This is the US Report with James Moroar.
Good evening and welcome to the program. Here's what's coming up tonight. Donald Trump says his blockheade against Iran is working, but how long can that regime hold out? Plus Democrats in the Senate, Well, they're trying to hinder the war. But in the process are they taking the side of the Mullahs? Would it be the first time? And Michelle Obama says America is janky?
What does that even mean?
But first, you know, they say you should never discuss religion or politics for well, pretty obvious reasons. But tonight I think we need to talk about both again for pretty obvious reasons. Now, as you know, this week, the headlines have been dominated not just by the war in Iran, but the at times bizarre media grudge match between US President Donald Trump and his Holiness Pope Leo the fourteenth
aka Robert Francis Prevost. Now, the whole thing has at times seemed almost comically bizarre, with Trump posting and then deleting memes of himself done up to look his critics said, like Jesus healing the sick. But I wanted to highlight the key counterpoint in this argument between Donald Trump and Pope Leo, and suggest that this might be more than just two powerful figures.
Poking each other.
Now, of course, the fight kicked off at the start of the week when Leo tweeted quote, God does not bless any conflict anyone who is a disciple of Christ. He said, the Prince of Peace is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs. Military action will not create space for freedom or times of peace, which comes only from the patient
promotion of coexistence and dialogue amongst peoples. The Pope tweeted, well, really, your Holiness, with respect, God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. I'm sorry, but perhaps His Holiness ought to go tour his own Vatican museums and see such works as this magnificent painting commemorating the sixteen eighty three victory over the Turks at Vienna, who had laid siege to the city and indeed all Christendom.
In nineteen eighty three, Pope now Saint John Paul the Second marked the three hundredth anniversary of the battle, and he paid tribute to quote the admirable courage and even heroism of the defenders of that city, and those who took strength from their faith, from prayer and the conviction that they fought not only for their country, but for Europe and for Christendom. I don't know what Leah would
say about that. He would probably just call it islamophobic. Anyway, Trump responded, and by the way, I think he was unwisely to Leo's provocation with a long truth social post that, among other things, called Leo weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. Well yes, but then, of course there was all the controversy over Trump's Jesus postings, but that's sort of a shide show to a bigger controversy. But I must say here Trump's critics do have a point
on this one. I mean, there's a war on Iran. In Iran that people are pretty freaked out about, prices are going up, and the President is range tweeting the Pope. I'm sorry, mister President, it's time to focus. But I also think we need to be alive to a very real possibility that there is another angle to this, namely that Pope Leo has jumped along with his faithful into
a political campaign. He should have nothing to do with Here's why I say this will The Catholic Church is or should be deeply hostile to the Democrats social liberalism. In recent years they have found common cause together on certain issues like immigration. Indeed, has turned into the business model.
Catholic charity has reaped tens of millions of dollars, perhaps more from the Biden administration to help quote unquote resettle the millions of migrants and Democrats moved into the country when they were in power, giving the Church a financial stake in open borders beyond whatever they are saying scripture says on the subject. And Pope Leo himself has a long history of tweeting Democrat talking points from before he
became the Pope. He retweeted attacks on Donald Trump's so called anti immigrant rhetoric, and he also attacked JD.
Vance.
Oh, and then there was this last week, Pope Leo met with David Axelrod, a key player in the Barack Obama administration, which of course orchestrated the Iran deal that brought the world to its presidence crisis. Now Axro denies it, but there is plenty of speculation that he put Leo up to coming out against Trump. Now we'll never know.
That's between David Leo and the Swiss Guards. But ultimately, I think this effort by Democrats to lock in the Catholic and more broadly, the religious Christian vote by capitalizing on this controversy is doomed to fail for one simple reason.
While the social justice wing of Christianity may have a similar agenda as the left when it comes to things like welfare and borders on the big questions, the philosophical, the metaphysical questions, they remain light years apart, not just on the biggie of abortion, but when it comes to family, sex, the meaning of life. Are we all just living in a material world or is there something more there?
Pulls apart and remember.
