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Good Day, Welcome to the j Weber Podcast. We have so so much to talk about today. I want to talk about how, frankly, Americans deserved better than Barack Obama as their first black president. And what I mean by that is, you know, for all the trappings that the people and the media have built around this guy, and about the historical event, he's turned out to be a rather run of the mill Washington d Bag Anthony producer
Gregory John here, Gregor, have you heard that? Have you heard Obama admit that Michelle can't get him to shut up in the politics their marriage?
I have, But I always thought that Bill Clinton was the first black president. That's what you told me.
Well, that is true, that's what he told us. I think it's true, but correct me if I'm wrong. In general, if spouse tells you to sit down and shut up, you're making an ass of yourself, aren't you. Isn't your spouse the best barometer on your behavior?
I totally agree with you. I've been told that many many times, and I've heated that warning, so I'd sit down and shut up.
There you go, Well that's what Michelle wants me to do. I also got a kick out of Rock's public invite now that his presidential center has completed and opened in Chicago. He said on Twitter, Michelle and I invite you to visit. Now, come on, Michelle doesn't give a tinker's damn about Yeah.
And be sure to bring your ID because that's the only way you're going to get in there. It'll cost you thirty bucks.
Wow, So you need an ID to get into that presidential center. Interesting. But other than feeling obligated to show up for some sort of ribbon cutting, I don't think Michelle will ever set foot in that place or have any interest in it.
No, no, no.
Hitting aside, though it's a topic for later in the podcast. How disappointing is it that America's first black president turned out to be a rather slick, liar and hypocrite, just like so many other presidents we've had. In fact, one way Obama will go down in history I think is worse than normal, is that, unlike every other president in history. He doesn't have the decency or the discipline is simp go silent and enjoy his retirement instead of sticking around
and still engaging in cheap politics. So we'll talk about that. I want to talk about why Donald Trump's power is increasing over the Republican Party at a time that he's supposed to be becoming a lame duck. I find it really interesting and historically unique. Normally, you would start out with the full support of your party, or like ninety five percent or so, and then as you do the job, you can sort of tank or trail off from there.
Trump it's different because in twenty twenty six he came in with whatever it was, eighty eighty five percent of Republican support, because you had a chunk of Republicans who really didn't trust him, didn't like him. Over time, he has earned their trust. So it's interesting that he's gotten a firmer grip on this party as he's supposed to becoming a lame duck. We'll talk about the Democrats socialist
ruining of big cities. More on that, and how the CEOs of major retailers need to stop being nice and start blasting local officials. They needed to just start making it clear we cannot operate a business in high crime neighborhoods. You just have to deal with the all that and more as ahead. But first, have you heard about Creative Planning.
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your introductory meeting. That's Creative Planning dot Com. Your team awaits paid for by Creative Planning and sec registered investment advisor. The speaker statements are not an endorsement of the firm. I see that Walgreens Corporate has confirmed it's shutting down another Walgreens in Milwaukee's Inner City. This one's at twenty seven to the north, and you could have guessed it. Walgreens is closing the store due to shoplifting and crime.
Quote persistent safety problems is how the company tried to delicately put it. Walgreens put out a statement saying that protecting our customers and team members remains our top priority, and despite our actions and investments in private security, persistent safety challenges that our North Avenue store do not allow us to operate sustainably. We continue to operate other Walgreen stores in the city blah blah blah. So as of
June twenty third, that location will be closed. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other left wing news outlets tried to blame this on declining profits, But it's really about crime after all, what is causing their profits to decline?
There?
And yes, as part of the wider and slow rolling move toward home delivery and ordering off of the internet. Yeah, the Walgreens company has been dealing with declining profits at its brick and mortar stores. In twenty twenty four, Walgreen said that it was going to close down and phase out about twelve hundred stores across the country over the
next several years. We're in the midst of that, and of course you would start closing the least profitable stores as well as the high crime stores, because gee, there's an awful lot of crossover on that list, isn't there. What locations are going to bring in the least amount of money, Well, it's the ones in the scariest neighborhoods
and those seeing the most amount of theft. Right. But you can't blame the closure of this twenty seventh and No location on declining profits without explaining what's keeping the location from being more profitable for Walgreens. Nor can you point to the profit as a sole motive. The company itself cites the inability to keep its employees and its customers safe. Translation, crime is literally driving us out of
this location. The leftists who run these cities and refuse to deal with the high crime always want to pivot and blame the company's leaders for being racist, for being uncaring, and they never want to acknowledge that this business is literally being driven out by high crime. And it's not just Walgreens or Pick and Saves around here. It's every
major retailer in the country. Their CEOs and board members have been forced to close locations in Chicago's, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, and the story is always the same, high crime is driving us out. But the leaders of those communities can't admit that they and their feckless policies are responsible for the high crime, so they always deflect. They always try to blame the company and vilify its CEO as the
greedy bad guy. In fact, we're seeing that play out again in Chicago over a separate Walgreens location that's closing. There's a Democrat alderman in Chicago who wants to criminally charge Walgreens. Get this, he wants to criminally charge Walgreens for closing one of its failing stores in his district. What a tool. As the lead line in the story puts it, another pharmacy is leaving Chicago because of theft, and somehow the villain of the story is not the
