Latest / Sid & Friends In The Morning / Charlie Gasparino | Economic Journalist Breaks Down Billionaire Bill Ackman's Turn to Political Normalcy

Transcript

Charlie Gasparino | Economic Journalist Breaks Down Billionaire Bill Ackman's Turn to Political Normalcy · Sid & Friends In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Charlie Gasparino, one of my favorite people, an amazing guy, brilliant,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: read his stuff in the New York Post all the time.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: I love his Twitter, too. And I got to tell you, Charlie,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: as much as I.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Think you love me, I think you've got a real
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: man crush on Bill Ackman.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: What is that all about?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Because I retweeted him a few times.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, all the time. You and Bill Ackman. What's going
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: on there?
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: You should know. You should know. He and I have
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: had a lot of rocky relations. We've had rocky relations
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: in the past.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, really?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: I do like his turn to political normalcy. You know,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: he was once, I think I could consider him progressive.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: And I really think that for a guy that is
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: in the public eye, that's in the public markets, he
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: shows an incredible amount of courage standing up for Israel,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: standing up for sort of common sense conservatism. I don't
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: know if he considered himself a conservative. But I think
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: you've got to give people like that credit for doing
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: what they do when they are sort of public-facing. They
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: have a lot to lose. Remember, he has clients, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: a lot of his clients probably don't like his political stance,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: but he does it because he feels it's right. And
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I've got a lot of respect for him, and I
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: want to say the same, that I have a lot
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: of respect for a guy named Dan Loeb who does
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: some of the same stuff. And by the way, with
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Bill Ackman, I don't agree with everything he says. I
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: just appreciate it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Bill Ackman had the mayor's race wrong every step of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the way. He was so far up Eric Adams' ass,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: he was checking for polyps. And I would destroy him
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: on this show on Twitter. I don't think he likes me.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Because he never responds to me. But with that said,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: he gets a lot of stuff wrong. I mean, really
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: wrong for a guy worth $ 10 billion. But he does care.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I love that about him. And a lot of people
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: think maybe he should consider running for mayor. He's got
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of money. Smart business guy. Gets to sit
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: at the dinner table with John Katzmatidis and President Trump.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe he's a guy you look at in a couple
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of years.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: You know, he can do that already. He's sitting at
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: the table with those guys. Right.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: He is doing it already. That's my point.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I don't think he runs. I don't think he needs
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: the garbage. It's, uh, you know, it's just, it's, you know, we,
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: you know, first off, you know, these billionaires, these really rich,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: successful guys, when they run like a different, they, they,
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: they quickly realize that the, the skillset is so much different.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Like see, Trump is different because Trump wasn't just this
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: entrepreneur billionaire. He was a marketing genius, right? He knew
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: how to market himself. And he learned– like it was
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: trial and the fire. I mean he was born from
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: the New York tabloid culture. I mean he learned a
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: lot from Roy Cullen, who famously knew how to manipulate
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: the press. And so Trump is– As they say, he's
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: really different and really brilliant at what he does. And
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: so I don't think I think, you know, you got
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: to know your limitations. Everybody says Jamie Dimon is going
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: to run for president. No, no, no, no, no. Because
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: he doesn't understand the stuff that Trump says. I think
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I think Bill Ackman kind of understands he should basically
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: just stay in his lane. And by the way, he
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: has a lot of power to do what he's doing.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Right, just play tennis. He's a very good tennis player.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: He loves tennis.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Bill Ackman, he loves it. I've never played tennis once
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: in my life. He has.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Bill's a great tennis player. You know, you made a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: point on Twitter that was so great, too, maybe today.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I was in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And I was there when the Republican-Jewish coalition, led by
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: my cousin Norm Coleman, elected to make J.D. Vance their
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: keynote speaker. That led to the private meeting between me
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and J.D. at the White House, which became very unprivate very,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: very quickly.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: I read about that somewhere.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: You may have heard about it. But J.D.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Vance, when he spoke in Vegas, said, that he believes
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: that a major reason why anti-Semitism is on the upswing
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: in America is because of immigration. Because Biden opened up
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the borders and all these anti-Semites came to America. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you made a very similar point this morning about what's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: going on in France.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Their immigration.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Listen, my daughter graduated college, university in the UK, in Wales.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So we decided last summer, when we went for Ava's graduation...
