Trump Slams Big Pharma Over $1,300 'Fat Shot': Says Americans Are Getting Ripped Off

 

President Donald Trump exposed another example of how Americans are being ripped off by Big Pharma, recalling how a wealthy, "neurotic" friend received a discounted weight-loss injection—what he called a “fat shot”—while traveling overseas. According to Trump, the incident pushed a top drug company executive into admitting that Americans are being outrageously overcharged for medications that cost far less abroad.

Advertisement

On Monday, Trump recounted a story from an unnamed friend who received a weight-loss injection while abroad for just $88—a sharp contrast to the $1,300 price tag the same shot would carry in the United States.

“A friend of mine who’s a businessman, very, very, very top guy, most of you would have heard of him, a highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat shot,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“And he called me up … he’s a rough guy, smart guy, very successful, very rich … ‘Mr. President, could I ask you a question? I’m in London, and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take,’” Trump continued. 

Trump jokingly told his friend, “It’s not working,” before pointing out that pharmaceutical companies have been exploiting American consumers.

“He said, ‘I just paid $88, and in New York, I pay $1,300. What the hell is going on?’ He said, ‘So I checked, and it’s the same box made in the same plant by the same company. It’s the identical pill that I buy in New York. And here I’m paying $88 in London, and New York, I’m paying $1,300,” Trump said. 

The president said that during a discussion with a drug company representative, the two debated the high cost of medications in the U.S. compared to abroad. After only about 30 minutes, the representative admitted they couldn't justify the price difference and conceded the point. 

“[Pharmaceutical companies] been justifying this crap for years,” the president added. 

Trump said that drug companies claimed high prices were due to research and development costs, but he argued that other countries should share those costs too, since they benefit from the medications as well.

This comes as Trump announced an Executive Order on Monday that will require federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to pay the same rates as other developed countries.

Why Did China Ignore Previous Trade Obligations? Bessent Reveals What the Chinese Delegation Told Him.

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that near the end of President Trump’s first term, there was an “excellent” trade agreement in place with China but once President Biden took office, Beijing simply ignored it.

“In January 2020, President Trump produced a template—we had an excellent trade agreement with China—and the Biden administration chose not to enforce it," Bessent said during a news conference. "The Chinese delegation basically told us that once President Biden came into office, they just ignored their obligation, so we already have a large framework."

On Jan. 15, 2020, the U.S. and China signed an enforceable Phase One trade deal that required “structural reforms and other changes to China’s economic and trade regime.”

"Today, we take a momentous step — one that has never been taken before with China — toward a future of fair and reciprocal trade, as we sign phase one of the historic trade deal between the United States and China," Trump said at the time. "Together, we are righting the wrongs of the past and delivering a future of economic justice and security for American workers, farmers, and families."

On Monday, the U.S. and China reached an agreement to significantly roll back tariffs for an initial 90-day period. 

Following a weekend of marathon trade negotiations in Switzerland, the U.S. agreed to slash its overall tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent while Beijing lowered its tariffs on American imports to 10 percent. 

“We concluded that we have a shared interest,” Bessent said. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling.”

 

Trump Deserves Nobel Prize As World's Champion Peacemaker

 

Four Presidents of the United States were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, most recently Barack Obama in 2009. He won for “his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation.”

Incredibly, Barack Obama was nominated for the award just a few days after his inauguration and before he attained any significant achievements. He was given the award for promising what he would achieve as President.

Unfortunately, Obama did not fulfill the lofty expectations of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. When he left office in 2017, the world was more dangerous than at the start of his presidency.

During Obama’s tenure, the war in Afghanistan continued, ISIS terrorists became empowered, and Libya transformed into a violent hellhole, as demonstrated by the Benghazi attack.

The promise of the “Arab Spring” culminated in more bloodshed and tyrannical regimes taking power. During Obama’s second term, Russia invaded Crimea, and North Korea became the biggest threat to humanity.

Upon taking office, Obama warned newly elected President Donald Trump about the dangers North Korea presented to the world. Unlike Obama, who refused to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, Trump met with “Little Rocket Man” three times. These summits helped lessen tensions and improve relations between the two countries.

In this first term as President, Trump also brokered the historic Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab nations:  the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. He also negotiated a historic economic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, two countries on the verge of war.

In Trump’s first term in office, the United States did not begin wars. He destroyed ISIS and ended their caliphate dreams. Trump placed economic sanctions on Iran, the world’s primary terrorist benefactor. Consequently, terror organizations like Hamas were prevented from launching significant strikes due to limited funding.

In addition, Trump began removing all American military forces from Afghanistan. He would have completed the withdrawal with dignity and honor, but instead, President Joe Biden directed a disastrous operation that resulted in the death of thirteen American military service members. At the end of the chaotic departure of our forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban, radical jihadists, controlled our massive Bagram Airfield and billions of dollars in our military equipment.

Despite Trump’s impressive achievements and several nominations, he did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has a strong leftwing bias. For example, President Ronald Reagan was not given the award despite his historic accomplishments.

Reagan secured massive arms control deals with the Soviet Union, reducing real fears of nuclear war. Eventually, his massive investments in our military forces bankrupted the Soviet Union, which was unable to compete economically and eventually collapsed.

Thus, “without firing a shot,” Reagan ended the “Evil Empire” and freed millions of people in Eastern Europe from the clutches of communism. It was Reagan’s policies that brought down the “Iron Curtain” and the Berlin Wall, fulfilling the famous demand he made in his 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate.

Advertisement

Instead of honoring Reagan for advancing world peace, the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave the prize to the final communist dictator of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev is not the only communist to be given the award, as North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, a “revolutionist” and member of the party’s politburo, was also honored. In 1994, in one of the committee’s most controversial decisions, Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat was given the Nobel Peace Prize.

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureates will be announced on October 10. This year, 338 nominations have been received. Surely, one of the nominees is President Trump, once more. If Trump is overlooked again, it will be another outrage that will only diminish the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Upon taking office on January 20, 2025, President Trump inherited a world with multiple wars raging. The war in Ukraine started during the last administration, but President Trump is trying to end it with a serious diplomatic effort involving both the Ukrainian and Russian governments. Before President Trump, there was no serious diplomatic attempt to end the war in Ukraine. He deserves credit for at least starting the negotiations. 

During the last administration, Hamas invaded Israel, starting the war in Gaza. Trump’s serious diplomatic efforts have included both sides and have resulted in the release of hostages and the hope that all held in captivity will be home soon. 

The Trump administration has also held hopeful talks with Iranian government officials. Due to President Trump’s strong military response, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have pledged to end their missile strikes on shipping. In response, President Trump has committed to ending our military campaign in Yemen.

The President’s latest achievement occurred on Saturday morning when he announced, “India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.” Thereafter, he promised to “increase trade, substantially” with both countries.

The announcement followed intense diplomacy involving leaders from both countries, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance. Rubio posted on X.com that both India and Pakistan agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”

The latest episode in this longstanding conflict started on April 22 when twenty-six civilians were killed in the Indian regions of Jammu and Kashmir. India claimed that Hindus were targeted by Pakistan, which denied involvement. Afterwards, “small arms fire” attacks were launched by both sides across the border, and India struck nine “terrorist” sites that Pakistan claimed “hit civilian areas and killed numerous children.” 

If this ceasefire holds, it will be a monumental triumph for a President tirelessly working to end multiple wars simultaneously. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appreciates Trump’s efforts. He posted on X.com, “We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region.”

Advertisement

Clearly, there is one champion peacemaker in the world, Donald Trump—it's time for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to acknowledge reality.

The Trump-Iran Deal, Explained

 

Just recently, the Houthis, that is the terrorist organization that controls half of Yemen and has been hit hard by the United States for its interruption of maritime commerce in the Red Sea and its serial attacks on Israel, has been—I guess you would say—neutered.

Its port facilities, its airport, a lot of its missile depots, its command and control have all been neutralized. But yet, here they are with a vestigial force. They just sent a missile, not just into Israel, but into Israel’s international Ben Gurion Airport. It almost hit one of the terminals. Didn’t kill anybody. But it made a huge crater right on the periphery of the airport grounds. And for some reason it was not intercepted by Israel’s tripartite missile defense system.

Let me add another incident. Just recently, almost at the same time, four more terrorists were arrested in the United Kingdom for organizing Iranian-inspired terror against citizens of Britain. And of course, we remember that Iran was involved in an effort to assassinate President Donald Trump.