people stealing from it. The villain is apparently the business itself, which finally decided it had had enough and decided to cut its losses. That not only sums it up, but it's a good illustration of what and who today's leftists are. They want to blame the company being victimized, not the criminals. The Chicago Sun Times says Democratic alderman William Hall joined residents outside the store Monday, where signs read Senior Lives
Matter and n corporate abandonment. Walgreens should be charged with first degree corporate abandonment. Paul said, it should be a crime the way they're treating our elders, It should be a crime the way they're treating our families. This is
even after Walgreens made its reasoning clear. The company said the stores experienced quote significantly higher levels of theft and violent incidents than our other locations, and they said ongoing safety issues have made it difficult to protect their workers and customers, a very similar story to twenty seventh the North here in Milwaukee. The same Chicago Times report said that at least seven Walgreen stores on the South Side of Chicago have closed or are set to close since
twenty twenty five. Theft and crime are making it impossible to do business in those neighborhoods, and the so called leaders in that community want to deny reality and ignore the criminal hellhole that is their neighborhood. And the Democrats and ridiculous Democrats socialists who are running all of these cities, they all sound the same. Not a single one of them wants to deal with the high crime that is the big, fat common denominator when it comes to America's
largest cities. They're all run by Democrats who long ago decided to side with the criminals and the thugs and pretend as if there's nothing they can do to improve their neighborhood or make it safer. And it is that attitude that should be criminal. This nit wit of an alderman,
William Hall, isn't standing up for his community. He's not leading anything or doing any good whatsoever for that neighborhood, and everyone knows it, just as everyone knows that no amount of protesting or racial accusations are actually going to save these businesses. If these democrats want to quote help their communities and help the poor and the elderly who live in them, they need to start with helping the business community and dealing with the high crime. They need
to make it a livable area. But William Hall is just a cookie cutter Democrat these days. He sounds like too much of a lazy coward in an empty suit to do anything, and he exemplifies your average inner city, your big city democrat. But hey, I've been watching these same dramas for so long that I can no longer feel sorry for the people in those neighborhoods. So long as they keep voting for idiots and frauds like William Hall, stop electing the same people and expecting a different result.
The old cliche that you get the government you vote for couldn't be any more true than it is in this era. The residents of these big cities have been voting almost exclusively Democrat for six or seven decades, in some cases over one hundred years, for the same Democrat party, the same types of Democrat lawmakers. And they've been doing it as their situations have only ever gotten worse and
worse and worse. The majority of the voters in Chicago were dumb enough to vote for Brandon Johnson, after they were dumb enough to vote for Lori Lightfoot, after they were dumb enough to vote for Ram Emmanuel, etc. Look at what's going on in New York. After those voters were dumb enough to vote for Bil de Blasio and Eric Adams, they tripled down on Zoran Mamdani, a socialist who's now getting his giggles out of driving billionaires in the New York's most productive citizens and job creators out
of New York City folks. This war, Mom Donnie is in with Ken Griffin and Citadel is so stupid. It's so stupid. Even Mayor Eric Adams set it on ACX this week he posted Mayor Mom Donnie's video targeting Ken Griffin and using his home as a prop traded thousands of real, good paying jobs in our city for social media likes. The video was irresponsible and the mayor should do the right thing and apologize. Mom Donnie won't. Instead, he's only doubling and tripling down. And this was no surprise.
New York's Governor Kathy Holkel, who's basically a socialist her self, is too spineless to push back or reign in Mom Donnie either. This attack on Griffin and quote rich people in New York by Mom Donnie had Ken Griffin immediately saying, I guess we at Citadel are going to have to reevaluate our relationship with New York City and take another look at an expansion of our headquarters here that's underway.
After all, New York City and State are the most expensive place in which to do business in America, and he said they're feeling less and less like they need to be there. Does the average America know that Dallas
is basically becoming the new New York. I don't think the average person knows just how much New York and LA big business has already shifted to Dallas and Houston, as the CEOs and corporate boards are smart enough to flee the highly time blue areas whose Democrat leaders now just effing hate them, on top of all of the
taxes they've been paying for decades. And if you thought billionaires and businesses were fleeing the blue state areas before, as they've slowly been for about two decades, now, just watch what happens as socialists fully take over the Democrat Party and they share their open disdain for these businesses. You know, traditional Democrats have played both sides of the
situation forever. Traditionally, Democrats have constantly criticized the rich and bashed big business, even as they realized they needed them for jobs and for economic prosperity. And actually most of those Democrats wanted to be among them. So Democrats over the last century at least have realized the importance of
job creators and the economic drivers of their communities. But not this batch of true socialists who've taken over the Democrat Party in most blue states and blue communities, and who are very close to taking over control of the
national Party. Ken Griffin was sitting on a business panel this week and he shocked the lefty moderator and the members the crowd by saying, I'm serious the work on our New York expansion may be halted because our board members have already decided our shift from Chicago to Miami was brilliant. You'll hear the moderator ask about the New York address.
Where does that leave us at three to fifty?
Part that leaves us with the fact that we went to Miami and revised our building, planned to make it a bigger office building.
You're bailing.