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Do a couple of days in Paris, Paris, London. I
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: walked through Paris. It was like walking through Pakistan. That
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: was your point this morning.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Immigration. I think you're right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, listen, go to Madrid. Same thing. You know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: go to some big city, go to Rome. You know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: same thing. Italians approach immigration a little differently right now.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, and by the way, there's two Italys. Where
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: my family comes from in southern Italy, it's a little
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: less sort of accommodating for that sort of leftism and
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: that progressive thought. They actually have kids in southern Italy
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: as opposed to northern Italy as well. So they don't
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: have to import as many people. But be that as
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: it may, listen, I come from a family of immigrants, obviously.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Gasparino is not a Mayflower name. Right. And, you know,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: they they came they came from Italy. They came from
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: some of the most desperate back then. Italy was no
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: different than the poorest parts of South America and southern Italy.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: It was very poor famine, the whole thing. But now
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: here's the difference. First off, they came to a non
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: welfare state. So they worked right. They didn't have Obamacare
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: backing them up. They didn't have anything really backing them up.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: They were lucky. They were lucky.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, listen, Obamacare, if you're living in some
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: desperate place in Pakistan, Obamacare is good, right? So they
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: didn't have that. Also, we had a system that allowed
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: the company to digest immigration. So what does that mean?
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: That means that, yeah, we need some normal flow of
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: people from another country. We can't import people just to
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: drive down the wage rate, which we were doing. Everybody
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: thought it was great. waxed poetically about immigration making the
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: American dream. What they were really saying is, hey, instead
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: of paying someone $ 15 an hour, I can pay them $ 8.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's what they really meant when it came
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: down to that. We can't have that. We also need
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: cultural assimilation, and we need people to be American. And
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: how do you do that? Usually, it skips the first generation.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: It goes into the second. That's if you just don't
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: keep having this same churn of People just importing more
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: and more and more and more until the country becomes unrecognizable.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: And so you can't have all those countervailing forces. The
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: main force you can't have is a welfare state. It
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: is a mathematical impossibility to have a big welfare state
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: and open borders. It just doesn't work. We're seeing that now.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: In France right now, which a lot of these problems
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: are cultural, but they're also economic. People are poor. I
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: mean there's just so much– so many rich people you
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: can tax to hell before they– and then they– when
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: they stop– when you reach that limit and the welfare
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: state is too big, well, then the people relying off
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: the welfare state see their benefits reduced, and that's what's
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: going on right now. So there's some of that. There's
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: also the lack of cultural assimilation. So this immigration thing–
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: And people have been warning about this for years. It
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: wasn't taken seriously by the American right. It was seen as,
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: you know, the George Bush American right was seen as racist.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Trump came in and changed that debate. It was one
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: of the best things that Donald Trump has ever done
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: is change that debate. So now we look at immigration
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: and this is where I think this is positive for America.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: The country is starting to look at immigration as what
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: can immigrants do for the country as opposed to what
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: can the country do for immigrants?
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Well, unless you're in New York, of course.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: That's the way it's always been.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, unless you're in New York. But not in New York,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: it's not that. New York, it's a complete other way around.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: But you're right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: From the federal government, that's their policy. But here in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: New York, Mamdani, I mean, you could have said the
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: same exact rant you just made about Paris.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: You could use for Mamdani, too. Here's a big story.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: And by the way, then New York will implode economically.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. And it's just a matter of time.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Right. And then it'll have to correct itself. I love
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: when you guys use that term, correct itself, like the market.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like the finances. You used it just this morning or yesterday.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: New York Post, the AI bubble is about to burst
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and a big market correction is coming. Tell me about this,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Charlie Gasparino.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I just got a call from our
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: mutual friend, Bo Dietl, asking me if he should sell
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: all his stock.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: I swear to God.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Why is he asking you that? What is he nervous about?