What am I getting at is, we’re right in the middle of negotiations with Iran. Donald Trump feels that they are historically vulnerable. The Assad regime, their lifeline to the Arab world, is gone. Kaput. Vanished. They can’t use the Damascus airport to airlift weapons for Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been reduced dramatically in its effectiveness. Hamas is—I don’t know what you’d call Hamas. It’s living underground among the rubble of Gaza. And then, of course, the Houthis, as I mentioned, have been attacked.

Israel has demonstrated that it can penetrate, at will, the supposedly formidable air defenses of Iran. The United States, in addition, is building up its strategic bombing force—in Diego Garcia and in areas that can reach Iran—with the capability of dropping these 20,000 to 30,000-pound bunker busters. We have two carriers that will soon be assembled near there.

What am I getting at again? The pressure is all on Iran. Militarily. Diplomatically. Economically. Socially. Culturally. What do I mean by that? Culturally, there is about 30% to 40% of the country are non-Farsi Persian speakers. And they’re very restive, angry. Power outages. The regime is unpopular. It’s diverted billions of dollars to these terrorist appendages that now didn’t pay off, that they’re defunct.

And so, Donald Trump thinks that he, with this maximum pressure, putting this crushing oil embargo—which by the way, former President Joe Biden lifted—that he can bring them to negotiations one last time. Personally, I don’t think he can. Nothing that that regime has ever said is accurate. Nobody in the MAGA movement wants an optional war in the Middle East. But they will have nuclear weapons, perhaps in a year.

So, what is the likely scenario? The likely scenario is they will lose face if they negotiate away their nuclear weapons. That is the only lever they have over Western powers now that their terrorist children are all gone. So, I don’t think they’re gonna make a deal. They’re gonna delay, delay, delay; lie, lie, lie; use the Houthis.

And they are playing with fire because once Donald Trump gives them an opportunity for a peaceful way out of their dilemma—that is they can negotiate an end to their nuclear program. They don’t need nuclear power. They have the fourth-largest fossil fuel reserves in the world. They have enough energy for themselves and for export for an endless amount of time. And yet they still are working on this nuclear project, not for peaceful energy generation, but to have a nuclear deterrent.

And so, what we should look for in the next few months is that an exasperated Trump administration will finally throw up its hands and say, “You can’t deal with these people, but they’re not gonna get a nuclear weapon.”

At that point, one of two things will happen—I should say one of three things. Israel will hit back because of the Houthis’ attack on its airport. And that could come sooner or later. Or the United States will intervene. I don’t think it’ll intervene on its own. Or there’ll be a joint Israeli-American operation.

But by the end of the year, I don’t think Iran will have a nuclear deterrent. And then we’re gonna be watching a mystery unfold.

If it should be hit, and if it should lose its nuclear potential, what will be the reaction of the Iranian people? Will they be angry that their national sovereignty has been attacked? Or will they be delighted that this 50-year hated regime is now gone and they don’t have to spend money on these Arab terrorist groups that have brought them no profit?

That’ll be something to see. And I think we’ll see it at the end of the year.

How Pollsters Rig the Numbers Against Trump

 

We’ve touched on polls before, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite as egregious in pollsters’ bias as recently when they apparently or supposedly or purportedly surveyed the first 100 days of President Donald Trump and the public reaction.

Almost immediately headlines blared, “Worst First 100 Days in History.” “Trump Drops From 52 to 42.”

Everybody was confounded because the economic news was pretty good. Job growth was just spectacular. Over 170,000 jobs. Inflation was down. Energy prices were down. Corporate profits were up. There was a movement on the trade question. Ukraine still—there was no bad news except the controversy and chaos of a counterrevolution.

So, what were the pollsters trying to tell us? Or were they trying to manipulate us? And I think it’s the latter.

Larry Kudlow, for example, the Fox, former Fox Business—I think he still is at Fox. He pointed out that when he examined The New York Times and The Washington Post polls, they were deliberately not counting people who surveyed that they were Trump voters in 2024. That was half the country. They were only polling about a third. Think of that. A third of the people that said they voted for Trump they polled. Not half. So, of course, their results were going to be disputed or suspect.

But here’s another thing. There were analyses after each of the 2016, the 2020, and the 2024 elections about the accuracy of polls, post facto, of the election. And we learned that they were way off in 2016. They said they had learned their lessons. They were way off in 2020. They said they learned their lesson. And they were way off in 2024.

And why are they way off? Because liberal pollsters—and that’s the majority of people who do these surveys—believe that if they create artificial leads for their Democratic candidates, it creates greater fundraising and momentum. Kind of the herd mentality. “Oh, Trump is down by six. I don’t wanna vote for him. Then he won’t win.” That’s the type of thing that they want to create.

I’ll give you one example. The most egregious. The most egregious of all these polls was the NPR/PBS/Marist poll. They have Donald Trump just very unpopular after 100 days. Very unpopular. This is the now-defunded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that umbrella organization from which this poll was funded and conducted.

Do we remember that poll? It was the one poll that came out the night before the 2024 election. They said that then-Vice President Kamala Harris would win by four points. And they said it was beyond the margin of error. And one of the pollsters said, “It’s her race to lose.” She lost by a point and a half. They were five and a half points. Did they apologize? No. Here they are again.

And David Plouffe, one of the directors of the Harris campaign, just recently came out and said, “Well, we had all these inside polls we never disclosed. But not one of them—not one of them—had Harris ever ahead of Trump.”

Inside polls don’t lie because you pay somebody to tell you the truth. Nothing will get you fired and lose income quicker than to lie about a poll so that your candidate will be happy and rely on your false information. People don’t pay for that kind of stuff.

So, in other words, they knew the whole time—the Harris campaign—that 15 of those 20 polls, 19 polls that all had Harris winning the election, they were all false. Of course, they never said anything.

And so, here’s my point. If you look at the polls that were the most accurate—Mark Penn was very accurate. He’s a Democratic pollster. But especially, the Rasmussen poll and the Insider Advantage and the Trafalgar poll. They joined together and they had a 100-day survey. Rasmussen—each day of the 100-day period that he’s issued a poll. And guess what? They have Trump ahead by anywhere from two to three points after 100 days. And they were the most accurate.

And yet, what do these news outlets say that Trump—it’s a disaster. That he’s polling—no. He’s polling very well. Things are going very well.

The pollsters that indicate that people support him are the only pollsters that have any reputation after this decade-long polling disaster in which their prejudices, their biases, and their hatred of Donald Trump affected their results. And they were effectively in league with the Democratic candidate to create momentum rather than to adhere to a spirit of professionalism and honor.

Germany’s Drift Toward ‘National Suicide’

 

Recently, the German government announced that it is going to label or maybe relabel the Alternative für Deutschland—the Alternative for Germany—the conservative party that has an antithetical agenda both to the German government of both liberal and conservative factions, but also to the EU in general.

Anyway, it is announced that it will classify it as a dangerous far-right organization. And that will cement this aura that no government, under their parliamentary democracy system, will ask them to join to form a majority government. So, the process of ostracism and demonization of this party continues.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

And what is the party advocating? The party is advocating an alternative for the way that Germany is going. And very briefly, we’ve talked about this, but if you look at what has become of Germany, it has had two years of essentially no growth or negative growth. Only recently, last year, did it finally, after 30 years, invest a measly 2% of its gross domestic product as it had promised in 2014. It had not met that goal. It just barely did it.

It’s had a systematic decommission of its nuclear power plants. And how anybody could rely on solar power in Germany—but yet the German government invested heavily in it. And the result is that German power, electricity—heating, cooling, and industrial use—is about four times what the average power cost is in the United States. And you can see what that’s gonna do to German investment.

They had been also sort of noncommittal about Chinese mercantilism. Because Germany—remember 10 years ago, eight years ago—started to get massive exportation to China for things like cars, especially electric vehicles, and solar panels and industrial equipment.

And they didn’t quite think that China was going to do to them what China had done to us a decade earlier. And that is invite in a country to supply them with quality goods and plants in China and be very profitable as the Chinese mastered that craft, mastered that industry, both this material side of production and the bureaucratic and corporate management.

And when China did that, they began to create German-like EVs, German-like solar panels at a much less cost and then started to export it and ruin much of Germany’s export market.

What am I getting at? Germany, in terms of power, in terms of a border that has been open, in terms of about 16% to 18% of the population that was not born in Germany and is not fully assimilated—these are refugees. Or I don’t think they’re refugees—they’re illegal immigrants from the volatile Middle East. Most of them are Muslim. Most of them do not have an intention of assimilating, intermarrying, and integrating fully in German society.

