Well, it's the Sean Hannity Show. It's Mark Simone here for John Hannity. Normally I'm on our big flagship station WR in New York or on the iHeart app. We got a lot coming up, hey with us right now. The brilliant economist Steve Moore. You should get his book, The Trump Economic Miracle. It's a great, great book. Also, he runs the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and they put out the best daily briefing, news analysis. You want to be much better in form, sound really smart, subscribe to it.
It's absolutely free. It'll come write to your email. Just go to Unleash Prosperity dot com and sign up for the hotline. Steve Moore. How you doing, hey.
Mark, I'm doing pretty well, although I'm getting a little bit seasick watching this market go up and down and up and down. I mean, we had a fabulous week and then today there was a pretty big sellof but overall it was a pretty good week. And look, I think the economy is looking stronger. Trump is coming back with a couple of big victories and is from China. Looks like he got some good deals with with a president g there in Beijing. So I'm doing pretty bullish, pretty good about things.
So if things went so well in China, why the market drop? Are they worried that he's going to go back to bombing Iran or something like that.
Well, everything is so dependent right now, mark on what's happening in the in the Strait of Hormuz and whether that oil is flowing and right now. The last time I checked them and looked in the last couple of hours, but it was about one hundred dollars a barrel oil. Remember before Duran conflicts started, we were about seventy dollars a barrel. So when the price of oil goes up, and the price of gasoline goes up, and the price of energy goes up, it affects everything. It affects groceries,
it affects housing, it effects transportation. So but you know, I'm going to use the word resilient. This is an incredibly resilient economy, even though we've taken the shock hit from the from the oil price in you know, look at the investment by businesses very good. You look at consumers are still spending, although they're getting angry when they go to this gas pump. I know, my wife does.
And so that's the kind of situation. But I really believe once this gets resolved in the Middle East, we are primed for a major, major boom in the US economy, just like we saw last year. I mean, last year was a very good year. And people forget, before the ram conflicts started, we had the lowest gas prices in forty years adjusted for inflation.
Yeah, so all you read about is the high gas prices. Now, when this thing is over and the gas prices plunge, you'll never hear about it. You'll never read about it anywhere. It won't report it. But hey, the other good thing besides getting rid of the worst terrorist regime in the world, it looks like we might be getting rid of Opek. Wouldn't that be a good thing?
Wow, that'd be so amazing, you know. So I'm sixty six years old now, so for most of my life, you know, the oil price has been dictated by this cartel Opek, And you know, for decades now, they've had a blade at our neck. And they could, you know, just by turning on and off the spigots, they could throw the American economy into a recession and cause real hardship.
I remember when I was a kid and my you know, the sixteen years old, going up in Chicago and we get up in the February morning and meet five degrees and we'd pack up in the station wagon and have to drive to the gas station. We'd be ateh the line to get gas.
They ste gas lines around the block. Back then, exactly, Hey, if you read the New York Times or you watch MSNBC, our economies a total shambles. China's the most biggest powerful economy. What is the truth?
Oh? My god, So you know, here's There was a big piece in New York Times, shock Shocked that said, oh, China is just kicking our body. The economy is doing so well, and they're going to leave us in a cloud of dust. And I just looked at the evidence. Over the last ten fifteen years, we've been beating China. Our stock marker has got way way up. Theirs has been flatlined. We still produce way more than the Chinese do. Now, look, I take the China threat very seriously as Trump does.
And they are in an enemy, in an adversary of the United States, and they're an enemy and adversary of freedom and so Trump I was very glad to see he took a very hard line, you know with President g and these negotiations, because the real issue of the next twenty to thirty years will the United States or China be the world economic superpower? And Mark, I'm going to put it my money on the United States as long as we don't elect AOC as president.
Yeah. No, China economy is not strong. In fact, they're trying to alter their business model a little with the exporting and all that. The fact that the President brought the most powerful, biggest business leaders in the world with him in his entorage that was pretty impressive and almost intimidating to China, wasn't it.
I think? So? I mean you had you had you know a number of billionaires in that room. Who are the I think Elon Musk was there? Was he not?
Yeah? Musk and Tim Cook and in video all those things.
These guys are creating these incredible companies, Uh that are you know, some of these companies are work more than some entire countries are. So they've done very well.
They're creating.
