Letitia James faces potential criminal charges from the Trump administration for alleged mortgage fraud involving falsified records, mirroring her own accusations against Donald Trump regarding Deutsche Bank. Simultaneously, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy confronts legal action for defying federal immigration law, while Pam Bondi sues Maine over Title IX violations concerning transgender athletes. Amidst Pentagon purges and market volatility with gold nearing $4,000, the episode highlights deepening political fractures and regulatory conflicts that threaten to destabilize both governance and financial markets. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Mortgage Fraud Accusations00:10:54
It's been a wild afternoon here at the Trish Regan Show.
I got to tell you, everybody, because we got breaking news coming in left and right at this moment.
Leticia James, and thank you for staying with me.
We're getting new developments here on this story that I want to bring to you because we have been all over the Leticia James story.
Leticia James is now being referred for federal prosecution here in an alleged mortgage scandal.
We told you about it a couple of months ago that it was brewing.
And sure enough, now you got the Federal Housing Authority coming forward and saying they are concerned, ironically, that she may have done the exact same darn thing.
As she accused Donald Trump of, but worse, but worse.
Okay, we're going to get into that.
Plus, not one, not two, but three Pentagon staffers are now being accused of leaking.
There's some kind of extra special spy op going down, and Pete Hegseth's not having it.
So, three people now are alleged to have leaked really important secrets, guys, about Pentagon developments.
And so, Hegseth is cleaning, cleaning house there of them.
We're going to get into that story as well.
Plus, El Salvador is rejecting Senator Van Hollen.
from being able to go see the guy from Maryland who was here in the country illegally and got deported and, you know, Van Holland to the rescue.
He zooms down to El Salvador and they're like, you know, go home, go home.
All as today we get word that Pam Bondi is suing the state of Maine because you know what?
Girls deserve a certain something called Title IX.
You know, you think about how hard women have fought for Title IX.
And when we get the Fed out there, the Fed saying this, that, and the other, I'll tell you, it's got everybody really nervous.
The market tanking.
gold nearing $4,000 an ounce.
Wow.
Okay, big show, everyone.
We got the three alleged Pentagon leakers out.
I'm all over that story today.
I'm going to get to that.
But first, we got to bring Letitia James into the mix.
Letitia James is now being referred for prosecution because she allegedly engaged in some kind of mortgage fraud.
This is a story just out.
The Trump administration referring New York's Attorney General Letitia James for possible prosecution over allegations of mortgage fraud.
So what is being alleged here is that she claimed her home was in Virginia, that that was her primary residence, and that her father was her husband.
Are you kidding me?
Like, we thought, you know, Omar was kind of out there, right?
And now Letitia James is being accused of this.
This is totally wild.
So the FHFA, this federal housing director, William Pulte, sent a letter to Attorney General Pambondi that Letitia James appears to have falsified records from certain lending requirements and received favorable loan terms as a result.
Now, gosh darn it, wasn't that kind of like what she alleged went down between Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump?
She's saying, oh, you know, you got favorable loan rates from Deutsche Bank because you inflated the square footage on your house.
I mean, this might be just a little bit worse because if she's actually getting federal housing guarantees of some sort, then she may really find herself in hot water.
Pulty cited a property in Virginia that James allegedly claimed as her principal residence and a property in New York that she claimed as a four-unit structure instead of five.
Technicality, right?
Kind of like square footage, I guess, which he said could mean she was able to get a different and more favorable loan.
In response, a spokesperson for James' office said this morning that she has been, of course, focused every single day on protecting New Yorkers, especially as this administration. weaponizes the federal government.
What the heck do you think you did, lady?
I mean, like pot calling kettle here.
I mean, they actually may have a reason to go after you.
You, on the other hand, huh?
You still have an outstanding order, right?
The judge wants $500 million from Donald Trump and the interest keeps growing every single day.
Anyway, she's saying that the administration has weaponized the federal government against the rule of law and the Constitution.
She will not be intimidated by the bullies, no matter who they are.
Gosh, how many times have we heard that from her?
She came out and was speaking today.
And I'll tell you, she looks nervous.
I want to show you.
I mean, she looks and to me sounds very nervous.
And you know what?
Heck, she ought to be.
My mission is clear.
I'm focused.
I'm prepared.
I'm ready.
I've been trained by the best.
I went to Howard University that overturned legal segregation in this country.
I've been taught in those classrooms where Thurgood Marshall once taught.
I'm not afraid of no president.
Donald Trump, we're ready for you.
We're coming for you.
We're standing up for you.
We're fighting on.
We're not going down silent.
Victory, my friends, is clear.
It's now.
And I'm not waiting four years.
I'm waiting too until a speaker by the name of Hakeem Jeffries comes to bring us some rest.
Come on, ladies.
It's up to us.
We saved this democracy before.
We'll save it now.
Let's go.
Oh, boy.
Okay.
So, again, she's the one in trouble now.
Okay.
I realize she wants to still go after him and after him.
And we'll get to the insider trading thing that she's alleging, which is just bonkers.
But.
She's in trouble.
You know, we reported on this a while back.
So Roger Stone, if you recall, in February, you know, it's Roger Stone, but anyway, he came out and said, and he's pretty rabid in terms of wanting to go after Tish James.
He said she's in deep, deep trouble, basically a campaign finance fraud he accused her of, personal financial fraud that may be the mortgage stuff we were just talking about, and a cover-up of an alleged assault that's going to take her down.
So when he talked about the mortgage fraud and the campaign finance, fraud.