So what do we do with three fifties is still a point of discussion internally. But what is no longer a point of discussion is that Miami is now. You know, when we moved from Chicago, there was a debate between New York and Miami. It's unquestionably true that we made the right choice. I'll leave it at that. It's unquestionably
true that we made the right choice. And now and now, what the Mayor of New York has made clear to my partners, and principally my New York partners, my New York Partners is that we need to double down on our bet in Miami because we want to be in a state that embraces that embraces business, that embraces education, that embraces personal freedom and liberty, and that embraces people having an opportunity to live the American dream.
I wish there were a thousand Ken Griffins in corporate America. I wish every other CEO and board member of a major company would finally stop trying to be diplomatic when it comes to this situation. Walgreen should admit high crime is driving us out of this neighborhood. Don't put out in melium mouthed r cryptic statements. Don't leave room for lefty spin or misinterpretation. Come out and say it. Until Chicago's South Side deals with its crime problem and has
safe neighborhoods, we cannot have stores in these neighborhoods. And I would say cannot not, will not. Don't leave any suggestion that doing business in these hell whole neighborhoods is really a choice. Make it clear to lawmakers and the public. Until you deal with the crime and make this neighborhood safe, businesses cannot operate here. That burdens on you, not corporate America.
Ken Griffin is right about Mam Donnie's attack on the productive business class, and job creators and others like him in Manhattan should be rushing to side with him and amplify that message. Even most Democrats know how stupid it is to start a war like this. We're told that the pathetic Kathy Hokel asked for a private meeting with Ken Griffin so she could grovel and beg and try to calm him down and keep Citadel's location in New York.
But publicly, this dingbat has been agreeing with Zoorn Mamdani and his calls for even higher taxes and echoing his attacks on billionaires. What a dangerous waste of skin Kathy Holkel is. But hey, you know what, hold no illusions. Hokel is the favorite to win a second term, which gets us right back to the people get the government they vote for. If after several years of terrible, awful decisions by Kathy Hokel, the people of New York simply vote to give her another term, then that's on them.
Democrats in these blue areas just keep voting for their own decay, their own abuse, their own destruction. At some point, the rest of us need to stop feeling sorry for them. As Griffin said this week, Mom Donnie is making it really clear New York doesn't welcome success. Griffin offered to purchase a copy of Animal Farm for every ninth grader in New York and challenged Mom Donnie to let it happen. He said, give me a shipping address. I'll ship them
out right away. Animal Farm is an allegory written by George Orwell that warns against the dangers of socialism and communism. And no, it's not coming out as a movie soon. This is a good aside to just note for all sorts of parents and grandparents in the audience. The maker of that film apparently destroyed George Orwell's work and message and intention, and they make it more of a children's cartoon. They give it an anti capitalist message instead of an
anti communist message. So don't be tricked into taking your kids or grandkids to see that movie thinking it's an accurate adaptation of the book. Once again, Hollywood has ruined it. But the number and level of new taxes that Zorn Mamdanni wants to impose on every middle and upper class New Yorker is staggering, simply staggering, and so far, the only question is whether Kathy Hulka will be dumb enough and weak enough to go along with most of them.
Mam Donnie inherited a five billion dollar budget shortfall from Eric Adams, basically, and he wants to spend tens of billions more on socialist freebies like free buses, free childcare, So he spent the last month rolling out all sorts of new taxes that he and the New York socialists find reasonable. His ideas make it clear he's not just going to slam the rich with new taxes. He also fully intends to slam the middle class and basically slam any New Yorker who actually works. Mam Donnie wants to
nearly double New York State's corporate tax. He wants to impose a two percent wealth tax and steal a chunk of everyone's wealth every year if he thinks they're rich. He wants to increase the overall property tax rate on New York property, which by the way, is taxing everyone
everyone right down to the renters in small businesses. He wants to lower the bar on who is subject to the estate tax, making it apply to virtually anyone who dies with virtually any amount of accumulated wealth, and he wants to raise the highest level of a state tax to fifty percent, as in, if you die what he thinks is rich in New York, the government will immediately
take half of your estate half. And as one summary put it, of course, Mamdani and his new government aren't even considering reforms or cutting nakedly wasteful spending.
Quote.
