Best of the Program | Guest: Carol Roth | 3/4/25

Speaker 1 Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Saki, and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion, and the world.

Speaker 1 Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress, and the truth that you've relied on for decades.

Speaker 1 We'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions, and explain how it impacts you. MS Now.

Speaker 1 Same mission, new name. Learn more at MS.Now.

Speaker 2 Mitch McConnell wants more spending, not less.

Speaker 2 I got a message for Mitch. Also, Carol Roth is here to talk about the economy and what do you want to hear from President Trump in tonight's speech in front of Congress?

Speaker 2 Oh, we have some opinions on that all in today's podcast. Let me tell you about Jace Medical.
First of all, Jace Medical would like to thank all the first responders.

Speaker 2 We've been dealing with snowstorms and fires and intense weather and everything else. It's easy to forget how people have put

Speaker 2 their lives on the line to save their fellow Americans.

Speaker 2 But first responders can't be everywhere all at once and when it comes to emergencies the thing you need to remember is that you're your own first responder one of the most important tools you can have in your kit is the jace case can't recommend it highly enough you're the type of the person wants to be prepared when disaster strikes you're absolutely going to want this one for your home the jace case a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial antibiotics for emergency use they even have ivermectin as an add-on if you want it.

Speaker 2 So go to jace.com, purchase your own case, enter the promo code Beck at checkout for a discount on your order. That's promo code Beck at jase.com.

Speaker 3 You're listening to

Speaker 3 the best of the blend back program.

Speaker 2 I just,

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 have to start here because this is the thing that is our biggest problem. And it is,

Speaker 2 I was going to say this, but I want to be very careful.

Speaker 2 It's old people.

Speaker 2 But it's old people that will not leave Congress or the Senate. It's not all old people.
Donald Trump is an old guy, but he's not acting like it, and he's not thinking like it.

Speaker 2 Mitch McConnell is an old guy who has old think.

Speaker 2 If he can even think. Somebody in his office is thinking old.
Let's put it that way. So

Speaker 2 he represents Kentucky, obviously. Mitch McConnell wrote in the Washington Post,

Speaker 2 every time Congress faces a government funding deadline, Washington reminds itself that shutdowns are worth avoiding. This is familiar in an all-too-frequent conversation.

Speaker 2 He goes on to say, today we're closer than ever on making

Speaker 2 noble history on the front of budgets. tomorrow's challenges.
And we owe it to our men in uniform and our taxpayers to be honest about the consequences.

Speaker 2 Consumer goods aren't the only things that have grown more expensive in recent years.

Speaker 2 In times of high inflation, governance without updated appropriation means diminished Pentagon buying power, forcing the U.S. military to equip itself for the next year's threat at this year's prices.

Speaker 2 Even as fresh eyes comb the Pentagon for new efficiencies and cost savings, effective military acquisitions continue to require multi-year runways.

Speaker 2 A truly clean, full-year continuing resolution would, at the level set for 2024, would mean no new starts on critical programs that the military needs. Okay.

Speaker 2 He goes on and on and on about how the Pentagon just needs more money. We just have to spend more, more, more on more, more, more for the Pentagon.
So I would like to respond with my own op-ed.

Speaker 2 Dear Senator McConnell, Your call for more Pentagon spending is as tone-deaf as it is reckless.

Speaker 2 The United States, I don't know if you know this, already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined. We spent $877 billion

Speaker 2 last year alone, dwarfing China, Russia, and the entire EU's collective defense budgets. All of those, nine countries, and they're the big nine.

Speaker 2 And then us. And we still dwarf them.
I don't know. You need more money?

Speaker 2 Why are you so worried about China if they don't have all this money?

Speaker 2 And yet here you are clamoring for more as if throwing cash at an outdated war machine is somehow or another going to secure our future.

Speaker 2 The world has changed, Senator, and your priorities are stuck in your time country time era.

Speaker 2 Aircraft carriers, Those floating behemoths that you and the Pentagon so dearly love, are relics of the past. In the next real conflict, they'll be as useless as horses were in World War I.

Speaker 2 Speaking of which, let me just give you the stats on the horses because it's going to be applicable to the aircraft carriers the next time we really go to war. When Europe entered World War I,

Speaker 2 they had 25 million horses. By 1918,

Speaker 2 15 million of them were dead.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 2 Because they were mowed down and slaughtered by machine guns and tanks that ran over them because they couldn't outrun them. That's the fate awaiting Mr.
McConnell.