And you add all this up—and I’m not being critical. It’s very tragic because for years Germany was the powerhouse, the cohesive economic power that kept the EU together. And during the Cold War it fielded one of the best NATO armies, West Germany. Well over 400,000 troops. It’s almost literally disarmed. It cannot fulfill even its meager commitments to help Ukraine. And out of this tension, if it was a normal democratic society, you would have a variety of vocal opponents, proponents, give and take, yin and yang, and there would be a lively mix-up.

And they would come to a consensus that these were the masters of nuclear power. Twenty years ago, German physicists were the top in the world—nuclear physicists. They would start investing again in nuclear power. They would start up natural gas generation. Wind and solar would be integral, but a small part, because they would need reliable, cheap energy to compete on the world market. They would join the United States and look at China and say, “This is intolerable, this system of mercantilism.” They would close their borders. They would go to an assimilationist model and require immigrants that came legally to fully become Germans. They would do all of that.

But instead, when one party is advocating much of what I just talked about, they demonize it because it’s out of the norm. And the norm, unfortunately, in Germany today is national suicide.

Unfortunately, this is not going to end well for Germany. And it’s not gonna end well for us. We need a powerful, friendly Germany. And we wish it well. But the reaction to needed reform—economic, political, social, cultural, military, diplomatic—is not to essentially ban a political party’s freedom of expression. That shows weakness and fear rather than confidence in the future.

Would the Left Finally Explain the Inexplicable?

 

Somewhere between 10 million and 12 million illegal aliens were invited into the United States by the Biden administration.

As far as logistics go, former President Joe Biden could not flee Afghanistan without getting 13 Marines killed and abandoning to the terrorist Taliban $50 billion in munitions, a billion-dollar embassy, and a $300 million retrofitted huge airbase.

But Biden and his handlers proved far more logistically capable when their target was fellow Americans.

After all, they somehow managed to stop the congressionally approved continuance of the border wall, to subvert federal immigration law, to emasculate the Border Patrol, and to ensure that millions of people around the world could simply walk into the U.S. illegally, unaudited and with impunity.

But why did Biden or his puppeteers do something so anarchic, so injurious to their fellow Americans?

Why cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars in massive new entitlements? Why swamp the social services of our own poor citizens?

Why turn loose half a million criminal aliens and gang members to prey on our own weak and defenseless?

Was the idea to alter the demography in one fell swoop? To grow the dependent class, thereby expanding government?

Was it pure spite born of hatred of half the country?

Was it to ensure future constituencies, given that the Democratic agenda no longer appeals to most Americans?

Was it a globalist gambit to demonstrate borders are anachronistic?

Was it to fast-track new voters under the laxity of post-2020 early- and mail-in voting protocols?

Those who perpetrated the greatest ruse in American presidential history by staging the Biden presidency will never tell us what their ultimate agenda was.

They knowingly fixed the 2020 primaries to ensure a non-compos-Biden would be nominated. Under the cover of the COVID-19 lockdowns, they kept him in his basement while operatives radically altered the voting laws in the key swing states.

For the next four years, they put their waxen effigy in a hermetically sealed cocoon—one of avoidance of the press, three-day workweeks, and four-hour workdays.

Yet Biden could still not read huge-font, teleprompted scripts. He could not finish a simple call for unity without snarling, screaming, and damning his opposition as “semi-fascists,” “ultra-MAGA,” and “garbage.”

Was the point to salvage the Democratic Party for one last hurrah before “the squad” and the Bernie Sanders socialists inevitably took over and destroyed it?

Was that the idea behind clearing the primary field and anointing a decrepit “good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton” veneer?

Or was it more sinister still in the sense that a debilitated Biden facade was a godsend for the Left? Did his pseudo-centrist cover ensure that his handlers—the Obama crowd, the diversity, equity, and inclusion chauvinists, and the Sanders socialists—could enact from the shadows the most radical agenda since 1933?

Will anyone ever tell us why they endangered and nearly ruined the country with a zombie president?

Why did the Left break every prior pretense of legality and of fair play in trying to wreck an entire legal system just to destroy Donald Trump?

Why did the so-called stewards of jurisprudence coordinate four local, state, and federal prosecutions to cook up 93 indictments—the vast majority of them ridiculous contortions that will never be charged against any other American?

What was behind the disastrous effort to de-ballot Trump in most of the blue states? To “save” democracy by destroying it?

Why did they twice impeach a president and then try him as a private citizen?

Why did SWAT teams swarm an ex-president’s home to carry off over 10,000 documents in order to find 102 classified files?

Why did the FBI bring their own pre-prepared classification labels? Why scatter photo files on the floor?

Had Trump destroyed subpoenaed evidence like Hillary Clinton’s emails?

Had Trump stored the files, Biden-style, at four different locations?

Had Trump earlier just flunked rather than aced the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, would special counsel Jack Smith—as did Robert Hur in the Biden file case—have dropped all the charges against Trump on the grounds he was “an elderly man with a poor memory?”

So, what was behind the four years of trying to blow up and discredit our legal and law enforcement system just to destroy Trump?

Was their goad his accent, his bombast, or his tan that so drove the elite Left into insanity?

Were they convinced they could never beat him in another election?

Did they hate him because, in his first term, he had secured the border, grown the economy, and had no wars abroad?

Or was it an unstoppable fixation, a destructive addiction?

In sum, the more he mocked them, the more they sought to destroy him—and all the more they ensured he would be president again.

Canada Missed Out on a Huge Opportunity

 

This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was newly elected as the prime minister with a majority of seats in the Canadian Parliament, is visiting Washington.

As I speak, he’s been holding sessions with President Donald Trump about the so-called trade war and Trump’s trolling of him about being a 51st state. Let me just address that first.

Donald Trump did not like former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who did not like Donald Trump. And he was so frustrated by the surpluses that Canada kept racking up and their unwillingness to spend the required NATO 2% of gross domestic product investment in munitions that he would troll Canada and say, “We’re the same language, the same people. We could do a lot better job than this guy.”

And of course, he took that very seriously. And then there was an election. Trudeau was a failure. Pierre Poilievre, the conservative candidate, had a 20-point lead. He lost it partly because Carney was the champion of Canadian nationalism and said, “We’re never gonna make a 51st state. Donald Trump has no business doing—”

It’s kind of like what Trump did with Panama and Greenland. It’s a way of “Art of the Deal.” We got China to the—we kind of made it a little bit more irrelevant in Panama. We’ve got some reforms going on. Same with Greenland. We were never going to invade either one.

We’re never gonna make Canada a 51st state. You need a majority vote of the Congress. The Congress is never going to vote to admit Canada because the Left would feel it was an infringement upon their sovereignty. We were imperialists, colonialists. The Right said, “Why do we want another New York or Colorado to screw up the country?”

So, it’s not gonna happen. And Carney knew that, but he ran on it. And he whipped up nationalism. And that was fine. That’s what politicians do. But now he’s in a conundrum. He’s got to come to the White House. Trump knows what he did. So, Trump is reminding him about the 51st state. But there’s two issues and they don’t look good for Canada.

No. 1 is, in 2014, all the NATO countries promised to spend 2% of GDP. And under Trump’s prodding during the first term and then the Ukraine war during President Joe Biden’s term, it has frightened most of them. And there’s only 8 of the 32 nations, about, that have not met their 2% obligation. Canada’s one of them. But it’s one of the least cooperative of the 32 nations.

In other words, it only spends 1.37% of its GDP on defense. It won’t kick in another $40 billion to help arm it. And you could make the argument that it depends on the United States. It looks that if there’s any hostile activity, cartels, they’re down there in Mexico with the United States between them. And nobody is going to proverbially mess with Canada when the United States has it under its nuclear shield, Alaska early warnings, you name it.

So, they know that. And they do not want to spend the money. And they’re shorting their other NATO partners. And they’re derelict and they’re culpable.

The other thing is, they’re running up $63 billion with their trade surplus with their partner. And most of it is because they have a thick, sulfurous crude oil that’s in the middle of the country. And it’s very convenient for them to go right across the border and sell it to us. And we like it. And we can refine it. We have the refineries that can deal with that type of difficult crude.

It’d be very difficult for them to send it all the way to their east or west ports and make the same profit. Ninety-five percent of their oil comes to us. We’re a good customer, in other words. Why would they not then say, “We’ll try to import more poultry, cheese, agricultural products. We can’t get down to zero but let’s—we can cut the trade surplus by $20 or $30 billion. You’re our neighbor”?

But they didn’t do that. And so, he instead whipped up—it was very successful to whip up Canadian nationalism. Very successful to win that election. But then where do you go from that? You go and see Donald Trump and you want to just say, “We’re not gonna be a 51 state. We’re not gonna be a 51 state”?