New York City could cut costs by eliminating wasteful social programs, removing ineffective initiatives such as DEI, restricting benefits for illegal immigrants, and reducing fraud in Medicaid, childcare and food stamp programs. These common sense objectives would save the Big Apple billions and balance the budget without painfully hiking taxes, because when taxes go up, the city's tax base goes down. But you can't expect lazy, clueless Democrats and their new socialist
masters to do that. No, no, no, I mean, come on, be real. Consider that just over the last three years or so, nearly a million people have fled New York State for lower taxt red states. This is a Heritage Foundation stat Just over the last three years or so, eight hundred and eighty thousand people have left New York State in disgust. Now, consider that the real socialism and the really bad new taxes and tax increases haven't even
happened yet. Just consider that now that New York City has a true socialist as a mayor and a city council who's willing to go along with them, thrilled to go along with them, Consider how that's going to turn out. Consider how many of New York State and New York
City's major businesses and productive citizens are going to start leaving. Now, it's clear that this mass exodus of people from the blue states to the red is only going to continue, and it is very likely going to speed up as the loony lefties who remain in those blue states and cities just further consolidate their power and impose their socialism onto the idiots who keep voting for them. This is at least temporarily going to get a lot worse in
the blue states and cities before it gets better. We've talked about how the left wing media has been relentless in this notion. Donald Trump is losing support. The American people have given up on him, even eight and ten people who voted for him in twenty twenty four now regret it, etc. I'm sure you've seen this nonsense, and
it's been relentless. Meanwhile, the polls have consistently shown that the president's approval rating within his own party has only increased, as in, you know, if eighty five percent of Republicans said they supported Trump in his first term, well ninety three percent say they support him now. As the left wing pundits have blathered incessantly and spread false information around, the grip that President Trump has had on his own
party has only gotten stronger, especially in term two. And I have a theory as to why this is, and I know I'm right. The reason support for Trump has only grown steadily within his own party is that he has now had years to prove A he's the real deal and he will try hard to keep his campaign promises, and B he really is the plate spinner. He's moving forward on all sorts of issues that are important to
Republicans and conservatives and trying to get them accomplished. The accomplished news media outlets don't want to report on numerous reforms and wins that the Trump administration is racking up in term two, but that doesn't mean they aren't happening.
Examples like strengthening are all of the above energy policy, finally, rooting out fraud within the governmental machine across all sorts of federal agencies and social service programs, protecting our children from the trans bullying, restoring norms and education and science, and trying to snuff out DEI and critical race theory. The list goes on. My theory on why President Trump has probably the highest level of support within the Republican Party that he's ever had is that he has proven
he's someone worthy of their approval. He really has turned out to be something different. The man is redefining the presidency for future Republican presidents, and just as importantly, he's doing it at a time in which the Democrat Party, in his political opposition, looks particularly extreme and foolish. Trust me, this is helping Donald Trump. The Democrat Party has been
taken over by socialists and social and political extremists. Trump and his pro America, pro common sense stances look rate when contrasted with the radical crap Today's Democrats are pushing, So it isn't a surprise to me to see Tuesday's results out of the Republican strongholds like Indiana and Ohio.
The same leftist media whose members keep insisting Donald Trump has lost the support of the American people, had to do an about face after five of the seven Indiana state senators who Trump had targeted for defeat were defeated. The Indiana results sent a strong signal to every other Republican in America, and it was this, ignore or angered Donald Trump at your own risk. This man not only still controls the Republican Party, but he has a stronger grip on it than he ever did in term one.
And here's the thing. I mean, here's the analysis that you aren't likely to get elsewhere. Donald Trump is bucking history and historical patterns yet again here because he's in his second year of his second term. And now is the time in which any normal president would start to be a lame duck and his own party members would start to feel like it's okay to break with him.
Now is the time in any two term presidency that the person in the White House becomes more vulnerable to criticism and attacks from his own side of the aisle. Now's the time that a president's own party members can start to feel good about bucking their own president and or criticizing their own president to try to set up their next run for office. Donald Trump can't run for a third term. He's not going to be around much longer, right.
I know most of you savvy listeners know this, but some of the younger listeners and those who are newer to politics might not. Once it's clear that any president is on his way out and will no longer be able to be the head of the party, the jockeying to replace him starts, and the criticism from his own party members who are running in other elected positions around the country, they start to spill into the open. Those elected officials who want to remain in office beyond that
president start to form their own political excuses. They feel freer to tell the media and the voters why didn't agree with the president's decision on that. So this is the time in President Trump's second term that all of the so called smart pundits and smart political insiders are expecting to see disappointed Republican voters and elected gopf faws
turn against Trump and start to openly criticize him. This is the time when House and Senate Republicans who want to keep their jobs beyond twenty twenty eight would start to feel like they can break with the president, start to openly disagree with him or criticize him on controversial issues to elevate themselves. But this isn't a normal presidency.
Look at where we are with Donald Trump. He's a guy who is so controversial coming into office that he managed to win the votes of all sorts of non traditional voters in twenty sixteen, as a sizeable chunk of Republican voters refuse to vote for him. So now ten years later, and after they've seen President Trump try hard to keep his promises and clean up the swamp, etc. Now a sizeable number of that chunk of voters who refuse to vote for him in twenty sixteen are on
board and say they support the job he's doing. The net effect has been Donald Trump has only grown stronger within his party over time. Donald Trump has a firmer grip on his party at the end of his eight year tenure than he did when he started. This is unique. What the heck does that mean? It's another historical anomaly
when it comes to Trump. Just as Donald Trump's endorsement shouldn't mean as much as it once did, the results in Indiana and Ohio have just shown us that Trump's endorsement actually means more than it has for Republican voters. Not less, five of these state senators in Indiana got simply smoked in their primaries after they refuse to go
along with the president's redistricting plan for that state. And I'm certain that most assumed that they would survive the Trump criticism no problem, because they were longtime electeds in their own districts. My district loves me, and because quote, you know, Donald Trump and his endorsement have lost their power.
Yep?