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Well, he owns a lot. I mean, like everybody, they're
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: heavily in those stocks. You know, the AI stocks have
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: powered the market. They've people done very well with them.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Should I should I bail now? You know, here's one
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: thing I don't do. I don't give investment advice. It's
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: number one. But number two, I will say this is
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: based on the history of how these sort of bubbles.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: And this is a bubble, how it sort of unraveled.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: There's usually sort of, you know, before the full unraveling,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: there's a couple of comebacks that occur sometimes. I'm not
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: saying like last week's stakeout of AI and right now
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: we're on the precipice of the AI apocalypse. It's not happening.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: And when I say AI apocalypse, I mean in terms
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: of the markets, not what it could do culturally and
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: in other ways. I'm not saying we're on the verge
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: right now because it could come back. So I'm definitely
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: not telling people to sell everything. But, you know, it's
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: going to correct and it has to because it has
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: all the elements of what where everything corrects. And that's,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: you know, high levels of debt, many, many new entrants,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: you know, commoditizing the product and an irrational exuberance of
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: investors thinking that if they put their money in this,
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: they're going to get rich overnight. When you put all
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: that together, it's going to bake in a correction. And
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: when it comes, it's going to come soon, but I
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: can't tell you if this is it or not. Oh, okay.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Final 60 seconds.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You could talk about Kevin Walsh deciding about raising interest
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: rates again.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: That's a big deal.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Kevin Walsh even talked about AI yesterday, but listening to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: my guy, John Territ, who does this really good business
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: report every day.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I know John. I know John.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: He's terrific.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I helped him with stuff.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got that great accent.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I think the biggest story in all of the economy
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: world today is that Kentucky Fried Chicken is dumping Pepsi.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: No, excuse me. Yes, dumping Pepsi and going to Coke.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: How about that?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: You know, I haven't had a Coke, a Pepsi, or
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken in decades.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I know, because you work out every day. You look gorgeous.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I see you.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: You're posting at the gym. You really do look gorgeous.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: But you've got to be like Trump. Every now and then,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: don't be afraid to go to KFC, McDonald's.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: He goes every day. Right?
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: And I still had hot blood sugar. It didn't matter.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to take the Donald Trump diet.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: You know, here's the thing with Trump. I wonder if
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: that works just for him or if everybody just eats
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: like the worst food and they feel a lot better.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Try it.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: He's 80 years old. He's got plenty of energy.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to do it for a week.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: One week.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: But you remember the guy did it at McDonald's? Remember
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: that movie about McDonald's documentary? Like he ate it for
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: like a month every day and he was throwing up
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: at the end.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: He didn't die though, that guy, did he? I don't
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: think he died.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: He didn't die then.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: No.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: He recently passed of cancer years later.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's right. That's right.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, geez.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, Charlie, as always, an incredible performance. We love
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: having you on this show. Another great appearance on a
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Monday morning. Thank you so much, Charlie Gasparino. We'll do
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: it again very soon, buddy.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: Anytime, Sid. Talk to you soon.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: God bless you.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: The great Charlie Gasparino right there, and nobody knows more.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Well, John Katzmatini knows a lot, too. He's coming up next.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: But Charlie knows an awful lot about the economy and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: why things seem to go the way they do. He's
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a great guest, a great writer, and a great friend,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Charlie Gasparino.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to Sid and Friends in the Morning.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: You can hear Sid and Friends in the Morning weekday
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: mornings at 6 p.m. share it with your friends and
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: listen anytime at wabc radio.com and download the wabc radio
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: app hit that subscribe button on all major podcast platforms
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: plus follow wabc on social on instagram tiktok facebook and
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: x see you next time for a new episode so
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: you never have to wonder
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: What the heck is going on here