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Talk to your doctor and visit xtandi.com. Let's bring in Mark Halpern now. He's as insightful politically as anyone in the country. He's got his extremely successful two-way broadcast almost every day.
He's a political analyst, best-selling author. Mark, welcome back. Brian, nice to be back. I hate to correct the host off the top, but it's not almost every day. It's twice every day. Is it really twice every day?
9 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. See, in your format, you could really decide when you want to do it, but you are holding yourself to a schedule. Yeah, well, we could. You know, the reality is there's a lot of differences, right, from TV versus YouTube and other distribution. But some things aren't different, and appointment viewing, we've learned, is pretty important to get people to say, you know, here's when it's on. So we're consistent, but we do breaking news as well. So we'll do special reports.
But the regular shows are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern time. All right, let's start moving through it now. I guess first things first, the president announced his first trade deal with the U.K. How do you think it's resonating?
Because there were some questions, really some, I guess, discerning questions to the president in the Oval Office, like, hey, is this really that big of a deal? What's your sense? You know, it's not a final deal, and nobody thought it was going to be. I think you got to be realistic about why it's a positive.
And then and then certainly if it's never doesn't materialize and get locked in, it's going to be a negative. But in the short term, very positive for the president. First of all, it it demonstrates that something which we knew the markets love it. Now, the markets love also the China talks taking place this weekend in Geneva with Scott Besson, the Treasury secretary. But one of the reasons to get an early deal was to calm the markets.
The markets have been doing very well this week. Second, it's positive is they want to send some momentum. They want to be able to say, you know, we told you we get deals in these 90 days. Well, here's the first one. And so anything that shows momentum that call members of Congress and people in the business community, consumers would say, yeah, they're going to be deals that are going to lower these tariffs is a good thing politically for the president, for the country.
And then finally, it's a template, right? All the countries wanted to be first. No one really knows exactly outside the inner circle why the U.K. got to be first. But now India and Japan and South Korea and others are going to say, well, there's one deal. Let's let's see what we can build off of to get our deal next. So I talked to Senator Thune this morning and he was on our couch and even mentioned to me, too, is like the tariffs got people in South Dakota nervous. We're an ag state and there's probably is going to be an ask of about 60 billion dollars to the farmers like last time to do some supplementals until we can get some of these deals done, especially with China. Do you expect the Democrats to give them a hard time on that?
I do. And also free market folks. Ken Griffin, one of the most successful business people in this country, is critical of the carve outs, the special exceptions, because it's crony capitalism, right? It's the government picking winners and losers.
There are lots of people who are hurt by tariffs. I talked to a woman this week who does wedding planning in Chicago and she does custom cocktail napkins. They've gone. They're made in China. They've gone from like one hundred and fifty dollars for, you know, five hundred napkins to twice that. She's not a special interest that's going to get a carve out exemption for Chinese cocktail napkins for her weddings. And that means she's she's being discriminated against. So I don't like the carve outs, but but we know we know that that's just part of trade policy.
And so it's unfortunate, but it's going to happen. So how about this? The president's tactic yesterday and today, the post Bloomberg had at 60 percent. But he also mentioned getting out to 80 percent.
Scott Besson, you can make your own decision. But when you go to Switzerland to negotiate with the Chinese for the next two days, you want to go down to 80 percent in order to get something in return. Go ahead.
Your call. Interesting negotiating negotiation tactic. Yeah, I wonder what the founding fathers would say about Donald Trump using Truth Social to start to bandy about different percentages. Donald Trump is a master of this stuff. He knows how to sort of try to calibrate with public statements, including on social media, to get people to feel like there can be progress. And, you know, Senator Cruz has been quite open, some senators more in private saying to the president, like, if you're using these tariffs as a tool to make the trading position of the United States better around the world, fantastic. If there are things you think they're going to be on permanently and they're going to start raising prices for American consumers, know that people aren't going to be on board for that.
So I think the markets will have a very good day, not just in anticipation of the talks in Geneva, but in but in the hearing the president say maybe these tariffs are already going to start coming down, you know, back towards pre independence day levels. So, Mark, what's your speculation? Because I haven't read anything yet of what the president's big announcement is that it's going to address a problem that's been out there for a long time. He wouldn't say something like that if it wasn't substantial.
You have any idea? Well, CBS News says they know what it is. Some people said they thought it was the trade announcement with England. My co-host on the morning meeting, Sean Spicer, Dan Terentine, both said, well, they thought that was it. CBS says it's an announcement having to do with the cost of prescription drugs. I think that sounds more like what it was that fits the description in terms of it's on a very important topic and that it's one of the biggest things ever announced. I didn't understand quite from the CBS story what this was, but my sense is that it's that and that's going to be anticlimactic for people like me who guessed it was peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. But I'll look to see the details. Maybe it will decide to substantially lower the cost of prescription drugs.