Do you still think so as you suddenly find yourself on the unemployment line? Folks, this is a flashing warning to any Republican at any level of government as we approach the fall elections and in twenty twenty eight. Yeah, Donald Trump is entering the back half of his second term. But you're a dimwit if you can't see that He's a rare president whose power and influence have grown stronger
as his presidency has. Tuesday's results are a strong sign that the party's voters are now more willing than ever to trust President Trump's opinion and very importantly, trust President Trump's vision for the future of the party and the country. I'm a person who famously says, after a normal off your election or regional primary, you can't read too much
into these results. Don't make the mistake of thinking this win or that win has a larger meeting for the party, etc. But in the instance of Tuesday's election results, it does. The message was loud and clear. The voters in the Red States are ready to see younger, louder, more mavericky leaders atop the Republican Party. Reagan was our last great president, and Trump is turning out to be our next great president. The bulk of the American people can already see it.
I'm telling you. I'm telling you they see it. Even if this a noise, any liberals listening trust me, Even on the Democrat side of the aisle and the insider left, they know that Trump is going to be remembered as a great and consequential president. A controversial one too, yes, but so was so was JFK. You can't have great presidents who do great things without having them also be controversial and hated by other groups of people during their time.
Part of the greatness is overcoming the adversarial nature of the job. But trust me, today's Democrats, from Bill and Hillary to Chuck Schumer, to James Carville to Rachel Maddow to the DC and political insiders whose names you'll never know, they understand that Trump is going to be remembered as an historical and influential president, a great president. I'm thinking he'll be viewed as a great president when the American people have a better view of his greatness in retrospect.
That's what's feeling so much of their anger in Trump arrangement syndrome. On the left. The young activists might just be haters to hate. They have no sense of history and no sense of what makes for a great and consequential president. But trust me, the older Democrat leaders and those party insiders do. It's driving them crazy that Trump is finding all the fraud and ending all their fraudulent schemes. That's infuriatingly unfair to them. But then think that he's
going to get historical core credit for doing it. He'll have monuments built to him for doing it. It really makes their brains swell, and the Kaffer for me will be can we follow up the second term of Trump with another Republican who simply looks like more of the same pro America government instead of what the insane socialist left is selling. These Democrats are so convinced they're going to win in twenty twenty eight as a reaction by the country to Trump that if they don't, it is
going to be crushing, just devastating to them. If we can get a Rubio or a Vans in office to act as a verification that yes, the American people really liked Trump and they want to keep his vision of America going, well, that'd be stellar. That would cement Donald Trump's position in history as a great president, and in combined with the new census and the redrawn voter apportionment for the twenty thirties, it would lead to a great
new era of Republican control. Not necessarily conservative control, at least not consistently conservative, but it would lead to a great new era of Republican control. But getting back to Tuesday's results, when it comes to the seven squishy Indiana Republicans who stood in the way of their leaders, redrawing their maps this year. What did they accomplish? They find themselves unemployed. These men thought they were taking the moral
high ground and refusing to play hardball politics. They in good conscience couldn't help their own party gain an advantage in Indiana, so they bucked and infuriated Trump, only to watch the Democrats turn around and cheat like mad in Virginia and prove that the other side of the aisle is playing for keeps. The Democrats are playing hardball and they will destroy everyone who doesn't agree with them, and you, squishy Republicans are too afraid or too clueless to fight back.
These Indiana Republicans learned a hard lesson this week. And by the way, none of this that I've been talking about necessarily affects the fall elections. I want to make that clear. This doesn't necessarily affect whether the Republicans retain control of the House and the Senate this year. This is all sort of a larger snapshot of today's Republican party that I've been talking about. When it comes to this falls races. Yeah, Trump and Republicans have a hill
to climb. I doubt they keep control of the House, but maybe maybe I'd point out that despite the relentless drumming from the lefty media insisting that this is going to be a Republican wife out, most of the voter polls I'm seeing show that Republicans are actually in a dead heat on the electoral question for Fall, as in, if the election was held today, which party would you
vote for? A small flurry of new polling this week shows a virtual dead heat on that question, which has some people on the right excited and seeing it as evidence that the pundits have it all wrong. They're prevailing narrative that Democrats are headed toward big wins is wrong. Well, my take has been I'm not convinced it's going to be a blue wave election in Fall, even if it follows the historical pattern of being a better year for
Democrats than it is for Republicans. That would be the historical expectation, and it would mimic the historical pattern that after any flip in the White House, that president's party loses big in Congress in the next election. I do think that Democrats will probably retake the House and fall but keep the Senate. If I had to make a prediction today, that would be it yeah, I think the Democrats regain some seats in the House, but I don't think we're headed for any sort of genuine blue wave