Does he really believe that the majority of people in Congress are gonna vote to admit Canada? Nobody wants to do that.

So, what am I getting at? He could have had a statesmanlike message both during the election and when he saw Trump. He could have said this: ”Donald Trump is trolling us. We’re friends with the United States. He’s trying to needle us so that we spend more money on NATO and we lower our surplus, which is growing very big. And we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna negotiate. Don’t take him serious. He’s just doing this like he did to Panama. We’re good friends. He kids us. We kid him.”

But he didn’t do that. He tried to whip it up. And it was successful. But once you whip it up and you get that hostility, then you’ve gotta go deal with him. And then you’ve gotta tell him, “I’m not gonna spend $40 billion on our defense. We’re going to subsidize you on defense. And we’re not gonna lower that.”

That’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work. And so, I think that he can say, he’ll leave the meeting and say, “I told him we’re not gonna be a 51st.” That was an irrelevant misadventure. It was going nowhere and he knew it.

But the two issues that he knew were important—that they should man up and pay their 2% and help defend not only NATO but the North American continent, which they had done brilliantly in the past—he didn’t want to talk about. Or he’d say they’d do it in five years. “Five years, we’ll do it.” No, you’ve already been derelict for 11 years.

Or he could have said, “We don’t run up big surpluses with our friends. We’re not Mexico. We’re much closer to you. And we’re gonna work on this. And we’re gonna try to import. We’ll work it down. This is”—no. No.

He created his nationalist paradigm. It got him elected. And now he owns it. And it’s not gonna work with Donald Trump. I wish it would but it’s not because if you want to alienate the United States and you want to take seriously the “Art of the Deal” trolling and sort of laugh it off or, better yet, the Panamanians knew what they were doing. They were getting too close to China. They were surrendering partial sovereignty. And they backed off. And it’s going to be a beautiful relationship with us.

But Canada just couldn’t do that. And I think they will eventually.

Yes, Republicans Should Absolutely Raise Taxes On The Rich

 

Democrats don’t have a lot of talking points that resonate with a majority of Americans anymore. Oddly enough, ‘We’re going to trans your kids’ doesn’t quite ring the same to ordinary parents as it does to the blue hairs. People care about the environment, but going back to the Stone Age, when China and India kept polluting the planet on a massive scale, it seems a bit much. And while most people don’t want to make every abortion in every situation illegal, late-term and partial birth procedures seem a bit murdery for most anyone except the most committed Commies.

But one consistent talking point they do have, and have had for decades, is the contention that rich people should pay more taxes. The other issues, even if emotionally charged on the surface, are pretty easy to counter with facts and evidence. This one, however, is a different animal altogether, and it hearkens to the class warfare that’s been successfully employed by Marxists since the 19th century.

An important point many on our side miss is that just because the bad guys use an argument doesn’t mean it’s not valid on some level. For example, the working class had it pretty rough back then, and like it or not, we’ve largely got unions and government to thank for the posh working conditions we all enjoy today. Can they and have they gone too far? Of course, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t tackling real problems that needed addressing. My grandfather, who worked in a southwest Virginia coal mine, participated in many of the coal strikes of the mid-20th century, and died at 64, partially from the black lung disease he developed after decades of exposure, would doubtless agree if he were alive today.

Still, it’s one thing to force job creators to treat their workers with some baseline of fairness when it comes to pay, safety, and overall working conditions. It’s quite another to tax them at a level that not only makes it difficult to accumulate the generational wealth most of us dream of being able to obtain someday, but also stifles the kind of economic activity, from job creation to luxury consumption, that keeps the middle and lower classes functioning.

It’s hard to believe there was a time in the United States when the top marginal tax rate was 94%, but it’s true. Sure, there were deductions, and the threshold was pretty high to reach that level. Still, the fact that there was a point where taxes became virtually confiscatory had to have stifled economic activity among the super wealthy. After all, what’s the point of making a ton of money if the government is just going to take it from you?

In truth, tax rates for the richest Americans were absurdly high from the 30’s to the Reagan era, when they finally got slashed to something more similar to what we have today. But we still have a graduated system, with a standard deduction and a lower rate for initial tiers of income. And while the top 1% no longer suffer from confiscatory taxes, they also pay more than 40% of all income taxes collected.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there’s a balance. Many conservatives are conditioned to bristle at the slightest notion that the political Left might have a valid point on something, but we do that at our own peril. No, taxes on the rich shouldn’t be confiscatory, and yes, every income earner should in some way contribute to the tax system. Still, there’s also nothing wrong with taxing the people who can easily afford it at a higher rate than working-class Americans who live paycheck to paycheck.

In truth, the kind of class warfare that brought down the 19th-century robber barons is actually exacerbated by doing the opposite. If you want to see another Communist Revolution, go back to the kinds of policies that made the first one possible and see what happens. Sadly, jealousy is a human foible that will never be eradicated. We like to pick on the left for refusing to acknowledge human nature, but sometimes our side can do it too. Going too far in one direction on that pendulum is the mistake the Marxists made, but refusing to acknowledge it altogether is the kind of mistake that only gives them momentum.

This brings us to that key Democratic point of taxing the rich. We may not like it, but people like Bernie and AOC are striking a chord here that resonates with voters, particularly young ones, and we ignore it at our peril. When Republican senators actually balk at the prospect of allowing the top marginal rate to go from 37% back to the 39.6% it was before the original Trump tax cuts, ‘out of touch’ doesn’t begin to cover it. This doesn’t strike most Americans as confiscatory; it strikes them as fair.

The Republican Party, especially this Populist iteration, should NEVER, EVER again be the party of cutting taxes for the richest Americans. It’s tone deaf, dumb, and self-defeating. We can be balanced on this without going too far, and we can neuter the Dems simultaneously. Somehow, ‘We want to raise taxes on the rich more than they do’ doesn’t quite resonate the way ‘They want to cut taxes for their billionaire friends’ does. Perhaps it’s time to remove that play from their playbook and keep winning elections.

Oh, the Latest News Out of Antarctica Is a Huge Blow to the Global Warming Crowd

 

In high school, the doomsday scenarios regarding global warming were endless. Back in 2007, the climate change cult said the Arctic Ice Cap would vanish. It didn’t. When 2013 hit, it gained about 530,000 square miles of ice. Still, the con is on with the Green Left, who claims they were on the verge of total destruction. 

In the 1970s, global cooling and North American re-glaciation would imperil humanity. They were wrong then, and they’re wrong now. The Green Movement has been exposed as a backdoor communist push, spearheaded by the wealthy and the elites to further screw over working Americans via intentional economic sabotage. These folks can soak up the costs, and a great many love to hobnob at these exclusive global warming retreats, which also gives them an opportunity to fire up those private jets. 

Well, the doomsday global warming cult’s agenda of making us poorer to protect us against something that doesn’t exist took another body blow this week. Antarctica gained a ton of ice (via KTVU): 

A study published this week in Science China Earth Sciences finds that the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) experienced a record-breaking mass gain between 2021 and 2023, largely due to anomalous increases in precipitation. The rebound is especially significant in East Antarctica, where four major glacier basins had previously shown signs of destabilization. 

[…] 

Big picture view: Researchers from Tongji University and other institutions analyzed satellite gravimetry data from the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions, which measure variations in Earth’s gravity to detect changes in ice mass. 

They found that between 2011 and 2020, the AIS was losing ice at a rate of 142 gigatons per year. But between 2021 and 2023, the trend reversed, with the ice sheet gaining approximately 108 gigatons per year — a historic turnaround. 

[…] 

The most notable gains were in East Antarctica’s Wilkes Land and Queen Mary Land region, including the Totten, Denman, Moscow University, and Vincennes Bay glacier basins. These glaciers had been losing mass at an accelerating rate from 2011 to 2020 — driven by surface melting and faster ice discharge into the ocean — but now appear to have partially recovered.

Scientists warn, however, that this shift doesn’t mean the climate crisis is over. The gains were linked to unusual precipitation patterns, which may be temporary.\

The last part kills me: it’s only temporary. Yeah, that is what we have been saying for years. It’s cyclical. It’s natural. We’ve never been more industrialized as a civilization, and the ‘ice is melting’ narrative from said economic activity caused Antarctica to gain ice

The Anti-Trump Media Is Awfully Quiet About This Story Now

 

They said I would be homeless, begging for soup, and regretting my vote for Donald Trump. That latest bit of fake news has imploded like the OceanGate submersible, and the media would like you to forget they were the top manufacturers of this economic panic porn.

In April, they were cranking out these stories about how this would be the worst market period since 1932. Why? President Trump initiated his tariff policy to reset the market, protect American workers, and rebuild stateside high-skill manufacturing sectors. 