And again, not sexy issue for everybody. But if you're an American who's reliant on being able to afford prescription drugs for yourself or for your family, this could be a big deal, as the president said. So President Biden is making it known he's back. He says he's got a book deal. Some people say it's 30 million dollars for him in jail. He's got to get it done in a year.
So he goes on to view a place he feels comfortable. And he was asked a very succinct and important question by Alyssa Farrah Griffin. Cut five. Mr. President, since you left office, there have been a number of books that have come out deeply sourced from Democratic sources that claim in your final year there was a dramatic decline in your cognitive abilities. In the final year of your presidency, what is your response to these allegations or are these sources wrong?
They are wrong. There's nothing to sustain that. And so we went to work and we got it done. And, you know, one of the things that that. Well, you know, one of the things I think is that the people who wrote those books were not in the White House with us and they didn't see how hard Joe worked every single day. Joe worked really hard. I think he was a great president. And if you look at.
You got the spirit. If you want to tell someone that you're cognitively OK, you shouldn't stop mid-sentence. Number one, Jill stepped in, just like rumored to be the case, even at the the few cabinet meetings she had. What's your take, Mark?
Well, it's an hour long interview. They were on almost the entire show. Biden, President Biden did some of it by himself.
And then former first lady joined. I mean, you know, it's 11 a.m. That's kind of a sweet spot for for being, you know, not showing, you know, full cognitive decline. There were moments that were a little rough, but for the most part, you know, he was there, but not because of cognitive decline, but just because of desire to spin. He said a bunch of stuff that just wasn't true. And they can continue to say that all that happened was that he had a cold and one bad debate. They can continue to act as if that's that's the truth. And you don't need an investigative reporting ability to know that that's not the truth. We saw him in public many times exhibiting cognitive decline over many years. So I find it frustrating as a journalist and concerning as a human being that they're still out there trying to sell America on the story that this was a one off and that he was fine.
The rest of his presidency when, again, you don't need you don't need inside sources, as I say, you just need a C-SPAN subscription. Which is kind of interesting, Mark, because he said one of the reasons that Kamala Harris lost was because of sexism and racism. Thanks.
Yeah, I appreciate it. I don't really think and you might correct me on this. Trump didn't run against a woman and a minority. He ran against a Democrat. I don't think he was singling out a gender attack.
Did you pick that up as a tactic? I mean, I'm sure there were some some tweets by people who may have done that, but it's a horrible thing to say about the American people. Yes, because because I mean, he's not saying Trump did these horrible things and they had no effect. It's saying the American people voted in reaction to trying to turn against her. I mean, I'm sure there's some people who won't vote for a woman or a nonwhite person for president. I'm sure that's the case.
But I don't think I put that in the top 100 reasons why she lost. What's the sense among Democrats now that he's coming out, did the BBC, did The View. I'm sure he's going to be doing more things.
What is that? Your sense as they try to recalibrate and find out what their effective message is going to be for 26 and 28. I mean, I think there's a sliver of Democrats I talk to who say we want it's all hands on deck.
Everyone needs to be out there with a megaphone opposing Donald Trump and being in the resistance. But the vast majority of Democrats, strategists, elected officials, donors, activists, they don't want to see the Biden's on the stage. They don't want to see them taking up space from other younger Democrats who can be part of the future. They don't want to see the conversation be about even on The View where they're sympathetic to him about the last campaign and about his decisions that he made about what people knew and when they knew it about his acuity. So I think he's out there in part because this is all he knows.
Right. For decades, all he knew was being in the spotlight, being sought after for commentary. And I think he's partly out there because he's trying to re reignite Biden Inc. and have a way to make money. And I think he's partly out there because he believes Donald Trump is a menace and he wants to talk.
But as I said, very few Democrats I talk to think that his voice is one that is valuable for the party right now and trying to figure out the path forward. PMS, pregnancy, menopause. Being a woman is a lot. OLLI supports you and yours with expert solutions for every age and life stage. They just launched two new products exclusively at Wal-Mart. Period Hero combats flow, mood swings and more during PMS and balance perimeno to support hormonal balance, mood and metabolism during perimenopause.