or blue tsunami election. After all, the Democrats only need to flip how many seats in order to retake control of the House. Is it three or four? It's not a high bar to clear. But I think there's at least a chance that Republicans shock the country and actually retain control after this fall's elections. And if they do, it will be because of two things. First, because the
Democrat Party genuinely is a mess right now. They continue to make the mistake of pushing extreme agenda items like defunding the police, vilifying ice, demanding open borders, calling for more and higher taxes. So the first reason the Republicans may pull off a shok or this fall is because they aren't the party of crazy. They aren't the party of rabidly anti America ideas the Democrats are. The second reason would be the economy. The biggest worry for President
Trump and Republicans obviously is the economy. If they can point to an improving economy, even after taking on Iran and ending that forty year threat to the West. I think republic Ablicans can survive this fall and maybe even
pick up a few seats in the House. But that's a big if because while there's zero doubt that the economy has improved significantly from the Biden era, the front line or line of sight measures that so many people use to make their own personal evaluation still doesn't look good. Four or five dollars gasoline and still high grocery prices
don't look like progress to the average American. It matters that most Americans don't really pay attention to politics or the daily news, because that means most of us are making our choices at the ballot box based on feelings rather than facts. And it matters that most Americans are still struggling after years of higher inflation and higher interest
rates and now higher gas prices. It matters that on the line of site stuff, Trump and the Republicans haven't kept their promises as the average American now sees it. Gallup is still a largely reputable polling organization, and they just found that more Americans feel worse off financially than at any point in the last twenty five years. You
can point to all all the official government stats. When it comes to how we measure an economy, and you can say, yeah, nearly all of those measures proved that Trump's economy is far healthier than the Biden economy was, and it is. But when it comes to the people's personal perceptions, Gallup says, fifty five percent of respondents say their financial situation is getting worse, and that's up from
fifty three percent last year. That number is higher than at any point since two thousand and one, they say, and yes, we've changed presidents, but Gallup says this is the fifth consecutive year that more Americans say their finances are worsening rather than improving. When asked to identify their most important financial problems, thirty one cited the cost of living, and yes, inflation is far lower than where it was under Biden, but it's still inflated. A recent surgeon gas
prices has increased people's pessimism as well, Gallop finds. Remember gas prices were under three dollars a gallon again before the Iran War started. We were finally passed the three point fifty to four dollars a gallon gas of the Biden era, and most Americans were feeling pretty good about that kept by President Trump and then the Iran war. Is there still time to show progress on these line of site economic issues before the voting starts in fall. Well, yeah,
but there's not much time. And unless Iran really does fold and agree to terms to end this war, we aren't likely to see gas prices drop significantly between now and September, when the early voting starts. I don't see a blue tsunami year forming for the Democrats, regardless of what they're sick of, fans and the media are saying. But a lot of it depends on how the average voter is feeling about their own situation at the end
of this summer. I've been focusing on some of the genuine reformers and fraud hunters on this Trump team because the establishment media members refuse to and because the administration represents such a historical anomaly. I mean, we have a president and a group of people whom he's appointed that, for what maybe the first time in Washington DC's history, really wants to drain the swamp, eliminate the fraud, put the grifters out of business, and do better for the
American people. It's like any other reform effort that any presidential administration in my lifetime has ever undertaken. Nearly all presidential administrations promised to end the fraud or find the cheaters, and yet they never do because, in truth, and this is probably the truth, neither that president nor his political appointees really ever wanted to find the fraud or the theft in the first place, most certainly because they and
their parties have been benefiting from it. So in this regard, Donald Trump and his team really are different. As starting with the Doge effort, this administration has continued to identify and root out, and most often shut down all sorts of fraud in our social services and government programs. And as they do, it becomes apparent that most of these schemes stealing from the American people have been going on
for decades and decade. A good example of this is how Democrat leaders have never ever ever wanted to root out the fraud in our food stamp program. And so Trump's team is the first administration that's really taking a hard look at that program. And JD. Vance said this week, every day he's donned by something else that his fraud team is finding. Vance is in charge of this task force, and he said in an event this week, finding fraud in the federal government is kind of like fishing in
a barrel with dynamite. And yet, he said he shocked every single day by the things the task force is uncovering. So far, they found about three hundred and fifty five thousand people on food stamp benefits that are receiving double benefits, and he said, we have one hundred and eighty six thousand dead people getting food stamps. He said, one hundred and eighty six thousand dead Americans are getting foodstamps right now.