It’s not like the 1950s regarding some sectors, but the elites and Wall Street tried to turn the public against Trump, inducing an artificial sell-off that sent markets tumbling. A market adjustment was coming, as Joe Biden’s inflationary spending levels weren’t sustainable. This cabal increased the level of pain to scare people. Liberals were rejoicing at the temporary downturn because they're traitors and un-American, but Trump voters did not flee, nor did they regret their vote. 

Why? Because Trump voters are loyal. Those in the market lost more under Biden than Trump, and they’re not stupid. You ride it out. The level of trust is astounding, and it’s paid off. The markets didn’t crash. Everyone held firm, and the elites lost again. The rebound is now a historic winning streak (via CNBC): 

A turbulent period for stocks around new tariff policies from the White House has remarkably given way to Wall Street’s longest winning streak in 20 years.

The S&P 500 rose again on Friday, notching a ninth straight positive session for the first time Nov. 5, 2004. 

The index also traded above its April 2 close for the first time since the major tariff announcement a month ago. 

[…] 

Not to be outdone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average also cashed a ninth straight winning day, its longest streak in more than a year.  In London, the winning streak for the FTSE 100 index hit a record of 15 consecutive days. 

The rally doesn’t appear to be a weak one either, at least according to technical experts. Mary Ann Bartels, chief investment strategist at Sanctuary Wealth, said Friday on CNBC’s ” Money Movers ” that the S&P 500′s winning streak seems to be repairing some technical damage caused in early April. “The breadth of the market has been really strong, and a number of my breadth indicators are giving buy signals. 

Volume is not bad, but it’s decent enough, and if we can go up and test resistance near the 200-day moving average near 5,745, or even get above it around 5,800, there’s a chance we don’t have to go down and test those awful lows at 4,835,” Bartels said.

As we’ve noted, Trump plays these games with the media, Democrats, and his political enemies like it’s a best-of-seven series. It’s not over after one game, whereas his detractors act like the clowns who think winning the season's first game means they’re championship-bound. Trump’s enemies have had their best-laid plans at every turn, and narratives get burned to ash. 

This one is no different. My only criticism of the tariff policy is one that Larry Kudlow relayed weeks ago: It should have come second to Congress passing the budget reconciliation package. But that’s all. Trump obviously went another direction, and while it was a bumpy start, Liberation Day dividends are pouring in.

We Needed a New President, Not ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’

 

At the end of the 90-day period, where are we on the immigration issue? And there’s good news and there’s bad news. It’s sort of like the
trade and tariff issue. It’s sort of like the Iran denuclearization
effort. It’s sort of like the Ukraine war. There’s a lot of good
indicators, but there’s not realization or finalization.

And that is important because President Donald Trump is polling in
the RealClear—average is about 44%, 45%. He has gone down some. I think
the polls on the Left are trying to exaggerate that average downward.
But nevertheless, that reflects that everything is in suspension. And
let’s look at how that applies to the border.

The good news is that we’ve gone from 10,000 people entering
illegally to zero. And we’ve got the highest morale ever in Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. People are ecstatic at the work they’ve done. Mexico is no longer cooperating with the forces of illegal immigration. They’re scared to. The wall will be continued all the way to the gulf in some form or the other.It’s a big success. And guess what? There was no comprehensive
immigration reform. Remember that kind of bogeyman? “We need
comprehensive”—no, we didn’t. We just needed to enforce the laws on the
books. And we’ve done that.Now, here’s the other part. We don’t know how many people were let in under former President Joe Biden.
It may have been 10, 11, 12 million. It’s hard to know whether an
illegal entry always stayed here or not. But they did chart, roughly,
how many people came in. It was somewhere between 10 and 12 million,
maybe 400,000 or 500,000 aliens.But here’s the principle that the Left has adopted. And I can’t
believe it. Maybe you can. It’s surreal. It’s Orwellian. And it’s been
reified by the district courts, in some cases, the circuit courts, and
de facto by the Supreme Court because they haven’t acted. And the
principle is this. It was legal de facto for the prior administration to
systematically and unashamedly break the law by destroying the border
and allowing these 10 to 12 million people to come in illegally and to
reside illegally.The courts did not entertain any objection to that. In other words,
there was a blatant destruction of the law by the chief executive. However, the corollary to that is even more disturbing. The incoming
administration who wants to rectify that abuse—in other words, it wants
to enforce the law and say that you came in illegally and you shouldn’t
have because of the prior laxity of this government. Now, you’ve gotta
leave because you’re still breaking the law. And they’re stopping these
deportations, for the most part. So, the principle is it is lawful to be unlawful if you’re Joe
Biden—according to the courts—but it is unlawful to be lawful if you’re Donald Trump.
And the result is that we’ve got these 10 to 12 million people. Are we
going to have an immigration hearing for each one of them? Or are we
just going to pick people?Now, Kilmar Abrego Garcia had two administrative hearings with
immigration judges. And he was said to be deportable. The third one
said, “Well, if we deport him, he might be in danger by gangs.” Now, I
don’t think there’s much of an MS-13 gang in El Salvador anymore because
they’re all in that huge prison. So, that should be nullified.They didn’t say he couldn’t be deported. He just said he didn’t think
he could be deported to El Salvador. They should bring him back and
then deport him somewhere else. Deport him to Mexico, if you want. But
nobody would want him because, unlike our Left, they believe that he was
a gang member. And by the way, we’ve had new information
that when he was pulled over in Tennessee with eight illegal aliens
with him—and I don’t know why he wasn’t cited—he was speeding at a high
speed without a valid license. Anybody listening, right now, if you get in a car and you have eight
people with no identification and it looks like you’re trafficking and
you have no valid driver’s license and you’re breaking the speed law,
you’re gonna go to jail. But not if you’re an illegal alien trafficker.But here’s the new information. The car that Abrego Garcia was
driving—who said he was just bringing construction workers from Texas to
Maryland—it was registered under the name of a known human trafficker
who had been arrested for that. In other words, he was, Abrego Garcia, a
trafficker.So, now we have this situation where you cannot deport somebody who
beat his partner, who trafficked to smuggle people in, who has gang
activity and gang markings on his body and his attire, and is a citizen
of El Salvador and is here illegally. If you can’t deport him, I don’t
know who you can deport who was here illegally. So, that’s where we are right now. Great news on the border. But a
manipulation, a distortion, a warping of the law in a very surreal
fashion that somebody who is trying to enforce the law is considered
unlawful and someone who completely made a mockery of it was considered
lawful

The Trump Counterrevolution and the Moral Ledger

 

Despite the media hysteria, President Donald Trump’s counterrevolution remains on course.

Its ultimate fate will probably rest with the state of the economy by the November 2026 midterm elections. But its success also hinges on accomplishing what is right and long overdue—and then making such reforms quietly, compassionately, and methodically.

No country can long endure without sovereignty and security—or with 10 million to 12 million illegal immigrants crossing the border and half a million criminal foreign nationals roaming freely.

The prior administration found that it was easy to destroy the border and welcome the influx. But it is far harder for its successor to restore security, find those who broke the law, and insist on legal-only immigration. Trump is on the right side of all these issues and making substantial progress.

Everyone knew that a $2 trillion budget deficit, a $37 trillion national debt, and a $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods were ultimately unsustainable.

Yet all prior politicians of the 21st century winced at the mere thought of reducing debts and deficits, given that it proved much easier just to print and spread around federal money. As long as the Trump administration dutifully cuts the budget, sends its regrets to displaced federal employees, seeks to expand private sector reemployment, and quietly presses ahead, it retains the moral high ground.

The elite universities have long hidden things from the American people that otherwise would have lost them all public support.

They deliberately sought to neuter Supreme Court rulings banning race-based preferences by stealthily continuing their often-segregated policies on campuses, from admissions and hiring to dorms and graduations.

They have taken billions of dollars from autocracies, such as communist China and Qatar. And they have partnered abroad with their foreign illiberal institutions and then disguised their quid pro quo subservience.

These supposedly prestigious universities have previously made no real effort either to stop or even hide their own campus epidemics of antisemitism.

They have spiked their tuition and costs higher than the annual rate of inflation, assured that the tottering $1.7 trillion guaranteed student loan portfolio would always send them guaranteed cash flows.

They have gouged taxpayers by charging exorbitant surcharges on federal grants from 40% to 60%. And they make no effort to offer students intellectual, ideological, or political diversity.

So, even our most prestigious universities seem to have no real moral compass. Accordingly, as long as Trump retains the high ground, the public, too, will demand either reform in higher education or a cessation of federal support to it.