He was talking about what we just mentioned there and that now the Federal Housing Authority is going after.
And then in terms of campaign finance fraud, there was this one, Letitia James and Working Families Party, Luxury Travel and Creative Accounting.
Apparently, like they had some really creative accounting because they were getting to work out of none other than like Martha's Vineyard in July or August.
Martha's Vineyard, not bad, right?
And you say that your office or your hotel is your office.
So were they paying for her vacations?
It kind of sounds like that.
So that was one article that had come out in late December.
And again, Roger Stone alluding to the mortgage issue.
That was going down.
I looked through some of that documentation and i'll tell you that FHFA, they're onto something here.
They believe that she may have fraudulently misrepresented where she lived as well as who her father was.
I mean, that one I didn't expect.
I gotta tell you guys, like that one I really didn't expect.
We'll see what comes out on that.
But Leticia James, suffice it to say, has just met her match, if you would, in this Trump administration, because they're not going to take it, Even though she's out there saying, well, I'm going to go after him, right?
I'm going to go after him with this new suit.
I'm going to go after him with insider trading because guess what?
He's the one that said we're going to have these tariffs.
And then he came out with a 90-day pause.
New York Post reporting that, yes, indeed, they're looking into going after him for insider trading because he came out and paused the tariffs.
And she thinks that was to help his friends because he was out there, well, telling everybody, come on, if you're doing insider trading, you don't go and tweet out to the whole world, great time to buy.
You really wouldn't be doing that if you think about it, right?
Because you're just like actually telling everyone insider trading is like you're just telling your friends.
No, no, he told the world.
And by the way, keep in mind, the darn market is way down today.
So it's not as though if you went in at that time, you were going to have some panacea of growth.
It's kind of out there, but listen, they're grasping at straws, and AOC is on board as well.
Trump seems to be doing, you know, from tweeting people to buy stock and then later announcing.
His development on taxes.
If people are pissed about insider trading here at the House, look at what's happening at the White House right now and with the Republican Party.
Do you think he knew what he was doing when he sent out that message about stocks before he made the announcement?
It sure seemed like he did.
I don't think that it was a coincidence.
I don't think that Trump just coincidentally said buy stocks and then shortly later made an announcement that dramatically inflated.
And dramatically raised a lot of these asset prices.
And, you know, I've heard murmurings on the floor that there may have been people that knew that this was coming.
And I'm very interested in seeing some of the stock disclosures that come out when those reports are due.
And I'm very interested in what members of Congress have been buying and trading stocks in the last 24 hours prior to this tariff announcement.
Okay.
Thank you very much for that one.
I don't think it's really going to help you much when you've got now the FHFA referring her for criminal prosecution.
Criminal prosecution.
Okay.
This is a big deal, guys, because this is serious fraud on a serious level.
Trump administration referring New York Attorney General Letitia James for possible criminal prosecution.
Okay.
We get some more news coming in on this as we speak right now.
This fresh off the presses here coming to us out of the publication The Hill, the FHFA has now made a criminal referral to the Justice Department against New York Attorney General Letitia James, arguing she had a Virginia home that was her primary residence in order to secure more favorable loan terms.
Quote, based on media reports, Ms. Letitia James has in multiple instances falsified bank documents and property records to acquire government-backed assistance and loans on more profitable or favorable, I should say, loan terms, according to the agency.
which is writing to Pam Bondi in this criminal referral.
Quote, at the time of the 2023 Norfolk, Virginia property purchase and mortgage, Ms. James was sitting Attorney General of New York and is required by law to have her primary residence in the state of New York, even though her mortgage application lists her intent to have Norfolk, Virginia property as her primary home.
The referral asked for a criminal investigation, of course, as we just explained.
DEI Backlash Explained00:09:16
Don't forget, she actually went after Donald Trump civilly.
So if you think about this.
This is like she's in more hot water.
It was bad enough that she wanted to bankrupt the guy.
But in this case, she's actually doing something that is alleged to be quite worse.
I mean, it's sort of this weird poetic justice, if you would, right?
The crime that she is now being potentially prosecuted for criminally, criminally.
I mean, that is what she was going after Donald Trump for civilly.
So she's going to have to face some music.
So it makes sense to me that she is really nervous and she's trying to figure out like how she fights back in this environment.
And she's up against a wall, if you would.
I mean, you could hear it in her voice just a couple of weeks ago.
This was moments before the Supreme Court basically told her, sorry, Tish, you don't have a leg to stand on here as far as the DEI money goes.
all that federal money that she was using for programs that the administration deemed to be not in basically sync with the Constitution of the United States.
She wasn't going to have money for it anymore.
And she kind of lost it, like really, really lost it, you know.
Again, I apologize.
Listen.
You have to turn it up a little bit.
Seven years after the assassination of Dr. King.
And Dr. King talked about that stone of hope.
And it's that stone of hope that gives me a Fire in my belly each and every morning.
It's that stone of hope that allows me to wake up and to stand to Donald Trump and to say, Donald Trump, I'm not afraid of you.
It's that stone of hope.
It's that stone of hope that gives me power.
That's that stone of hope and the belief in each and every one of you to let you know that I'm not going to allow my ancestors, all of those who died for me to be in this position, I am not going to disgrace them and disappoint them.
I am going to use the law both as a sword.
and as a shield and challenge Donald Trump and each and every time he issues an executive and illegal executive order I am going to stand up to him because he represents to me sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
And so, DEI, as far as I am concerned, is more than about just black people, let's be honest.