Has throughout the modern era been at odds with the left because the Church presents a moral framework whose authority is alternately alternate to and infinitely superior to, the state, which the left has always seen as a stand in
for both family and God. This is why, from the horrors of the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, to the Spanish Civil War, and through countless other tragedies, churches, clerics, and the religious have always been the target of the worst abuses by the Left, allegedly in the name of liberation, but really because they didn't want the competition. Today's Democrats, who are trying to open the door are the heirs
to this tradition, even if they are less violent. Brack Obama's Justice Department, remember, dragged the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns who take care of the elderly and the poor before they die, tried to force them to buy an Obama care package that covered contraception,
a big no no for countless reasons. Joe Biden, who when he was president talked himself up as this big time Irish Catholic, was so selective on this that he sicked his FBI on traditional Catholic groups, including weaponizing worshippers who attended Latin services, saying that they were extremists. And of course, the cultural left is deeply suspicious of the Church, regarding his teaching on sexuality as bizarre, slandering its priests' pedophiles,
and mocking them at every turn. It is in a perfect world, of course, politicians would stick to politics and the Church would stick to saving souls. I mean, remember America was founded on separation of church and state, and two thousand years ago Jesus Christ said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar said? Unto God what is God's In other words, the founders of both institutions were pretty
clear about everyone staying in their lane. Perhaps both the Pope and the President should go back and heed that advice. Here endeth the lesson. Well to talk more about this whole teta tete between the Pope and the President and how it's being received across the US and the wider world, and please be joined by Ashley Maguire from the Catholic Association in the US. Ashley, thank you so much for
joining us here on the US report. How is this spat between the president and the Pope being received politically in America? And there's been a lot of talk about this splitting Catholics away who might have been Republicans and magusupport and Trump supports away from the president.
Is that happening?
Well, I would say first of all that I think Catholics are pretty unanimously disappointed and hurt by the President's comments towards the Pope. About the Pope, there's not really any precedent for this in American history as far as I'm aware. It's also confusing politically. You know, President Trump has made great overtures to Catholics. He boasts strong support from Catholics. Catholics were the deciding difference between the twenty
twenty and the twenty twenty four election. So why he's suddenly gratuitously attacking the Pope is not just hurtful but confusing to Catholics.
Well, actually, I suspect what the President would say to that is that he's feeling like Pope Leo attacked him first. Now it sounds a bit schoolyard, but he's also said that the Pope has been a lot harsher on the US than he has on Iran, which, of course, let's not forget, kills its own people by the score. And Trump highlighted this a little while ago at a press conference.
Have a look, I want to ask you for more protectors.
What are we pulling the first woman protector?
What do you tell you what?
I'll tell that to development?
Been talking?
What are you saying how that to the develop?
Is there a legitimate case to be made that the Pope has been a little too silent on the question of Iran versus the United States.
All I've ever heard the Pope do is speak out about how heinous war is and the cost of vulnerable, innocent lives. And so I think, look, the Pope, he's the ficker of Christ. He's a spiritual leader. He's not a politician. Trump is treating him like a political enemy. The Pope's job is to preach the Gospel, and the gospel is one of peace. I mean, Jesus Christ himself said, blessed are the peacemakers. That's the message that the Pope said.
He's not trying to micromanage US geopolitical relations. That's not his job. And he's well with the his authority and well within precedent to be speaking out about the horrors of war and the loss of innocent life. This is this is somebody who's who's given his life to promote the cause of the Gospel, but also to defend the dignity of all people, especially innocent human life.
So what do you make then, of the connections between Barack Obama's UH chief former chief of staff David Axelrod going over to the Vatican meeting with the Pope. So close to all of this, you know, blowing up. People are saying that there may be a connection here, that there may be, you know, some Democrat politics at play here between the Democrat Party in Chicago, and of course Pope Leo himself is from Chicago and he has in his previous life before becoming elevated to Pontiff said some
fairly you know, Democrat friendly things. Is there a political connection here though.
I don't think so. It's hard to say, but these meetings are they're put on schedule long before they happen. And David Axelrod, I know, has a severely disabled daughter who's in the care of a Catholic home. And I also know that the Pope seems to have a policy of meeting with everyone, and so I think it's getting a bit conspiratorial to suggest that this is some sort of political operation that's happening. But I can't say for sure. I'm not in charge of a schedule.
Sure, sure, sure, of course, of course.
