker 8: a year or thereabouts. So we're talking about something we've
23:09
Speaker 8: never seen in this country before. And I don't know
23:12
Speaker 8: that One Nation is going to get anywhere near that.
23:15
Speaker 8: They do have a few parts of government that are
23:17
Speaker 8: on the chopping block in their policy program, but they've
23:19
Speaker 8: also got a lot of spending. We need no new spending.
23:23
Speaker 8: and a lot of cutting. Now that's both public service,
23:26
Speaker 8: but really it's the care economy. And I can't see
23:29
Speaker 8: us getting to a point of a substantive fundamental reform
23:33
Speaker 8: of all of those programs without a Royal Commission, because
23:36
Speaker 8: it needs to be independent of the political process. Everyone's
23:38
Speaker 8: had a role to play. And although One Nation, the
23:41
Speaker 8: new kid on the block, could potentially do it. I
23:44
Speaker 8: just don't think they're going to have the wherewithal to
23:46
Speaker 8: do this sort of a cut, given their populist policy programs.
23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, I worry that you're right. Warren Hogan,
23:52
Speaker 2: wouldn't have to leave it there. Thank you so much,
23:54
Speaker 2: as always, for being one of the great straight shooters
23:56
Speaker 2: in economics. Thank you. Thanks, James. Still to come, lefties
24:02
Speaker 2: losing it, plus President Trump signs off on executive order
24:05
Speaker 2: at the Nebraska midterm campaign rally. We'll discuss all that
24:09
Speaker 2: with Kosha Gada up next. Now it's time for Lefties
24:20
Speaker 2: Losing It, and let's see who's having a normal one
24:22
Speaker 2: in the world of TDS-suffering Hollywood celebrities, courtesy of a
24:27
Speaker 2: new video just dropped on the official Democrat Party X account,
24:31
Speaker 2: shall we?
24:32
Speaker 10: The President of the United States is lying!
24:37
Speaker 6: His whole administration has completely lost it!
24:46
Speaker 8: Give us another chance or give us another couple years.
24:50
Speaker 2: Well, they're having a normal one. And by the way,
24:53
Speaker 2: if you didn't work it out, that fellow who looked
24:55
Speaker 2: like an early 2020s J.D. Vance was actually Hollywood heartthrob
25:00
Speaker 2: Leonardo DiCaprio. How the mighty have fallen. Meanwhile, singer Hayley Williams,
25:06
Speaker 2: don't worry, I hadn't heard of her either, has wooed
25:09
Speaker 2: fans with this rant about Christian nationalism.
25:19
Speaker 9: The greatest threat to American democracy is Christian nationalism.
25:27
Speaker 2: Hey, that's really catchy. You can really dance to that. But,
25:30
Speaker 2: you know, I feel like these videos, videos like these
25:33
Speaker 2: are simply reflecting a bit of, well, a sense of
25:37
Speaker 2: worry on the left that despite the polls and the
25:41
Speaker 2: massive push by the mainstream media to get them over
25:43
Speaker 2: the line in the midterm elections, I suspect they think
25:46
Speaker 2: Republicans may do better than predicted. Why do I say that? Well,
25:51
Speaker 2: just look at this ad from Republican Tom Tiffany running
25:55
Speaker 2: for governor of Wisconsin, absolutely nuking his Democratic opponent for
26:02
Speaker 2: being an accomplice to illegal migrations.
26:06
Speaker 11: And when it comes down to the immigrants, I'm not
26:07
Speaker 11: an ally. I'm an accomplice.
26:09
Speaker 10: I'm going to be with you no matter what.
26:11
Speaker 1: In Dane County, a repeat drunk driver and illegal immigrant
26:15
Speaker 1: killed two teenagers.
26:16
Speaker 3: I'm an accomplice.
26:17
Speaker 1: In Fond du Lac, an illegal tied up and blindfolded
26:21
Speaker 1: a 12-year-old girl to rape her.
26:23
Speaker 11: I'm an accomplice.
26:24
Speaker 1: In Milwaukee, a drunk illegal immigrant killed a special Olympian
26:28
Speaker 1: on his way to church.
26:29
Speaker 10: I'm an accomplice.
26:31
Speaker 1: David Crowley stands with illegal immigrants, not you.
26:34
Speaker 11: No matter what.