DEI is about paid parental leave.
DEI is about disabled children.
DEI includes a number of categories.
So, when they talk about DEI, let them know that they're not only coming after us, but they're coming after all of us.
And we've got to stand together, stand in community, stand with this great organization under the leadership. of our civil rights leader, Reverend Al Sharpton, who has been a light, a bright and shining light in the darkness.
But I don't know about you.
It's that stone of hope that inspires me each and every day.
And listen, faith and fear can never share the same space.
And so I'm covered by the blood.
And I'm not afraid of Donald Trump.
You can come after me, but no enemy, nothing formed against me will perish.
Nothing formed against me.
All right, all right.
We're done, I'll take place.
And you thought you could preach.
Okay.
This is some serious trouble, though.
I mean, I got to say.
So she was apparently caught up with by New York Post.
New York Post was outside her door trying to get her to answer some questions.
She refused to answer any of them.
It's really rather remarkable.
I mean, you think about how she was out there trying to do anything she could to take Donald Trump down.
And she was using this bizarre, like, I'm going to get in between a case. or a business transaction between a bank and an individual.
And the threat that that represents, frankly, to the economy overall was massive because who the heck wants to do business in the state of New York if you have potentially an attorney general like Leticia James breathing down your back saying, oh, well, I'm going to just look at every single little last thing you did, even if your bank is happy, even if you're happy, even if everybody made money on the transaction and you even go into depositions and into court and you hear from Deutsche Bank that they're perfectly happy.
With what went down again, everybody made money.
You had no victim, but she wasted time and resources and taxpayer dollars trying to take down Trump, because that's what she ran on right.
Remember all the too male, too pale, too stale stuff?
That was Leticia James.
And now what's actually coming back to haunt her is, you know, a situation where she may have really and truly, actually misrepresented certain things, and we'll see what comes out here against federal housing uh, trying to say that she has in fact um, falsified Records and falsified documents.
And that's, I got to tell you guys, like that is a big, big, big deal.
Okay.
So if she does what they allege that she did, then she's going to have some serious problems because you can't say, oh, I live in this state in order to get a better mortgage rate when you actually live in the state of New York.
I mean, heck, you're AG in New York.
You don't think anybody's going to figure that one out?
And then to try and say that your father was your husband, I mean, that one, I don't even know.
I don't even know how to comment on that because this is according to a Fox News report and they're sourcing.
This letter, shall we say, that has been used as a referral.
So these documents, if you would, against Leticia James, quite damning, quite damning indeed.
We had heard earlier in the year from Roger Stone, who alluded to some of this.
But I got to say, like this is, if you're misrepresenting yourself on mortgage applications while you're the Attorney General of New York, I think you're going to have a problem.
Really, you cannot falsify records in this case.
So she's going to keep saying, oh, you know, I'm doing this, that, and the other, and I'm going to go after him for insider trading.
You know, I'm gonna, honey, good luck.
Like, good luck with that.
Because these guys mean business.
And Pam Bondi now has the power to move forward and apparently some evidence to move forward against one Leticia James.
And believe me, ladies and gentlemen, she's gonna do it.
She's really and truly going to do it.
Wow.
And Leticia can go on about insider trading all she wants.
Good luck, as I said, with that market way, way down today.
We're going to talk about gold coming up a little bit later in the show.
I do want to get to Pete Hegseth and the turmoil going on at the Pentagon.
But before I do, remember that we are fully independent here on this show.
So we are very thankful for some of our sponsors.
I love gold.
I've talked about gold forever.
I've been telling you to buy it ever since I started the show.
I want to say it was back around $1,500, $1,400 back then.
Aren't you happy if you took my advice?
Take a look at this.
Gold at up, what, 3.5% today?
This is just wild.
Again, we'll get into it a little bit more later in the show, but you can see that there is a real flight to safety going on right now.
Up 3.95%, $3,353 an ounce.
You got Goldman Sachs saying it could be $4,000.
I wouldn't be surprised.
I mean, I really wouldn't.
Gold is one of those things I love to own because it helps for inflation.
It helps when you're faced with some kind of Armageddon or, say, tariffs, et cetera.
So when there's uncertainty in the world, people like gold.
Also, central banks all around the world are are totally moving towards gold because there's increased uncertainty about the Us and Treasuries and trade etc.
So we'll dig in a little bit deeper, because the Federal Reserve chief, Jerome Powell, came out with some rather damning comments today that caused investors to sell off and caused gold, of course, to move even higher.
I was at a book club last night and we were talking about gold and my friend from book club, she messaged me she's like this morning Trish, it's up two and a half percent.
And i'm like yeah, and then you look at it now it's up three and a half percent.
So Again, I'm not trying to make a quick buck or anything on gold.
I just think it's one of those things you want for stability in your portfolio.
Our friends at American Heart for Gold can help you out.
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Gold Market Volatility00:14:29
Hard to forget.
Kind of has a nice ring to it.
Anyway, we've got a lot more news to cover here on the program today because there is all kinds of stuff going on at the Pentagon right now in this moment in time.
The Pentagon is facing a big, big shakeup because not one, not two, but three alleged leakers are now being sent packing.
Yeah.
Pete Hegg says he's not having it.
Pete knows how this goes, right?
Like he's been a member of the media.
He knows how these people leak like a sieve.
And he's like, you can't do it.
Like you just can't do it.
You got to be on my team.
You get to be on the president's team.
And so you've got a Pentagon now that's moving forward, removing three leakers, alleged leakers, I should say, because they started this investigation.
