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It was an unhinged speech that was, of course, untethered from reality and truth. You know, Donald Trump. Has made things worse for the American people. He refuses to acknowledge. That the tariffs that he is solely responsible for have actually increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars per year.
At the same time, when it comes to this healthcare crisis, it's one that Republicans have created. Is there anything more inaccurate any Democrat has ever said than that? The healthcare crisis. The Republicans created Keem Jeffreys, of course. What's he talking about?
If you want to be critical of Republicans, you want to jot this down? Say, where's their health care plan? They never came up with their version. Of Obamacare, which would be more free market-based and give people health care savings accounts, something like that.
Some of their principles wrapped up in one. But the health care crisis, you know, Obamacare. Should be sailing right now. Like Social Security. It'd be like, well, it's built into the system.
We never liked it. Republicans didn't love Social Security or.
Some of the work programs that the FDR put out. Famously, but they've they're in the system. You know, the WPA and things dissipated, but Social Security stuck around. But you can't come out and say Republicans created this. Are you crazy?
These are pandemic. Subsidies, pandemic subsidies put into law by a Democratic president to go away.
Now because of the Obama and I don't even know why it lasted so long, this year, And now you say, well, Republicans got to step up and subsidize. No, they don't. Because you mocked them for years saying that they've tried dozens of times to get rid of Obamacare and every time it's failed.
Okay. You know, Paul Ryan, go dating back to Paul Ryan. John McCain, thumbs down. It's all fail.
So now you can't blame them for the program that you passed. That Joe Biden famously on camera, on microphone, said this is a big effing deal.
So I do think something's got to come. Like a lot of the moderates, like Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Lawler, very smart guys, but live in purple districts, want to do something where you extend subsidies for a year. I love the Gottheimer, the Brian Fitzpatrick one. You extend subsidies for a year, at which time it ends and they have to come up with some type of compromise alternative because clear thinking Democrats who are worried about their seats understand that if you pass anything, healthcare is always the top three issue. And if you pass anything without any type of buy-in from the other side, it's just going to get reversed when that other side becomes.
Pl goes into power. Yesterday, Mike Johnson kind of lost control. of his carcass a little bit. As Fitzpatrick and others and Lawler left to maybe vote with Democrats. Uh so he took some heat, cut eighteen.
Have you lost control of the House? I have not lost control of the House because there are Mexicans. Look, we have the smallest majority in U.S. history. These are not normal times.
There are processes and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there are larger majorities. And when you have the luxury of having 10 or 15 people who disagree on something, you don't have to deal with it. But when you have a razor-thin margin, as we do, then all the procedures in the book people think are on the table. And that's the difference.
Well, Speaker Johnson speaking out yesterday on why so many defected from him. And his caucus. Mark Thiessen, he has not defected from the show. He's a vital cog in the show every single week, Fox News contributor, Washington Post, columnist. Mark, your reaction to what's going on with healthcare, have you been able to make heads or tails of what they're trying to do?
Look, there's a handful of Republicans who are in districts that are lean blue. right that are very purple uh for whom this is an important issue and they need to vote this way and so they're trying to bring force a vote uh and if they do it's not going to get passed in the senate so you know they're not they're we're not going to the republicans are not going to vote to extend obamacare uh in the in the form that it is now uh but they they want to force a vote and do and show that they're fighting for for this and so they're the you know they're they're doing it So I guess, what do you think the right thing is? Chip Roy made it clear how he stands. Cut 24. President Trump is exactly right.
His instincts are exactly right when he said we should not be subsidizing insurance companies. We should not be doing these super sized subsidies, to use your phrasing, to insurance companies whose stocks have been through the roof while we're all taking it on the chin with health care costs. And he says, look, let's focus on the people. The bill that we have on the floor today is a good start. Association of health plans, dealing with CSRs, the cost-sharing reductions, and then some reforms on PBMs, on transparency.
That's good. We should do those things. But it's not transformational. And you're not going to do anything transformational leading up to this new year or right after.
So for Hakeem Jeffries to come out and say Republicans have caused a health care crisis is one of the most inaccurate statements ever said. Yeah, so first of all, not a single Republican voted for Obamacare to begin with. And they told us, they promised us that premiums would go down under Obamacare instead of they skyrocketed. None of this is touching Obamacare. All of this are the subsidies during the COVID subsidies that were passed when people were losing their health care, their employer health care, because people were millions of Americans were losing their jobs.