26:37
Speaker 2: Wow, that is an ad and a bit of shades
26:40
Speaker 2: of Willie Horton for all the history buffs out there. Meanwhile,
26:44
Speaker 2: Trump is still out there giving it to the fake
26:46
Speaker 2: news media.
26:48
Speaker 12: Your whole outfit is fake and so are you.
26:50
Speaker 2: Which may be why these young Florida Democrats are so, well, unhinged.
26:55
Speaker 1: Trump!
26:55
Speaker 9: Trump is a Trump!
26:56
Speaker 1: Trump is a Trump!
26:58
Speaker 9: Trump is a Trump! Trump is a Trump!
27:04
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, speaking of ads, back here in Australia, specifically Victoria,
27:08
Speaker 2: One Nation has just dropped this absolute banger of an
27:12
Speaker 2: ad online.
27:17
Speaker 5: Can you pass the nutritional yeast?
27:22
Speaker 7: Nathan, what's wrong?
27:23
Speaker 4: You've barely touched your vegan mung beans.
27:28
Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. Mum, Dad, I have something
27:34
Speaker 1: to tell you. I'm conservative. Nathan, me too.
27:44
Speaker 7: I always have been.
27:46
Speaker 1: I've loved her for 30 years.
27:49
Speaker 8: Oh, thank God.
27:51
Speaker 9: I voted no.
27:53
Speaker 10: I don't want to be a little girl anymore.
27:56
Speaker 3: We should defund the ABC.
27:58
Speaker 11: I'm sick of being biased.
28:00
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be on bail.
28:03
Speaker 12: No more mass migration.
28:05
Speaker 11: I just want cheap power. I shouldn't have been allowed
28:09
Speaker 11: into the country.
28:10
Speaker 1: I just wish money went to people on the basis
28:12
Speaker 1: of need, not identity. What are we doing? Pauline Hanson's
28:20
Speaker 1: been right all along.
28:21
Speaker 9: Yeah! I love One Nation!
28:26
Speaker 4: We love Australia!
28:35
Speaker 2: With ads like that, is it any wonder Labour wants
28:38
Speaker 2: to control the internet? Because that's going to make a
28:40
Speaker 2: few lefties, what's the phrase I'm looking for? Lose it.
28:44
Speaker 9: It's one of the most despicable things that our current
28:46
Speaker 9: government does. They put people People have not committed any crimes.
28:52
Speaker 2: They are immigrants.
28:54
Speaker 9: They deport them or they put them, they detain them
28:58
Speaker 9: and deport them in conditions that are unimaginable. And we
29:03
Speaker 9: saw families coming out here who have just visited their
29:07
Speaker 9: loved ones. These immigrants want what my grandparents wanted when
29:12
Speaker 9: they came to America, a better life. They work hard.
29:16
Speaker 9: They play by the rules. They should not be detained
29:20
Speaker 9: or deported because we have a broken immigration system. We
29:23
Speaker 9: should fix the immigration system. But the cruelty of this
29:27
Speaker 9: government right now is terrible.
29:32
Speaker 2: Moving on, US President Donald Trump is on the campaign trail,
29:36
Speaker 2: barnstorming the country on behalf of congressional candidates facing off
29:40
Speaker 2: with Democrats at those aforementioned upcoming midterms. Earlier today, he
29:45
Speaker 2: spoke in Nebraska and signed an executive order letting anyone
29:49
Speaker 2: buy tax-free diesel fuel.
29:53
Speaker 12: So tonight, right, these guys know exactly what I'm talking about.
29:56
Speaker 9: They're going to be very happy in about two seconds.
29:59
Speaker 12: So tonight, I'm going to sign a historic executive order
30:02
Speaker 12: to officially waive the off-road requirement and allow anyone to
30:07
Speaker 12: purchase tax-free red-dyed diesel for any reason.
30:13
Speaker 2: Joining me now to discuss this and a whole lot
30:15
Speaker 2: more is commentator Kosha Gada. Kosha, well, he seemed pretty popular,
30:20
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, at that rally in Nebraska. What did you
30:24
Speaker 2: make of the bigger speech? And is there a question
30:27
Speaker 2: of whether or not the fact that he has to
30:29
Speaker 2: be going to Nebraska suggests that they're worried about shoring
30:33
Speaker 2: up the base?
30:37
Speaker 7: Great to be with you, James.