And look, all of us benefit when American companies benefit because we almost all of us have four one k plans and money invested in the market, and you know, so uh so that's a good thing for America that we've been so dominant. And I would say this the big issue for America going forward is will the United States. I think we will dominate the AI and robotics age that's coming in the way that we've completely dominated mark
the Internet age. You know, we have these incredible companies like Amazon and Google and Microsoft and on and on, and now we have you know, in Nvidia and Tropic and so I want to make sure. I think one of Trump's you know, missions in life, is to make sure that we remain number one. And I want to mention something else that my may mark, which is the tax cut, the big beautiful bill, huge positive impact on investment. And by the way, I like getting a little bit
bigger reef on this year. I don't know about you.
No, it was good. It was good. However, bear in mind I live in New York. How bad are our taxes here in New York?
Well, my god, you know, we were just looking at the per capita state and local taxes. This was in our hotline this morning. So we're looking at all the fifty states and not only does New York have the highest per capita tax burden of any state. Are you ready for this? Mark? Are you sitting down right now?
I hope for this. I better be lying down. I think New York.
Is now has a per capita tax burden that's per person, that's almost twice as high as most states. What money go? Where's that all the money going?
Well, you know, they just put out the bar for New York City one hundred and twenty four billion. That's double the budget of the whole state of Florida. It's just waste and fraud. What do we do?
And there's no evidence that you know, the one thing? Did I go to from New York a lot? As you know, I work for the Wall Street Journal and don't anymore, But I did, And I used to go up to Manhattan all the time, and it's still new. And I've been to Florida many times. And I got to tell you, Florida has better services, you know, better public services than New York does and they spend half as much money. How did it happen?
Well, again, it's all waste and fraud. You know, we spend it costs forty thousand a mile to pave a highway, we spend a million a mile. It's stuff like that. Yeah, and there's nobody to crack down on this or do anything, certainly not Democrats. How can we can we ever fix this?
Well, how about you know the mayor of New York City, Mondamine saying, you know, they're running a multi billion dollar devaity, So we can't find anywhere to cut in our budget. Really, I mean, you got one hundred billion dollar budget. You couldn't find anything. So they want to raise taxes again. And so this is the big story in America today, the Blue states. All they want to do is raise taxes high or hire. And how we're going to tax the rich, tax the companies, tax with the stack if
you're success. By the way, they've defined someone who's rich as anyone who has a job. Right, And so where are all the all the people going, Where are the company is going? Where is the money going? It's going into the red states. I mean there's been a two trillion dollar massive transfer of income and wealth out of Blue states like California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts. Where's it all going? Oh, it's going to the Carolinas.
It's going to Texas, it's going to Florida, it's going to Tennessee. By the way, Mark, do you know what Texas, Tennessee and Florida have in common? No, no income tax?
Florida has no income tax. How are their services better? And would you would you say There's schools are obviously better, right.
Because they as my mom used to say, my dear old department, mom used to stay. They watched their p's and q's.
But Florida they're talking about even getting rid of property text, how would that even be possible?
And well, you know, this is a state that has so much money coming in, so many businesses coming in that they're able. You know, when you have economic growth and you've got prosperity, guess what that helps pay the bills. And that's why you know Texas the same thing. I mean, my gosh, Texas Dallas is pretty practically the new Wall Street.
Wow. Hey, hey, Steve Moore, you know I used to get my mail. You get a whole big bunch of envelopes. You know, I get my mail. Not it's like one thing. Do we really still even need this postal service?
But the postal service has lost one hundred and twenty billion dollars. What eleven years one hundred and twenty billion dollars, you know, I think, look, we all have a kind of romantic vision of the blue and white and red you know, trucks and the mail man coming to the door. But let's face it, you know, in ten years there's not going to be a lot of snail mail left. It's a dying industry. I think it's probably time to you know, it's like the telegram. Whence the last time you got a telegraph.
I don't think you can send one anymore. Is there such a thing?
Yeah, So they've got to they've got to do something about this because they can't keep losing, you know. And when I say they, who's who's who's absorbing all that that? Those losses you and I and all the people who pay taxes. So it's just it's losing more and more money all the time. And let's have some company. Let's let anybody, you know, FedEx or any of these ups or any service. They should be able to deliver the mail and they wouldn't lose as much money as the
postal service does. By the way, the cost of a stamp in just the last ten years has gone up eighty percent. They're still losing money.
Yeah, well I got these forever stamps which you just use them forever whatever I paid for them.
My advice is use him quickly, folks.
All right, Well Steve Moore, great stuff. Now you should go to he runs the committee to Unleashed Prosperity. They put out the best daily briefing. It's called the Hotline, right and it's it's absolutely free. Go to Unleash Prosperity dot com. Sign up for it. And the book is the Trump Economic Miracle. Make sure you get the book. And of course you'll see Steve Moore all over television. Steve Moore, thanks for being with us.
