April 15, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode, Lisa welcomes FOX Business Senior Correspondent, Charles Gasparino, to discuss the economic landscape post-"Liberation Day." The conversation delves into market volatility, U.S.-China trade negotiations, and the impact of Trump administration policies. Gasparino critiques the aggressive trade strategies and highlights the interconnectedness of global economies. He also discusses his book "Go Woke, Go Broke," examining the shift towards progressive values in corporate America and the resulting consumer backlash. The Truth with Lisa Boothe is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Today, We've got Charles Gasparino on this show. He's a
Fox Business veteran, and we're going to ask him to
unpack this wild ride we've been on since Liberation Day,
you know, from the market volatility that we've seen in
the media's role in fueling it, to the Trump administration's
claim that they are now in trade talks with one
(00:23):
hundred and thirty countries. We're going to cover it all
and what could these deals mean for global trade? What
could it mean for US revenue? What could it mean
for the reshoring of manufacturing jobs to hear in the
United States. Plus we'll also tackle this intensifying US trade
war with China.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
China's now slamming.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The breaks on Boeing jet orders amid these tariffs, So
can the US come out on top? Can we win
that trade war against China? And finally, we're going to
dive into Charles's new book, Gooe Go Broke, the inside
story of the radicalization of Corporate America, exploring why companies
bet big on what policies to begin with, what kind
(01:08):
of fallout to the experience, and why are they now
changing their tune? Stay tuned for Fox Businesses Charles Gasprino.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, Charles, it's great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I really appreciate your making time, looking forward to getting
your insight into everything that's been going on, So appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Anytime, we've seen a lot of volatility.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
After Liberation Day, things have calmed down a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But you know, where do things stand today? You know,
how do you see it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, it depends on you know who you speak to.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
If you talk to people in the White House, it's
a it's a work in progress that needs to be done.
You know, I and I and I see I see
a lot of merit in what they say.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I mean there there isn't.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I mean, I don't think our trading relationships with other countries.
Where was the even playing field that it was portrayed
to be. And you know this occurred over many years.
It's solidified, it ossified. I guess it's the best way
you could put it into like the current the current
sort of regime that we have now where it looks
(02:16):
like and I'm gonna take you it's you know, take
out some of the sort of you know, the dubious
math that that that the Trump people threw out there
to try to figure out, you know, how many twists
we should we should how much of twists we should
charge every country because it makes Israel look like a
really bad player when they're not.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That doesn't mean they don't screw us every now and then.
But you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
But I talk to a lot of people who are
just you follow this straight, and they say, yeah, you know,
we're at a disadvantage in these relationships. We give the
world a lot, we we we defend half the world,
We defend Canada and Mexico.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
They come under our nuclear umbrella.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
This is what we do for them, you know, and
they still charge towers, They still put our industries at
a disadvantage. And there needs to be Like I could
you could see logic in doing a reset.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
The question is how do you do it?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And do you blow up this ossified regime all at once?
Do you do it piecemeal? Was now the right time?
And I think all those questions there's real questioning on
timing and approach. You know, taking a left turn, you know,
like a sharp left turn here is going to cause
(03:37):
tremendous amounts of confusing because it is what it is.
The globe.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Our economy is a global economy.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
You know, to deglobalize it overnight is not You're going
to get more than a little what Trump saying, am
I gett.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
A little crazy here? It's going to be more than
a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he also said to be cool, Charles, so he
said it be cool.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
No, don't be panicking, right, that's a great I was trying.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I was trying to figure out what I thought baby
said pelican when he said Pannican.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
But I wasn't sure.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
So what I had read it twice. So you're going
to have massive amounts of upheable. Remember that foreigners own
our debt. They could sell it. They started selling it.
Last Tuesday, interest rates started a spike. They were heading
towards five percent on the ten year bond, which, if
(04:26):
you know anything about the bond market, that's trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
When that happens, consumer rates go up dramatically. That shows
you that people don't want to hold their debt. It's
just really questioned. And by the way, if the bond
market seizes up and people are selling, well, you don't
get your paycheck, right, because everybody's paycheck is based on
your company's ability to access the commercial paper market. Because
no one has the money like right there in the vaults,
(04:52):
right you get Fox makes its money over time. You know,
suppliers and you know, distributor agreements pay over time.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You just don't have it all there, so you roll
over commercial paper.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Is that? Why? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That's why the Trump campaign kind of pumped the brakes
a little bit because what they were saying with the
bond market, particularly with Treasure Secretary treasuryvesent.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yes, and they won't admit it, and you know, you'll
get pushed back, but yeah, I mean they'll say, you know,
I heard, like I heard from someone in not not
the campaign, but in the in the White House Quality
and said, no, it was the stock market's Charlie.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Wasn't the bottom?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
I said, well, it's literally the same thing, and big, well,
how can you say that? I said, here's why if
bond if bond yields go to five percent on the
ten year, you're going to get a twenty percent decline
in the NASDAG.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
So just so you know, it's literally the same thing.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
If the economy falls into recession, that stock market's going
to go down dramatically.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I mean, it's just this is all interrelated.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
The bond market actually is more is more pressing because
if you I mean we were coming off hides, right,
We had massive hies in stock. Some of it was
pumped up by biding him minute stration spending to get
Kamala Harris elected. You know, he pushed out like three
hundred billion dollars is a needless spending towards the towards
the end there. I mean, this has been documented that
(06:10):
pumped up the economy in the markets. That was what
it was. It was attempted to do. That was it's good,
its motus operanda. And you know Trump is at best
in the got best in the Treasury secretary has now
you know, sort of ratcheted that spending down dramatically. So
some of this this market was overvalue, there's no doubt.
(06:30):
So you can make the case that stock should fall
on a on a on a change in the in
the in the mindset, in the herd. But when bonds
start trading off, it's a different story. That's about confidence.
And when you lack confidence in the US dollar, in
the US economy, in the US to pay its bills,
you know, and you know, if the one thing, if
we were running two trillion dollar surplus is we're running
(06:53):
two trillion dollar budget deficits.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Which is is that lack of Is that lack of
confidence unnecessary though, because you know, you look at the
jobs numbers, you know they're better than expected. Inflation is
taking down. You know a lot of these earnings reports
have been solid. So was that volatility that we saw unnecessary?
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Like?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Was it media driven? Was it fear driven? Was it
panic and driven?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Well, it's always it's it's a memory of stocks, these
sort of these markets always try to project rather than say, okay,
the past, right, Yes, you could say before all this started,
jobs were great, right, it's consumer confidence was great. You know,
inflation was coming down. You could say that all all that,
But that's before this started. You're trying to like, you're
(07:40):
trying to push out your estimates for corporate earnings if
these TIFFs go in effect, and there's no doubt they're
going to all these companies. I mean, if you really
hit Now, we don't know whether really Apple has an
exemption or not, right, is it do they or don't they?
I think they have a temporary exemption because the White
House has been kind of tucking out of both sides. Right, first,
(08:01):
there's and there's something that leaks out on a Friday
at ten o'clock about all these exemptions that would have
created a massive rally in tech stocks, particularly for Apple.
And the reason why is because if Apple got hit,
if all those tariffs came in the way Trump and
(08:22):
the White House initially proposed it, Apple stock is probably
overvalued by like fifteen to twenty percent. Okay, there's no doubt,
just given like its operations, how it produces an iPhone,
if it had to bring everything home, how it would
be triple the price at least initially. You know, things
settle out, but you know you want to pay three
(08:42):
four thousand dollars for an iPhone? Okay, that's probably what
would have happened if you really pushed them to do
what was stated, like given them an exemption that ratcheted
it back. Right then people were like, oh, thank god,
the Nasdaq was set yesterday for a massive rally. And
then you know, as you know, on Sunday, the presence
of now these are temporary exemptions, and then guess what happens.
(09:05):
You know, the rally is kind of muted. I looked
at this doctorate actually in NAZAC turned red yesterday for
a bit, and today everything looks like it's going to
open down red. And Apple even yesterday was up two percent,
it should have been up ten percent. So what I'm
saying is no one wants to take losses, all right.
(09:26):
What they're projecting is the policy and how the policy
impacts the balance sheet of Apple, of the of the
of corporate earnings. And no matter now, long term, this
might be great for the country long term, it may
be great for Apple for all I know. Short term,
at the very least, you know it's going to be
(09:47):
a problematic for their bottom line and the markets. And
then there's the question whether this could be done differently,
like not with a sledgehammer, but with a scalpel. And
I think that's kind of what Scott Best is suggesting
will happen.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But who knows. We don't know this.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
There's obviously a disagreement in the White House as to
who what what approach you should take.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
But I guess with the Trump administry, you know, with
President Trump, we know with the art of the deal,
he likes to pick sort of like the extreme and
then sort of maneuver his opponent into a better position.