30:38
Speaker 13: It's hard to see that they would not be worried
30:40
Speaker 13: because I think we all are seeing the polling, the
30:43
Speaker 13: RCP average poll of polls has the Democrats retaking the
30:46
Speaker 13: House by about eight points right now. Yes, polls can
30:49
Speaker 13: be wrong. They often undercount Trump supporters, but that's a
30:52
Speaker 13: pretty wide margin. And then you overlay on that what
30:55
Speaker 13: we know about gas prices, hence he mentioned that and
30:59
Speaker 13: that grab over there that you just played, with the
31:01
Speaker 13: war in Iran obviously being quite unpopular and only gaining
31:05
Speaker 13: in unpopularity since he decided to go in and make
31:08
Speaker 13: that decision now six months plus in Iran.
31:11
Speaker 7: So he's aware of it.
31:12
Speaker 13: And that's why, obviously, I do think it's a little
31:14
Speaker 13: bit of a signal that he's going and campaigning. The
31:17
Speaker 13: flip side of that is he is the consummate closer.
31:20
Speaker 13: He knows what his constituents want, cheap energy, things that
31:23
Speaker 13: the agriculture base would support, certainly in Nebraska and the
31:27
Speaker 13: heartland states and all the rest of it. So in
31:29
Speaker 13: this short runway that we have left, we expect to
31:32
Speaker 13: see a lot of campaigning and hopefully Trump staying on
31:34
Speaker 13: message with Democrats. discipline about what it is that his
31:38
Speaker 13: base wants.
31:38
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting, though, isn't it? Because they were signaling
31:41
Speaker 2: long before the Iran war and some of these other
31:46
Speaker 2: current situations, I guess you'd call them, that this was
31:49
Speaker 2: going to be a very presidential style campaign. So it
31:52
Speaker 2: leads me to this next question here is what happens
31:55
Speaker 2: to Republicans, the Republican Party, once Donald Trump isn't there
32:00
Speaker 2: to be, you know, the man, the point man for
32:03
Speaker 2: the party, because people go out and vote for him,
32:06
Speaker 2: but they might not necessarily vote for the generic Republican.
32:11
Speaker 13: That's definitely a big question that is on everybody's mind
32:14
Speaker 13: because he has been on the political stage now for
32:17
Speaker 13: almost a decade. It's hard to even remember what the
32:19
Speaker 13: Republican Party was before him. Romney, Bush, you know, that
32:22
Speaker 13: era feels like from another time. And, you know, of course,
32:26
Speaker 13: at the top of it, we've got the J.D. Vance
32:28
Speaker 13: versus Marco Rubio prognostications that are out there. Maybe there's
32:31
Speaker 13: somebody else that will emerge that nobody's focused on right now.
32:35
Speaker 13: But in general, a healthy party is a party that
32:38
Speaker 13: can withstand past the politics of personality. And that is
32:43
Speaker 13: a big open question in terms of how Trump really
32:45
Speaker 13: took over and remade the party in his image. Will
32:48
Speaker 13: that remain past him? The coalition that he built in
32:51
Speaker 13: this last election was very, very interesting, from young men
32:54
Speaker 13: to the MAGA health people to the crypto people, all
32:57
Speaker 13: of that. And there are questions if that coalition is
33:00
Speaker 13: going to stay or will it fray because, A, maybe
33:04
Speaker 13: not all of them are happy with what they got, and, B,
33:06
Speaker 13: it really was that glue was Trump and he just
33:09
Speaker 13: really is irreplaceable.
33:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, and I do think that with some of
33:11
Speaker 2: those young men in particular, the no foreign wars thing
33:16
Speaker 2: is going to be a bit of a handicap for
33:17
Speaker 2: them moving forward. But I want to move south of
33:20
Speaker 2: the U.S. border now, Kosha, to this fascinating election out
33:24
Speaker 2: of Brazil. Flavio Bolsonaro has won the first round of
33:28
Speaker 2: presidential balloting with a number of members of the family
33:32
Speaker 2: apparently winning seats in parliament. Now, Bolsonaro, of course, is
33:35
Speaker 2: the son of the former president, former conservative president, who
33:39
Speaker 2: was jailed by the far-left government of Lula da Silva.