He also said the fake news media will now misrepresent these remarks as wanting me wanting to take away food stamps. He says, that's what they're going to say. I actually think that they should take food stamps away from dead people, he said, I'm guilty of that. I do think that's a reasonable thing. This comes after last week's news that just in one Red state alone, the audit found over fourteen thousand foodstamp recipients driving luxury cars that included even
some Lamborghinis and Bentley's. And that's just in one state. Why are they making such outrageous discoveries because they're finally looking. Right, Why are JD. Vans and Brooks Rollins shocked at the types of fraud and the level of fraud that their task force is uncovering every day? Because Trump's team is the first administration that's actually looked for it. And don't
tell me otherwise. Don't tell me that these same sorts of schemes and crimes weren't being committed during the Clinton and Bush and Obama or Biden eras, because of course they were. None of them ever bothered to look. And it's almost certainly because they knew what they'd find. I'm talking about these things because so few others are. But the editors of The Washington Examiner this week, to their credit, have also noticed that Trump's effort to reform these welfare
agencies is impressive. They give credit to Trump's food stamp reform already paying dividends. Quote. After former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden massively increased access to food stamps, President Donald Trump's reforms are working to cut back the bloat. Yeah, four point three million people have been cut from the SNAP program since Trump retook office. Most never should have
been eligible, as we've learned from Rook Rollins recently. They say before Obama, participation in food stamps fluctuated with the economy, rising during recessions and falling during expansions, obviously, but never exceeding ten percent of the population. They say that changed with Obama's two thousand and nine American Recovery and Investment Act, which increased food stamp benefit levels and expanded eligibility. Obama ballooned the food stamp recipients to forty eight million people,
or fifteen percent of the population. That is amazing. The first Trump administration, they say, cracked down on state waivers that allowed able bodied adults to stay on food stamps, and partician patient fell to thirty six million people in twenty nineteen, but the federal courts eventually blocked those reforms and Biden abandoned them. The Biden administration then ballooned the number back up to forty three million Americans on food stamps. Now Trump has it back down to about thirty eight
million and dropping. And as these editors say, for Democrats, these numbers are a catastrophe. The Democrat Party exists to get as much of the public hooked on government benefits as possible and keep them there forever. But they say Trump's food stamp reforms are proving that dependency is a policy choice, not an economic inevitability. Work requirements and eligibility rules rules protect taxpayers, encourage employment, and reserve aid for
the truly needy. Future administrations should build on this success, not revive the Obama Biden dependency machine. Yeah, changes in the Big Beautiful Bill have at least started to dismantle the welfare machine that Obama, Biden and today's Democrats have built over the last twenty years. But more can be done, obviously, and thank god for Trump and the people that he's chosen to run these agencies and enact these reforms for him.
But then there's this realization this too, is becoming more apparent due to the fact that for the first time, and administration is taking stealing from the American people. Seriously, the Washington Times is reporting that the level of fraud that's being found that's being committed by our own federal employees is shocking to auditors. This shouldn't really surprise anyone either, I suppose if you've been paying attention to Washington dec
and the federal government rot. But Trump's team is finding that it's not a small number of federal workers who are using their access to our government programs to steal from taxpayers too. This time story gives us some examples, like a woman who was working for the Department of Social Services and stole from the SNAP program by approving benefit claims for the elderly or dead people or illegals
and then keeping them for herself. This woman went so far as to call illegal aliens on the program and threaten them into silence and then grab their benefits for herself. This is happening basically in every government program that provides handouts to people. They're finding, of course welfare program fraud, food stamp fraud, but also Social Security and medicaid fraud, fraud at the IRS, the Defense Department, I mean, you
name it. If an agency is dealing with public funds, there's a good chance that some of its employees are abusing their access and stealing from the taxpayers and the people who are supposed to be getting that benefit. The story says it also includes state and local workers who end up doling out hundreds of billions of dollars that Uncle Sam sends to the states to provide housing, food, medical,
and cash assistance. And this would also make sense. You know, the federal government routine ship's big chunks of federal money to state and local governments and they're used as pass throughs or to dole out or run the program for the citizenry. So of course the workers for the state and local governments who are downstream and that funding are
going to try to steal chunks of it. Two And for decade after decade after decade, no one at any level of government has been doing serious audits or even looking for this stuff. Senator Jony Ernst of Iowa has looked into a lot of this, and she estimates that one point four billion dollars a day worth of federal taxpayer money is being stolen from US. One point four billion dollars a day stolen and wasted. And she says
we need accountability at all levels. Any bureaucrat busted for treating government benefits like a self service buffet should be served their next taxpayer funded meal behind bars, she says. James Comer is that Kentucky Republican who's the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Of course, he says, every single member of Congress should find this ramp and fraud unacceptable. Any federal employee who engages in fraud should be fired
and prosecuted to the flot extent of the law. So I'd say, federal, state or local, Yeah, we should take this criminality seriously. The story sites a National Parks employee who was caught on video in twenty twenty three pocketing the money she was collecting for parks fees and guided tours. And since she'd been doing it for years and years and years, she admitted to stealing at least a quarter of a million dollars that way. So was she put
in prison? Now, She was ordered to pay back the money and given five years probation on a prison sentence that she never received. It was just a probation sentence. There were literally zero consequences for a federal employee who had been caught stealing a quarter of a million dollars from taxpayers. And that story is representative of how the vast majority of our state and federal workers who are caught stealing from taxpayers are dealt with. Normally, it's just
a shrug and a wink from prosecutors or judges. Some Republicans in DC, like like Comer and Ernst here want to change that, and they've written up legislation for much harsher penalties for public employees who steal from us. But let's face it, even now, most of Washington, d C. And certainly most of today's Democrats don't care. I'm skeptical that bill will ever pass, and it won't because too many of these elected officials and insiders are guilty little
grifters themselves. I'm convinced of this. We have so many longtime bureaucrats and elected officials who are running their own little sorts of grifts and scams. They're reluctant told anyone accountable in case they might be the ones ultimately held accountable someday they might get caught. Understand, if these congressmen deal out harsh penalties to federal employees who steal from taxpayers, well how are they going to be treated if and
when they get caught basically stealing from federal taxpayers? You know, for example, the Democrats in Congress were caught funneling tens of billions of dollars a year into that US Aid organization, and then they'd funnel that to their family and friends and ultimately back to their own campaigns. If we pass laws that put thieves and fraudsters in prison, what happens
to them when they get caught in that grift? And there can be zero doubt that the vast majority of the fraud and the grifting and the dishonesty is going on in the Democrat side of the aisle. It's not exclusively, but it's heavily tilted that way. That's my way of transitioning to a different but related topic. You know, this is also classic DC duplicity. President Obama acting as if he's the conscience of the nation and the keeper of the Constitution when he spent the last twenty years being
the destroyer of those things. Obama told Stephen Colbert, to the canned applause from his audience, that presidents shouldn't be using their attorney generals as consiglieries as their mob enforcers. Listen, Yeah, now that you're.