Speaker 2 Boy, I would love to start calling you Mr.

Speaker 2 That is the fate awaiting your aircraft carriers. Sunk by hypersonic missiles or swarms of really cheap $500 AI-driven drones.
That'll happen before they can even launch a jet.

Speaker 2 The 1950s called Senator and they want their war plans back.

Speaker 2 The future isn't in steel and jet fuel. It's in artificial intelligence and unfortunately artificial superintelligence.
Every dollar spent on yesterday's hardware today

Speaker 2 is a dollar wasted in three years when AGI upends everything we know about warfare.

Speaker 2 Worse, with the Pentagon's track record, every dollar spent today will balloon into two or three dollars of inflation tomorrow, thanks to the House and the Senate's obscene spending spree.

Speaker 2 We're drowning in $34 trillion of national debt. That's 128% of GDP.
A level unseen since World War II.

Speaker 2 A level unseen since World War II.

Speaker 2 Annual deficits are now $1.7 trillion. That's what they were in 23.
Interest payments alone are projected to go over $1 trillion

Speaker 2 this year or early next.

Speaker 2 I don't know about anybody else, but those numbers aren't sustainable. It's a fiscal time bomb.

Speaker 2 And yet you want to shovel more taxpayer money into the Pentagon that hasn't passed a single audit in its history?

Speaker 2 Six attempts since 2018, six failures, trillions of dollars unaccounted for, waste so rampant it defies comprehension.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, Senator, it's irresponsible, bordering on criminal, to suggest more spending when they can't even count the cash they have.

Speaker 2 When will you people in Washington wake up? The real threat isn't just from abroad, although those dangers are profound.

Speaker 2 It's from within.

Speaker 2 The call is coming from inside the House. In fact, it's not just the House.
It's also coming from the Senate, Senator.

Speaker 2 Your refusal to adapt is jeopardizing our security more than any foreign adversary could.

Speaker 2 I don't know. Has anybody seen the drone shows that China does, you know, on their whatever, 4th of July? They seem to do it like 700 times a day or a week.
I don't know why they do it.

Speaker 2 But they have these drone shows, thousands of synchronized lights that are just painting the sky, making things move.

Speaker 2 Have you seen them land ever on these giant open fields and they just keep coming down like an invasion?

Speaker 2 Thousands of these drones?

Speaker 2 Now, Senator, I want you to listen carefully. I'll speak slowly so you and well, you won't hear it, but your staff will hear it.

Speaker 2 Imagine those aren't fireworks or for a show, but weaponized drones, each one really cheap, precise, and networked by AI.

Speaker 2 A single network with AI, a single swarm could cripple our planes, ships, tanks, and troops before we ever load a gun.

Speaker 2 Ukraine's drone wars have already shown the reality. $500 drones taking out $10 million tanks.

Speaker 2 Senator, that is the future that we're staring down right now. Okay? And you're still polishing Cold War relics?

Speaker 2 Here's what I want the President to say today.

Speaker 2 Freeze every bloated project.

Speaker 2 And I'm talking specifically about the Pentagon. Redirect everything,

Speaker 2 every dime, every mind toward winning the AI-ASI race. You know how I feel about that.
It scares the living bat crap out of me, but you know what's worse? Us not leading.

Speaker 2 This is the only battlefield that matters now. We've got enough stockpiles of dusty old stuff to handle any foreseeable war in the next two to three years.

Speaker 2 We also have a president, if you people in Congress would understand what he's doing, fighting to end the conflicts, not start more of them.

Speaker 2 Your plea for more spending isn't just misguided. It is an absolute betrayal of the American people who are sinking under debt and inflation while you chase ghosts of wars past.

Speaker 2 Or is that what you're doing?

Speaker 2 I mean, I might have buried the lead here, Senator, but,

Speaker 2 well, let's see if anyone else listens to the following stats and they think maybe this op-ed was being written not for the American people,

Speaker 2 and probably not by you, but probably by somebody who hasn't lost their mind to dementia yet, who works in your office. Listen to these stats.

Speaker 2 Your state, Senator, Kentucky, it's 45th in GDP per capita. It's 44th in employment.
It's 42nd in high school diplomas.

Speaker 2 And yet, it's 11th in defense-related contract spending.