I know, you know, I want to ask you, so
let's talk about what could happen.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, like, what did this back up?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Now I was one of the few people when he
was looking like a trade hawker, said no, he's going
to deal.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I've written quote columns on it.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I was on it literally a podcast the day before
he did his ninety day pause.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I said, this is art of the deal writ large.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
In my view, he's going to back off. And then
he did back off, but then he didn't back off.
And I think if you're going to do this, expect
a lot more craziness and you know market's going to
sell off.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We're going to have you know, businesses will retract.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Listen, businesses have to prepare for tomorrow, not for yesterday.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You know, you got to give them a roadmap.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
If you don't get if you want to do Art
of the Deal, you know, you might have a recession
because of it.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I mean that's now maybe it's worth it just telling you.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I don't I don't know, I'm I I could see
the rationale for these Trump rejiggering trade Just telling you
to be prepared for a recession because businesses in the
face of uncertainty are going to cut back. Now, if
you interviewed someone at the Wall Street Journal editorial page,
they would say it's much worse. All right, I'm just
telling you. I'm trying to be fair here. I mean,
(11:36):
there's no doubt we're going to get an economic slow
down here. There's just no doubt. We're probably already in
a recession. No doubt because even left in the run
up to this thing, with the sort of talk about it,
you know, don't answer me why they were surprised.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
The one thing if you know about Donald Trump's all
he's been talking about is towers the last two years,
is that is that businesses were starting to cut back
when the more you spoke about it post inaugural and
you know, you know, so we were already probably getting
a slow down. And then when you announced the plan,
it was a stoppage of spending, an advance and expansion
(12:15):
and you know whatever, you know, stuff that makes the
economy hum.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
That is stopped. Now, Okay, how do you get it going?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Is I guess how long this all this takes, how
what shape it takes, you know, what type of I
guess messaging comes out of the White House.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's this is complicated stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Let's say let's say they start, you know, they say
that there's been a one hundred and thirty countries that
have reached out. Let's say they start rolling out some
of these you know, renegotiations, and you've got better trade
deals with countries, You've got more revenue coming into the country,
you start to get some restoring of you know, manufacturing
(13:00):
coming back to the United States, and like beefing that up.
What could that look like for the economy?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
That would be great, But you're making it sound like
I don't think you're doing it on purpose, that you
can just snap your finger and that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
No, I mean, I know, even trade deals.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, I think the average for the bilateral deals
is like one point five, but these might be less
complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And then you know, I mean, all these deals are complicated,
and the economy is like a big ship, you know,
turn in and around from when it's going one way
to another. It's not easy. It's going to take some time.
So remember this is I mean, if you're just purely
myopically focused on the midterms, you hope it turns around
(13:43):
in a year, right, But you know, because there's a
lot on the line here. But I'm just telling you
this is this is difficult stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'm not saying it's the president.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I'm not going to give you the Wall Street Journal
editorial page interpretation of it.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But I can tell you that if you if you
just just to.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Say, this is the art of the deal, and he's
gonna win, and blah blah blah, there's gonna be pain,
a lot of pain here at some you know, until
we get this trade. I mean, it's gonna be a
lot of nuttiness. Markets are going to go crazy. You know,
we're gonna you know, we're gonna have some issues. And
we haven't even seen it, like how it really alls.
We've seen is like consumer sentiment numbers, you know, post towers,
(14:27):
which haven't been good. We haven't seen how the how
the economy is kind of reacting to it. So I
would just say, buckle up. It's going to be a
little bit of a and you know, there's good stuff
coming from the Trump with the Trump economy. He's got
tax cuts, hopefully we can get that passed, deregulation doge
all that's great stuff. Listen, Elon wouldn't have went so public,
(14:52):
crazy public.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
If this wasn't like what the way I'm explaining it.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And that it takes a lot for a guy that's
in the White House to kind of to say what
he said, even though it's Elon is known for shooting
from the hip, He's wants to know he's in the
room with the President and all these guys, and he'd
literally called Peter Navarro the architect the art word this.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Although it seems like Besen is driving this like it
seems like Trump is really leaning on him. And I've
heard Remy you know better than me, but I've heard nothing.
But you know, he's one of the best, probably the
best Treasury sectory we've ever had, and the most qualified.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Well I wouldn't say it's the best. I mean, there's
been a lot of good ones. You know.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Bob Ruben did a great job in the nineteen nineties.
He's a really smart guy. He's been in that job
not not too long. Listen, this is a career moment
for him. He could literally save the US economy. He
could smooth the waters or this thing could blow up.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
One of the problems I you know, I think is
that if you look at the approach, this should have
been a tertiary sort of or secondary concerned and policy.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Change that they made.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I mean, I still don't understand why they went for
trade when they didn't get the tax cuts, when the
economy wasn't even growing at two percent, and who knows
we were going to get a slow down anyway, right
because they were cutting back on spending. Doge was just
part of that, but they were not doing the massive
spending that the Biden did.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
We were going to get some slow down.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
If you're going to go and turn the world upside down,
kind of best to do it when you're I wouldn't
do it anyway. I do much more piecemeal, but best
to do it when you're growing at three percent and
then you know best and you know, have them do deals.
And that would have been the sort of, I guess,
the more logical way of doing it. But they just
(16:54):
didn't do that. And you know, you get the impression
that you know, listen, this is the way Trump operates.
But you know, you play with people's lives here. It's
one thing to turn the world upside down on DEI, right,
most people hate DEI. Okay, It's just like, you know,
it's one thing to build a wall and say we're
(17:16):
going to change our immigration policy one thousand percent. Most
people hate the fact that people can jump across a pond,
a stream and become an American citizen right and get
all our welfare benefits.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Most people kind of like tax cuts. Most people want
certain things. So these are not controversial issues. You start
screwing with the economy, you better be sure on how
you're doing it, okay, And I'm I said, I'm just
a simple country reporter. I've been doing this a long time,
thirty five years, been covering economics. Someone called me an
(17:50):
economic an economist the other I said, I'm not. I
just cover it, you know, so what do I know?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But but.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I just think the approach you was kind of just
not smart.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
And I worry that you know, can bestn't even put
put put it back in and put the genie back
in the bottle, I mean, which is kind of what
he's trying.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And particularly when you.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Have like like multiple spokes, when you have Howard Lutnik
one day best into the next and it's you know.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Quick break.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But first Israel is still under attack, missile fire has
resumed from hu Thi's Hasbalah and hamas enemies seeking Israel's destruction.
Here in America, we cannot imagine living under constant threat
of terrorism and rocket attacks.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
This is the reality in Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Parents taking their children to school, falling to the ground
to lay on top of their small children, just trying
to comfort them as the sirens blair. The next attack
against Israel is happening now with little time to prepare,
so we must act now. That's why I'm partnering with
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to help provide
life saving aid and security essentials.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You're urgently need.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
A gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters,
flag jackets, and bulletproof vests.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
For first responders.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Also things like armored security vehicles, ambulances, and so much more.
Join me in standing with Israel. Call to make your
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i f CJ dot org to give one word support
(19:28):
I f CJ dot org. The Big Wars with China.
I guess you know how do you win a trade
war with China? And then and then I want to
get it into your book because you did mention Dei
and that's a good segue.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But with China, what's interesting to me is that one way,
if you, if you, if, if you, if you surmise
it that you know, the worst economic actor out there
and trade is China. What you want to do is
build a coalition against China, which is why that ninety
(20:01):
day pause was created. But it was after the fact
where you kind of piss off everybody to you know
what I'm saying, so and you didn't really take the
tarofts off the table.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
So that's so that's what I mean by approach.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
You know, you could have said, listen, they're bad, we
want to we want to start here, and let's get
a coalition of the willing and let's do some trade
agreements with the Europeans where you know, I mean, there
was a way of doing this that that isolated China.
Now because China, will China be isolated? Listen, Chinese economy
is horrible right now. It's depending on who you talk to.
(20:40):
It's you know, I talk to people that study it.
It's either you know, recession or deep deep depression or
borderline depression. The Chinese manipulate their currency to keep their
their trade deficit. Uh you know, you know they did
not have a trade defferent of a massive That's how
(21:01):
they fund their their entire countries largesse they have. They
have like I don't know, a million people at least
in poverty.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
They have huge poverty rates.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Still, you know that that's kind of a screwed up place,
you know, besides being a repressive sometimes evil regime, they
you know, they need access to our markets. There's no
doubt about that. We would like some things from them,
and we do sell stuff to them. We sell a
lot of wheat and stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
That's why you keep reading that Trump might bail out
the farmers, right, you read.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
That all the time.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
There's also a lot of manufacturers have.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Have plants in China, and you know Apple does as well.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And if you want to, if you want to destroy
Apple or throw it a wicked curve bol to or
you know, a fast pitch to that skull and knock
knock it out, forcing it overnight to put all its
plants in the US is kind of how how you
do that? And now you could say does Apple matter?