The economy remains strong, but its ultimate health depends on reaching a trade deal with a handful of nations that account for our $1.2 trillion trade deficit in goods: China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, the Southeast Asian trade bloc, and Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.

These nations all know that their tariffs are not symmetrical. But our trade partners will not willingly change. They apparently, but wrongly, believe that the U.S. either welcomes its trade deficits, naively thinks they’re irrelevant, or is too wedded to libertarian trade ideology to demand accountability.

So, too, on trade, the Trump administration is in the right.

Its only challenge is to avoid envisioning tariffs as a new, get-rich source of massive revenue. Data does not support the idea of such large tariff incomes.

The American people signed on for symmetry, fairness, and reciprocity in trade, not tariffing those who run deficits with us or seeing high tariffs as a cash cow to fund our out-of-control government.

Enraged Democrats still offer no substantial alternatives to the Trump agenda.

There are no shadow-government Democrat leaders with new policy initiatives. They flee from the Joe Biden record on the border, the prior massive deficits and inflation, the disaster in Afghanistan, two theater-wide wars that broke out on Biden’s watch, and the shameless conspiracy to hide the prior president’s increasing dementia.

Instead, the Left has descended into thinly veiled threats of organized disruption in the streets. It embraces potty-mouth public profanity, profane and unhinged videos, nihilistic filibusters, congressional outbursts, and increasingly dangerous threats to the persons of Elon Musk and Trump.

All that frenzy is not a sign that the Trump counterrevolution is failing. It is good evidence that it is advancing forward, and its ethically bankrupt opposition has no idea how, or whether even, to stop it.

Rate this:

All GOP Senators Have to Do Is Not Be Dumb, So We’re in Trouble

 

It’s times like these that remind me that the Latin root of the words “Senate” and “senile” are the same. Of course, all bad senators aren’t senile. Some are just stupid. But sadly, even the stupid ones are necessary because we must keep the Senate in 2026 to make Donald Trump’s second administration a success. That means we must be smart and self-sacrificing, and GOP senators (and aspiring senators) must be smart and self-sacrificing. Which means we have a challenge.

We’ve not only got to keep the majority; we’ve got to expand it. With a small majority, every mediocrity eager for a minute in the spotlight – and, in one case, a genuine legislator who just isn’t as conservative as the rest of the party – can create huge problems for pushing the America First agenda through. We need more solid Republicans, by which I mean Republicans who either eagerly support the agenda or are weak enough to be easily bullied into supporting the agenda. I prefer the eager supporters, but a vote in favor counts the same whether it’s done from a legislator’s genuine beliefs or because of the cold terror of facing the voters and explaining why the squishy senator collaborated with the enemy.

Right now, we Republicans have a majority of three seats. Not all of them are reliable. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is a moderate. So is her state. I’ve never held that against her, and no one should. She is totally forthright about who she is and what she thinks, and she does her best, in her view, to represent her state. She’s neither an opportunist nor a glory hog. She’s just not as conservative as we are. We will never get a better senator out of Maine, and as much as I would like to be able to count on her 100 percent of the time, I’m happy to be able to count on her 80 percent of the time as opposed to 0 percent of the time, which is how often we would get support from whichever maple syrup Marxist would replace her. She’s running next year, and we should all eagerly and unreservedly support her.

Another of the squishy seats belongs to Lisa Murkowski (D-Frozen Wastes), and Republicans can rely on her loyalty as much as a staffer for the Bulwark can rely on his wife’s loyalty on pool cleaning day. A lot of people say that she’s not good for anything, but that’s not true; Moaning Lisa is always good for a quote about how Donald Trump is disappointing her. Sadly, she’s not up in 2026. Hopefully, by the time she comes around for reelection, Alaska will get its head out of its igloo and set this nepotistic nitwit adrift on the proverbial ice floe. 

And then there’s the rotating seat for the obnoxious senator du jour who thinks that if they present themselves as an obstacle to the president’s agenda, they’re going to get all sorts of attention from the Washington Post and the rest of the regime media, and it’s going to work out well for them. Do you remember how that went for Joni Ernst (R-Corn) a few months ago when she registered some reservations about Pete Hegseth? Well, it went poorly. Now, Joni is no dummy. About five seconds into the tsunami-like backlash, she did a 180-degree turn and became the SecDef’s biggest booster. She should be rewarded for this. She has demonstrated the appropriate responsiveness to her constituents; that it was caused by cold sweats over the thought of being primaried by someone who actually believes in this America First stuff is largely irrelevant.

A big loser who’s not up in 2026 is James Lankford (R-France), famous for collaborating with the Democrats on an immigration bill that would’ve made Donald Trump closing the border totally impossible. Jimmy is one of those Republicans who never seems to learn about cavorting with the commies – if he was Ned Beatty, he’d be up for another canoe trip the next weekend because, you know, what are the chances lightning strikes twice?

Then there’s that guy from Utah who’s not Mike Lee (R-Awesome). He replaced Mitt Romney and occasionally channels him, but he usually comes through. Utah is one of those states that should be completely based, but since you can’t generally win without being a Republican, all the people who would normally be Democrats pretend to be GOP and it’s no surprise that they fail to be properly based.

Speaking of failing to be properly based, John Cornyn (R-Jello) is running for reelection in Texas, where I may or may not be a voting resident by 2026. Cornholio is the guy who decided it would be a good idea to collaborate with the Democrats and give them a win on gun control. He’s one of those reach-across-the-aisle, bipartisan guys who would be literally made of tofu if he were any softer. Ken Paxton, the Lone Star Attorney General much hated by the Fredocons (like Utah, Texas suffers from an infestation of faux Republicans), announced he will primary the Cornmeister. Cornyn’s brand of corporate-friendly, generic, transactional Republicanism is usually enough to win; Paxton still needs to demonstrate that he can win Texas, which the Democrats are always trying to contest and always failing to win. I prefer the hardcore guy, but the challenge is that some polls have Paxton losing the general. As annoying as the incumbent is, we’ve got to keep the seat, so if Paxton will lose, we will have to stick with the Corn Dawg. Ugh; remember that part about self-sacrificing? We primary voters must do that too.

And that brings us to Thom Tillis (R-2nd Tier BBQ), the man voted “Senator Least Likely to be Confused with a Particle Physicist.” He’s doing his tiresome Hamlet act again, the one he did right before Pete Hegseth’s vote in which he let it be known that he had doubts about the nominee. Well, the pushback was so substantial it even got through his thick skull and he jumped aboard the Pete Express. Now, he’s doing it again with District of Columbia United States attorney nominee Ed Martin, a solid performer who’s already begun cleaning up that cesspool since being named acting USA. Thomboy is upset because Ed Martin stood up for J6 political prisoners, raising the question of why the hell Tillis wasn’t standing up for the J6 political prisoners, too. 

His antics are ridiculous. You don’t embarrass the president. Look, this isn’t even a purity test. This is an IQ test. Is Tillis really dumb enough to defy Trump going into this election? North Carolinians will vote for this guy, but not by huge margins. Conservative voters in that state despise him, with good reason. He can’t further alienate them and win. Anybody whose political instincts tell him to flip off the president and outrage his constituents over the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia has no business being in politics, much less in any other occupation that involves interacting with other human beings. He needs to stop the handwringing “To be or not to be” crap and get on the team. Otherwise, it’s an indication that he’ll blow the election and the Republicans in North Carolina need to be looking around for someone who’s smarter than a box of South Carolina rocks.

Don’t even get me started on the unconfirmed reports that he – and some others named above – are resisting cutting Biden green grifts as part of reconciliation. Is it to much to ask that alleged conservatives own the libs instead of conservative voters? Apparently.

Finally, we need to look at the guys who aren’t in the Senate right now but could be. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R-Democrats), true to form, screwed over the Republicans yet again. The sole mark in his favor is that somehow the residents of that benighted state enjoy his brand of spineless pseudo-conservatism and might well elect him to the Senate in 2026. But, of course, party and the country be damned; he prioritized himself and took himself out of the running. For some reason, he thinks he might be president someday. This raises the question that Snake Plissken memorably posed: “President of what?”

And then there’s Georgia. Representing the coastal elites despite his ZIP code, Democrat Jon Ossoff (D-Marin County) is vulnerable. We just need the best candidate possible to take him down. There have been several people talked about. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are popular with American Firsters but, sadly, are less popular with actual Georgia voters. If she runs, according to current polling (which needs to be taken with a Mount Everest-sized grain of salt), we lose any chance of flipping that seat. But if we run Brian Kemp, the current governor who always seems to prevail, we will probably win it. The problem is that Kemp and Trump have famously been at odds. Moreover, Kemp has presidential ambitions, which are not insane like Sununu’s are. He pretty much has to run and win that Senate seat, or he’s got no chance at ever being president because we’re not going to forget if he pulls a Sununu and screws us out of a seat.