Speaker 4 Hmm.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 Senator, may I just ask you,

Speaker 2 who are you really concerned about?

Speaker 2 The safety of the American people?

Speaker 2 Or the people you've funneled millions, if not billions of dollars to over the years. Haven't you done them enough favors?

Speaker 2 What do you say you give it a rest?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 thanks but no thanks on spending more money with the Pentagon.

Speaker 2 Let me talk to you a little bit about the Berna launcher. You've got to be prepared for really

Speaker 2 anything that could happen.

Speaker 2 Law enforcement statistics say 99% of all situations where force is required don't require lethal force. Now, you've got to have a gun for that 1%,

Speaker 2 but being prepared for the 99%

Speaker 2 is also really important. That's where the Burna Launcher comes in, legal in all 50 states.
No background checks or permit, no waiting periods. I own several of them.
My family each has one.

Speaker 2 They're all over 18. Doesn't have any

Speaker 2 background checks. There's no waiting.
There's nothing. They're all perfectly legal at any time.
Assembled in Fort Wayne, Indiana by a proud American company, Burna, B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Glenn.

Speaker 2 Get 10% discount off your purchase when you use the promo code Glenn and go to burna.com slash Glenn. Stand together with Burna, where safety meets responsibility and preparation meets peace of mind.

Speaker 2 Now back to the podcast. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program, and we really want to thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 All right, let me go to Carol Roth. Hello, Carol.
How are you?

Speaker 3 You know, Glenn, I just found out that we've only been in this administration for a month and a half-ish. Yeah.
And I feel like it's been 16 years.

Speaker 3 There's been so much going on that I'm just trying to process it out. When someone said, oh, it's only been a month and a half.
I went,

Speaker 3 yeah, my mind was blown.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're 40 days into around 40 days into this administration. And you're looking at this, and

Speaker 2 it's breathtaking at what has been done.

Speaker 2 Last month, we had, had, I think, 1,800 encounters at the borders.

Speaker 2 A year ago, last February, it was 109,000 encounters. That's how much of an impact he's made on that.

Speaker 2 We have all these things that he's done, but when it comes to the economy, Congress has to move on some of his things. He hasn't really done anything with the economy.

Speaker 2 except perhaps for Doge, which you've been warning about on this program for a while now. What's happening?

Speaker 3 Yes. So, you know, we've talked about before that the economic situation is not really what it was presented to be.

Speaker 3 You know, we heard under Biden and certainly during election season, what a wonderful economy we had, all of these really great statistics on employment and growth. And it's become very clear.

Speaker 3 Well, it was very clear to all of us before we've talked about it.

Speaker 3 Something that Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant talked about in a speech a couple of weeks ago is that really the economic foundation is incredibly fragile.

Speaker 3 And what we've had the Biden administration do, which was exceptionally nefarious, is that they decided that they were going to spend to paper over the weakness of the economy.

Speaker 3 So if you remember, I think it was back in 2022, we had those two down quarters of GDP, which is a technical recession, which for some reason, by the way, they said was not a recession.

Speaker 3 I'm sure if Trump had two down quarters, they would say it was, but, you know, it was a, it was, it had a D in front of it, it wasn't. And then, you know, we came out of it.

Speaker 3 And then it was pretty clear that we were going to go into this double dip recession. And so, what did they do? They decided to increase government spending, which is very inefficient spending.

Speaker 3 And we've been running deficits as a percentage of GDP that are at wartime levels. We're talking six to seven percent of GDP.
The historical average is somewhere around 3% or 3.5%.

Speaker 3 So about double

Speaker 3 what you might see on average.

Speaker 3 When you have a good economy, you would actually expect that to be much lower because you're getting more receipts. And that's what happened.
We had more receipts. We were taking in almost $5 trillion

Speaker 3 U.S. government.
And they're spending even more. They're spending almost $7 trillion.

Speaker 3 So that was done to mask the weakness in the economy.

Speaker 3 Now that we don't have the ability to continue to kick up even more and more to show growth, the consumer continues to be tapped out from all the Biden-era policies, and the fact that we have Doge, which is trying to cut down government spending, we're at a situation where things could get uglier before they get better, or they could get uglier and they could take away the political will to make them better.

Speaker 3 And that's this delicate dance that we've been talking about, why we need this careful choreography.