And so they increased the ability of people at higher incomes to get subsidies for Obamacare so they could buy health insurance and not be uncovered during the pandemic. That was passed in the American Rescue Plan with zero Republican votes. And then it was extended in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act with zero Republican votes.
So why would any Republican vote? To do now, to do what they never voted to do in the first place. It makes no sense. What President Trump proposed, and the solution I think is, is to give people checks, return some of the tariff revenue that he's brought in, and give people checks so they can go out and subsidize their own health insurance or use it for something else that they need. Give people a tax rebate, a tariff rebate.
But we should not be giving money to insurance companies who are jacking up premiums because then it'll just do what all the subsidies have done, for example, to college education, which is why is tuition so high? Because of the government subsidies.
So if you like your college tuition rates going up, you're going to love your health care premiums going up if we keep going down this path. Speaking of going up, because core inflation was supposed to be 3.1, it ends up being 2.7, the market's up 437 points. It's really important for those indicators to go up for the president. If he gets those numbers going up, like he said last night. He will buck tradition, don't you think?
And he'll find a way to hold the House and Senate if the numbers start flying, if people start feeling it. Do you think people will be open to? Do something that's only been done twice in 100 years, and that's keep the party in power in power?
Well, I mean, first of all, people need to calm down about the affordability thing, right?
So the affordability crisis was unleashed by the Democrats, who unleashed the highest inflation in four decades. Interest rates were raised in order to tamp that down. And people elected President Trump to deal with that problem, and they're going to hold him accountable in whether he deals with it. When Ronald Reagan came in after Jimmy Carter destroyed the economy, it wasn't mourning in America in 11 months, right? It takes a while for these policies to take effect and have an impact.
It doesn't snap overnight. And we're starting to see positive impacts. The President has done a lot of good things. The One Big Beautiful Bill is going to have a lot of positive impact. The trade deals that he's got are going to have a lot of positive impacts.
The big problem he has, quite frankly, is the tariffs are a double-edged sword because they bring in more revenue, yes, and he's used them to get some trade deals, yes. But most economists agree that they're going to reduce Economic growth by about a half a percentage point. And that may not seem like a lot, but that's almost $100 billion in economic output. That's about 400 to 600,000 jobs that are not created. And so the tariffs are a wet blanket on the Trump recovery and are slowing things down.
And so that's the big problem he has. And that's the big difference between the first term and the second term, where people were really happy with the economy that Trump unleashed because he was following growth-oriented, you know, traditional Reaganite growth-oriented economics. And now the tariffs are throwing a wrench into that. Every day, America's first responders stand ready: firefighters, law enforcement, paramedics, doctors, dispatchers, and people who put themselves on the line for public safety. But keeping them connected in moments of crisis has not been easy.
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Number one, I'm doing this to get leverage on a trade deal. Understand it. He got South Korea, got the EU. Those were big. He's got a few other Japan.
Understood. And the other one would be to bring manufacturing back here. And that's going to take time.
So maybe you could pick and choose and not have to backtrack on something that's so fundamental to what you believe, Mr. President, but in the abicture more practical, you're not going to be able to do a lot if you lose the House and Senate if you don't do something to keep the to fully goose the economy. By the way, this is how good the core inflation came out. It is a four and a half year low. That's what's raging the market.
So, for those people who don't understand the direction of the economy, I mean, that's hardcore, literally pun intended, hardcore proof. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think we're going to be it again, it took Ronald Reagan more than 11 months. It's going to take Donald Trump more than 11 months to turn. And, you know, I mean, we are going from a country that had the highest inflation in four decades to trying to turn that around.
And it'll take a little time. And also, it takes time. You know, he's unleashing American energy. It takes time. You do drilling permits.
You permit people to drill in an ANWAR. You lift all the wet blanket that Biden has put on the energy. It takes time for all those things to take effect. You can't expect an overnight turnaround on all these things. But it'll happen.
And I guarantee you by next fall, unless the tariffs have a worse dampening effect on the economy than most economists believe, all the other positive things will goose it in the right direction. I got two more things to talk about. Let's talk about Ukraine. Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly and explicitly outlined his continued commitment to his maximalist war aims in Ukraine, which means new regime, basically a colony for a country. He wants robust he's against robust security guarantees for Ukraine.
He's against any Rule five like support for Ukraine, Rule five as in NATO.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces recently advanced in three separate towns and they now have an underwater drone that targets Russian subs and already hit one in port.
So this is where we end up. We watch Ukraine give, give, and give, and agree, and now it's going to be in Russia's court. What do you predict?