Hey, I wanted to also just get your thoughts because this was a sort of a weird week when religion and politics kind of mixed a fair bit in America. On the now deleted picture of Donald Trump depicting himself as a sort of a Jesus or Jesus like healing figure, and when he was asked about it, he said that it was a mistake. Have a look at that.
I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do with Red Cross. It's supposed to be me as a doctor making people better.
And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.
What were your thoughts on that and some of the other, shall we say, sacramental memes that the President posted this week.
Look, when I first thought that he was actually posting it as himself as Jesus, I shared in all Christians dismay at the mockery of Christ. Beyond that, I have to say that it's part and parcel with a long standing, unfortunate issue we have in America where religion is mocked. So I sincerely hope that Trump is telling us the truth when he said that he did not know that he was mocking Jesus Christ.
Ashley, We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time, really appreciate it. Well, let's move over to the war in Iran and bring in our next guest. Senior advisor at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, Miad Malechid. Thank you so much for joining me on the show here, and I wanted to ask you first of all about the latest news about this potential cease fire with Iran that we've heard about with between sorry Israel Lebanon, that we've heard about in the
last few hours. Tell us about the implications of that and does this suggest that Iran is losing its control over its Hesbola proxies.
Well, thanks for having me.
I mean, that's that's a really complicated issue and and you know, you can make the argument that the Iranian regime can argue all day long that they have there's to continue to play a herole in the politics in Lebanon through their proxy group has Bowlah.
But but but I think it's.
I think the Islonomic Republic has really lost, you know, following the twelve year war, and also that the current economic situation in Iran and the conflict that they've been managing with the US and Israel.
It's you know, it's.
Debatable if Iran continues to really maintain that level of influence through has Bulah in the politics of Lebanon. However, it can continue to cause instability and destabilized Lebanon and the neighboring country through has Bulah. Now, I understand that one of the one of the points that was discussed during Islamabat talks were the conflict in Lebanon and Iran support to proxies and surrogates. You know, the isigner to public they've never come out UH during the negotiations admitting
to this support UH. They always said that their support is UH spiritual, is not financial. But but in reality we know the support is financial and it's it's through weapons and arms and fonts at the same time. So I don't think it's it's a really sticky point. I don't think it's a major issue that the Iranian is going to have to deal with during the next round of negotiations. If there is one, they can easily just do what they've done with Saudi Arabia in recent talks.
Just we're not supporting these groups even in sign a piece of paper or agree to something, and then can it still continue to.
Provide that store covertly.
But again, I think some of that influence that we're hearing about Irani Lebanon could be exaggerated these days. Now it used to be real and they dangerous, but I don't think that's still the case.
Andriand you mentioned a moment ago the economic situation in Iran. I understand the currency is in free fold collapse. I think it's approaching two million real to the US dollar. The blockade is starting to bite that Donald Trump has threatened to impose. Tell us about where that blockade. You've
done some very interesting analysis on this. Where this blockade leaves Iran and its inability to a raise foreign currency, but b what happens when they don't have any way to get rid of all the oil that's coming out of the ground. What happens to them and they're oil infrastructure.
Those are all great points. So let's look at the pre war state of economy. Iran's had an inflation rate somewhere between forty percent, you know, thirty percent, fifty percent. You know, the numbers come out of Iran from the regime, so they're not always that edible. But if you kind of bring all these numbers together, you get to somewhere between forty fifty percent. Iranians have lost their purchasing power by ninety percent in the course of one year, and the food inflation year.
On year is about one hundred and four percent.
It's unemployment rate pre war was somewhere between twenty to thirty percent, but I think it's way more than that, and the war situation with the closure of the economy, has for sure increased that number, probably somewhere above fifty percent within the younger population in Iran. So now we're coming out of this war, the metal production petrochemical reductions have significantly declined, and those are the type of commodities that Iran would export through land to Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey.
And with the decline in the production of metals and petrochemicals, Iran is not.
Going to be able to export.
It's going to have to only meet the demand domestically.