(22:12):
They do employ people here Apple, you know, it is
a big company that pays taxes. So just remember this
is this is all it's related. There are things that
Trump wants that of China it wants. He wants TikTok,
which they have to approve, which as of now that
tails off the table. He wants the ports in and
(22:33):
the Panama Canal ports to be sold to Blackstone, a
black rock, which is an American company that needs Chinese
approval g to improve it, improve it. He wants, you know,
access to their market. So there's there's negotiating here. But
you know, think about that negotiation on top of everything else.
That's a lot of work.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Although I will say, people criticize.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Trump for his approach with NATO, and he got them
to pay more.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
So okay, that's an easy negotiation. You pay more because
we've been paying everything.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Isn't that what he's saying with some of these trade
deals that it hasn't been reciprocal.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, in a.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Similar vein he is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
But that doesn't send it When you say that to NATO.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Over over you know, over their their ability inability to
pay for their own defense, it doesn't it doesn't like
take the stock market down by the gazillion points.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It doesn't. People don't retrench in their business.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I guarantee when he said that, not one business cut
workers or cut expansion. And that's the difference here is
this is much more existential.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Americans care about the economy.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
There's one thing I know about covering business for the
last thirty five years. It's the economy stupid. That was
the best line ever that Carville came up with. And
it's so true. And so when you start screwing with
the economy, and I know you say, well, the stock
market's not the economy, but it kind of is. You
know when you when when stocks go down, that's reacting to,
(24:07):
you know, where the real economy might go, particularly if
it keeps going down. Like initially I thought this was
all ds. This was like you know, things with you know,
Trump would negotiate. This is just he's just threatening. This
is before he announced the hard and fast trade rules,
and you know he would negotiate and businesses would would
you know, stop retrenching. And then when he went full on,
it was like the shot across the values. It showed
(24:30):
that he was serious. And then you really do have
a retrenchment if you go full on on NATO not
paying its fair share and you and you don't fund
NATO for a quarter and I'm telling you no, no
business is going to react to that.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But I'm just saying, in the similar nature where he
was criticized for his approach and his way of handling
NATO and he did get them to pay more.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'm sure we're going to get deals out of this. Yeah,
we will. The question is alan will take and was
it worth a recession?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
But when you have to calm some of the jitters,
when if he just announced like a like one or
two of here's the negotiation, Like, whenn't that kind of settle.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Because it isn't.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I mean a lot of this is reactionary, right, it's
you know, And so if you were able to outline
here are a couple of things that we've already been
able to do in negotiation, when that calms some of
these jitters.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That would help.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Yeah, I just wonder if some of this is baked
in now, by the way, if you have just I.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Mean, first off, you have to see the deals that
are cut.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You know, we don't know in this interim period you're
going to have businesses scaling back. It's just is what
it is. You will have a recession now because we're
going whole hog with China. Does that mean you know
what else happens there? I mean, they are a big,
a big player here.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
We're gonna.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I guess my biggest my bigger point is once you
open this door, you know, you know, when you break it,
you kind of own it, you know what I'm saying.
And so this is not going to settle out that fast.
That doesn't mean long term.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I guess my only question would be is it broken?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
It is breaking?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, And you know here's the thing, It's impossible to
break our economy totally.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Right. We are a you know, you know, we're thirty
trillion dollar economy.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
It's it's very multi layered. It's not just trade is
twenty percent of it. That's big, but it's not the
biggest part obviously. But you know, you take a twenty
percent hit on something, you want to take a twenty
percent hit on your your paycheck?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I mean the answer is obviously no, But I don't.
I mean, I mean, you've written I mean, let you know, we.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Can talk get into your latest book but you know,
you also wrote the sellout about the two thousand and
eight financial crisis, which you know, obviously it was way
worse than where we are now.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
You know, you wrote that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Your latest book is Go Go Broke, The Inside Story
the Radicalization of Corporate America. I guess why do you
think these companies went roke? And and what were the
consequences of those companies going woke?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
And by the way, that's why you can't when they
when you trot out Jamie Diamond and this one and
that one, it's hard to take them serious on this
thing because they engaged in some really bad behavior.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Right. They literally became a.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Arm of the radical democratic left, and they helped propagate
a lie. I think it's a lie that this country
is uniquely evil. It had a unique history of racism,
it had a unique history of slavery, it's uniquely you know,
its foundation is uniquely uh malicious on all things involving
(28:07):
race and sex and the sexual preference using the name
you know that that these evil.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
White guys created this thing that needs to be ripped down.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
That's what the left has been propagating at universities for
for many years. And then all of a sudden bingo.
Guess what corporations started adopting that. And my book kind
of tries to tries to explain the it's an explanation
of how it got there and what's and what's causing
them to back off it now is obviously you've got
(28:37):
a guy again doing something that most Americans support, and
that's de radicalizing not just universities, but corporations that mimicked
what the universities were doing. And I, you know, like
how they got there, It is hard to really explain.
You know, there was there was there was a shift
in attitude in the boardroom. There were much you know,
(29:00):
you went from Jack Welsh types who had a heavy
who were more conservative and had a heavy hand in
believing in profits over over over social issues, to a
CEO class that was more liberal, more progressive.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You also had, you know, various investment techniques.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
That that caused this to happen. You had HR departments
that became radicalized to the left.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I never knew.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Anybody really wanted too HR, but somehow HR became this
sort of breeding ground of of of various theories involving
you know, how to take tell white white guys that you're.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Not qualified, and how to push everybody.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Else up the ladder based on a sort of determination
of points on your your sexuality, your your race, and
your sex. You know, it's it was just, you know,
it was white men, white women, you know what I mean.
There was this weird, this weird sort of I put it,
you know, a hierarchy that that that that came to
(30:08):
be with the HR departments of every major corporation started
to consider in hiring and promotion. And that's some of
that was through these investment techniques like ESG. You know,
remember Environmental Social governments involves the environment. People hated it
because it forced oil companies to cut back on oil
when we needed oil. Right, remember how oil prices spiked
(30:30):
during the during the Ukraine being evaded by by Russia.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We had we had massive inflation.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Well, one of the reasons why it spiked massively is
because you had ESG telling oil companies they should invest
in windmills, not oil drilling. Okay, The S and the
G part of that was interesting because that involves some
of these some of this DEI stuff that you read about,
and that became sort of a a corporate It was
almost like a sort of cult following in corporate America,
(30:59):
and it reached its.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
High point during the George Floyd thing.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I mean literally, I uncovered in an article in Bloomberg
that said, like ninety five percent of all hiring following
the George Floyd riots did not involve a white guy
in SMP five hundred companies. It was some astronomical number,
(31:23):
and it was obviously rank discrimination. And then it permeated
through other ways. I mean there was a cultural issue
here too. I mean, how did you get Dylan mulvaney,
you know, a trans woman sipping a bud Budweiser half
naked in a bubble bath as a commercial. Well that
only happened because of this whole DEI and how it
(31:45):
permeated advertising, and and you know how that how all
that happened, And how did you get you know, Disney
doing business with China, going out of its way to
do business one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
But year at home, implementing hiring quotas that are that
go down from from from actors to producers to even
(32:08):
pages have to fit this intersectionality matrix.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
How does they do how do they how do you.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Get Disney for god knows why just throwing in a
children's movie a same sex kissing scene that may made
no sense, right, why would you do that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, it's all part of this matrix.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
And you know, why would Target spend a month on,
you know, on celebrating Pride Month. Why would in its
stores when It's stores are generally targeted to use the
word target to a middle American family, some woman that's
you know, that comes in there with two kids because
(32:48):
they can't afford a nanny and they have to walk
by us rows and rows of rainbow colored onesies and
books about transit teenagers.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean, that's what happened. There's no doubt. I document.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
We've got to take a quick break more with Charles
on the other side. So you mentioned Jamie Diamond. I
can't image. I mean you, I've never met the guy,
so you know him better than me. But like, I
can't imagine he subscribes to this stuff that you just
laid out.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So it's like, was he he does he did?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So is it like was it because it was held
captive or you know, is he well or does he
believe it?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Like, like, how many of these CEOs felt like they
were being held hostage by this versus you know, you know, believers.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
You have to realize the sort of milieu that we
live in versus what they live in. They live in,
you know, the the upper class of Manhattan society. They
all go to Ivy League schools. It's all kind of
you know, there's a there's a there's a feedback loop
that promotes this stuff, this notion of diversity, and it
(33:57):
has to be rigid and almost quota like. After George Floyd,
they all felt that that that their their beliefs were
confirmed because some ex con in Minneapolis, you know, unfortunately died.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
While he was being when he was resisting arrest.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
That's kind of what happened, no matter which way you
put it, whether you think the cop used extras force
or didn't. He was resisting arrest, he had tons of
fentanyl in his system, he had he was not very healthy,
probably had COVID at the time, and he died, and
that unleashed this sort of massive hysteria that they were
too weak to fight back on. I remember when it
(34:39):
was going down. I I this is before I was
even write the book. I was like, why aren't they
saying that this is bs. Why are they allowing Why
are they, like on CNBC saying that, you know, America
is systemically racist.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I mean, why are they doing that?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
They must really believe it, you know, why are they
you know, and the first Trump administration at the end,
you know, you know it was very uneven.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
You know, it was we had COVID.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
It was it was a strange time that that touched
off the the the wokeness in corporate America, that that
reached new highs or I would say new lows if
you ask me. But it did happen, and it was
and to think it happened overnight, you'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It was.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Was it good for the bottom line? Like, like, what
what was the impact to you know, to uh for
companies for the bottom line with US, I can't imagine
this was good for business, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
When you pointed out you know, Budweiser and bud Light.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Well, yes, it turned out to be banned at a point,
but for years it didn't matter, you know either either
consumers didn't care.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I mean, it wasn't good for Target either, by the way.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
People went nuts when they when they started seeing that
one year in twenty twenty one, when they went nuts
on the the the whole the Pride celebration. I mean
we're not talking about you know, just you know, sort
of casual celebrations of of of the LBGDQ plus movement.