Thank you, Mark, have a great week on my friends.
All right, take care. Yeah. Actually I don't even mail any checks anymore. Online banking. You know, it's actually safer now you put stuff in the mailbox. There's mailbox thiefs that steal all the envelopes looking for checks in there. You're actually safer now with online banking. Hey, we got a lot to talk about, a Miranda Divine and more coming up. You can call us one eight hundred nine four to one. Sean is the number one eight hundred nine one seven three two six one eight hundred nine
four one seven three two six. Mark Simone here on the Sean Hannity Show. Hey, welcome back. It's the Sean Hannity Show. It's Mark Simone here for Sean. Linda is here. How's it going, Linda? We're doing all right.
You know what, Mark, any day that I get to spend with you and your illustrious talent is a day that I don't even deserve the fact that I get to be here among such greatness.
What a phone?
I feel like that's kind of what happened between g and Trump. No, you're wonderful. No, no, no, you're wonderful.
Yes, uh no. Hey, she agreed to a lot of stuff. He agreed to buy two hundred Boeing jets, he agreed to help with the RAM. Well, now the good news is they never live up.
Then I was gonna say, I.
Was like, well, you know, it's kind of like promises me promises, kep, we shall see you know, show me your actions.
Tire history. China's never lived up to an no one thing. That's why it's heeasy to negotiate with them. How about eight hundred Yitess you got it.
That's great. Absolutely, it's like the Ponzi scheme of all Ponzi's schemes.
Whatever you say, we got it. In fact, we got four of them, all yours.
Whatever you need, just give us, you know is what are you gonna do?
He doesn't buy the jets, what are you gonna do? Take the court as nothing.
Although I did think I'm curious how the summit was written up in Chinese newspapers. Obviously the government is overseeing everything, but there's a lot of undercurrent, you know, Epoch Times talks about that a lot that there's this undercurrent of news where you can find out what's actually really going on and what the Chinese people think. And obviously before the American detail got back on Air Force one, they dumped everything, every gift.
Every on your phone, every everything went into the trash. So I'm like, okay, yeah.
Everything is bug tampered with, embedded with stuff. So they get rid of everything.
Yeah, So I'm kind of curious about, you know, how that was written up, like if they thought was it was ungrateful or I don't know where they would have disposed of said items.
Right over the ocean Jesus.
But do you know what I'm saying, Like, how do you tactfully do that? Because they're in a surveillance state quite literally, So no matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter what you're throwing away, right, Yeah, I don't know.
They probably brought like some kind of secure bag to.
Lock it in, and then I guess I don't know.
Hey, my phone is blowing up right now.
Yeah, people are upset.
Huh No, because I went to the doctor today. Oh, you make a doctor's appointment, you get a text before you even hang up, thank you for making your appointment. Click here. Then I get a text every five minutes just to confirm your appointment.
I actually asked my friend about this, who's a physician, and she's pretty.
She's here in New York and she's got a great practice.
And I said to her, you know your office, since like thirty nine text messages to day off, I already told you I was coming. She goes, we have zero control over that. She's like, it's a hot mess. We can't control it.
It's super annoying, you know, shut it down.
I'm walking to the doctor's I'm like a block away. You can check in now if you want text, so.
Can we talk about that?
Is there a reason why I can no longer check in? I went to the dentist today. They are lovely. By the way, if anybody's looking for a dentist, doctor Abadeinio on said second Street. He's fabulous. Awesome office. Lisa and Dina Pam shout out to my dentist. But I'm serious, Like, you walk in, Hey, how are you?
Here's your paperwork, Here's what you need to do. It's in person. I don't need to predo anything.
Yeah, that's the way to do it, you know. I go to the doctor, he's great. I'm leaving. I walk out. I didn't even hit the button for the elevator. I get a text. How was your appointment? Take our survey?
It's ridiculous.
I had the they came to like college hunks taking junk the other day from my house. I had four survey requests. I'm like, yeah, they were great.
They took junk.
Thank you.
How many times I gotta tell you I gave you a tip?
Yeah, oh that's a What do they call those hunks lugging junk?
College hunks lug and junk.
Yeah, it's a pretty good psyche.
Call in junk. Either way, it works for me.
Yeah, pretty good. If you gotta throw away stuff back with Miranda Divine, don't go away. Well, actually it's Mark Simone here for Sean Hannity. Sean will be back on Monday. Hey, with us right now, the superstar columnist Miranda Divine. Her columns in the New York Post, but you can see him there. Also, she does the great podcast Force One, phenomenal podcast, and of course you see her all over television,
Fox News contributor and get her books. She's written some big, big best sellers yet the big guy in Laptop from Hell. And she's with us right now. Miranda Devine, how you doing.