Speaker 3 The craziest thing that's happened over the past several days is that the Atlanta Fed, you know, one of the branches of the Federal Reserve that has a tool that predicts GDP for each quarter, they went in the last four weeks, okay, four weeks' time from predicting that we were going to have almost 4% GDP growth in the first quarter to now negative 3%

Speaker 3 in the first quarter. That is

Speaker 3 a seven percentage point difference in four weeks, which A, just goes to show what a joke any of this reporting and these tools and this data are.

Speaker 3 But I think also shows, hey, we've got somebody else at the helm here. So now we don't need to doctor these numbers in a way that seems a bit more friendly.

Speaker 3 And so we potentially could be seeing something ugly, which is something that we've talked about many, many times. And this has been a setup that they knew was coming.

Speaker 3 If you go back to the middle of last year, you had a bunch of quote-unquote Nobel economists that put out a piece that said that Trump was going to create inflation.

Speaker 3 He was going to do all these bad things to the economy. And I called it out right then and there and said, this is a setup.
They know this is coming no matter what.

Speaker 3 And so they are setting the groundwork to blame this on Trump. And so, you know, get ready for the talking points.
You know, Trump's been, as we said, only in there for six weeks.

Speaker 3 He hasn't even really had a chance to do anything about the economy. Congress certainly isn't helping.

Speaker 3 And yet we're already getting the rhetoric that, oh, look what he did to our really great economy.

Speaker 2 Correct me if I'm wrong here, Carol, but

Speaker 2 the Biden administration, while they spent a lot of money, they did it in ways to cover things up, et cetera, et cetera. But

Speaker 2 that big 2021 $1.2 trillion bill and then the $836 billion for roads and bridges and broadband and then the $144 in the Inflation Reduction Act, it's well over a trillion dollars.

Speaker 2 And it's my understanding that only 17% of that money has been

Speaker 2 spent.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what happens if we don't stop the spending of just the stuff that is already on the books from Biden? Wouldn't that cause our inflation to go through the roof?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it absolutely would cause our inflation to go through the roof because, you know, even with the cash in and cash out that we have, as we said, we're running these wartime level deficits.

Speaker 3 And by the way, we're financing those at high interest rates, not necessarily in the historical context, but in the context of the last 15 years.

Speaker 3 And in a way that we have now made the interest expense on our debt, you know, what we're paying for stuff we've already bought, exceed the financing charges, exceed what we're spending on defense.

Speaker 3 Niall Ferguson has a great sort of maxim, if you will, that basically I'm paraphrasing here, but nations that spend more on interest

Speaker 3 versus debt don't remain great nations for very long.

Speaker 3 That seems to be pretty obvious, something that everybody can wrap their heads around, that we don't want to be spending all of our money paying for stuff that we've quote unquote already bought.

Speaker 3 And we certainly at these levels cannot afford to do that.

Speaker 3 If we continue to do that, and this kind of goes into another conversation that we've had before, Glenn, too, is that central banks around the world who used to be our friends in support of the U.S.

Speaker 3 being the world's reserve currency used to just buy treasuries

Speaker 3 as kind of part of the deal here on an ongoing basis. Over the past 11 or so years, they have been net sellers of treasuries.
They've actually replaced that with gold on their balance sheet.

Speaker 3 So if we don't have central banks that will just buy treasuries whenever, because that's part of the geopolitical deal, that means you have to find people who are

Speaker 3 looking at the price. They're looking at the price of the treasuries.
And basically,

Speaker 3 at these levels, even though they've come off a little bit and we can talk about that too, but they're overall saying, yeah, we're not to do that you know we we need um you know to have a reprice here and you know when you don't have enough uh demand you end up seeing our yields go higher and to the extent they add up too high which we were dangerously close to a few weeks ago that has come off now um you know but if you you hit that that could end up causing a debt spiral it could end up causing um you know the a mismanagement or excuse me not a mismanagement but basically a throwing up if you will of the treasury market and have global global implications.

Speaker 2 So, let me just explain this so the average person can understand what you just said.

Speaker 2 You are, you're wanting to

Speaker 2 buy a new house,

Speaker 2 and the interest rates are up at 8%.

Speaker 2 You say, honey, I don't think we should buy a new house. The interest rate is way too high.

Speaker 2 And somebody says, Well, historically not. Well, historically, yeah, you might be right, but

Speaker 2 we're not buying in the 1980s right now. We're buying today

Speaker 2 with our financial situation. So I don't think we're going to buy the house.
That's what a normal person would do. And you'd start saving money to buy a house later.