We're talking about like sort of overt I mean, the
(36:14):
market celebrated Bride more than it celebrated the fourth of July.
I mean, like in magnitudes, it's a celebrated sexuality, and
it celebrated not just a sort of passing way. It's
celebrated in terms of you know, children and you know,
bringing them into the fold.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I mean it was really quite remarkable.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You know, if you if you and I did a
lot of research on this, so I mean like you
got to ask yourself. So that caused the backlash. So
before that, I think they believe that it didn't matter.
Apple could be. Disney was a big company. It could
it made a lot of money. People kept going to
its theme parks, even if they were, you know, greeted
(36:58):
by a transgender under you know guy a guy with
a wig and a beard telling their kids hello. I mean,
it didn't matter that there was you know, trans or
drag queen bedtime stories, you know, you know, being around
the country, it would get we get coverage. It didn't
matter that Apple was among the most you know, woke
(37:20):
companies in the world, because everybody wanted an iPhone.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So for a time, it really didn't matter. And then
all of a sudden it did.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
And I think the country, the consumer, the average American,
which all these companies have to appeal to, even Jamie Diamond,
you know, it's a it's you know, they revolted. And
it was interesting. I had a you know, I interviewed
Jamie Dimond's people. I interviewed Jamie about this too. You know,
(37:50):
they were they were arguing, like, okay, were this is
before they did they started tweaking their de I policy.
They they were a whole hog into de I. You know,
that is all over their website. And I would say
this is illegal. I would tell the PR people, and
you know, why would you say this is good? Oh, Charlie,
we make so much money. You know it must be
good because we make Okay, so you're saying you make
(38:12):
a lot of money, that's good. Do you realize that
you're a too big to fail bank who's borrowing rates
are subsidized by the American taxpayer. And that's how you
make money. You're a bank that which Amy Diamond runs,
and he runs it well. But literally is it just
needs to be managed. Every now and then there's a
trader who goes off the deep end and you know,
loses three hundred million dollars or whatever, three hundred billions maybe,
(38:35):
But when it really comes down there, their business is
pretty simple. You take in money, you pay someone one percent,
you lend out at three and that's it. And by
the way, when you need because your company is too
big to fail, which all the big banks are, the
federal government is your implicit backstop. You can borrow at
(38:56):
very favorable rates. That's no business gets really gets that
in America. Apple doesn't get that, just so you know,
And so I would say, you know, I would tell
him it's not brilliant, it's it's like it's luck. And
you know, and at some point people are going to
stop banking with you. If you're just gonna, if you're
just gonna, you know, virtue signal at it every tune.
(39:18):
And if you notice they stopped doing that, you don't
see you taking a knee anymore at a band Bank branch,
which he did during twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So what saved us from it.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
The American consumer, the average American and some really good
people that kept reporting it and saying this was outrageous
and it's got to stop. And you know, I remember
during twenty twenty, American Express Chris Ruffo kept writing these
stories about how American Express was having and he's at
(39:52):
the Manhattan who did a really good job in this,
kept reporting about how American Express having CRT, kept teaching
there there are people's you know, critical race theory, and
he got into the nitty gritty just how absurd it was, right.
I mean, it was really saying like if you're a
white guy, you're a band.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
It was just it was just it was superficially it
was it was superficial analysis and inherently racist and divisive.
I mean, it was disgusting. And I remember calling up,
uh Americans.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Trust. I was like, I was trying to get someone
on the phone.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Wouldn't answer my calls about this, So I just kept
writing about it. Finally someone called me back and I said,
you know, with all due respect, you do have the
nick word American in your name.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
How is this American?
Speaker 4 (40:41):
And I think by pointing that out, by pointing out
that wokeism and DEI is just everything this country stands against.
That doesn't mean we don't want diversity. We shouldn't be mandated.
No one wants to mandate. And by the way, we
need a functioning meritocracy, okay, if we're going to keep up.
That's something that Elon keeps bringing out. I think I
(41:05):
think that's what turned it. And speaking about Elon, I
think freeing Twitter from the clutches of the left. Did
you know literally changed the zeitgeist in this country on
this matter. The fact that you can argue this on
Twitter without being shadow band or or thrown off or
attacked by a liberal mob when you had no defense.
(41:26):
You know, it was it was that was that was key.
I mean it was I'll give you a personal example.
During the campaign, I did a column for The Post
that said, you know, Joe Biden drops out Kamala Harris
could be the first DEI candidate for president and maybe
the first president who's a DEI who's there for DEI.
(41:50):
And I said, what you know, Joe Biden said to himself,
the E starts at the top of his administration.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Everybody knows she's not qualified.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Everybody knows why she was fit picked for the for
the thing and this is a horrible thing.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
And I used it.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
To tell my book. I got like wickedly attacked. I mean,
Gavin Newsom said my column was racist. You know this guy,
you know MSNBC. I was attacked by Joey Reid. And
then I noticed something else. I got wickedly supported. Then
then Shapiro came out and supported me.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You name it. They came out and.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
I pointed, how stupid Gavin Newsom is, how stupid Rick
Gronell came out supported me he is now in the
Trump administration. It was down the line, and how obviously
I was telling the truth back in twenty twenty that
could never have happened. Okay, So Elon has allowed Twitter
(42:48):
for us, allowed us to tell the truth on Twitter,
and that's and that changed the culture in a major way.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And Trump said everybody should be grateful to him for that.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I think Trump's helped too, of just sort of resetting.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Trump has helped, but I think he's also a symptom.
He also benefited from what Elon did.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
But I'm saying in terms of being so outspoken again,
like giving people like you know, sort of someone to
turn to who's not subscribing to all this nonsense on
such a big stage.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I agree with that, but I don't think it's the
same thing.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
I think Trump was allowed to flourish because Twitter became
an opinion free zone. Like a free opinion zone, I
should say, not opinion free. It's got plenty of opinion
depending where you put that qualifier.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Change the sentence, meeting, you know. We here's a perfect example.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Remember when he had the debate with Kamala Harris and
he said, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yes, they were having that.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Discussion about what's going on in Springfield, whether the mass
immigration and you know, the people in the world.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Though I do think there was some eating of the
animals that did that take place?
Speaker 3 (44:06):
So yes, well that's my point.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, the animals. How would know that?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Right?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
You only knew that because you saw, you know, someone
baking a cat, you know, somewhere near Springfield, and then
you read about how they were pulling ducks out of
the lakes over there, and then you started to and
then you started to because of Twitter, because Elon kept
it free. You you kind of understood that we're talking
It's much more than just eating the cats and the dogs.
We're talking about a massive cultural social transformation forced on
(44:38):
a working class town because of unfettered immigration. And then
people started seeing that what Trump was saying was kind
of was kind of right.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Then on top of it, because of Twitter and social media,
kids were doing dance videos and it mocked the racist
tro troupe that you know, people like racial Maddow try
to try to paint ads.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
Yeah, because there was a there was a free there
was a free space to do it at because the
newspapers weren't going to do it. Fox is only one
day one station and on Newsmax, a smaller station. Most
of the mainstream media is still exkews, you know, wickedly left.
But because of Twitter, you know that it was counterbalance
(45:27):
and I think that that accounted for Trump's victory in
a major way.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
It also just kind of made things fun again because
people were like, you know, putting up funny memes and
being able to laugh and like talking about things like it's.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Like the rap videos with cats.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So but look, there's also like a song.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Uh, you know, people made songs.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
We were listening to the other day laughing.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
It was a there was a rapper that that did
you know that I had Trump dancing in the background
with cats and I'm just I'm not going to do
it justice.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
You can look it up. It was really funny.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Well, yeah, the dynamics have changed and in the books
out now, so everyone should go check it out. Charles Gasprino,
good stuff, really interesting conversation and the book sounds super interesting,
so people should go out and get it. Go Woke,
Go Broke, the inside story of the radicalization of Corporate America.
We appreciate your time, Charles, Thank you so.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Much, Begs Lisa.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
That was Charles Gasprino with Fox Business.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Also the author of Go Woke, Go Broke.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
We appreciate him for taking the time to come on
the show. Appreciate you guys at home for listening every
Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week
until next time.