And now it relies more and more on the trade that goes through the Persian Gulf and straight off Foremost, And now we have the blockade coming through and if implemented effectively, it can cut off Iran's export and import and an economy that relies ninety percent or more on the trade that goes through the straight of Foremost, that's about two hundred and sixty seven million dollars a day in exports and about one hundred and I believe fifty six million dollars a day in import. Blockade is going
to cut that completely. Now to a second point, you know, the export exportation of oil really is done in a way that oil needs to be extracted, it goes to the storage facility and or get put some tankers and out to to to the receiving side. If they can't get this oil out and if they run out of the storage, which my assessment is somewhere between.
Two weeks to three to four weeks.
Depending on how much they refine how much their output extraction has declined because of the strikes, that storage capacity is going to go away in a matter of two to four weeks, and.
Then they can't take the oil out.
They're going to have to drop extraction and that means damage to their ability to extraction.
So with all with all of this, then Miad, how does the IRGC regime manage to survive? They'll have no currency nowhere to put their oil now damaging their infrastructure. Are they going to have to make some sort of deal in Pakistan to make some sort of survival or do they collapse entirely. I mean, we've already heard talk about potentially them giving up their uranium. I think Trump has made this claim. Does this mean that the war is effectively almost over?
It all depends. We've heard that a lot in the past.
You know, Iranian say something, you don't know who is saying it from Iran. You don't know if US is getting in from the right person in the country.
Let's not really count on that.
Let's see, let's see what actually happens if there's another round of talks in Islamabad.
But just very quickly on.
An RGC point, so, one third of Iran's oil export bunds the RGC directly, so in addition to the budget that they get from Iranian regime every year for their operations for armed forces, including the RGC, Islimic Republic gives the RGC one third of its oil to go sell in the market and pay for its operations. If that oil is not leaving the Persian Gulf, the RGC runs armed forces is not going to be able to generate revenue to pay for its operations.
It might run into problems with paying salaries.
These are all at pressure on the government and one quick point Internet has been cut off for forty seven years.
It runs.
E commerce is extremely large, and taxation is about forty percent of government revenue. If they're not cutting if they're not collecting taxes on internet businesses, on metal spectrol chemical production, government is not going to be able to have funds to pay salaries either. You put all these pressure together, you would think they're going to come cut a deal.
But Islamic Republic has been its own worst enemy. They've been put the best options in front of them, and they have rejected them over and over.
Yeah, and me had finally, you know, given that there is the need to keep that pressure up, what do you make of these pushes in the United States Senate by the Democrats to shut down the war have votes on holding military action. This would seem counterproductive. Now that you're this far down the road, What are your thoughts very quickly on that.
Well, you know, my quick reaction to that is, you know, we have a historical achievement against is Islamic Republic.
Iranians are watching.
The Iranian regime is closely monitoring the domestic.
Pressure here against this war.
You know, look at Golibov that the chief negotiated the spokesperson of Iran's parliament tweets the other day and right after the failure of Islamic Islama boat talks, he tweeted a screenshot of the gas prices gas stations across the
White House. So they're really counting of domestic pressure here in the US for an end to the blockade, and that gives them encouragement to continue to wagh up the pressure here domestically and hoping that the US government is going to pull back out of the domestic pressure and economic pressure global gas prices, and that will give them a relief that they're desperately need.
M Well, all right, that's been disturbing to hear me on. Thank you so much for joining me, Miad Malucky from the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. Now stick around because after the break we're going to be getting deep into the Eric Swolwell scandal and who in the Democrats had it out for him. But first, continuing the religious theme of this segment, let's not allow Trump's papal beef to overshadow this incredible moment on the view. Yes, listen to the
ladies on this program. Great theological scholars one and all discuss not whether Jesus was the Messiah, but whether he called himself the Messiah. I mean, surely even joy Behar would know the answer to this question.
Right, Jesus himself did not run around saying I'm the Messiah, I'm the Messiah.
A little bit. She just said I knew Jesus.
Jesus was not narcissistic like this guy.
To say it, yes it is.
I don't know.
I think joy Behar may have watched a little too much Life of Brian.
Now you listen here, it's not the sast. He's a bay by.
Now go away, all right, stick around because after the break we've got Gregg Swinson to talk about Eric Swalwell in a tick. Welcome back to the program. Well, Eric Swalwell, who was a Democrat representative but has now resigned over sexual assault allegations, allegations which, by the way, he denies, has now faced some fresh accusations this week.