There are also several open seats in the Midwest, including Illinois, Kentucky, and some cold states. We need serious candidates in all of those, but most are a reach.

In short, we need to do something as Republicans that we’re not used to doing, which is playing it smart. We need our senators to play it smart, too, which is also an unfamiliar concept. But it doesn’t have to be. Donald Trump has shown the way to win. We’re going to have a great economy by November 2026. This is our chance to run up the score. The only way we can lose is if Republicans are dumb. And that’s why we should be worried.

Rate this:

The Method Behind the Madness of Trump’s So-Called Tariff Wars

 

Where are we in the trade wars, the tariff wars?

The stock market recently has recovered somewhat. We’re about where it was in August. I didn’t think it was too bad in August of 2024. It’s recovering 1% to 2%, on occasion. And why is that? Because Donald Trump has announced that JD Vance and his wife, who is of Indian legacy—her family was born in India—met with the Indian government officials, and there may be a trade deal.

Japan has been talking with us. They both want—us and Japan—want a deal. Japan says we moved the goalpost. We say, “They’re not serious.” But there’s going to be a deal there.

And more importantly, Donald Trump said he was willing to lower tariffs on China. Now the Left says, “Oh, he’s caving, he’s caving. This was all unnecessary.”

You could interpret it that way. But it’s more likely “Art of the Deal.”

In other words, “We’re going to invade Panama,” but we’re not going to invade Panama. We just want Panama to let American companies run the exit and the entry to the canal—and that’s probably going to happen.

“Canada’s going to be the 51st state.” No. It’s not going to be the 51st state. But Canada should defend themselves and pay 2% of their GDP, and they need to address a $65-$100 billion deficit.

But, “We want to absorb Greenland.” No. We don’t. We want Denmark—a colonial power with this huge North American colony—we want them to help them a little bit. And indeed, they’re starting to put Greenland on their imperial flags, and they gave them a billion dollars, and the base is secure. And the Greenland people, 50,000 or so, will want U.S. security. So, that is the “Art of the Deal.”

And to get China to come and reduce its $300 billion trade surplus with the United States, Donald Trump talked about these huge tariffs. Now, he will talk down and we’ll probably get a deal in an “Art of the Deal” fashion.

We saw that with NATO. He harangued them in 2018. They were furious. Said he might not come to their aid. They haven’t met their 2%, 2014 promises. And guess what? They started to spend more in defense. Timely so, because when the Ukraine war broke out, Europe had spent a billion dollars more on defense expenditure. And more importantly, they had Finland and Sweden, two of the most muscular of all the European nations in terms of munitions and defense readiness, now both part of NATO. That worked.

And I think the same thing is happening with trade. Here’s the dynamic: the Europeans detest Donald Trump more than they see their self-interest. In other words, they would rather be on the outside of these trade negotiations and punish Donald Trump than they would be with the Asian powers and make a deal and profit, mutually with the United States. And partly that’s because they’re akin to the American Left. And, as we saw with Jamie Raskin, a representative in the Congress, he said to each country, “If you cut a deal with this administration [the Trump administration] we’re going to remember that.”

So, the EU people want to help the American Left, and one of the ways they think they can is to stonewall and watch the bond and stock market go down. And then they could come in later with more favorable concessions from the United States.

The problem with that thinking is that if India cuts a deal and South Korea cuts a deal—and now they’re talking about Japan, Taiwan, Australia—the Trump administration has already established, openly, transparently, that those countries that are first to cut a deal will get the most favorable terms.

And so, the more people that come in and have a reciprocal agreement with the United States—I’m not saying it’s going to be parity. I’m not saying we’re going to get down to zero deficits—but if we cut this trillion-dollar deficit by half, that will be a considerable achievement. The Europeans, then, will see that they’re left out. And especially if we come to an accord in the next month or so with China—not that we’re going to be able to force China to have no tariffs on their part. But we might be able to lower them and then make them buy American products to reduce that $300 billion—If that were to be true, then Europe has missed the boat.

The bottom line. The trade war, or tariff war was never really a war. It was just an effort to stop a 50-year-cycle of chronic American trade deficits that had harmed the industrial interior. There’s one caveat I would like to leave you with, and it’s this: as long as Donald Trump talks about parity and the desirability of lowering our trade deficits and the unfairness of our trade partners, and a idealized goal of no tariffs, he’s got a winning issue.

However. Caveat. If he starts talking about tariffs in pre-1913 terms, before the income tax, when tariffs were the primary source of American revenue. In other words, if he thinks, “I’m going to get all this money coming into the United States from these countries that are going to have to give us this money. And then I can cut taxes on tips, I can do this…” that’s not going to work.

No country will wanna make a deal when they think that we’re doing tariffs, not in pursuit of fairness, but in pursuit of gouging, whether true or not. So, as long as he talks about any other aspect of tariffs except revenue raising—that is a losing political issue.

What Is Democrat Legality?

 

Since 2021, the Left has waged a veritable war against the American legal system in a variety of ways.

One serial target of Democrats and the Left has been the Supreme Court.

In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., spoke to an angry throng of pro-abortion protesters assembled at the very doors of the court chambers.

He threatened two of the justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, by name. Schumer yelled to the volatile crowd that the justices’ views would make them “reap the whirlwind,” and the two would not know what “hit” them.

In the ensuing months, protesters mobbed some of the conservative justices’ homes—likely committing felonies. The sympathetic Biden Justice Department chose not to follow the law, and so did nothing—although eventually a would-be assassin turned up.

Former President Joe Biden himself bragged that he would try to ignore the Supreme Court ruling banning his arbitrary cancellation of billions of dollars in student loans. Indeed, he boasted, “The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn’t stop me.”

In response, no one on the Left ever complained about endangering the “rule of law” or Biden as “a dictator.”

For three years, four local, state, and federal prosecutors warped the law to neuter Donald Trump. Most of the charges had never been brought against other political figures in similar circumstances.

The vast majority of the 93 weaponized indictments backfired on the liberal prosecutors, who had contorted the legal system for political purposes and now face their own ethical or legal quagmires.

The federal prosecutor Jack Smith belatedly reported accepting $140,000 in free legal services.

Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis was removed from the Trump case and fined, and is now under further investigation.

New York prosecutor Letitia James is now facing allegations of falsification of documents and loan fraud.

Federal immigration law prohibits the illegal entry into and residence within the United States. Yet the Biden administration deliberately violated the law by allowing somewhere between 10-12 million illegal aliens to cross the border. Thousands had criminal records.

No one on the Left decried any of these various affronts to the legal system.

In polls, by overwhelming majorities—above 70%—the public wants the Trump administration to close the border, begin deportations, and start with criminals or those with violent histories and gang ties.

The recent deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, to the vast majority of Americans seems to fit that profile.

Garcia entered the U.S. illegally and was later found consorting with members of MS-13—a State Department-designated terrorist organization—who were selling drugs. Informants reported that he was a gang member. His own tattoos likely confirm those accusations.

Two prior immigration judges found such evidence sufficient to allow deportation proceedings. In 2019, a third judge allowed Garcia to stay temporarily, but only on the grounds that hostile gangs might harm him should he return to El Salvador.

Garcia was pulled over for speeding without a driver’s license—but with eight illegal aliens who reportedly all lived at the Garcia residence. The officer released him, despite suspicions that Garcia was engaged in human trafficking.

Garcia’s live-in girlfriend, now wife, was physically assaulted by Garcia on two occasions, suffered injuries, and initially sought restraining orders against him.

The Left claims Garcia is a “Maryland man” without an arrest record.

But he is not a U.S. citizen or a legal resident of Maryland. Instead, Garcia is in legal limbo and remains what he always was—a citizen of El Salvador with gang ties and formerly residing illegally in the U.S.

Garcia is now back home on El Salvadoran soil and was mistakenly sent to a high-security prison. But his own government in El Salvador will ultimately decide how involved Garcia is or was with MS-13 gangs. And then, as a sovereign nation, it will act according to its own policies about its own citizens’ associations with that terrorist organization.

The Left has demanded that Garcia be returned to the U.S. He has become a cause célèbre as a purported victim of the supposedly fascist Trump. Returning Garcia is seen by leftists as a performance art act to derail the Trump agenda, which otherwise they have neither the power nor public support to thwart.

The Left also ignores its own hypocrisies and ironies.