Today, We've got Charles Gasparino on this show. He's a
Fox Business veteran, and we're going to ask him to
unpack this wild ride we've been on since Liberation Day,
you know, from the market volatility that we've seen in
the media's role in fueling it, to the Trump administration's
claim that they are now in trade talks with one
(00:23):
hundred and thirty countries. We're going to cover it all
and what could these deals mean for global trade? What
could it mean for US revenue? What could it mean
for the reshoring of manufacturing jobs to hear in the
United States. Plus we'll also tackle this intensifying US trade
war with China.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
China's now slamming.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
The breaks on Boeing jet orders amid these tariffs, So
can the US come out on top? Can we win
that trade war against China? And finally, we're going to
dive into Charles's new book, Gooe Go Broke, the inside
story of the radicalization of Corporate America, exploring why companies
bet big on what policies to begin with, what kind
(01:08):
of fallout to the experience, and why are they now
changing their tune? Stay tuned for Fox Businesses Charles Gasprino.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, Charles, it's great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I really appreciate your making time, looking forward to getting
your insight into everything that's been going on, So appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Anytime, we've seen a lot of volatility.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
After Liberation Day, things have calmed down a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
But you know, where do things stand today? You know,
how do you see it?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, it depends on you know who you speak to.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
If you talk to people in the White House, it's
a it's a work in progress that needs to be done.
You know, I and I and I see I see
a lot of merit in what they say.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I mean there there isn't.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I mean, I don't think our trading relationships with other countries.
Where was the even playing field that it was portrayed
to be. And you know this occurred over many years.
It's solidified, it ossified. I guess it's the best way
you could put it into like the current the current
sort of regime that we have now where it looks
(02:16):
like and I'm gonna take you it's you know, take
out some of the sort of you know, the dubious
math that that that the Trump people threw out there
to try to figure out, you know, how many twists
we should we should how much of twists we should
charge every country because it makes Israel look like a
really bad player when they're not.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
That doesn't mean they don't screw us every now and then.
But you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
But I talk to a lot of people who are
just you follow this straight, and they say, yeah, you know,
we're at a disadvantage in these relationships. We give the
world a lot, we we we defend half the world,
We defend Canada and Mexico.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
They come under our nuclear umbrella.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
This is what we do for them, you know, and
they still charge towers, They still put our industries at
a disadvantage. And there needs to be Like I could
you could see logic in doing a reset.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
The question is how do you do it?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And do you blow up this ossified regime all at once?
Do you do it piecemeal? Was now the right time?
And I think all those questions there's real questioning on
timing and approach. You know, taking a left turn, you know,
like a sharp left turn here is going to cause
(03:37):
tremendous amounts of confusing because it is what it is.
The globe.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Our economy is a global economy.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
You know, to deglobalize it overnight is not You're going
to get more than a little what Trump saying, am
I gett.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
A little crazy here? It's going to be more than
a little crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he also said to be cool, Charles, so he
said it be cool.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
No, don't be panicking, right, that's a great I was trying.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
I was trying to figure out what I thought baby
said pelican when he said Pannican.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
But I wasn't sure.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
So what I had read it twice. So you're going
to have massive amounts of upheable. Remember that foreigners own
our debt. They could sell it. They started selling it.
Last Tuesday, interest rates started a spike. They were heading
towards five percent on the ten year bond, which, if
(04:26):
you know anything about the bond market, that's trouble.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
When that happens, consumer rates go up dramatically. That shows
you that people don't want to hold their debt. It's
just really questioned. And by the way, if the bond
market seizes up and people are selling, well, you don't
get your paycheck, right, because everybody's paycheck is based on
your company's ability to access the commercial paper market. Because
no one has the money like right there in the vaults,
(04:52):
right you get Fox makes its money over time. You know,
suppliers and you know, distributor agreements pay over time.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
You just don't have it all there, so you roll
over commercial paper.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Is that? Why? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (05:05):
That's why the Trump campaign kind of pumped the brakes
a little bit because what they were saying with the
bond market, particularly with Treasure Secretary treasuryvesent.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Yes, and they won't admit it, and you know, you'll
get pushed back, but yeah, I mean they'll say, you know,
I heard, like I heard from someone in not not
the campaign, but in the in the White House Quality
and said, no, it was the stock market's Charlie.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Wasn't the bottom?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
I said, well, it's literally the same thing, and big, well,
how can you say that? I said, here's why if
bond if bond yields go to five percent on the
ten year, you're going to get a twenty percent decline
in the NASDAG.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
So just so you know, it's literally the same thing.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
If the economy falls into recession, that stock market's going
to go down dramatically.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I mean, it's just this is all interrelated.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
The bond market actually is more is more pressing because
if you I mean we were coming off hides, right,
We had massive hies in stock. Some of it was
pumped up by biding him minute stration spending to get
Kamala Harris elected. You know, he pushed out like three
hundred billion dollars is a needless spending towards the towards
the end there. I mean, this has been documented that
(06:10):
pumped up the economy in the markets. That was what
it was. It was attempted to do. That was it's good,
its motus operanda. And you know Trump is at best
in the got best in the Treasury secretary has now
you know, sort of ratcheted that spending down dramatically. So
some of this this market was overvalue, there's no doubt.
(06:30):
So you can make the case that stock should fall
on a on a on a change in the in
the in the mindset, in the herd. But when bonds
start trading off, it's a different story. That's about confidence.
And when you lack confidence in the US dollar, in
the US economy, in the US to pay its bills,
you know, and you know, if the one thing, if
we were running two trillion dollar surplus is we're running
(06:53):
two trillion dollar budget deficits.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Which is is that lack of Is that lack of
confidence unnecessary though, because you know, you look at the
jobs numbers, you know they're better than expected. Inflation is
taking down. You know a lot of these earnings reports
have been solid. So was that volatility that we saw unnecessary?
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Like?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Was it media driven? Was it fear driven? Was it
panic and driven?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Well, it's always it's it's a memory of stocks, these
sort of these markets always try to project rather than say, okay,
the past, right, Yes, you could say before all this started,
jobs were great, right, it's consumer confidence was great. You know,
inflation was coming down. You could say that all all that,
But that's before this started. You're trying to like, you're
(07:40):
trying to push out your estimates for corporate earnings if
these TIFFs go in effect, and there's no doubt they're
going to all these companies. I mean, if you really
hit Now, we don't know whether really Apple has an
exemption or not, right, is it do they or don't they?
I think they have a temporary exemption because the White
House has been kind of tucking out of both sides. Right, first,
(08:01):
there's and there's something that leaks out on a Friday
at ten o'clock about all these exemptions that would have
created a massive rally in tech stocks, particularly for Apple.
And the reason why is because if Apple got hit,
if all those tariffs came in the way Trump and
(08:22):
the White House initially proposed it, Apple stock is probably
overvalued by like fifteen to twenty percent. Okay, there's no doubt,
just given like its operations, how it produces an iPhone,
if it had to bring everything home, how it would
be triple the price at least initially. You know, things
settle out, but you know you want to pay three
(08:42):
four thousand dollars for an iPhone? Okay, that's probably what
would have happened if you really pushed them to do
what was stated, like given them an exemption that ratcheted
it back. Right then people were like, oh, thank god,
the Nasdaq was set yesterday for a massive rally. And
then you know, as you know, on Sunday, the presence
of now these are temporary exemptions, and then guess what happens.
(09:05):
You know, the rally is kind of muted. I looked
at this doctorate actually in NAZAC turned red yesterday for
a bit, and today everything looks like it's going to
open down red. And Apple even yesterday was up two percent,
it should have been up ten percent. So what I'm
saying is no one wants to take losses, all right.
(09:26):
What they're projecting is the policy and how the policy
impacts the balance sheet of Apple, of the of the
of corporate earnings. And no matter now, long term, this
might be great for the country long term, it may
be great for Apple for all I know. Short term,
at the very least, you know it's going to be
(09:47):
a problematic for their bottom line and the markets. And
then there's the question whether this could be done differently,
like not with a sledgehammer, but with a scalpel. And
I think that's kind of what Scott Best is suggesting
will happen.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But who knows. We don't know this.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
There's obviously a disagreement in the White House as to
who what what approach you should take.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
But I guess with the Trump administry, you know, with
President Trump, we know with the art of the deal,
he likes to pick sort of like the extreme and
then sort of maneuver his opponent into a better position.
I know, you know, I want to ask you, so
let's talk about what could happen.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, like, what did this back up?
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Now I was one of the few people when he
was looking like a trade hawker, said no, he's going
to deal.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And I've written quote columns on it.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I was on it literally a podcast the day before
he did his ninety day pause.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I said, this is art of the deal writ large.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
In my view, he's going to back off. And then
he did back off, but then he didn't back off.