He raped me and he choked me, and while he was choking me, I lost consciousness and I thought I died. I did not consent to any sexual activity. My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt, fear of his political power, now.
Of course, again, Eric Swawell denies each and every sexual misconduct allegation that's been made against him, but it's not a good look given that just weeks ago he accused Republicans of not being on the side of women.
My Republican colleagues do not trust women. You don't trust women?
Do you all ever talk to women?
They deserve better?
And all of this comes just weeks after he posted this California campaign video with his wife where he's looking to be governor of the state.
What I see pross state is people are optimistic and there's a way for us to get through it.
Think you just got my endorsement.
You ready to do like Apublican Converssi vida help me eating mine?
Well, that aged like fine milk. Hey, let's bring in to discuss this and more Republicans overseas UK Chairman Greg Swinson. There have been stories about Eric Swalwell's behavior with women, infidelity, rumors, all sorts of things for an awful long time. Journalists are now saying, yeah, we've heard this stuff for ages. But the big question is A why didn't they have
a report on them? And B why does it seem like the knives suddenly came out on this with this big series of really serious, heavy duty accusations now which seemed designed to completely torpedo has been for California governor.
Yeah, so two part answer.
I mean, the reason that they didn't ever investigate or publish anything about him even though everyone knew it is, you know.
He's a complete creep. But he was very good for the Democrats. He was like their bulldog.
He would you know, he went after Brett Kavanaugh, he went after President trumpet on as many occasions as he could, and so you know.
He was their useful idiot.
But the second part of the answer is that he was running for governor in California. The Republican Steve Hilton is doing very well there in the polls, and I think that you know that they were afraid the Democrats would split the vote, even though he was the leading Democrat, but he had so much baggage. So better to torpedo him now. Better to shoot him in the back of the head now than wait till the general election where it would be really damaging to the Democrats. So look,
this is power politics. The Democrats are horrible in this way.
I mean, it just sort of does bring to mind my old saying that anybody who calls himself a male feminist ought to be on a watch list.
But I mean this really does? This? Really? Does?
Those show the nature of Democrat politics that as soon as you were not useful to them anymore, as you say, they shoot you in the back of the head. But will American voters, will California voters note this behavior of the Democrats and say, hang on, I'm not sure this is the right place I'd want to park my vote.
Yeah, I think the independence will the people in the middle. You know, the Republicans always we've always known that Eric Swalwell is a creep. You know, he was shacking up with a staffer who happened to be a Chinese spy. You know, that should have been the end of his career. But again, the Democrats don't mind that because most of them like the Chinese Communist Party. They actually like the fact that you know that they don't or I should say, they don't mind the fact that he was having an
affair with a staffer. So you know that in many ways, you know this, they tolerated Eric swall Well because he was their bulldog. Again, he was a useful to criticize anything the Republicans did. Now, the campaign in California could be interesting because Steve Hilton is actually getting a lot of support that it would be a miracle, I admit, But this is the state of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. It was a red state for a long time. There's
hope for California. I'm not sure that it's completely over.
Well, that's a really interesting question, though you bring up that history. I mean, it was such a Republican state for so long. What has happened to California that the Democrats have locked in such a hardcore vote that everybody looks at California and sees where it's gone and sees all the toros of San Francisco and La and everything else in the state of the economy.
How is it that they're still able to win.
We could do it a thirty minute show just on this question. It's really incredible. What's happened and a few things. There's a few moving parts which has been kind of the perfect storm for Democrats in the state. One is it is a very large state. It would be the seventh biggest economy in the world. If a country and the teachers unions, the public employee unions have massive control and they've they've grown so much in the last twenty
thirty years. So it's sort of displaced the private sector from having any any control, any any input into the government. And so, you know, that's that just and that's really hard to defeat because once the unions elect Democrats and then the Democrats pay them back with you know, with better union contracts and better pensions.
So it's kind of this slippery slope.
The second thing is, you know, you think about what's changed since the end of the Soviet Union, and you know, when the when the Berlin Wall fell in eighty nine and the Soviet Union evaporated in ninety one, you know, the defense industry in California was a major part of the economy, mostly Republican, most you know, red state working class engineers. They all left, and then of course, once the taxes started to rise, you know, then more people left.