33:43
Speaker 2: But this is what's really interesting, is that in the
33:45
Speaker 2: last couple of years, we've now seen this wave of
33:49
Speaker 2: conservative governments sweep across Central and South America. Kosha, what
33:53
Speaker 2: do you attribute it to? And do you think it
33:56
Speaker 2: has anything to do with the fact that groups like USAID,
34:00
Speaker 2: which has been cut by Donald Trump, are no longer
34:03
Speaker 2: out there supporting left-wing groups in the hemisphere?
34:09
Speaker 13: The USAID point is definitely a very, very interesting data
34:13
Speaker 13: point that a lot of people have been citing in
34:15
Speaker 13: the last 24 hours after these results and that remarkable
34:18
Speaker 13: election and just the scenes coming out of Brazil, because
34:21
Speaker 13: you can track USAID spending. You can track how much
34:24
Speaker 13: spending went to all these countries and Brazil in particular.
34:28
Speaker 13: And literally the day that that spending got cut and
34:31
Speaker 13: those infamous fights that were happening about that a few
34:35
Speaker 13: months ago, portends what we see here with this right-wing wave.
34:39
Speaker 13: I think also just fundamentally, Latin America is, many of
34:43
Speaker 13: those countries are quite sophisticated. Buenos Aires was one of
34:46
Speaker 13: the richest cities in the world. Argentina, and you can
34:48
Speaker 13: see how in such a short period of time, extreme
34:51
Speaker 13: left-wing communist governance has destroyed them and destroyed that wealth
34:55
Speaker 13: and crime is on the rise and all the rest
34:57
Speaker 13: of it. So at some point, people just want those
34:58
Speaker 13: basic aspects of society to function.
35:01
Speaker 7: And you see that whiplash back.
35:03
Speaker 13: You remove USAID and any untoward heavy-handedness that might have
35:07
Speaker 13: been happening there with funding these groups and all the
35:09
Speaker 13: rest of it.
35:10
Speaker 7: That helps.
35:11
Speaker 13: And then in the case of Bolsonaro in particular, the
35:13
Speaker 13: fact that his wife, his son, and his other son
35:16
Speaker 13: have all taken seats in the Senate, as well as
35:18
Speaker 13: now he's in this runoff against Lula in a couple
35:21
Speaker 13: of weeks, also I think shows that when you try
35:23
Speaker 13: to politically persecute leaders, it has shades of.
35:26
Speaker 7: What happened with Trump back in the US.
35:28
Speaker 13: People don't like it, and I'm sure that's part of
35:30
Speaker 13: it as well, because the Bolsonaros are back with a vengeance.
35:33
Speaker 2: You know, Kosha, just a second ago when you were
35:35
Speaker 2: talking about Argentina and you were talking about a beautiful, mineral-rich,
35:39
Speaker 2: resource-rich economy ruined by socialism, for a second I thought
35:42
Speaker 2: you were going to say Australia, but you meant Argentina. Anyway,
35:45
Speaker 2: let's move on here. I also want to talk about
35:48
Speaker 2: this really bizarre story coming out of Russia, coming out
35:53
Speaker 2: of Siberia. where reportedly hospitals have been locked down and
35:58
Speaker 2: a number of other things are happening after a worker
36:00
Speaker 2: at a biotech lab. Now, the story is they broke
36:04
Speaker 2: a vial of what was said to be pneumatic plague.
36:08
Speaker 2: But it's got people concerned. And here's what Donald Trump
36:11
Speaker 2: had to say a little earlier on this.
36:13
Speaker 12: Even with great advancement, the germs have really become relatively
36:18
Speaker 12: stronger than they were. And things that used to work
36:22
Speaker 12: with pneumonia don't work as well anymore. So we'll help.
36:26
Speaker 12: Anybody that has that kind of a problem, we're always
36:29
Speaker 12: willing to help. We'll help.
36:31
Speaker 2: Now, Russia's acting very cagey about this, and Donald Trump
36:35
Speaker 2: there seems to suggest maybe he knew a little bit
36:37
Speaker 2: more than he was letting on. But should we be
36:40
Speaker 2: concerned that Russia may have been playing with bioweapons here
36:45
Speaker 2: and that one of these things may have accidentally gotten loose?
36:52
Speaker 13: Certainly wouldn't be the first time, and we're all scarred from,
36:55
Speaker 13: as Trump calls it, the Wuhan virus, of course, and
36:57
Speaker 13: we know how that went. So, look, I think we
36:59
Speaker 13: live in this situation this era of multidimensional warfare. There's
37:03
Speaker 13: a kinetic militaristic kind that we all know. There's cyber warfare.