Speaker 2 That's not what the government is doing. They're saying, let's buy the house at these high interest rates anyway.
But

Speaker 2 when you have poor credit, really good banks are going to say, no, I'm not going to take your loan. That's what she's talking about with the central banks.
They're like, I don't want it.

Speaker 2 I'd rather buy gold because I don't trust that you guys are ever going to get out of debt. And so, what happens? Loan sharks step in.
This is what she's saying about the yield going up.

Speaker 2 The loan sharks step in and they say, I can make this deal for you. I'm going to cost you 12%.

Speaker 2 And you're like, 12%? That's outrageous. You're going to do it or you're not going to do it.
What do you want?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 we're burying ourselves with loan sharks. That's why I believe the president needs to say tonight, Congress must pass a budget.
It must have cuts.

Speaker 2 I'd love him to say it must have a trillion dollars bare minimum of cuts to show the rest of the world that we're serious.

Speaker 2 I don't know why Javier Malay can do these things, but we can't.

Speaker 4 However,

Speaker 3 however, Glenn, if we cut, as we've talked about, we cut a trillion dollars and we just cut it off very carefully and we don't choreograph it like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and then we don't have that in our GDP, then we have a shrunken economy.

Speaker 3 We're taking in less receipts and we actually explode the deficit, which could end up in a debt spiral. So yes, Congress needs to do their part, but it needs to be done very surgically.

Speaker 3 And that is the ultimate challenge. That is the mess that the Biden administration left for Trump.

Speaker 2 If I were king of the world today and I could go in and say, Congress, this is what you're going to do.

Speaker 2 I would say to them, you're going to cut a trillion dollars, plus you're going to pass either a flat tax or 15, 15, 15, what the president has talked about. And you're going to cut

Speaker 2 50% of all regulations. Just cut them right now.
And you're going to pass the Reigns Act. That would change the dynamics of the economy.
Yes, we would have all of that spending

Speaker 2 going away from our GDP, from the government. Good.

Speaker 2 But money would flow into

Speaker 2 our country and jobs would be created and we'd ignite the engine at the same time. That's what has to happen.
But that's not going to be the president's fault if it doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 What a surprise. It's going to be the lame-ass GOP that will screw this up.
He's got to get them on path.

Speaker 2 You're streaming the best of Glenn Beck.

Speaker 6 To hear more of this interview and others, download the full show podcasts wherever you get podcasts.

Speaker 2 This is the Glen Beck program. Taking your phone calls today.
Want to know what you want to hear from Donald Trump today? Let's go to North Carolina and Brandon. Hello, Brandon.

Speaker 2 Hey, Glenn, how you doing? I'm great. How are you?

Speaker 7 I'm good. First time caller, first time getting through.

Speaker 2 Good. Thank you.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 8 you just touched on it. I definitely want to hear Trump talk about the bill that was just proposed that every Democrat voted no on.

Speaker 8 I have a nine-year-old daughter who plays soccer.

Speaker 8 And the last thing I want is for,

Speaker 8 you know, the puberty age boys to start integrating.

Speaker 2 I mean, what could possibly go wrong, Brandon? Right. Right.

Speaker 8 They could just run her over, kick her in the face,

Speaker 4 which can happen with girls, but it's a little different.

Speaker 8 Yeah. There's a boy running down the field.

Speaker 2 It is.

Speaker 2 I am shocked that the Democrats are still holding on to this, but they did, and he is going to talk about it tonight.

Speaker 2 And I hope he is hard on Congress, not just on the Democrats, but on the Republicans. They have got to get their crap together and start moving.
It's 40 days in. He has moved mountains.

Speaker 2 He's done stuff in 40 days that I haven't seen presidents do in an entire term. But he has to have Congress.
And the Republicans better get their crap together. Thanks for your call.
Ron in Missouri.

Speaker 2 Hello, Ron.

Speaker 10 Hey, Glenn.

Speaker 9 I would really like to hear less of the always overconfident

Speaker 10 Donald Trump as the entertainer and the politician and the campaigner and more of a humble leader in the

Speaker 10 echo of Winston Churchill.

Speaker 10 I think this moment

Speaker 11 our country needs the speech that all he's got to offer us is blood, sweat, toil, and tears.