So there's been this mass exodus out of California of you know, Republican voting people. Again, I'm not saying all of them. I mean, it's still a sixty forty state
or of you know, sixty five thirty five. But you know, there's been these these demographic changes, and then of course you had the illegal migrants coming in consistently, and they tend to vote Democrat because they're on benefits, and so you have an open border state that's also a massive welfare state, so you have a natural constituency to support Democrats.
I tell you what, Greg, You know, I know you're talking about California, but it sounds like you're talking about the Australian state of Victoria when you're talking about this,
because the patis actly the same. I want to move out to the East coast though, too, because it's a story here that really fascinated me out of Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger, who ran as a real moderate but is not anything, but she's being slammed for signing a bill to award the state's presidential electoral votes to the winner
of the national popular vote. Now this means that if California and New York go all in for a Democrat, but Virginian's vote Republican, they're electoral votes could wind up going to a Democrat. This seems like the most anti democracy thing I can imagine from the people who say Oh no, no, we've got to defend democracy.
You're absolutely right. And it's really sickening. I mean not only that you know she wants to, you know, to try this.
I don't think it will work.
It's unconstitutional, but she's also trying to jerrymander the state, which you know, voted for Kamala by four or five points, voted for Biden by ten or eleven points, elected a Republican governor in twenty twenty one in Glen Youngkin.
This is a purple state.
I mean, I'm not suggesting it's ever going to be a red state again in the near term, but you know.
They vote for Republicans.
It's a fifty what is it like, a fifty five forty five, and yet she wants to gerrymander the state so they'll have all but one seats for Democrats. It would be it's I forget if it's either eight to one or ten to one. And you know that's so,
you know, that's talk about undemocratic, right. Forty five percent of the voters voted for President Trump, a majority of the voters voted for Glen Youngkin in twenty twenty one, a great Republican and yet to they want to swing you know, the congressional seats to a to one or ten to one. It's it's really immoral in many ways. And you brought up a good point. She ran as a moderate. Wow, what a head fake. That was unbelieva.
She painted herself as a moderate, talked about kitchen table issues, affordability, got herself elected, which isn't difficult in Virginia. But you know, she's gone full mom damie communists in her short you know, tenure in office. And that's why she's pulling. It's been a remarkable drop in her polling numbers in the short time she's been in office.
Yeah, but once she's in she can do a lot of damage. Hey, on to another story of democracy under
attack too. The ABC in California has done some brilliant investigative journalism and uncovered, I know, ABC uncovered a left wing group called Building Better California that, according to their report, appeared to be paying homeless people five dollars a signature to sign petitions for ballot measures using other people's names, particularly a ballot measure around blocking government audits and also blocking a billionaire's tax. Ho have look at this.
I'm gonna touch this guy broke out his martial arts skills after I asked about the petition spread across the hood and dashboard.
Of his car.
I'm at ABC seven.
I'm looking at the petitions.
Stay right there.
One.
I've had difficulty identifying the gentleman and woman with a young child, but I saw them give money to homeless people who signed petitions at their car.
Have you find outs for doing it?
The couple offered five dollars for signing ten petitions.
Right, that's not illegal, That's not right.
Smith tells me he has seen different groups over the past few weeks offering cash for phony signatures on petitions.
Greg, We've only got thirty seconds here, but i'd love to get you quick thoughts on this, all right, quickly.
I'm from Chicago, where that's just normal.
Okay, So I'm not.
Good for ABC as we are.
Friends in Australia would say, another bloody communist. I'm so proud that ABC, which is you know, main stream media, actually did this good for them. And then look, this is this is obvious, and it happened in Minnesota, it happened in California. The Democrats want to keep the fraud because that's their people, that's their voters, that's quorders. They don't want to get rid of fraud. Fraud is what works for them. And so I'm not shocked at this at all. I hope that ABC will stay at it.
Well, you know, we're gonna have to leave it there, Greggs Winston, thank you so much for your time. Always great to have a chat. And yeah, I want to see more about that story. Now stick around, don't go anywhere, because it's time for a quick break. And when we're back, I'm going to be joined by Stephanie Hamill to hear about New York's latest attack on the rich. But first, how good is Joe Biden. Let's check in on the
perfectly capable, mentally fit former president. Not long ago, was they said running rings around staffers half his age.