37:07
Speaker 13: And yeah, biological weapons is real. We've had scares from
37:11
Speaker 13: anthrax to Ebola to all these things. And then we've
37:14
Speaker 13: also seen the flip side of that of how people
37:17
Speaker 13: and governments can completely overreact as well.
37:19
Speaker 7: And we all know what happened in terms of the
37:21
Speaker 7: response to COVID.
37:22
Speaker 13: So I think there's a lot of things going on
37:24
Speaker 13: at once. Some of those dynamics are in direct opposition
37:27
Speaker 13: or contradiction to them. And it's just in the fog
37:29
Speaker 13: of war. It's hard to know. But I don't think
37:31
Speaker 13: it would surprise anybody if these things that people are
37:34
Speaker 13: playing around with in labs around the world, some labs
37:37
Speaker 13: less protected and precautionary than others, leap out into the
37:41
Speaker 13: general population, then that is certainly a dire possibility that
37:45
Speaker 13: I think exists in the world that we live in today.
37:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to get overly
37:50
Speaker 2: alarmed about the whole thing, but can we really trust
37:52
Speaker 2: Russia to be telling the whole truth here?
37:57
Speaker 7: Probably not. I would argue we can't trust anybody. We
37:59
Speaker 7: didn't trust China.
38:01
Speaker 13: We don't trust even bad actors in the U.S. who
38:04
Speaker 13: funded it, the gain of function saga and all the
38:06
Speaker 13: rest of it. So for sure, I think there's bad
38:08
Speaker 13: actors out there. And you've got to do your own
38:11
Speaker 13: research and have a healthy amount of skepticism for all
38:13
Speaker 13: governments and certainly Russia's.
38:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
38:15
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, let's not rush out to buy our toilet
38:18
Speaker 2: paper just yet. I want to go over to France, though,
38:21
Speaker 2: which has been making headlines around the world. Riots. Supposedly,
38:25
Speaker 2: we're told about schooling and education, but apparently there have
38:28
Speaker 2: been dozens of schools torched by rioters, and many people
38:32
Speaker 2: are suspecting that this is not so much about education,
38:36
Speaker 2: but rather that these riots are being pushed by far-left parties. Kosha,
38:42
Speaker 2: what's really going on here in France? It seems absolutely crazy.
38:45
Speaker 2: Some of the footage has been harrowing.
38:48
Speaker 13: Footage really is quite shocking. It is You see torching
38:51
Speaker 13: of schools. Of course, nothing says we think that there's
38:55
Speaker 13: inadequate staffing. That's sort of the official narrative in schools,
38:58
Speaker 13: then torching it, because that's really going to solve the
39:00
Speaker 13: staffing problem. There's definitely more that meets the eye. We
39:04
Speaker 13: know that a lot of protests around the world are
39:06
Speaker 13: not always organic. Back to the USAID example, for example,
39:10
Speaker 13: in Latin America or other actors, far left groups, they
39:14
Speaker 13: do it all.
39:14
Speaker 7: Around the world. So that's certainly.
39:16
Speaker 13: not inconceivable that that's something happening over there as well.
39:19
Speaker 13: And then also where this is happening, the schools in
39:21
Speaker 13: the outer suburbs that are very outer parts of the
39:24
Speaker 13: urban areas that are very immigrant heavy, a lot of
39:27
Speaker 13: people not assimilating, a lot of people from all those
39:30
Speaker 13: countries that have come in. So nobody can ignore that.
39:33
Speaker 13: When you look at the footage, you can see exactly
39:35
Speaker 13: who's doing the rioting. And that's sort of a broader
39:37
Speaker 13: meta point about just how sad it is and how
39:40
Speaker 13: these great European cities have really been captured by so
39:43
Speaker 13: many forces that are nefarious or against what they once were.
39:47
Speaker 13: And they are fighting, I think, a multi-front battlefield because
39:51
Speaker 13: of what's happened just over the last half century.
39:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, look, it is shocking. And especially, apparently, many
39:56
Speaker 2: of those rioters are second and third generation migrants. So
40:00
Speaker 2: I don't know how you solve this problem, but finally,
40:02
Speaker 2: there's so much going around the world and we have
40:04
Speaker 2: to talk about Iran. And apparently the Iranian economy is
40:08
Speaker 2: really and truly being squeezed by the Trump administration sanctions.