Speaker 10 And I think that has the real potential to unite people behind him

Speaker 10 if he's frank that

Speaker 9 both parties for

Speaker 10 really all my lifetime have been digging this hole.

Speaker 9 And it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice on all of our parts to get out of this.

Speaker 10 Not this, you know, pie in the sky.

Speaker 5 I'm going to fix everything my first day.

Speaker 10 Golden age of everything

Speaker 11 talk.

Speaker 10 I think frank reality and humble call to action would be really helpful.

Speaker 2 So, can I compromise with you here, Ron? Because I don't mind the president coming in and saying, you hired me to stop illegal immigration.

Speaker 2 We're down to the lowest illegal immigration since, I think, 1968.

Speaker 2 We have done that, and we're still doing more, and we're deporting them.

Speaker 2 I have made great progress on many things and lined them out, but then come to the economy. I got to be straight with you on the economy.
This is going to be tough, and I will work my butt off.

Speaker 2 I will be there every second of the day. You've seen me.
I sleep three hours a day. I will give you everything, but I need Congress to do their part on this.

Speaker 2 But we're in this together.

Speaker 2 Would you be okay with that compromise where he because he's going to be Donald Trump?

Speaker 10 Yeah, no, I don't disagree with what you're saying there.

Speaker 10 And more than just on the economy, I think he needs to have a call to action for rooting out corruption. Yes.

Speaker 9 But I agree. He's got to tout what he has done and the steps he is taking.
I've got no problem with that.

Speaker 10 Just people need a realistic view that that this isn't going to happen without pain.

Speaker 2 Correct. Correct.
Ron, thank you very much. I'm glad to know you know that.
Philip, Minnesota. Hello, Philip.

Speaker 12 Hey, Glenn, I'd like to see Trump go old school Glenn Beck from the Fox days and just do some straightforward PowerPoints.

Speaker 4 List out here's every

Speaker 5 Here is everything the Democrat Party and the Biden regime did to get us to this situation.

Speaker 4 Here's everything I plan to do to counter that. Call Congress out.

Speaker 5 Say, look, I can't make Congress act,

Speaker 5 but if they fail to act for the American people come midterms, you can ensure that they do by voting them out.

Speaker 2 Simple as that. That's very good.
Thank you very much, Philip. Carl, North Carolina.

Speaker 4 I'd love to hear Donald Trump say something that no president or congressman has ever said, and that is that the people with a capital P, highest office in the land, dutiful remnant, has the responsibility and the duty as mentioned in the Constitution to enforce our Constitution, and that will accomplish at least as much as Donald Trump and any other politician have accomplished.

Speaker 2 I agree. I agree.
That would be great for him to say. I could see him saying that, maybe not tonight, but I could see him saying that.
I've heard him say it is up to the people.

Speaker 2 You know, he can only do so much constitutionally. It is really

Speaker 2 up to us.

Speaker 2 You know, that was one of the things I hated on Joe Biden's first speech that he gave eight years ago, the same night.

Speaker 2 He gave it, and remember, everybody was sitting like six feet apart and there were very few people there and they were all wearing masks.

Speaker 2 And he looked right at Schumer and all the others and said, we've come through this because of you.

Speaker 2 And he wasn't talking to the American people. He was talking about the people in the room.
He was talking about the politicians. And he did that several times.

Speaker 2 And it made, I mean, it made the hair stand up on my neck because I've never heard a president say it that way before where, you know, oh, it's up to you.

Speaker 2 I've heard that a million times when he's talking about the people. But I'd like to hear a president, and I know Donald Trump does believe this, that it is up to you.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 really everything that's been done is in spite of the people, for the most part, that are sitting there in Congress or the Senate.

Speaker 2 Thanks for your call. Let me take one more here.
It's Jake in Iowa. Actually, I have more time.
I'll take a couple. Go ahead, Jake.

Speaker 4 Greetings from Iowa, Glenn. Any two things I'd like to see, Mr.

Speaker 4 President, say tonight is: as far as Doge uncovering this fraud and misuse of funds, I would love for him to say that they're going to prosecute to the fullest extent possible anybody who is caught funneling money.

Speaker 4 And I'm talking like a la Elliott Ness, where where we use repo or some obscure laws and just punish them because this is the taxpayers' money and we have to discourage this terrible behavior of the nonprofits and what have you.

Speaker 4 That's number one. Number two, I would like to hear him say that he's going to lift the social security cap.