I turn around one guy and say, Barack, what are you doing?
Come come here?
I feel like he should be standing right and I should be standing on the left.
Hey, you candas look at Brock anyway as I say, you've done good, Well, you're gonna try.
It, Dora.
Yeah, sure, Joe. That guy looks just like Obama. Can't wait to see who he mistakes for Michelle, don't go away because Stephanie Habit will be around after the break.
Welcome back to the program.
Well, in New York City, Democrats socialist mayor Zeron Mom Donnie says New York City is going to begin programs to start a government run grocery store, where he claims everything will be cheaper.
I mean, hey, what could go wrong?
We will use government to respond to rising prices and unaffordable groceries. The city will subsidize a core set of staples. A private operator will run the store, but the answer to the standards that the city will set. These standards include requirements that at our stores, bread will be cheaper, eggs will be cheaper, grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation.
Ah, the bread will be cheaper. Where have I heard this before? Anyway, this comes as the week marked one hundred days with the Mom Dottie administration. And if this latest clip from his office anything to go by, I think is the New York City is in for a rough one hundred or more days to come.
When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich.
Well, today we're taxing the I'm thrilled to announce we've secured a peda tear tax, the first in New York's history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties working more than five million dollars whose owners do not live full time in the city.
I feel like I've seen this movie before, but to discuss it and more or let's bring in plute commentator Stephanie Hammill. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me here. And boy, the hits just keep on coming. It's one hundred days now since mom Donnie took office. What sort of report card would you give him on his first century?
It's not looking good.
I mean, everything that he's promised so far isn't coming true. You almost have to feel bad for the people who voted for him or still are hoping to see some change, because it's really looking like he's a scammer. I mean, just look at the details of these government run grocery stores.
The details are so bad.
So to give your audience some perspective, we're learning that just one store is going to cost thirty million dollars.
Still and so yeah, three million dollars.
But get this, so they don't even have a timeline of when exactly this grocery store is going to be built. They said that there's going to be five of them in the different burrows, and that they probably the rest of them won't even be built until the end of his term, so like twenty twenty nine. So this is just all fantasy, and this is what so many of us predicted.
This is exactly what we thought was going to happen.
So, you know, you said that the bread is going to be cheap, or he said the bread is going to be cheap, not for the taxpayers when it's going to cost thirty million dollars for just one store. But the details get even worse, James. So they're talking about that they're going to have, you know, a price control basket of essentials and goods, okay, but everything else in the store is going to cost the same, if not probably more. And I don't know where you live, James,
but I've done city living before. I don't live in the city anymore, but I lived in Washington, d C. For several years. I spent a lot of time in New York City. So when you live in these apartments and condos and you do city life, you go to the store that is closest to you. So I used to walk to a grocery store, put my groceries.
In a backpack, and walk home.
Like that's how city people usually shop.
If not, then they do the online orders.
So if you have one store in one burrow, how do the other people from that area get there?
If it's super far away.
They're not going to take a taxi or take a train to drag around these groceries. I mean, it is absolute lunacy, as you described, Stephanie.
I lived in New York the first half of my life, and I can tell you. You know, you've got so much competition between supermarkets, bodega's, ethnic food markets, delis like the idea that there's not places.
You can get food. It's just ridiculous. But one of them.
Are these other ideas here, Stephanie, This idea that you know, oh well, let's just in a country where you're still allowed to freely move from city to city and state to state.
What do you make of this?
Further idea to tax people who have luxury properties, maybe don't use them a lot, but are already paying massive, massive property taxes on them to go for services they never.
Use where already taxed to death, especially like the rich people in America, they are paying the majority of the taxes that are paid out, so it's like, how.
Do you tax them anymore?
And these are the people who are creating jobs and giving people opportunities, and so it just sounds really anti American. You're going to follow these people to tax other things and it's just absolute insanity. So, you know, these programs at Mondani has promised, they're going nowhere. The government doesn't do things right, so let the private sector take care of it and they'll figure it out. Yeah, groceries are expensive.