No longer in office, what powers do you believe the president should not have? Well, there are a couple that I followed even though they weren't law, and I want us we're going to have to do some work to return to this basic norm and we probably now have to codify them. The White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go around prosecuting whoever. If everyone has right, it's technically it's under the executive branch.
I think the norm is that it's independent.
The norm, the idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer. It's not the president's consiglieri. Right, even when it's Bobby Kennedy, that's Bobby Kennedy. And so two of the core principles of a democracy. We can survive a lot bad policy, funky elections. There's a bunch of stuff that you know, we can overcome. We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power
of the state. You can't have a situation in which whoever's in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies.
It's obviously a shot at Trump, whose critics and sist He's using Pambondi and now Todd Blanche as his own personal attack dogs, sending them after Trump's personal and political enemies. Folks, more than any other president of our era, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the two presidents who have abused the Department of Justice and their attorney generals and used
them for their own gain. And if you had to pick one attorney general who absolutely did the bidding of his president anytime that president asked, it would absolutely have to be Eric Holder, acting as Barack Obama's personal henchmen. As bad as Merrick Garland was in doing the bidding of Joe Biden and going after anyone Biden instructed him too, from Trump to parents, to nuns to the Catholic Church, to covering up for Hunter and the Biden foreign money scandals.
As bad as Garland was when it came to being Joe Biden's consigliary and cheating in favor of the Bidens, Eric Holder was even worse when it came to cheating four In colluding with Obama and his White House team, Holder did everything from launching an undercover gun running scheme, to spying on journalists, to covering up IRS scandals to protecting Lewis Learner helping launch the Russia collusion smears. Is
a legitimate scumbag. And if any attorney general of the last one hundred years can be accurately described as a consigliary. It's eric holder continguliarity to Barack Obama, who is now pretending as if he and his administration were something different
and were above board. Not hardly, not even remotely. Obama can say the idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer and not the president's consigliari, and he can achieve applause for it, but in doing so, he's displaying once again that he is one of the of America's biggest hypocrites and slime balls, and post presidency, Barack Obama has really only reinforced that he's the duplicitous pretender and slime ball that most of us on the right
have always known him to be from the first moments that he ran for president. This guy has always been an infuriating and infuriatingly dishonest fraud. He once taught constitutional law, and instead of using that knowledge to inform him about what is right and proper, as it did for say, Alan Dershowitzer, Jonathan Turley, or John Ywe, Barack Obama appears to have studied the constitution and constitutional law in order to find ways around it, in order to find ways
to use it to his own advantage. Obama's eight year presidency in his longtime associations with people like Eric Holder and Valerie Jarrett and Susan Rice prove that and now post presidency, were supposed to view him as being on some sort of higher plane of wisdom. Screw that. This man is a dirt bag's dirt bag very slick. Yeah, he's fooled a lot of people, But Barack Obama, in the end is just another dirt bags dirt bag, very
par for the course in Washington, DC. And by the way, I love to hear Obama now admitting that his continued participation in politics is what's harming his marriage. I hope some of you saw this. This week, Obama admitted that Michelle wants him to withdraw from public life and simply live the good life with Oprah and Richard Branson and the other global elites. Nearly all presidents do, after all,
once they leave office. You withdraw so that you aren't criticizing the current president, making his job leading harder, and so that you aren't sending conflicting messages to the American people that undermine the effectiveness of our government. You're supposed to sort of withdraw quietly and with some dignity and
become a larger than life figure. And so the truth is Obama should withdraw from politics and public life simply because it's the smart and right thing to do if you want to have a status of revered former president. But aside from that, I love to hear this news because it confirmed something that I've been saying ever since the Obama's left office. Every two years we get a flurry of activity and idiotic talk. Yeah, Michelle's going to
run for president. Michelle's going to run for president. I'm the only one, I swear over the years who has never bought into that and has been honest about it all along. Michelle never had an interest in politics in the first place. She hated her time at the White House unless she was doing photoshoots and having her Heini kissed. She liked the trappings of the presidency, but didn't care
about the presidency. She has zero interest in actual politics are in the job, and she's made that clear forever. Michelle Obama will never run for president and never intended to. She doesn't even want Barack blathering about it anymore. But a year from now, we're going to hear from the same group of idiots on both the left and the right. They're on both sides of the aisle. You know, Michelle's running this time. It's serious. She's running. So let's agree today.
Anyone who says that or tweets that is an idiot.
The Jay Weber Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio podcasts, produced and engineered by Gregory John. The Jay Weber Podcast is presented by Creative Planning, helping clients simplify their journey to financial wellness, one personalized plan at a time. Listen to all of Jay Weber's podcasts, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.