Speaker 4 Right now it's like at $168,000 or whatever. Once you earn more money than that a year,

Speaker 4 they don't withhold Social Security from your check. And I don't know why that limit was put in there.
Maybe you have a reason for that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because you're not getting more than that out. Everybody pays their fair share.
If you have to pay up to that, if you make more,

Speaker 2 why are you taxed

Speaker 2 so much more? Because this was supposed to be an insurance policy for people just like you. And so,

Speaker 2 you know, it's.

Speaker 2 No, it wasn't, but I know what you're saying. Yeah, I know that.
I know that. That's the outward theory.
But that was the outward theory. And quite honestly, as somebody who does hit that cap, cap,

Speaker 2 I don't like it. I mean,

Speaker 2 I don't mind paying my fair share. But you know what? I pay a lot in taxes and I pay a lot more than

Speaker 2 most people. And I don't bitch and complain about it.
It is something that is necessary. I bitch and complain that they have wasted my money.

Speaker 2 And quite honestly, I am at the point when I see Doge, it it makes me want to say f you to the uh to the irs you're not getting another damn dime from me you're stealing this money okay

Speaker 2 because i don't want to contribute to almost anything that you're spending it on and no that's the way i really feel so uh you know i'm not for higher taxes on anybody yeah i would say anybody to uh i would love to hear him say we're repealing the payroll tax

Speaker 2 Full-fledged, gone. I would love that.
That would be a great tax because to

Speaker 2 the point, first of all, everybody feels that tax if you have a job. Secondly, you know when you feel it? It's regressive.
Yeah, go on. The only time you ever feel it is when you first start working.

Speaker 2 Every kid says the same thing. They're taking what? Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 2 You lose that because you just get used to it. That's why you should repeal the payroll tax.
Yep.

Speaker 2 No, you should feel it because there would be a revolution in this this country. Absolute revolution.

Speaker 2 Let me go to Mike. Hello, Mike.

Speaker 7 Hey, how are you doing, Glenn?

Speaker 2 I'm great.

Speaker 13 I would love to hear Donald Trump say Russia and the United States are going to engage in another round of nuclear disarmament.

Speaker 13 And we're going to use some of that savings from the deep state to rebuild our highways, our bridges, our electric grid system, and do what Eisenhower did.

Speaker 2 So I think you're going to actually get some of that. I think Donald Trump does want to have that conversation with

Speaker 2 China and Russia and the rest of the world about reduction of our nukes. He really does not like them.
He knows what they really are.

Speaker 2 And we are going to get our grid rebuilt. It has to happen because of AI.
We have to have a new grid. How long will that take? I don't know, but I think that will begin under Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 One more thing on the last call when he says,

Speaker 2 the last call said, I really want to hear the president say, I'm going after these people.

Speaker 2 The problem with that is there's been two, I think, missteps, and they've happened in the last week. There's been two missteps, and only two by this presidency.

Speaker 2 The first one was last week, and I don't believe it was Zelensky. The first one was with the DOJ, with Pam Bondi, and the release or the non-release of Epstein.

Speaker 2 That was the first time I thought, oh, wow, maybe they're not serious.

Speaker 2 Then they came out last night and said, there's a truckload of files that were on its way by that deadline Friday. Okay, well, is that a truckload like you ever see, you know, you watch some.

Speaker 2 you know, law show and they're like, yeah, they just filled the conference room with boxes of papers just to stall and keep you busy looking in a needle in a haystack. Is that what that is?

Speaker 2 So he's, he's, because of that misstep last week, they have hurt themselves on being able to say, and we're going to punish the bad guys.

Speaker 2 The other misstep is what's happening right now with the tariffs. The economy is going down and we've got real problems and it's not because of Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 He's got to focus not on Canada and responding to Canada on tariffs. He should be saying tonight, and that should be the only thing that he has to worry about: Congress,

Speaker 2 stop spending. Give me, pass the first budget.
This is so amazing. I have to say this, and I can't believe it's true every time you do say this.
Pass the first federal budget since 2008.

Speaker 2 Pass a budget that I can sign and cut your damn spending, period.

Speaker 14 This holiday season, stop paying full price. On Slick Deals, millions of shoppers share, vet, and vote on the best deals across the web.

Speaker 14 Find the gifts you want, save on what you need, and uncover deals you never even knew existed at slickdeals.net.