Pete's like, okay, after Signalgate, I get to figure out what's going on.
So they launched an investigation there at the Pentagon.
They're trying to figure out who's on the team, who's not.
And basically, they're going through everybody's emails, probably everybody's texts, probably a whole lot more.
And they're getting rid of people that they do not believe are really on their side.
And that would include the latest and greatest addition, this gentleman right here.
Um, who is being alleged to have been leaking, along with two others.
So this is, this is just incredible.
You know you've got to do this.
I'm just going to say this, you've got to do this because why?
You know what?
You can't have people that are not playing on the same team.
Everybody's kind of going to be working towards something, and you don't want to have an environment where you've got people that are part of the deep state and they're arguing the book of the deep state, as we'd say in finance.
Right, you've got to got to really make sure that you are just all over that and that everybody is on the same team.
So this guy right here um he, his name is Colin Carroll and he was the chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, and he is alleged to have been leaking all kinds of things, according to the Daily MAIL.
He again, as I said, was the defense secretary chief of staff for Stephen Feinberg.
He was suspended a day after two other political appointees that would have been yesterday were shown the door.
The reporting first came from Political.
The internal Pentagon investigation, Daily Mail writes, is looking into allegations of unauthorized disclosures of information.
You have Dan Caldwell, who was let go yesterday, who's a senior advisor, actually, to Hegseth.
I believe he was a very senior advisor to Hegseth.
And this other guy, Darren Selnick, who is the Pentagon's deputy chief of staff, they were both put on administrative leave.
So they weren't, like, fired, but apparently one of them, at least one of them, was escorted out of the building.
And now they're looking at headlines like this.
According to a defense source that spoke with CNN, this is a purge of people who had disagreements with the Pentagon chief of staff.
Donald Trump has been really, really clear, has he not, that they can't have any leakers and everybody has to be on the same team?
This was an article that was out earlier before we came to air saying that two officials had been placed on leave.
Now we know, of course, it's actually three because you've got to include this gentleman here as well.
Darren Selnik, he was apparently.
Accused of leaking operational plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, Elon Musk's controversial visit to the Pentagon, and the pausing of the collection of intelligence to Ukraine.
That's kind of a lot, right?
So Darren is no longer part of the team there at the Pentagon.
Understandably so, if these allegations in fact are true.
The other guy is Dan Caldwell, as we talked about yesterday on the program, he was actually escorted out.
And this is somebody who is a senior advisor to Pete Hegseth.
He's also somebody whose name showed up on that list, the signal gates thing.
I've said all along, like, how is it that that all happened?
I don't think that that was just a coincidence that the most liberal reporter who's basically in the back pocket of the left wound up getting all of that information.
I really, I really don't.
And I think that they needed to do this investigation to sort of get to the bottom of it.
And maybe, you know, there's some other people that they'll catch along the way.
But you got to make sure you have the right team in there.
You got to make sure that you have people that.
Are committed to following sort of a protocol, right?
I mean, heck, you know, it's the defense department.
So you're talking about the military effectively.
And if you're not on board with what's going down, then you're definitely going to have some issues.
I mean, I think it's rather telling, for example, that you had Susan Myers, right?
The Colonel Susan Myers up there in Greenland out there emailing Greenland, Denmark, and saying, like, we don't agree with the president's policy.
It's like, lady, you're actually.
Running the operation, you can't sit there and say that you don't agree.
The concerns of the U.S. administration discussed by Vice President Vance on Friday are not reflective, she said, of Pitififif's space base.
I mean, you understand this is not the direction you want to be going in, right?
Like, you need actually to have everybody doing the same thing.
You had a similar situation over at the FBI with Denehy.
This is why they had to get rid of him because he was trying to sort of stand in the way of what they were doing.
And I think overall, you want everybody on your team to be on the same page.
For sure on the same page.
And Pete gets this.
And so you've got two guys you see on the screen there that were suspended yesterday, first, yesterday afternoon, and then later in the evening.
And then, of course, this guy, the new one today, finding out that he's out of a job there at the Pentagon.
Again, because of these allegations of leaking.
Laura Loomer, don't forget, she was all over this.
She was concerned about NSC.
She was concerned about the NSA and just Trump not really having his people.
And I think in light of Signalgate, he listened.
I just think that there needs to be more appreciation demonstrated to Trump loyalists because, unfortunately, we do see a lot of gatekeeping in the GOP.
And the thing that I harked on the most during the campaign season was the importance of vetting, vetting, vetting.
We need to vet people so that we don't have the same nightmare that we saw happen in the first administration where people who were disloyal to President Trump.
Yeah.
I mean, there was a lot of disloyalty, right, in the first administration.
It's like they were like, who is this guy?
We're not really sure.
You know, we used to be Republicans and now he kind of is this new Republican.
And so you might have a lot of rhinos there, et cetera.
They weren't really in sync with his agenda.
Now, I'm not saying you have to be in sync, right?
Like, I don't see eye to eye to him on the entire tariff thing.
I think that there are risks that you're running for the overall economy.
We saw that evidence in the market today.
I mean, I guess it gets back to my gold theory.
But I mean, these are sort of the realities that you have to deal with.
But you have those conversations and you don't conspire against the president with.
The press.
If you're working for the president of the United States, you don't conspire against whatever Pete Hegseth is trying to achieve with the Panama Canal by going out and doing something else with the press.
And, forgive me, the NSA director former NSA director is here on the screen.