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Go to selectquote.com slash Spotify pod today to get started. Mark, I spent a lot of time looking at the big, beautiful bill today to get rid of this senator through an interview. I tell you, there's a lot of friction and a lot of disagreement. The New Yorkers and the and the ones in the blue states with the high state tax want that that state tax deduction as high as 60 percent, including Mike Lawler. They're never going to get that. And now they're talking about decreasing the amount of cuts to the point where they won't make the tax cuts permanent. I'm hearing about that. And President Trump saying I'm open to raising the tax bracket. You know, that's a third rail for many conservative Republicans. Does this does this is this typical of the disarray behind a big bill? Or do you think this is really troubling if you're Speaker Johnson? Great. Well, perfectly framed. And you didn't even get to all the issues that are currently dividing.
You did the biggest ones, but there are others. Failure is not an option. If the party didn't pass this bill, it would be a disaster for the party, for the president, for their agenda. So I still think more likely than not they'll pass it. I think what we're missing now is is what we call forcing mechanism.
Right. These these folks like negotiating over tax rates or or Medicare, Medicaid cutting or funding. They have no deadline.
There's nothing forcing them to sit in the room and say, well, OK, I'm ready to compromise. They need a deadline. And the deadline could be Christmas.
It could be the expiration of the tax cuts that President Trump passed in his first term. But the real deadline that's going to be out there soon is the so-called X date, the date at which if the government doesn't raise the debt ceiling, the United States is in is in a default. Once that date is set, it will focus the minds of these folks. And some of these very tough issues that you laid out on taxes and on spending, they'll have to resolve them. And I think I think they will. But there's increasing talk that they will fail and that they're going to have to do a deal with the Democrats in order to get the bill done. And that would be that would be a very big disaster for the party.
And they'll start to use that as a talking point. And to say, everybody's going to have to compromise within the Republican family or we're going to have to turn to Hakeem Jeffries to get this into law. Right. Is there as much disappointment as it seems for Hakeem Jeffries as a leader? Because it's obviously if Etienne, the former staffer with Nancy Pelosi, if Nancy Pelosi didn't want her to go out there and go after Jeffrey, she wouldn't have. I mean, is there people getting upset?
Yeah. So following Nancy Pelosi is a very tough act, right? She's one of the best there ever has been in either party at a very difficult job of being the leader of a house caucus that is very, very diverse in every respect, including ideologically. If Jeffries weren't so well liked, you'd see more of what you cited of one former Pelosi adviser speaking out. He's very well liked.
He works very hard. He's likable naturally, but he works very hard to be on the good side of his colleagues. So that those the point of view that says he's not being tough enough, aggressive enough, ferocious enough to and effective enough to counter Donald Trump is something you'll hear privately from a lot of folks.
But it's tempered, especially in public, because they like the guy. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.
Laura Loomer influence on Trump. I mean, I know Dr. Nashua, one of the finest people ever. A degree in the Caribbean is not atypical for bad doctors.
Get great degrees. A lot of times you have to leave the country to get get in. And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I mean, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I mean, that's what it seems. I hope she's overstating her impact.
Well, we know some things that have not really been disputed. She sat in the Oval Office with Mike Waltz before he was promoted to be the U.N. ambassador and said to the president, the following people on the National Security Council staff have to go. And if that means it's confirmed, then Loomer will have won one, but then lost one. She's very much opposed. So it's an interesting thing to seemingly let her have her way on the nominee right before the confirmation hearings, but then put it right back and say, well, we're going to replace the one you don't like with someone else you don't like.
So we'll have to see. She's not all powerful, but she's influential. When she goes after someone, it hangs in the balance. She doesn't always win, but she's won a lot.
Do you know why? Do you know why she has this influence? Well, it's interesting because you could say, well, she's got a lot of influence online with MAGA, but we see sometimes she goes after people who have support from other people in MAGA.
Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirk, Don Jr. I think her influence comes in part because she puts in sharp relief, biographical aspects or ideological statements from folks that some people in MAGA don't like, and she whips them up. And for whatever reason, the president in particular, more than anybody who works for him, as I understand it, just says, I don't want that heat. I don't want to have to deal with that. So let's just let's just cut our losses and move on. And it's an extraordinary story because I don't remember anybody in any previous administration I've covered having Laura Loomer's influence over these personnel decisions. There's a lot of unprecedented things always with Trump one and Trump two, and here's another. That's why, Mark, you're so valuable, your insight and your contacts have never been greater. Congratulations on everything and on your new podcast. Thank you, Brian. I'm Dana Perino. This week on Perino on Politics, I'm joined by executive vice president at Targeted Victory, Matt Gorman. Available now on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Must listen to podcasts from Fox News Audio. Listen to this show ad free on Fox News Podcast Plus on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