Well, first of all, we've had to go through this process because the president is trying to end the war and he wanted to. And, you know, if we look at that Van Herdy Fair interview, Susie Wiles basically said he understands that Putin doesn't want peace, but he has to say that he wants peace because he's trying to get him to come around and he's trying to pressure him into it. And I think we're now seeing Putin demonstrate that he's the obstacle to peace. The Ukrainians have agreed to give up territory. They've agreed to all sorts of concessions in order to get peace.
They've worked with the administration. They've said yes repeatedly to everything that the president has asked for. And Putin is the one saying no. And so, you know, I know that President Trump has said if Ukraine says yes to peace and Putin says no, he's going to side with Ukraine. And so Putin better be careful because the president is not going to, this president doesn't do well when people stiff arm him.
Susie Wiles came out in one of the stories about Putin. He goes, he seems to like Putin. He goes, well, he talks to him, and some of the conversations go good and some go bad. On Zelensky. She said, Yeah, that was going to happen.
He blew off Scott Besson, who flew all the way to Ukraine. He wouldn't even meet with him. And there were going to be some tensions. She said, My mistake was allowing cameras to be in there, not the fight itself. Yeah, you know, I mean, I think the conversation would have been fine behind closed doors.
It was doing it in front of the cameras. Look, before that meeting, Donald Trump loved Zelensky, and after that meeting, he doesn't. But he's also not letting his personal likes or dislikes affect the fact that what he cares about is he cares about the Ukrainian people. And he cares about he has always been committed to protecting Ukraine, protecting its sovereignty, ensuring that it survives as an independent nation. And that is directly at odds with what Vladimir Putin wants.
And so, you know, I think now he's put a lot of pressure on Ukraine and they've agreed to pretty much what he's asked for and come to a deal.
Now it's time to put the pressure on Russia. And if Putin says no to this and sticks with his maximalist demands, then he's got to bring the hammer down on Putin. Here is Senator Rick Scott last night on Venezuela and what the president's doing now that he's implemented a blockade on oil tankers in and out. Cut 31. If you look at Maria Karimachana, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, you look at her and her organization, they're ready for a transition.
They won the election. If Mondo Gonzalez won the election, they're ready to come in and run the election.
Now remember, Maduro is not actually being protected by the Venezuelan military. He's being protected by the Cuban police.
So they're going to get out of Dodge. This is going to go back to freedom-loving, liberty-loving people in Venezuela to rebuild their country.
So, your thoughts about what Senator Rick Scott predicts? He is 100% correct. And I will tell you also that if Maduro falls, the Cuban regime is going to fall too, because the only thing keeping them afloat is Venezuelan oil right now. The Cuban economy, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cuban economy went into a crisis because the Soviet subsidies disappeared. And who turned around to bail them out?
Venezuela, providing them with oil and providing them with subsidies. And if the Venezuelan regime isn't there to be their protector, then the Cuban regime is going to fall as well. And I think Marco Rubio would be really happy about that. What's the timeline where the president would feel the pressure and Maduro Gluxe perceived to be gaining strength? What do you think, Mark?
I mean, there's no time pressure on what the president is doing. He can take all his sweet time. He's squeezing them. It's Maduro who's in trouble. And look, the reality is Venezuela is a socialist country in terms of its economy for its people, but for the top elites of the regime, they're narco-capitalists.
They are down with capitalism when it comes to drugs. And every single one of those elites is involved in the drug trade in some way. They've enriched themselves. They've got offshore bank accounts. And so it's not just Maduro that has to go it.
It's his cronies around him as well. And they're also very bad dancers. They keep dancing their way through this crisis, which is a very interesting reaction. AOC is one of the frontrunners on the Democratic side, and she knows who she'll be facing, and she's confident. Cut 43.
Do you think that you'll beat that you could beat J.D. Vance in a head-to-head race for president as polling suggests in twenty twenty eight? Listen, these polls like three years out are you know, they are what they are, but let the record show I would stop him. I would stop him. Thank you.
Do you agree with her?
Well, first of all, I'm not sure that, that's necessarily going to be the matchup on either side. I think there's going to be a lot of people contending for the nomination in both parties. But I would tell you that if the election were held today, The voters would be very surprised because the electionists want to take it. That's so funny. That's a great line, Mark.
You are so smart. Why do we pay you to be a contributor? You're supposed to just put it out there. And then I could use it the next day. Mark Thiessen, thanks so much.
Have a great weekend. This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