You see his picture.
He was also the cyber command chief, Timothy Hall.
He was fired.
He was fired, if nothing else, for the reason that they were like.
You know, we're not so sure we get it.
You know he's a general, he's a military guy.
He shouldn't be partisan, but he was a pick of general Milli and he was a pick of Biden.
And so, having worked under that team, you know, maybe we need, or Trump is thinking, you know, I need my own person in there.
And so, this is the same kind of thing that's being reflected, if you would, at the Pentagon right now, where Pete's like, I kind of need my own people, right?
I can't take these massive, massive chances with people that are going to be leaking really important information to the press.
I would just say this why do you do it?
Like, is it that great to talk to us folks in the press?
Like, I don't think we're that exciting, right?
Why would you do it?
I mean, unless your boss is instructing you to get something out there or unless you think it's your patriotic duty.
I mean, hey, if it's your patriotic duty, come join me over on the podcast scene, right?
Like be out there, be open, be vocal.
Don't be some little turd behind the scenes running and snitching on everybody.
That is not the way to do things.
If you have a problem, you come out, you say it.
You don't go and start feeding junk to reporters.
It's just not the way it should be done.
And if you have people like that, you got to get rid of them.
You got to get rid of them fast because Trump deserves that.
He deserves the opportunity to have his own people there, right?
His own people doing his own thing.
You heard me mention tariffs, of course, and you've heard my views on that.
And you're going to get to hear more before I get too deep into it and more stories that we got to get to because Van Hollen is getting just shamed, shamed, ladies and gentlemen, down there in El Salvador.
We'll get to that.
But first, with the market being in such turmoil, I want to just remind you.
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Because this market, it's really pretty wild.
It is absolutely crazy and totally wild.
And I don't think that's going to necessarily change in the near future.
future.
I actually think we're going to have more volatility to come.
And the reason I think that is just because this particular White House is now getting in there with some economic chops and they're throwing their weight around.
And there's some different varying opinions.
I think Scott Besson has one and Peter Navarro has another.
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Van Hollen, my gosh, he's off in El Salvador and he's getting the, the, the hand.
Let me show you.
So he's complaining.
He's like, well I, i'm here in El Salvador, I can't get to first base with the El Salvadorian government.
I'm trying to get the Maryland guy out, the guy that you know.
Let me, let me show his sound from, uh, I guess this would have been yesterday morning when he's like, i'm going to go down to El Salvador, i'm going to get him out because he's a Marylander.
He's technically not.
He's technically here illegally yes, illegally.
He's from El Salvador.
He wanted asylum, but let me tell you, you can't get asylum just because you get gangs in your country.
It's actually not a qualifying factor.
I know that sounds terrible and I know it sounds heartless and whatever.
The left is like, my gosh, you should be able to if there are gangs, but it doesn't qualify you.
I mean, it's not religious prosecution.
It's not political prosecution.
So if you're from El Salvador and you come here illegally and they catch you, in this gentleman's particular case, according to Pam Bondi, he was alleged to be a member of MS-13.
So they didn't actually allow him out on bail.
But you'd think he's Jesus Christ superstar, the way the left is going after this.
Van Hollen saying, I'm going to get him out.
I'm going down to El Salvador.
I saw the comments of President Bukele, and I look forward to meeting with him.
I've requested to meet with him.
I reached out to the ambassador here to ask to meet while he's here.
But I've also made clear if we can't meet here, I do intend to go to El Salvador to discuss the release of this individual who is illegally detained.
A Maryland man who's the father of three in a notorious prison.
In El Salvador.
And I believe the president of El Salvador will recognize why it's important to allow him to return to the United States of America because it is absolutely unjust and illegal to have this Marylander detained one more day in a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Of course, President Trump could have just said, you know, bring him home.
Of course, he could have done that.
But this is an administration that has lied about Mr. Cabrego Garcia, right?
The vice president of the United States tweeted out that he had a criminal record.
That was a lie.
They're just lying.
They've gotten caught lying.
They don't want to admit it.
And they have an obligation to bring him home.
But I will say the president of El Salvador should not now take it upon himself to say that he is detaining him for one more day because that is kidnapping.
I understand that the attorney general said that we would provide a plane to bring him home.
So all the president of El Salvador has to do now.
Is hand over and release an innocent man and let him come home to his family.
Okay, innocent, innocent, innocent.
Like I said, you know, Jesus Christ superstar here.
So that was yesterday, and there's like a fire under Van Hollen's feet.
I mean, forget about what happened when the poor Maryland woman died, actually, hands of an illegal migrant, but you know, we won't talk about that now.
He didn't have much to say back then, but now he's like on a plane down there to El Salvador.
But he's getting the hand.
They're like, sorry, sorry, we're not going to do this.
Here we go.
I also told his wife and family that I would try to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia while I was here.
Deportation Order Debate00:11:38
So I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia.
And he said, well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit Seacot.
I said, I'm not interested at this moment in taking a tour of Seacott.
I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia.
He said he was not able to make that happen.
I asked, he said he needed a little more time.
I asked him if I came back next week, whether I'd be able to see Mr. Abrego Garcia.
He said he couldn't promise that either.
So I asked him if I could get on the phone, either a video phone or just a phone, and talk to Mr. Abrego Garcia.
So I could just ask him how he's doing so I could report back to his family.
He said he could not arrange that.
He said maybe if the American embassy were to ask, maybe that could happen.
So I will certainly ask the American embassy to ask the government of El Salvador to connect us by phone.