40:12
Speaker 2: With the New York Times, no fan of the Trump administration,
40:16
Speaker 2: I should note, reporting, quote, Iran's national security advisor has
40:19
Speaker 2: warned that the rapidly deteriorating economy has plunged the country
40:24
Speaker 2: into one of the most difficult periods in its history. Kosha,
40:28
Speaker 2: just before we go here, what are your thoughts on this?
40:31
Speaker 2: Could economics wind up toppling a regime that weapons so
40:37
Speaker 2: far have been unable to topple?
40:40
Speaker 13: It's certainly a powerful lever, and it always has been
40:42
Speaker 13: President Trump's favored lever. That's where the irony of this
40:46
Speaker 13: war and the fact that he went into it and
40:48
Speaker 13: the price he's paying for it domestically, politically, is so ironic.
40:51
Speaker 7: Because he does love.
40:52
Speaker 13: To do that, and America is mighty, still very mighty
40:55
Speaker 13: in terms of how we can squeeze the economic lever
40:58
Speaker 13: and pull it. So for sure it'll have an impact.
41:01
Speaker 13: The question is what happens, though, after the current regime
41:03
Speaker 13: is toppled? They've got a lot of bench strength there
41:06
Speaker 13: of people that are still very loyal to that regime
41:08
Speaker 13: and Ayatollah. So who comes next? Are the people even
41:12
Speaker 13: powerful enough to have some sort of revolution and turn
41:15
Speaker 13: it into some semblance of a democratic society? I think
41:17
Speaker 13: that's a long bow to draw from. even if they
41:20
Speaker 13: continue to fall into deeper and deeper economic peril.
41:22
Speaker 2: Well, I will say, Koshia, you're absolutely right about that.
41:25
Speaker 2: The question of what comes next is the most important
41:28
Speaker 2: and often least asked question in politics. Thank you so much,
41:32
Speaker 2: Koshia Ghada, for your time.
41:34
Speaker 7: Thank you. Always a pleasure.
41:35
Speaker 2: A top staffer, the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, quits and dishes
41:39
Speaker 2: the dirt on his former boss. It's a bit on
41:42
Speaker 2: the nose. Alex Stein will talk about that up next. Well,
41:50
Speaker 2: midterms are right around the corner, and in their desperation
41:53
Speaker 2: to rake in the votes, it seems that Democrats are
41:56
Speaker 2: pushing themselves further and further to the left.
42:00
Speaker 7: Hmm.
42:00
Speaker 2: Sounds like a winning strategy to me. Hoping to win
42:03
Speaker 2: over voters who are frustrated by economic hardship and sick
42:06
Speaker 2: of watching their tax dollars fund international wars and looking
42:09
Speaker 2: for some kind of radical change. Apparently... Anyway, if James Tallarico,
42:15
Speaker 2: who is running for the U.S. Senate from Texas of
42:17
Speaker 2: all places, is successful in his campaign, voters will really
42:21
Speaker 2: get some radical change. Here's the Democrat candidate talking to
42:25
Speaker 2: News Nation, giving the nod to bigger government and socialist
42:29
Speaker 2: mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani.
42:33
Speaker 11: So when you say that the Democrats need to offer
42:36
Speaker 11: something better, Obviously, one of the— look, a year ago, we
42:40
Speaker 11: weren't talking about James Tallarico and Zoran Mamdani. We were
42:43
Speaker 11: talking about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, right, for your
42:46
Speaker 11: side of the aisle. Offer something better, as I hear
42:49
Speaker 11: you say it. Does that include democratic socialism?
42:54
Speaker 10: You know, I think it's going to require a giant tent.
42:57
Speaker 10: And so that's going to include some democratic socialists, like
43:01
Speaker 10: the mayor of New York.
43:04
Speaker 2: Joining me now to discuss this and more is comedian
43:06
Speaker 2: and commentator Alex Stein from the great state of Texas. Alex,
43:12
Speaker 2: tell us, how do you feel about our friend James
43:14
Speaker 2: Talarico or Talafrico, as Donald Trump calls him, potentially gaining
43:19
Speaker 2: a seat in the U.S. Senate?
43:22
Speaker 11: So what?