And I think if you're going to do this, expect
a lot more craziness and you know market's going to
sell off.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We're going to have you know, businesses will retract.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Listen, businesses have to prepare for tomorrow, not for yesterday.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
You know, you got to give them a roadmap.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
If you don't get if you want to do Art
of the Deal, you know, you might have a recession
because of it.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I mean that's now maybe it's worth it just telling you.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I don't I don't know, I'm I I could see
the rationale for these Trump rejiggering trade Just telling you
to be prepared for a recession because businesses in the
face of uncertainty are going to cut back. Now, if
you interviewed someone at the Wall Street Journal editorial page,
they would say it's much worse. All right, I'm just
telling you. I'm trying to be fair here. I mean,
(11:36):
there's no doubt we're going to get an economic slow
down here. There's just no doubt. We're probably already in
a recession. No doubt because even left in the run
up to this thing, with the sort of talk about it,
you know, don't answer me why they were surprised.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
The one thing if you know about Donald Trump's all
he's been talking about is towers the last two years,
is that is that businesses were starting to cut back
when the more you spoke about it post inaugural and
you know, you know, so we were already probably getting
a slow down. And then when you announced the plan,
it was a stoppage of spending, an advance and expansion
(12:15):
and you know whatever, you know, stuff that makes the
economy hum.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
That is stopped. Now, Okay, how do you get it going?
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Is I guess how long this all this takes, how
what shape it takes, you know, what type of I
guess messaging comes out of the White House.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
It's this is complicated stuff.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Let's say let's say they start, you know, they say
that there's been a one hundred and thirty countries that
have reached out. Let's say they start rolling out some
of these you know, renegotiations, and you've got better trade
deals with countries, You've got more revenue coming into the country,
you start to get some restoring of you know, manufacturing
(13:00):
coming back to the United States, and like beefing that up.
What could that look like for the economy?
Speaker 4 (13:07):
That would be great, But you're making it sound like
I don't think you're doing it on purpose, that you
can just snap your finger and that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
No, I mean, I know, even trade deals.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
You know, I think the average for the bilateral deals
is like one point five, but these might be less
complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And then you know, I mean, all these deals are complicated,
and the economy is like a big ship, you know,
turn in and around from when it's going one way
to another. It's not easy. It's going to take some time.
So remember this is I mean, if you're just purely
myopically focused on the midterms, you hope it turns around
(13:43):
in a year, right, But you know, because there's a
lot on the line here. But I'm just telling you
this is this is difficult stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I'm not saying it's the president.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
I'm not going to give you the Wall Street Journal
editorial page interpretation of it.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
But I can tell you that if you if you
just just to.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Say, this is the art of the deal, and he's
gonna win, and blah blah blah, there's gonna be pain,
a lot of pain here at some you know, until
we get this trade. I mean, it's gonna be a
lot of nuttiness. Markets are going to go crazy. You know,
we're gonna you know, we're gonna have some issues. And
we haven't even seen it, like how it really alls.
We've seen is like consumer sentiment numbers, you know, post towers,
(14:27):
which haven't been good. We haven't seen how the how
the economy is kind of reacting to it. So I
would just say, buckle up. It's going to be a
little bit of a and you know, there's good stuff
coming from the Trump with the Trump economy. He's got
tax cuts, hopefully we can get that passed, deregulation doge
all that's great stuff. Listen, Elon wouldn't have went so public,
(14:52):
crazy public.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
If this wasn't like what the way I'm explaining it.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And that it takes a lot for a guy that's
in the White House to kind of to say what
he said, even though it's Elon is known for shooting
from the hip, He's wants to know he's in the
room with the President and all these guys, and he'd
literally called Peter Navarro the architect the art word this.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Although it seems like Besen is driving this like it
seems like Trump is really leaning on him. And I've
heard Remy you know better than me, but I've heard nothing.
But you know, he's one of the best, probably the
best Treasury sectory we've ever had, and the most qualified.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Well I wouldn't say it's the best. I mean, there's
been a lot of good ones. You know.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Bob Ruben did a great job in the nineteen nineties.
He's a really smart guy. He's been in that job
not not too long. Listen, this is a career moment
for him. He could literally save the US economy. He
could smooth the waters or this thing could blow up.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
One of the problems I you know, I think is
that if you look at the approach, this should have
been a tertiary sort of or secondary concerned and policy.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Change that they made.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
I mean, I still don't understand why they went for
trade when they didn't get the tax cuts, when the
economy wasn't even growing at two percent, and who knows
we were going to get a slow down anyway, right
because they were cutting back on spending. Doge was just
part of that, but they were not doing the massive
spending that the Biden did.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
We were going to get some slow down.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
If you're going to go and turn the world upside down,
kind of best to do it when you're I wouldn't
do it anyway. I do much more piecemeal, but best
to do it when you're growing at three percent and
then you know best and you know, have them do deals.
And that would have been the sort of, I guess,
the more logical way of doing it. But they just
(16:54):
didn't do that. And you know, you get the impression
that you know, listen, this is the way Trump operates.
But you know, you play with people's lives here. It's
one thing to turn the world upside down on DEI, right,
most people hate DEI. Okay, It's just like, you know,
it's one thing to build a wall and say we're
(17:16):
going to change our immigration policy one thousand percent. Most
people hate the fact that people can jump across a pond,
a stream and become an American citizen right and get
all our welfare benefits.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Most people kind of like tax cuts. Most people want
certain things. So these are not controversial issues. You start
screwing with the economy, you better be sure on how
you're doing it, okay, And I'm I said, I'm just
a simple country reporter. I've been doing this a long time,
thirty five years, been covering economics. Someone called me an
(17:50):
economic an economist the other I said, I'm not. I
just cover it, you know, so what do I know?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
But but.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I just think the approach you was kind of just
not smart.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
And I worry that you know, can bestn't even put
put put it back in and put the genie back
in the bottle, I mean, which is kind of what
he's trying.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
And particularly when you.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
Have like like multiple spokes, when you have Howard Lutnik
one day best into the next and it's you know.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Quick break.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
But first Israel is still under attack, missile fire has
resumed from hu Thi's Hasbalah and hamas enemies seeking Israel's destruction.
Here in America, we cannot imagine living under constant threat
of terrorism and rocket attacks.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
This is the reality in Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Parents taking their children to school, falling to the ground
to lay on top of their small children, just trying
to comfort them as the sirens blair. The next attack
against Israel is happening now with little time to prepare,
so we must act now. That's why I'm partnering with
the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to help provide
life saving aid and security essentials.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
You're urgently need.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
A gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters,
flag jackets, and bulletproof vests.
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For first responders.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Also things like armored security vehicles, ambulances, and so much more.
Join me in standing with Israel. Call to make your
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i f CJ dot org to give one word support
(19:28):
I f CJ dot org. The Big Wars with China.
I guess you know how do you win a trade
war with China? And then and then I want to
get it into your book because you did mention Dei
and that's a good segue.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But with China, what's interesting to me is that one way,
if you, if you, if, if you, if you surmise
it that you know, the worst economic actor out there
and trade is China. What you want to do is
build a coalition against China, which is why that ninety
(20:01):
day pause was created. But it was after the fact
where you kind of piss off everybody to you know
what I'm saying, so and you didn't really take the
tarofts off the table.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
So that's so that's what I mean by approach.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
You know, you could have said, listen, they're bad, we
want to we want to start here, and let's get
a coalition of the willing and let's do some trade
agreements with the Europeans where you know, I mean, there
was a way of doing this that that isolated China.
Now because China, will China be isolated? Listen, Chinese economy
is horrible right now. It's depending on who you talk to.
(20:40):
It's you know, I talk to people that study it.
It's either you know, recession or deep deep depression or
borderline depression. The Chinese manipulate their currency to keep their
their trade deficit. Uh you know, you know they did
not have a trade defferent of a massive That's how
(21:01):
they fund their their entire countries largesse they have. They
have like I don't know, a million people at least
in poverty.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
They have huge poverty rates.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
Still, you know that that's kind of a screwed up place,
you know, besides being a repressive sometimes evil regime, they
you know, they need access to our markets. There's no
doubt about that. We would like some things from them,
and we do sell stuff to them. We sell a
lot of wheat and stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
That's why you keep reading that Trump might bail out
the farmers, right, you read.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
That all the time.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
There's also a lot of manufacturers have.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Have plants in China, and you know Apple does as well.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
And if you want to, if you want to destroy
Apple or throw it a wicked curve bol to or
you know, a fast pitch to that skull and knock
knock it out, forcing it overnight to put all its
plants in the US is kind of how how you
do that? And now you could say does Apple matter?
(22:12):
They do employ people here Apple, you know, it is
a big company that pays taxes. So just remember this
is this is all it's related. There are things that
Trump wants that of China it wants. He wants TikTok,
which they have to approve, which as of now that
tails off the table. He wants the ports in and
(22:33):
the Panama Canal ports to be sold to Blackstone, a
black rock, which is an American company that needs Chinese
approval g to improve it, improve it. He wants, you know,
access to their market. So there's there's negotiating here. But
you know, think about that negotiation on top of everything else.