I asked him how about his family.
How can he talk to his wife so that she can hear his voice?
Answer, I assume, was no.
I let him know that the family has requested that.
Yeah, okay.
So he's not getting anywhere with El Salvador, which is kind of interesting.
You know, they're just not participating in this.
I spoke with one source yesterday who was of the belief that El Salvador may actually have something on this Garcia guy.
We don't know.
all right i'm just this is just what a source reported back to me and so remember like in this entire and and look i get it you know they want to pull on your heartstrings oh he's a father he's this he's that look he was here illegally he had been picked up by law enforcement here in the u.s they wouldn't let him out on bail for what reason because they believed him to be a member of ms 13.
now the judge in this particular case is saying well we need more proof we need this that and the other we also want pam for you to show us how you're trying to get him out Of this prison in El Salvador, and she's like, Yes, see ya!
Like, I'm not doing it right, go pound sand, you all, because we don't have to.
Because there's this little thing called the 1798 Aliens Act, which basically allows the president of the United States to expel or deport anyone that is believed to be here and not, uh, and to be a threat to the United States.
So they're saying, Well, you gotta prove you gotta prove that he's MS 13.
And Stephen Miller, I'm going to play his sound again.
Some of you have heard it on this show, but it's really compelling.
And he really lays out the argument well here because what he's saying is no, they don't actually have to prove any of that because they deported him back to El Salvador.
Okay, so maybe they didn't intend to send him to the prison.
He doesn't actually say that.
I'm adding that in.
But the reality is he's now in El Salvador, which is his home country.
And so it's not really the United States' place at this point to be interfering.
Stephen says it well.
So I'll let him articulate it.
Number one, DOJ said a federal court cannot compel the executive branch to engage in any mandated act of diplomacy or incursion upon the sovereignty of another nation.
So, your argument is that you don't have to bring him back home, but will you?
So, I want to correct.
I hate to do it, Bill, but I got to correct you on every single thing that you said because it was all wrong.
First, we won the Supreme Court case.
Clearly, 9 0.
A district court judge said unconscionably that the president and his administration have to go into El Salvador and extradite one of their citizens, an El Salvadorian citizen.
So, that would be kidnapping.
That we have to kidnap an El Salvadorian citizen.
Against the will of his government and fly him back to America, which would be an unimaginable act and an invasion of El Salvador's sovereignty.
So he appealed to the Supreme Court and it said clearly no district court can compel the president to exercise his Article II foreign powers in any way whatsoever.
DOJ called me after that Supreme Court ruling and they said, This is amazing.
We won this case, 9 0.
We are in excellent standing here.
So this has been portrayed wrong for 72 hours in the media.
They said the most a court could ever compel you to do.
Would be to facilitate return, which would basically mean if El Salvador voluntarily sends him back, we wouldn't block him at the airport.
We would put him back into ICE detention, and then he would be deported either back to El Salvador or somewhere else.
The Supreme Court said that is the most the government can be expected to do.
So we won the case handily.
The misreporting on this has been atrocious.
Secondly, I appreciate it.
He was not mistakenly sent to El Salvador.
So do you still believe that he's an illegal alien from El Salvador?
Hold on, this is important.
In 2019, He was ordered deported.
He is a final removal order from the United States.
These are things that no one disputes.
Where is he from?
El Salvador.
Where is he a resident and citizen of?
El Salvador.
Is he here illegally?
Yes.
Does he have a deportation order?
Yes.
A DOJ lawyer who has since been relieved of duty, a saboteur, a Democrat, put into a filing incorrectly that this was a mistaken removal.
It was not.
This was the right person sent to the right place.
Now, some have said, Well, but he had a thing called a withholding order.
So, a withholding order means you've been ordered deported, but an immigration judge is saying you cannot go back to a particular country.
Here's the thing if you are a member of a foreign terrorist organization, you cannot have a withholding order.
Since he's in MS 13, there is no withholding order.
So, you just said, you just answered my question.
The gang that he is accused of being persecuted by doesn't exist anymore in El Salvador.
The 18th Street gang is gone.
So, you have an illegal alien from El Salvador.
Bill, where are we supposed to send the illegal alien from El Salvador?
I don't even know.
I'm going to ask you a question.
Are you convinced he is still a member of MS 13?
That was your original charge.
Yes, but here's the thing, Bill.
Yes, but not only am I convinced of it, not only is El Salvador convinced of it, Bill, he's an illegal alien from El Salvador with the deportation order.
So, his only options in life, Bill, his only options in life are to be deported to El Salvador or to be deported to some other country.
That's it.
He has a deportation order.
So, Bill, you tell me, what country should we deport him to?
Tell me, please.
Tell me.
So, Marco Rubio on Sunday morning said this.
On Saturday night, another 10 criminals.
I love that because he's like, tell me, tell me.
Bill's like, so Marco Rubio, and look, Bill's just doing his job.
Like, before we pile on Bill, like, listen, part of.
making an argument stronger is trying to expose any potential flaws with it.
And you know where the media is.
Like the media is all like completely on the side that's that of the guy who's here illegally in the country who was alleged to have been an MS-13 member.
Like he is, as I said, Jesus Christ superstar.
They love him.
Like he's the, he's, he's, he's it, right?
Like he's the total prophet.
And they are taking his side because they've gone completely wild.
So I don't think Bill's necessarily taking the side of anyone there.
I think he's just trying to say, hey, This is what the other folks are saying.