I'm Mark, I'm well, thank you.
Hey, what do you think President Trump and China? Pretty impressive entourage he brought with him, wasn't it?
Oh? It was incredible And I mean he had, of course his fantastic cabinet, but he had all the big business people that I'm sure President g was very keen to get his clutches into. So it seemed to.
Go off really well.
Now you think this was better than Joe Biden bringing his crazy son Hunter that was his entourage.
It's so funny that you say that exactly. How could we forget December twenty thirteen, there was Joe Biden arriving on Air Force two, and behind him trooping along in his groovy sunglasses, just like dad was Hunter. And you know, Joe Biden was supposed to leave China with things for America and he didn't. China just kept on militarizing the South China Sea, kept on stealing our ip. Joe Biden got nothing, but Hunter Biden got a share in a
billion dollar company. You know, I don't think that Donald Trump was doing that. Instead, I think he got a whole lot of promises from China. Let's see. I mean, you never trust a thing they say, but to invest in America. And you know he brought along chim Apple and Elon Musk and the sort of business titans of America. And so I think it has to be good for us. Even though China is an adversary, we have to learn how to get along with them.
Yeah, now you're the Hunter expert. Hunter made as you said, he had that billion dollar deal. He made millions in the Ukraine, he made millions on the paintings. Why is he now broke. Apparently Campase bills.
Well, he says he's broke to the court because Abby loll hilariously. His lawyer is looking for money, and I mean, I hear it's millions of dollars that he's owed. And obviously his sugar brother Kevin Morris in California has closed his wallet, having forked out several million dollars to keep Hunter in the lifestyle that he's become used to. Hunter is still living high on the hog. He told the court that he was living overseas, which is why he
couldn't show up in person. And he has been known to travel and have holidays in South Africa, which his new wife's second home or original home, but he's not there all the time. He's constantly popping up in California at various places that expensive restaurants, at swanky digs of billionaires, where I suppose he's still getting free holidays, free vacation time. And in fact, London Roberts his baby mama, whose little girl Navy must be God, she'd be six by now,
I think, and Hunter. She kindly agreed to Hunter reducing his child support payments, and then he renigged on the new cheaper deal been paying her, so she's had to go back to court. And as her lawyer, who's fantastic Clint Lancaster pointed out in the Arkansas court, Hunter has been living the high life. And Clint Lancaster just listed out a whole lot of the swanky restaurants and you
know the expensive rentals that he has. How on Earth, when the man does not have a job he can afford to live the way he does and you can I mean, the trips back and forward to South Africa are not cheap, and you can bet he's not flying economy.
So he has a current wife. You say, how desperate do you have to be to marry Hunter Biden?
Well, I guess she was from South Africa, so she didn't know any better. The only thing I can think. And look, a lot of people are very attracted to celebrity, and Hunter Biden is a sort of a celebrity. You know, he's the son of the notorious son of who was then the president when they got married, So that, I guess is a pretty heady combination power and celebrity to a young woman. So she's there, she seems to be.
She's still with him.
They have a son together, so they seem to be happy enough, but who knows.
Yeah, I'm sure this will have a very happy ending, this marriage. But what does Joe Biden do all day? We don't hear from What do is think he does all day?
Well? I actually quite like the fact that it's the one good thing I will say about Joe Biden, although he may not have any control over it. We haven't seen very much of him at all. He gives the occasional ridiculous speech, but he's obviously his services are not sought after as a speech giver. But the person that we see ad nauseum the former president is Barack Obama. Unlike all other past presidents, he inserts himself repeatedly into the political process in a very slimy, cunning, sly way.
And whenever I see Barack Obama pop up, I think to myself, there's trouble brewing. Trouble always follows him. I think part of the reason that he's so frenetically involved in the Democrats issues now is not because he's a great party man and he wants to help the party that's in dire straits. I think it's because he's concerned
that the Trump doj is closing in on him. That there's a attorney in Florida, Jason Miarez, who is looking at a conspiracy case which involves all of those people James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, etc. Who were involved in that dodgy intelligence assessment just after the election in twenty sixteen that basically fingered Donald Trump or framed Donald Trump I should say, as an agent of Vladimir Putin, and kept that Russia hook collusion hoax going right through
the Muller investigation and crippled Donald Trump at least the first half of his presidency and has left, you know, attained ever since. There's still some people who still believe that Donald Trump is a rush An agent. So Barack Obama, he was the one who held the meeting, who came up with this, or instructed his minions Brennan and co. To do his bidding and create this false intelligence assessment.