43:23
Speaker 10: So, you know, James, I cannot believe that I'm sitting
43:25
Speaker 10: here speaking with a straight face, but I think that
43:27
Speaker 10: there is a possibility that he could beat Paxson. I
43:31
Speaker 10: think it's a small possibility. I do not think it's
43:33
Speaker 10: some landslide. I don't trust any of these polls. The
43:36
Speaker 10: same pollster said that Hillary Clinton had a 99% chance
43:40
Speaker 10: to beat Donald Trump on the day of the 2020
43:43
Speaker 10: or the 2016 election. So I don't really trust the polls,
43:46
Speaker 10: but at the exact same time, one story that's not
43:49
Speaker 10: being talked about a lot is that, you know, here
43:52
Speaker 10: in Texas, we don't have medical marijuana or we don't
43:54
Speaker 10: have recreational marijuana. So there's a lot of what they
43:57
Speaker 10: have is Delta-8. It is the hemp-derived marijuana, and that
44:02
Speaker 10: was technically illegal through a loophole. Well, Paxton, Abbott, and
44:06
Speaker 10: Dan Patrick, who are all kind of the spearhead leaders
44:09
Speaker 10: and making a lot of stores shut down. So that's
44:12
Speaker 10: a story that's not being talked about. A lot of
44:13
Speaker 10: small business owners were kind of hurt by that. So
44:17
Speaker 10: a lot of people in Texas are hurting financially. And
44:20
Speaker 10: I don't think the messaging of socialism.
44:23
Speaker 2: is.
44:23
Speaker 10: A pejorative to these people. You know that. To them,
44:25
Speaker 10: socialism sounds like free stuff. So using that word over
44:29
Speaker 10: and over as a constant buzzword, it doesn't have the
44:31
Speaker 10: negative connotation with the young people that are struggling. They
44:35
Speaker 10: just got their jobs taken from them by AI or legislation.
44:41
Speaker 10: It's tough grinding in Texas. I've never seen a state
44:45
Speaker 10: like this before.
44:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Alex, the last time I was in
44:48
Speaker 2: Texas was maybe about a year or so ago. And
44:52
Speaker 2: it felt like the economy was really buzzing at that point.
44:54
Speaker 2: But at the same time, you have so many people
44:57
Speaker 2: in there. And it's interesting that he was talking about
44:59
Speaker 2: Zoran Mamdani. You've got a lot of transplants from New
45:02
Speaker 2: York and from California who've come in for the tech
45:06
Speaker 2: industry now in Texas.
45:07
Speaker 12: Yeah.
45:08
Speaker 2: How much is that weighting the statewide vote? Because the
45:12
Speaker 2: Senate is a statewide vote that you will have people
45:15
Speaker 2: who don't necessarily have maybe what we would think of
45:18
Speaker 2: as traditional Texas values. You've watched this change.
45:22
Speaker 10: Well, that's a great question that you asked that because
45:25
Speaker 10: a lot of people don't realize that here in the
45:27
Speaker 10: DFW area, it is called the Silicon Prairie. Everybody's heard
45:31
Speaker 10: of Silicon Valley in Northern California. But here in Texas,
45:36
Speaker 10: we have a lot of tech companies. Cisco moved here.
45:39
Speaker 10: AT & T has their global headquarters here in the
45:41
Speaker 10: DFW area. So, so many people have moved from California.
45:45
Speaker 10: As a matter of fact, from the entire world. to
45:48
Speaker 10: the DFW area. So that's changing the demographics rapidly to
45:53
Speaker 10: a point that I cannot even describe. 10 years ago,
45:56
Speaker 10: there's areas of Texas, like Frisco, Texas, that look a
45:59
Speaker 10: lot different today than they did just 10 years ago.
46:02
Speaker 10: And these aren't illegal immigrants. These are people from California,
46:05
Speaker 10: New York, Florida, Seattle, Washington, wherever. But they're coming to
46:11
Speaker 10: Texas to work for these tech companies that are all
46:13
Speaker 10: relocated here. So that has changed the demographic To a
46:17
Speaker 10: degree where James Alarico might be the senator from Texas,
46:21
Speaker 10: which is unbelievable.
46:22
Speaker 2: It is unbelievable, but who knows? But then also I
46:25
Speaker 2: want to talk about this other race. We've spoken a
46:27
Speaker 2: lot about it on this show and other shows. Michigan
46:29
Speaker 2: Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Now, he's said to be tied again,
46:34
Speaker 2: but I don't know about these polls. I don't fully
46:37
Speaker 2: trust them because... They said all these DSA guys were
46:39
Speaker 2: going to do far better in their primaries than they did,
46:42
Speaker 2: so who knows? But anyway, a former staffer is claiming
46:46
Speaker 2: that El-Sayed is not just a fraud who bullies staff
46:49
Speaker 2: and his two-faced men's policies. Tell me what politician isn't.