That's a lot of work.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Although I will say, people criticize.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Trump for his approach with NATO, and he got them
to pay more.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
So okay, that's an easy negotiation. You pay more because
we've been paying everything.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Isn't that what he's saying with some of these trade
deals that it hasn't been reciprocal.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, in a.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Similar vein he is.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
But that doesn't send it When you say that to NATO.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Over over you know, over their their ability inability to
pay for their own defense, it doesn't it doesn't like
take the stock market down by the gazillion points.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It doesn't. People don't retrench in their business.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
I guarantee when he said that, not one business cut
workers or cut expansion. And that's the difference here is
this is much more existential.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Americans care about the economy.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
There's one thing I know about covering business for the
last thirty five years. It's the economy stupid. That was
the best line ever that Carville came up with. And
it's so true. And so when you start screwing with
the economy, and I know you say, well, the stock
market's not the economy, but it kind of is. You
know when you when when stocks go down, that's reacting to,
(24:07):
you know, where the real economy might go, particularly if
it keeps going down. Like initially I thought this was
all ds. This was like you know, things with you know,
Trump would negotiate. This is just he's just threatening. This
is before he announced the hard and fast trade rules,
and you know he would negotiate and businesses would would
you know, stop retrenching. And then when he went full on,
it was like the shot across the values. It showed
(24:30):
that he was serious. And then you really do have
a retrenchment if you go full on on NATO not
paying its fair share and you and you don't fund
NATO for a quarter and I'm telling you no, no
business is going to react to that.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
But I'm just saying, in the similar nature where he
was criticized for his approach and his way of handling
NATO and he did get them to pay more.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
I'm sure we're going to get deals out of this. Yeah,
we will. The question is alan will take and was
it worth a recession?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
But when you have to calm some of the jitters,
when if he just announced like a like one or
two of here's the negotiation, Like, whenn't that kind of settle.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Because it isn't.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I mean a lot of this is reactionary, right, it's
you know, And so if you were able to outline
here are a couple of things that we've already been
able to do in negotiation, when that calms some of
these jitters.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
That would help.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Yeah, I just wonder if some of this is baked
in now, by the way, if you have just I.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Mean, first off, you have to see the deals that
are cut.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You know, we don't know in this interim period you're
going to have businesses scaling back. It's just is what
it is. You will have a recession now because we're
going whole hog with China. Does that mean you know
what else happens there? I mean, they are a big,
a big player here.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
We're gonna.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I guess my biggest my bigger point is once you
open this door, you know, you know, when you break it,
you kind of own it, you know what I'm saying.
And so this is not going to settle out that fast.
That doesn't mean long term.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I guess my only question would be is it broken?
Speaker 3 (26:19):
It is breaking?
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Yeah, And you know here's the thing, It's impossible to
break our economy totally.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Right. We are a you know, you know, we're thirty
trillion dollar economy.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
It's it's very multi layered. It's not just trade is
twenty percent of it. That's big, but it's not the
biggest part obviously. But you know, you take a twenty
percent hit on something, you want to take a twenty
percent hit on your your paycheck?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I mean the answer is obviously no, But I don't.
I mean, I mean, you've written I mean, let you know, we.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Can talk get into your latest book but you know,
you also wrote the sellout about the two thousand and
eight financial crisis, which you know, obviously it was way
worse than where we are now.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
You know, you wrote that.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Your latest book is Go Go Broke, The Inside Story
the Radicalization of Corporate America. I guess why do you
think these companies went roke? And and what were the
consequences of those companies going woke?
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (27:26):
And by the way, that's why you can't when they
when you trot out Jamie Diamond and this one and
that one, it's hard to take them serious on this
thing because they engaged in some really bad behavior.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Right. They literally became a.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Arm of the radical democratic left, and they helped propagate
a lie. I think it's a lie that this country
is uniquely evil. It had a unique history of racism,
it had a unique history of slavery, it's uniquely you know,
its foundation is uniquely uh malicious on all things involving
(28:07):
race and sex and the sexual preference using the name
you know that that these evil.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
White guys created this thing that needs to be ripped down.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
That's what the left has been propagating at universities for
for many years. And then all of a sudden bingo.
Guess what corporations started adopting that. And my book kind
of tries to tries to explain the it's an explanation
of how it got there and what's and what's causing
them to back off it now is obviously you've got
(28:37):
a guy again doing something that most Americans support, and
that's de radicalizing not just universities, but corporations that mimicked
what the universities were doing. And I, you know, like
how they got there, It is hard to really explain.
You know, there was there was there was a shift
in attitude in the boardroom. There were much you know,
(29:00):
you went from Jack Welsh types who had a heavy
who were more conservative and had a heavy hand in
believing in profits over over over social issues, to a
CEO class that was more liberal, more progressive.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You also had, you know, various investment techniques.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
That that caused this to happen. You had HR departments
that became radicalized to the left.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
I never knew.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Anybody really wanted too HR, but somehow HR became this
sort of breeding ground of of of various theories involving
you know, how to take tell white white guys that you're.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Not qualified, and how to push everybody.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Else up the ladder based on a sort of determination
of points on your your sexuality, your your race, and
your sex. You know, it's it was just, you know,
it was white men, white women, you know what I mean.
There was this weird, this weird sort of I put it,
you know, a hierarchy that that that that came to
(30:08):
be with the HR departments of every major corporation started
to consider in hiring and promotion. And that's some of
that was through these investment techniques like ESG. You know,
remember Environmental Social governments involves the environment. People hated it
because it forced oil companies to cut back on oil
when we needed oil. Right, remember how oil prices spiked
(30:30):
during the during the Ukraine being evaded by by Russia.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
We had we had massive inflation.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
Well, one of the reasons why it spiked massively is
because you had ESG telling oil companies they should invest
in windmills, not oil drilling. Okay, The S and the
G part of that was interesting because that involves some
of these some of this DEI stuff that you read about,
and that became sort of a a corporate It was
almost like a sort of cult following in corporate America,
(30:59):
and it reached its.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
High point during the George Floyd thing.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I mean literally, I uncovered in an article in Bloomberg
that said, like ninety five percent of all hiring following
the George Floyd riots did not involve a white guy
in SMP five hundred companies. It was some astronomical number,
(31:23):
and it was obviously rank discrimination. And then it permeated
through other ways. I mean there was a cultural issue
here too. I mean, how did you get Dylan mulvaney,
you know, a trans woman sipping a bud Budweiser half
naked in a bubble bath as a commercial. Well that
only happened because of this whole DEI and how it
(31:45):
permeated advertising, and and you know how that how all
that happened, And how did you get you know, Disney
doing business with China, going out of its way to
do business one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
But year at home, implementing hiring quotas that are that
go down from from from actors to producers to even
(32:08):
pages have to fit this intersectionality matrix.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
How does they do how do they how do you.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
Get Disney for god knows why just throwing in a
children's movie a same sex kissing scene that may made
no sense, right, why would you do that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Well, it's all part of this matrix.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
And you know, why would Target spend a month on,
you know, on celebrating Pride Month. Why would in its
stores when It's stores are generally targeted to use the
word target to a middle American family, some woman that's
you know, that comes in there with two kids because
(32:48):
they can't afford a nanny and they have to walk
by us rows and rows of rainbow colored onesies and
books about transit teenagers.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean, that's what happened. There's no doubt. I document.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
We've got to take a quick break more with Charles
on the other side. So you mentioned Jamie Diamond. I
can't image. I mean you, I've never met the guy,
so you know him better than me. But like, I
can't imagine he subscribes to this stuff that you just
laid out.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So it's like, was he he does he did?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So is it like was it because it was held
captive or you know, is he well or does he
believe it?
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Like, like, how many of these CEOs felt like they
were being held hostage by this versus you know, you know, believers.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
You have to realize the sort of milieu that we
live in versus what they live in. They live in,
you know, the the upper class of Manhattan society. They
all go to Ivy League schools. It's all kind of
you know, there's a there's a there's a feedback loop
that promotes this stuff, this notion of diversity, and it
(33:57):
has to be rigid and almost quota like. After George Floyd,
they all felt that that that their their beliefs were
confirmed because some ex con in Minneapolis, you know, unfortunately died.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
While he was being when he was resisting arrest.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
That's kind of what happened, no matter which way you
put it, whether you think the cop used extras force
or didn't. He was resisting arrest, he had tons of
fentanyl in his system, he had he was not very healthy,
probably had COVID at the time, and he died, and
that unleashed this sort of massive hysteria that they were
too weak to fight back on. I remember when it
(34:39):
was going down. I I this is before I was
even write the book. I was like, why aren't they
saying that this is bs. Why are they allowing Why
are they, like on CNBC saying that, you know, America
is systemically racist.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
I mean, why are they doing that?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
They must really believe it, you know, why are they
you know, and the first Trump administration at the end,
you know, you know it was very uneven.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
You know, it was we had COVID.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
It was it was a strange time that that touched
off the the the wokeness in corporate America, that that
reached new highs or I would say new lows if
you ask me. But it did happen, and it was
and to think it happened overnight, you'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
It was.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Was it good for the bottom line? Like, like, what
what was the impact to you know, to uh for
companies for the bottom line with US, I can't imagine
this was good for business, especially.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
When you pointed out you know, Budweiser and bud Light.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Well, yes, it turned out to be banned at a point,
but for years it didn't matter, you know either either
consumers didn't care.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
I mean, it wasn't good for Target either, by the way.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
People went nuts when they when they started seeing that
one year in twenty twenty one, when they went nuts
on the the the whole the Pride celebration. I mean
we're not talking about you know, just you know, sort
of casual celebrations of of of the LBGDQ plus movement.