And Stephen then basically shot down brilliantly everything that they're saying because they don't, whether you like it or not, the law is the law.
And when you look at whether you can come here for asylum, the answer, the short answer is you can't just for economic opportunity or because you live in a hellhole where they're, you know, they've got gangs and violence.
I mean, it's awful.
Don't get me wrong.
It's absolutely awful.
We are so darn lucky.
to have been born in this wonderful country.
And we need to remember that, okay?
We need to remember that.
We're proud that we are here and that we are American, but we also want to uphold our American values.
And part of upholding those values means knowing who's in the country, when they're here, and having people cross in legally.
Like this should not be that contentious.
This shouldn't be an argument.
I remember a day when the left was very, very adamant that you couldn't come here illegally.
And suddenly everything is completely, totally changed, and we're responsible for the whole wide world.
Just ask Ana Navarro from The View.
Why does it hit me so hard?
So, I have known about this prison for a long time because I read and I follow Latin American news.
And this place is as bad a prison as can possibly exist.
And the idea that we are sending, that the United States of America is sending innocent people just so that Donald Trump.
Can make this point about how he is deporting criminals and animals and monsters, as he calls them, to this prison when it is a lie.
It is a lie.
And I told you before, I think that there wasn't more outrage because I don't think people knew the details.
I don't think people knew just how horrible this prison is.
There are no human rights.
This is not an American prison.
Okay, I'm not going to necessarily dispute that, but Anna, like, is that just think about it legally, not with your heart, because you know, you don't want anybody, especially somebody who may be innocent, right, being sent to a horrible place, but he's not an American.
He was here illegally, and they needed to deport him to his home country, and now his home country is trying to figure out what to do.
So I don't understand.
I am with Stephen on this quite how you get to, okay, now we're going to extradite him from his home country when he's not an American to begin with.
So this is just like blowing up the whole federal versus state issue.
But I'm going to tell you something.
Cozy Earth Sponsorship00:03:17
Guess who wins the day on this one?
The Supreme Court actually decided with the Trump administration that they had the right with the Aliens Act.
Because what does the federal government do?
But control your borders.
Right?
That's like the federal government's primary responsibility.
So, for all these Sanctuary City people out there in New Jersey, by the way, Lena Hava's going after you, Phil Murphy, for Kathy Hochul and Letitia James, Pam Bondi's going after you guys.
You cannot actually say we are going to defy federal law.
If ICE is detaining people, if ICE wants to deport people, you can't get in the way of that.
And by the way, just, you know, for public opinion's sake, I don't think that, you know, everybody's going to be on the side of the Rikers Island people, for goodness sakes, right?
For goodness sakes.
Speaking of Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi, ladies and gentlemen, is suing the state of Maine, and she's got really good reason.
We're going to get to that.
But first, a word from one of our sponsors.
Now, this is a funny one, but you know what?
I actually take my sleep very seriously.
So I wanted to tell you about Cozy Earth.
Again, one of our great sponsors here on the show.
They have amazing stuff, amazing stuff, because, again, My sleep, I don't mess around.
And these products by Cozy Earth, they are designed to really transform your sleep time, your me time, right?
Okay, I know I have a lot of guys watching this.
Trust me, your wife cares about this.
Your girlfriend cares about this.
Your mom cares about this because you want to really have sort of a luxurious environment when you sleep.
When I was younger, I would stay in nice hotels and I'd always be like, oh, gosh, the sheets are so nice.
They're so, so nice.
And I'd get home and I'd be like, oh, I got these icky sheets.
I'm like, no, no, like at some point in your life, you recognize that you deserve, right?
You deserve those little things.
We women deserve those little things.
So I love Cozy Earth.
I love all of their products.
I love my bamboo sheets.
They're actually phenomenal.
My sales team was so worried when we took Cozy Earth on as one of the sponsors here on the program because they know me and they're like, if she doesn't like this, trust me, if she doesn't like this, she's going to be like, there's no way.
There's no way because I take this very seriously.
Whenever I promote a product of any kind, I make sure that it's good stuff.
And this is good stuff.
So it's no wonder they've got this best-selling bamboo sheet.
You should check that out.
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It's not only affordable, but if you use my name, so go to cozyearth.com forward slash Trish, you get 40% off all of their best-selling sheets, all of their towels, all their pajamas.
I actually have a really nice set of very soft pajamas as well, and much more.
So you should definitely go check them out.
Sanctuary sort of awaits you, if you would, at Cozy Earth.
That's their slogan, actually.
Sanctuary awaits at Cozy Earth.
So, cozyearth.com forward slash Trish.
You help the show.
You help me.
Hopefully, you help yourself or a loved one.
Women's Sports Rules00:09:06
Good stuff.
Pam Bondi is out for blood when it comes to the state of Maine, ladies and gentlemen.
Pam Bondi, she's going after them big because you know what?
The state of Maine, for whatever reason, just thinks they can throw Title IX right out the window.
Well, you can't.
Actually, Donald Trump said that just a short time ago.
Remember?
He got into a little bit of dust up.
With the governor of Maine?
This was something.
The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way, that's good.
But I understand Maine.
Is Maine here, the governor of Maine?
Oh boy.
Are you not going to comply with it?
I'm complying with state and federal laws.
Well, we are the federal law.
Indeed, you are.
You better do it.
You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't.
And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports.
So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
Every state.
Good, I'll see you in court.
I look forward to that.
That should be a real easy one.
And enjoy your life after governor because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.
Ooh, Trump really knows how to go for the jugular.
Does he not?