46:54
Speaker 2: But apparently, he also loves to break wind in front
46:58
Speaker 2: of his staff, thinking this is absolutely hilarious. Alex, this
47:02
Speaker 2: sounds very sort of LBJ-like. I've heard of politicians being
47:06
Speaker 2: full of hot air, but this is really something.
47:09
Speaker 10: So we need to be very careful. Eric Swalwell is
47:12
Speaker 10: under FBI investigation. The former congressman had to step down
47:15
Speaker 10: for treating his staffers with a little bit of.
47:20
Speaker 10: What is the word? Unbecoming of a gentleman behavior.
47:23
Speaker 12: Yes.
47:24
Speaker 10: That's very unbecoming of a gentleman and of a leader.
47:26
Speaker 10: So he needs to stop doing that. And, you know,
47:31
Speaker 10: is that a crime? I would consider that a chemical warfare,
47:35
Speaker 10: but I don't know what the laws are in Michigan.
47:38
Speaker 10: So that's not a good thing. Is it a funny thing?
47:41
Speaker 10: I guess kind of. I hope he loses. But I'll
47:43
Speaker 10: tell you this much, too. You know, in Michigan with
47:45
Speaker 10: Mike Rogers, all of this talk about Abdul El-Sayed has
47:50
Speaker 10: given him a lot more street credit because nobody.
47:52
Speaker 2: Knew who he was less than six months ago.
47:55
Speaker 10: So I think that's another indictment on the media and
47:57
Speaker 10: the right a little bit by basically making him, you know,
48:01
Speaker 10: the focal point of their campaign instead of Mike Rogers,
48:04
Speaker 10: because you hear about Sayed. 100 times more than you
48:07
Speaker 10: hear about Mike Rogers, and it should be the other
48:09
Speaker 10: way around.
48:10
Speaker 2: 100%. Hey, a weird story here out of the New
48:13
Speaker 2: York Post. Apparently, the FBI under Joe Biden, which seemed
48:17
Speaker 2: to have weaponized the law enforcement agency in all sorts
48:20
Speaker 2: of ways, They were tracking Melania and Barron Trump's travel,
48:25
Speaker 2: and they even tapped then-campaign manager Susie Wiles, now chief
48:29
Speaker 2: of staff, phone messages and travel. Can you tell us
48:34
Speaker 2: about this? This is really something here. It's quite extraordinary
48:39
Speaker 2: that the investigators were going after family members and people
48:44
Speaker 2: like this. It's just bizarre.
48:47
Speaker 10: It is bizarre, but sadly, we just recently... you know,
48:51
Speaker 10: remember the anniversary of 9-11, you know, the terror attack
48:54
Speaker 10: that happened on September 11th in 2001. But one thing
48:57
Speaker 10: that happened shortly after that was the Patriot Act. And
49:01
Speaker 10: once the Patriot Act got into effect, where you can
49:03
Speaker 10: just have warrantless search and seizure of anybody that you
49:05
Speaker 10: declare a domestic terrorist, they can use that as a
49:08
Speaker 10: carve-out to get all kinds of fake FISA warrants.
49:10
Speaker 2: And so we're living in.
49:12
Speaker 10: The surveillance states. You know, that's, I guess, the point
49:15
Speaker 10: I'm trying to make by connecting to 9-11 is that
49:17
Speaker 10: if you're out there, somebody can get your information. And
49:20
Speaker 10: I'm not surprised the Biden administration did it. And that's
49:24
Speaker 10: just how politics works. It's a very dirty game. That's
49:27
Speaker 10: why I don't want to be a politician. I'd rather
49:29
Speaker 10: just talk about them and make fun of them because
49:31
Speaker 10: those people, they have to sell their soul on a
49:33
Speaker 10: daily basis. And I don't have the stomach to do that,
49:37
Speaker 10: my friend.
49:38
Speaker 2: Alex Steyer, we're going to have to leave it there.
49:39
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, my friend, for the chat, as always. Now,
49:42
Speaker 2: that's it for me. Up next is Late Edition. Good night.