We're talking about like sort of overt I mean, the
(36:14):
market celebrated Bride more than it celebrated the fourth of July.
I mean, like in magnitudes, it's a celebrated sexuality, and
it celebrated not just a sort of passing way. It's
celebrated in terms of you know, children and you know,
bringing them into the fold.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
I mean it was really quite remarkable.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You know, if you if you and I did a
lot of research on this, so I mean like you
got to ask yourself. So that caused the backlash. So
before that, I think they believe that it didn't matter.
Apple could be. Disney was a big company. It could
it made a lot of money. People kept going to
its theme parks, even if they were, you know, greeted
(36:58):
by a transgender under you know guy a guy with
a wig and a beard telling their kids hello. I mean,
it didn't matter that there was you know, trans or
drag queen bedtime stories, you know, you know, being around
the country, it would get we get coverage. It didn't
matter that Apple was among the most you know, woke
(37:20):
companies in the world, because everybody wanted an iPhone.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
So for a time, it really didn't matter. And then
all of a sudden it did.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
And I think the country, the consumer, the average American,
which all these companies have to appeal to, even Jamie Diamond,
you know, it's a it's you know, they revolted. And
it was interesting. I had a you know, I interviewed
Jamie Dimond's people. I interviewed Jamie about this too. You know,
(37:50):
they were they were arguing, like, okay, were this is
before they did they started tweaking their de I policy.
They they were a whole hog into de I. You know,
that is all over their website. And I would say
this is illegal. I would tell the PR people, and
you know, why would you say this is good? Oh, Charlie,
we make so much money. You know it must be
good because we make Okay, so you're saying you make
(38:12):
a lot of money, that's good. Do you realize that
you're a too big to fail bank who's borrowing rates
are subsidized by the American taxpayer. And that's how you
make money. You're a bank that which Amy Diamond runs,
and he runs it well. But literally is it just
needs to be managed. Every now and then there's a
trader who goes off the deep end and you know,
loses three hundred million dollars or whatever, three hundred billions maybe,
(38:35):
But when it really comes down there, their business is
pretty simple. You take in money, you pay someone one percent,
you lend out at three and that's it. And by
the way, when you need because your company is too
big to fail, which all the big banks are, the
federal government is your implicit backstop. You can borrow at
(38:56):
very favorable rates. That's no business gets really gets that
in America. Apple doesn't get that, just so you know,
And so I would say, you know, I would tell
him it's not brilliant, it's it's like it's luck. And
you know, and at some point people are going to
stop banking with you. If you're just gonna, if you're
just gonna, you know, virtue signal at it every tune.
(39:18):
And if you notice they stopped doing that, you don't
see you taking a knee anymore at a band Bank branch,
which he did during twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
So what saved us from it.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
The American consumer, the average American and some really good
people that kept reporting it and saying this was outrageous
and it's got to stop. And you know, I remember
during twenty twenty, American Express Chris Ruffo kept writing these
stories about how American Express was having and he's at
(39:52):
the Manhattan who did a really good job in this,
kept reporting about how American Express having CRT, kept teaching
there there are people's you know, critical race theory, and
he got into the nitty gritty just how absurd it was, right.
I mean, it was really saying like if you're a
white guy, you're a band.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
It was just it was just it was superficially it
was it was superficial analysis and inherently racist and divisive.
I mean, it was disgusting. And I remember calling up,
uh Americans.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Trust. I was like, I was trying to get someone
on the phone.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
Wouldn't answer my calls about this, So I just kept
writing about it. Finally someone called me back and I said,
you know, with all due respect, you do have the
nick word American in your name.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
How is this American?
Speaker 4 (40:41):
And I think by pointing that out, by pointing out
that wokeism and DEI is just everything this country stands against.
That doesn't mean we don't want diversity. We shouldn't be mandated.
No one wants to mandate. And by the way, we
need a functioning meritocracy, okay, if we're going to keep up.
That's something that Elon keeps bringing out. I think I
(41:05):
think that's what turned it. And speaking about Elon, I
think freeing Twitter from the clutches of the left. Did
you know literally changed the zeitgeist in this country on
this matter. The fact that you can argue this on
Twitter without being shadow band or or thrown off or
attacked by a liberal mob when you had no defense.
(41:26):
You know, it was it was that was that was key.
I mean it was I'll give you a personal example.
During the campaign, I did a column for The Post
that said, you know, Joe Biden drops out Kamala Harris
could be the first DEI candidate for president and maybe
the first president who's a DEI who's there for DEI.
(41:50):
And I said, what you know, Joe Biden said to himself,
the E starts at the top of his administration.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Everybody knows she's not qualified.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Everybody knows why she was fit picked for the for
the thing and this is a horrible thing.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
And I used it.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
To tell my book. I got like wickedly attacked. I mean,
Gavin Newsom said my column was racist. You know this guy,
you know MSNBC. I was attacked by Joey Reid. And
then I noticed something else. I got wickedly supported. Then
then Shapiro came out and supported me.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
You name it. They came out and.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
I pointed, how stupid Gavin Newsom is, how stupid Rick
Gronell came out supported me he is now in the
Trump administration. It was down the line, and how obviously
I was telling the truth back in twenty twenty that
could never have happened. Okay, So Elon has allowed Twitter
(42:48):
for us, allowed us to tell the truth on Twitter,
and that's and that changed the culture in a major way.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And Trump said everybody should be grateful to him for that.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I think Trump's helped too, of just sort of resetting.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Trump has helped, but I think he's also a symptom.
He also benefited from what Elon did.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
But I'm saying in terms of being so outspoken again,
like giving people like you know, sort of someone to
turn to who's not subscribing to all this nonsense on
such a big stage.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I agree with that, but I don't think it's the
same thing.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
I think Trump was allowed to flourish because Twitter became
an opinion free zone. Like a free opinion zone, I
should say, not opinion free. It's got plenty of opinion
depending where you put that qualifier.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Change the sentence, meeting, you know. We here's a perfect example.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Remember when he had the debate with Kamala Harris and
he said, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yes, they were having that.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Discussion about what's going on in Springfield, whether the mass
immigration and you know, the people in the world.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Though I do think there was some eating of the
animals that did that take place?
Speaker 3 (44:06):
So yes, well that's my point.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, the animals. How would know that?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Right?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
You only knew that because you saw, you know, someone
baking a cat, you know, somewhere near Springfield, and then
you read about how they were pulling ducks out of
the lakes over there, and then you started to and
then you started to because of Twitter, because Elon kept
it free. You you kind of understood that we're talking
It's much more than just eating the cats and the dogs.
We're talking about a massive cultural social transformation forced on
(44:38):
a working class town because of unfettered immigration. And then
people started seeing that what Trump was saying was kind
of was kind of right.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Then on top of it, because of Twitter and social media,
kids were doing dance videos and it mocked the racist
tro troupe that you know, people like racial Maddow try
to try to paint ads.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Do you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
Yeah, because there was a there was a free there
was a free space to do it at because the
newspapers weren't going to do it. Fox is only one
day one station and on Newsmax, a smaller station. Most
of the mainstream media is still exkews, you know, wickedly left.
But because of Twitter, you know that it was counterbalance
(45:27):
and I think that that accounted for Trump's victory in
a major way.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
It also just kind of made things fun again because
people were like, you know, putting up funny memes and
being able to laugh and like talking about things like it's.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Like the rap videos with cats.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
So but look, there's also like a song.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Uh, you know, people made songs.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
We were listening to the other day laughing.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
It was a there was a rapper that that did
you know that I had Trump dancing in the background
with cats and I'm just I'm not going to do
it justice.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
You can look it up. It was really funny.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Well, yeah, the dynamics have changed and in the books
out now, so everyone should go check it out. Charles Gasprino,
good stuff, really interesting conversation and the book sounds super interesting,
so people should go out and get it. Go Woke,
Go Broke, the inside story of the radicalization of Corporate America.
We appreciate your time, Charles, Thank you so.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Much, Begs Lisa.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
That was Charles Gasprino with Fox Business.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Also the author of Go Woke, Go Broke.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
We appreciate him for taking the time to come on
the show. Appreciate you guys at home for listening every
Tuesday and Thursday, but you can listen throughout the week
until next time.
Host
Lisa Boothe
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