It's a huge concern for so many Americans. I do my own grocery shopping, so I know exactly how much things cost, and so there needs to be a solution. But having government run grocery stores is not the solution. And if you look around the world or where that's been done and tried, it just doesn't work. And I'm not trying to be negative, like it sounds good on its face, right, like we need some sort of solution for people who are struggling, but.
This just isn't it.
You know, you look further into some of the other plans he had, like for example, he was offering free buses, free bus rides.
The bus fares actually went up in New York City.
So again, I just feel so bad for the people who were hoping that this was going to be it for them, and so far it's not. Maybe something will change, but something tells me it's not going to.
Hey, I want to move on from New York to Michelle Obama, where the former First Lady has claimed that the United States is going through a what I don't know this word, a yanky era under President Donald Trump. She said this on her podcast Have a listen.
And you know, there are versions of the country that happened, right, and the new version doesn't make the old one bay. It's necessary for growth, and I think we're in just a yanky version.
What does she even mean there, James?
Can we just talk about how exhausting it is to have former presidents and former first ladies like weighing in on this administration's at every policy move. And the Obamas are the worst offenders of this. I mean, not only are they like in every turn criticizing policy, but they're also still whining about how racist America is and how horrible this country is.
Yet you know, the American people.
Voted them into office not once but twice, and they also made millions and millions of dollars.
I think they're worth like over one hundred million dollars.
So, you know, it really is just exhausting to keep up with Michelle Obama. When she's not whining about Trump's policies or how horrible America is, she starts whining about how it's our fault that she was straightening her hair while she was the first lady, Like, you literally can't make this stuff up, Like I'm just I'm done.
I'm done with it.
You can't.
You can't make some people happy. Hey, you know who else you can't make happy are all the Democrats who are only apparently proud of America when they're in charge. Because there's all of this stuff going on around the being two hundred and fiftieth anniversary or the Fourth of July, America's big birthday coming up this year, but there's been a huge Fourth of July fireworks display canceled. In Long Beach, California. They've scrapped their Big Bang on the Bay for the
first time in fifteen years. After the California Coastal Commission said they should stop it because of climate change. This comes after, of course, our friends are on Mom Donnie stopped a stopped at a big public event in Times Square for July fourth. It's gonna be ticketed, Stephanie. Is there a left wing war on the fourth of July to try and shut down this big celebration that Donald Trump is planning for two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
I think you're onto something, James, Like, I think this is much more than just the environment to the left, because as you've seen over the years, every single American tradition, our pride, they're just picking it away at it, just trying to get rid of it. And so to me, this doesn't seem like a fireworks thing. You could make the argument that maybe fireworks aren't the best for the environment.
There are probably toxins and bad things in there, but this is just like a once a year thing, and then compared to actual horrible toxins that are in the environment, like this is like a needle and the haystack, a drop in the bucket that the impact it just isn't huge as they're suggesting it is. So I have a feeling that this is more about you know, just just attacking our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and it's really just an attack on tradition.
Indeed, Stefanie Hant, we're gonna have to leave it there, but thank you so much for your time. As always loved to see you here. Now we're gonna take a short break before Early in America. But first let's go to Wisconsin, where Democrats Secretary of State Sarah Godlisky has brought us a weather report.
Republicans say, we don't have climate change, but this is.
Goal full sized hail in my front yard. This is not normal, and we can keep ignoring our environment.
Oh my gosh, it's hailing in Whiskey constant. Jeez, Like that's never happened before. Oh except for that the largest tailstone in Wisconsin, measuring nearly six inches, fell in nineteen twenty one.
So there you go.
The more you know, stick around because Only in America is coming up next. Welcome back to the program, and now it's time for a little segment we like to call Only in America. Well, what does the song say, Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd, take me out to Seattle, Washington, which I guess is so woke now that the statues are tearing
down themselves. Check this out at the local T Mobile ballpark in Seattle, where they try to unveil a statue of Seattle Mariner's legend Ichiro Suzuki keep an eye on his baseball bat.
Why the statue of one of the greatest players in.
The interim of the game.
Well, that's embarrassing, but you know, I'm sure that's the first time that ever happened before. Anyway, I hope you have a more upright weekend. That's all our time for now. See you next week for more US report and bright and early Sunday morning for outsiders. Bye bye.