Those who weaponized the court system and destroyed the border now rail that Trump is acting unlawfully by not returning an illegal alien, an MS-13 member, and a domestic abuser with a propensity to ignore our laws.

How ironic that those who rail about colonialism now sound like 19th-century Yankee imperialists.

Democrats do not own El Salvador—although they act like it when dictating to its government that El Salvador cannot detain one of its own citizens on its own soil for its own reasons.

Democrats’ Radical Changing of the Guard

 

I’d like to talk today, if I could, about the changing of the Democratic guard. There was some news lately that Sen. Dick Durbin from Illinois—he was the author, remember, of the DREAM Act. He was a hardcore liberal. You could even say he was left of center. He’s stepping down. He’s in his 70s.

And there’s a changing of the guard.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in some polls, is running—I cannot believe it—behind Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for his upcoming senatorial bid by 20 points and more in a primary.

And then, as a force multiplier, I just saw Rep. Nancy Pelosi, she was at a public event. I think she’s 85, turning 86. She was as incoherent as former President Joe Biden.

So, what’s Victor trying to say? We’re watching a changing of the guard, both due to aging—and we see that with Joe Biden, and the Biden generation is over with, and Nancy Pelosi. And then the next cohort in their 70s, the septuagenarians, they’re terrified.

Dick Durbin’s terrified of being in a primary. And so is Chuck Schumer. He took the dignified way out. Chuck Schumer will probably fight to the very end and be humiliated by AOC.

Who are these people? Well, “the squad,” remember, traditionally was Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Somalian who allegedly had married her brother to gain citizenship access to the United States. There was Ayanna Pressley. She was the radical African American congresswoman. We had, of course, AOC, who was a prominent member. And we have also, in addition, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, she was a member of the squad, she was the Michigan pro-Hamas congresswoman.

Then we had the Democratic National Committee. And we had Ken Martin who won the DNC chairmanship. He’s very much to the left. And really to the left is his subordinate, David Hogg, the vice chairman. He was a survivor of the Parkland shooting, remember, in 2018. And he transmogrified into anti-Second Amendment. But then he got even more and more and more radical. I don’t think he’s ever really done anything except raise money.

But here’s my point. We’re watching a metamorphosis of the Democratic Party that is out of power. The old guard: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin—that old guard did not deliver the 2024 election. And they lost the House. They lost the Senate. They don’t have a majority in the Supreme Court. They lost the popular vote. They lost the Electoral College. So, in the eyes of the Democratic youth, they’re discredited.

But here’s the key. They didn’t lose the 2024 election because they were too far—they didn’t go far left enough. They lost it because former Vice President Kamala Harris and her supporters tried to move her from her hard left. And can I make a parentheses here? She had the most left-wing voting record in the U.S. Senate—to the left of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And she couldn’t even move a little bit to the center, although she tried. She said, remember that she was for fracking and she wanted the border wall and she was for deportation? That was all untrue.

But the point I’m making is, the party tried—in a very anemic fashion—to move to the center, where they knew the votes were. But this new cohort is saying, “You lost the election because you didn’t go far left enough. And maybe we represent 20% of the Democratic registered cohort, but we’re young. And we’re charismatic. And we’re dynamic. And we’re gonna take this party, in the 2026 midterms and the 2028, to victory. And we’re gonna do it by a socialist agenda. And a radical, radical, new, new, new green deal. And an open border. And a trans banner on every campaign event. That’s who we are. And a disarmament. And we’re gonna raise taxes on the billionaires.” And that’s their message. It has no public support.

So, even though they think they’re charismatic and they’re youthful, we get back to the old proverb of the 80-20 paradigm. The Republican Party has been on the 70% to 80% of where the people are on the border, on foreign policy, on the economy, on social and cultural issues. These people—these Jacobin French revolutionaries—they’re pulling 20% to 30% on this issue.

I’ll leave you with a final thought. The Republicans are not afraid. They’re not afraid of the squad and the Jacobins and this new cohort, the David Hoggs of the world. But you know who’s terrified of them? Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, because they don’t know how to handle them. They’re part of themselves. It’s an incestuous relationship.

And they’re saying to them, “But we’re the old guard.” And they’re saying, “You may be the old guard, but we’re going to guillotine you and get rid of you. And we’re coming in with a revolutionary fervor they’re terrified of.”

Here’s What Trump Has Done During His First 100 Days in Office

 

We’re coming up over the three-month mark or the proverbial “100 days” are on the horizon of a new administration.

When that happens, people like to take stock of it. Given the furious pushback against Trump—both from the Left, from the Democratic Party, and many centrist independents, even libertarian Republicans—you’d think that things were not going well.

But a recent poll by CNN showed that President Donald Trump had wide approval. Another poll has just come out where he was up to 54%. Given the media hostility, you would think that he would be completely negative, but he’s not. He has the confidence of the majority of the American people. Why is that? Let’s just take a quick tour of what he’s done in the first 100 days.

He has completely reversed 10,000 people coming in a day—over 300,000 a month, 12 million in four years—to essentially 97%, 98% of the border is secure. In fact, there is no open border now.

Now he has pivoted to try to address the 12 million people that former President Joe Biden not only let in but scattered all over the United States on often state, federal, and local subsidies. That’s gonna be a task. But he has shut the border. No comprehensive immigration reform. None of the things they said was necessary. None of the things that said that it was impossible, that hampered by. He just did it. We’ve never seen anything like it.

He has revolutionized energy. There is no New Green Deal. There’s no electric vehicle mandate. We’re not going to be funding more boondoggles of high-speed rail. We’re going to burn clean coal, restore the Appalachian coal fields, those in the West as well. We’re leasing out new oil fields. We’re trying to get liquid national gas shipped to Europe, that’s in dire need of it. We’re continuing fracking.

We’re producing so much energy that the price of oil has gone—at one point in the Biden administration, it was $120 a barrel. It’s down to almost $60. And by the way, he’s not draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. And he won’t do that before a midterm. If anything, he will begin filling it again pretty soon.

On the diversity, equity, and inclusion front, he didn’t have to get into DEI. That’s the third rail. He just said it’s over with because it violates the recent Supreme Court ruling that found that Harvard and the University of North Carolina were culpable for racist practices against Asian-American applicants.

The law is on Donald Trump’s side. The court decisions are on Donald Trump’s side. And now DEI is being purged from government auspices and private corporations.

Everybody says, “I’m Rip Van Winkle. I woke up. What were we doing?” We were doing exactly the opposite of what Martin Luther King—we were judging people by the color of their skin, by their superficial appearance, not the content of their character. That is a revolution.

And then suddenly everybody said he wiped out the stock market because he insisted on not just free trade but fair trade. And he said he was going to sanction China. And he did. Now all of a sudden we have 70 countries trying to negotiate. And as I’m speaking, nations such as Italy or Japan want to make a deal. What is a deal? A deal is they’re not going to run up surpluses at the same extent.

We have a $1.1 trillion trade deficit. Donald Trump is going to get in the next few weeks a few major nations, and once he does—to make a deal—all the others will not want to be without a chair when the music stops. They will want to follow. When they follow, China will be eager to negotiate because its efforts to get Europe on its side have failed.

If you look very quickly abroad, Donald Trump is still trying to find peace. And no, he’s not Russian President Vladimir Putin’s puppet. He’s been very tough on Putin. He suggests he would have a secondary oil boycott on nations that bought Russian oil, something Biden never imagined. But he is getting frustrated by both sides. And he’s putting renewed pressure.

In the Middle East, Iran is at its weakest point. Israel’s ready to take out the nuclear facilities, to the extent it cannot without sophisticated, heavy bombers. And Donald Trump is not looking for an optional war. He’s telling the Iranians, “Time is running out. Settle. Dismantle your nuclear facilities or else.”

The Red Sea is open for navigation. The Houthis are in retreat. There is nobody in the United States who wants to negotiate with Hamas or Hezbollah. It’s an entirely new game.

China is very worried that its companies are gonna be delisted, that are fraudulent, from the stock market in the United States. They’re very worried. There are 300,000 students—that is their pipeline to the ex-appropriation of technology in the United States—might have to go home. There’s so many levers to pull against China and so much culpability on their part that I think they will make a deal.

So what am I getting at? Forget what the media says. Forget what his opponent said. Forget Kilmar Abrego Garcia, forget Luigi Mangione, all of these distractions. The first 100 days have been revolutionary. We’ve never seen anything like it, not during the Reagan administration, not during FDR, in terms of the magnitude of the changes. And that is why people are furious.

No one in their right mind thought anybody would try to stage a counterrevolution and be so successful in the first 100 days.