And he's gotten off scott free. And you just hear rumbles sometimes, you know, when I interview some senior administration people, that maybe Barack Obama is not going to get off scott free. So I think he might be worried and he's trying to keep his profile high so that it seems like if they do in diet him, will come after him in some way that he can pretend that it's because he's such a potent political adversary, they're trying to neutralize him.
Ah. Interesting, So hey, Miranda Devine, your latest calm. It's a great combat the violence, which is all coming from the left. Yet all the you know, the Biden types kept talking about ultra maga domestic terrorists. Will the public ever get the story straight from the regular media?
I don't think so. It really is quite scary and sinister that you still have the New York Times talking about, you know, domestic terrorism being a right wing issue and talking about right wing violence that is so outdated if
it was ever true at all. And they always rely on January sixth, which was a riot at the Capitol and reprehensible those people who broke in and you made a mess, I guess, and fought with police more importantly, but they were a minority of the Trump supporters who turned up at the capitol, and many of those who were indicted in the biggest FBI investigation in its history. Ridiculously, we didn't even go into the Capitol. They were totally peaceful.
This was an unarmed protest or turned into a riot, and only one person was killed, and that was Ashley Babbitt by a Capital police officer who was then protected and his name was suppressed, etc. Unlike all the cops we had seen on the other side, and unlike the reaction to the Summer of Love, the BLM and TIFA riots that we all suffered through in twenty twenty, this was brought up as if it was worse than Pearl Harbor. That's what Kamala Harrison, Joe Biden said, worse than nine
to eleven the Capitol right. That went on for a couple of hours. So the New York Times and the Washington Posts go along with that narrative. And I don't see them ever breaking from the Democrat narrative. And you're seeing them even with their anti Israel, the New York Times with its disgusting anti Israel lies, there's still running the left wing playbooks.
Yeah. Yeah, and you've had how many three assassination temps on the president, plus if you count the guy with the bomb heading to mar Alago. That's for you were sitting there right at the White House Correspondence dinner when that happened.
Yes, I was, and you know, it was remarkable how calm and sanguine Donald Trump was just even while it was all happening. He sort of just surveyed the room, and I guess he saw that there was an immediate danger from his vantage point up high, looking towards the back of the room. I was sitting up the front, facing towards him the stage, and so all I heard was some plates what sounded like plates or glasses breaking, and I just thought, Oh, a waiter's dropped a tray.
How embarrassing for them. And then everyone around me just got under the table because I think, if you grew up in America, which I didn't, you maybe I used to. You've been trained, you've been drilled into, you know, take cover. So I wasn't. So I was sitting there like a bunny looking around and would have been a sitting duck if if there had been a gunman in there, which
there could have been. And then I eventually went down, and then Scott Bessant, who was I was sitting next to Treasury Secretary by kindly offered me to go with him. So we went back to his house and I continue doing some work from back there. But it was, you know,
another frightening reminder of the fear. And well he doesn't feel fear, it doesn't seem, but certainly the threat around Donald Trump, they're never going to stop trying to kill him, whether it be left wing assassin's young men who have been groomed I believe, like Thomas Crooks, or whether it's Iran. You know, whether Iran is behind any of these other attempts. We know certainly there was one Iranian well he was not Iranian, but he was ordered by the IRGC in
Iran to take out Donald Trump. And he was convicted recently in New York. So these threats are known by the Secret Service, by the CIA, by the FBI. I
think we just see the tip of the iceberg. And it's really remarkable that President Trump just you know, popped up just very shortly after that, gave a press conference in his tuxedo and was just you know, making jokes and on top of things and making everybody calm, because I think you had the whole press gallery who then had to assemble over at the White House, and they I think they were calmed by the fact that he
wasn't panicked. I think the entire country gets calmed, just like at Butler when he stood up and raised his fist in the air, blood streaming down his face, and said fight, fight, Fight. It just makes you realize that things are not spiraling out of control. The president is still the president, He's still in charge. And for most Americans who aren't psychopaths or totally unhinged, that's a good thing. And let's hope on keeping on well.
Miranda Divine brilliant as always. Great talking to you. Everybody listened to her podcast, You'll love it. It's Pod force one Interviews with Everybody, the President, the Vice President, pod Force one. Get her best selling books, The Big Guy and Laptop from Hell. Read her column of course The New York Post. Miranda Divine, thanks for being with us.
Thanks so much.
I take care. Hey, well, we've got a lot more coming up. We'll take some calls. I'd lots to talk about. Don't go away. It's Mark Simone here for Sean Hannity.