Well, he's right.
I mean, I'm telling you, this is not a winning issue.
I'm not sure what Maine is thinking, but Pam Bondi is like, you can't do it, right?
Okay, there's a lot and you're in violation.
So she's suing them civilly.
Here we go.
Today, the Department of Justice is announcing a civil lawsuit against the Maine Department of Education.
The state of Maine is discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women's sports.
Pretty basic stuff.
This is a violation of Title IX.
The Department of Justice will not sit by when women are discriminated against in sports.
This is about sports.
This is also about these young women's personal safety.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because, you know, as a young woman, if you're playing soccer against somebody who is a biological male, well, I mean, soccer is rough enough as it is.
Now you're just layering on a whole other set of roughness, right?
It's really not fair.
Not to mention the idea that somehow you might lose an opportunity to get first place in some kind of race because somebody else decides to come along that can't, you know, they can't even see first base.
Like they're never even going to get close to it, right?
If they compete as a biological male.
But no, you're going to suddenly allow them to compete against the biological females.
Like, what are you doing, guys?
Like, you know, come on.
You're supposed to be for women, are you not?
And yet, you're not.
You're not for women at all.
So this got presented to the AG of Maine today on CNN.
And here's his response, which is basically, you know, sorry, this is our position.
This is what we believe in.
I don't want my blood to boil too much.
So, but we'll check in on this here.
What do you say to parents who are concerned? about this issue with their own kids.
There's a lot of parents out there who argue with anecdotal cases that their children have been at risk or injured in certain cases competing alongside transgender athletes.
There's also, for example, a pole vaulter who had competed unsuccessfully in Maine against boys a few years ago.
They transitioned.
They later won a state championship when competing against girls.
There's concerns among parents about competitive advantages there.
What do you say to those folks?
I don't give a rant.
I'll throw a couple of things.
First, Title IX, the Maine Human Rights Act, they're not designed in order to create an opportunity to win.
They're designed to create an opportunity to fully appreciate engagement in sports, in particular, no discrimination based on sex.
And so understanding that parents may have concerns, I guess what I'd offer is there have been trans students who have been participating for years in school sports without there being any issue.
There has been this raising of a specter that there may be some safety concern, the specter that there may be some harms, but they're really, other than pointing to, you know, a student winning over some other student, there hasn't been any sort of evidence to support that the participation of trans girls in girls sports here in Maine has caused the problems that are being alleged.
But let me also get to something else, right, which is Maine is going to follow the law.
We don't get to make the law up.
We don't get to decide when we're going to follow the law.
Title IX and the Maine Human Rights Act provide what law it is that Maine has to follow, and we believe that we are following the law by allowing trans girls to participate in sports.
So if parents are concerned about that, if there are parents that think we should discriminate against trans girls, they need to go to Congress, they need to go to the legislature to see about having those laws changed.
Until those laws are, we are confident that Title IX and the Maine Human Rights Act supports what's happening.
And again, it's been that way for years, but now that it's an issue that the president believes he can win on, distracting from all of the other problems that his administration is creating.
That's why I think it's being raised to such the level that it is now.
Actually, I think one of the reasons it's been raised to such the level it is now is because for whatever reason, with all this pronoun nonsense and all this need to transition and the sort of movement surrounding the transition space has caused a lot of confused kids to transition.
Okay, like this has become a thing.
You just look at the numbers.
I mean, a couple of years ago, it was like 0.00001.
And now all of a sudden, those numbers have escalated massively.
And you get a lot of people that are confused about themselves, going through hard times in their life.
And suddenly this becomes the solution, the magic bullet.
Oh, you're just the wrong gender.
There you go.
Oh, and if you're a biological boy, you might just actually win those races that you couldn't win before.
I mean, I'm sorry.
I'm just going to call it like it is.
You saw the thing out in Portland recently, or was it in Washington?
My gosh.
I mean, that biological male competing with biological females, just blowing through, winning the race handily.
Handily, no problem.
And yet, never being able to perform like that when racing against boys.
So, I'm sort of just disgusted.
That was a giant FU from the AG of Maine.
That's what that was.
They got their heads up there.
You know what's when it comes to this stuff.
You know what?
It's not right.
It's not fair.
And is anybody going to stand up for girls?
I mean, think about what Lakin Riley went through, for goodness sakes.
I mean, not only the humiliation of having to have some biological man win.
the race, but for goodness sakes, you're going to make her change in front of the biologically born male.
And then you're going to put the biologically born male as sports athlete, woman of the year.
It's mind-blowing.
It's mind-blowing.
And if somebody doesn't actually address this and stand up for it, what happens to girls in this entire process?
I'll tell you, the liberal UK just came out today, moments ago, and you had them ruling on the definition of female.
And basically, what they said was a woman that was born a woman is a woman.
Okay.
And like, that's not disputable.
It's really sort of crazy how they try and gaslight you.
Okay.
You know, you get all the female parts, but you're not really a female.
I'm thinking about that Apple emoji.
The pregnant male, give me a break.
All right, anyway, this is what they said there at the court in the UK.
Basically, they were trying to come to terms with the word woman and how you would define a woman.
Basically, do those terms refer to biological woman or biological sex?
And is a woman to be interpreted as extending to a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate?
And what they said was, by that, I mean a person. born male who now possesses a gender recognition certificate amending her gender to female and sex to be interpreted as including what I will refer to as a certification sex.
The unanimous decision, this is the important part, okay, the unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to, drumroll please, boom, a biological woman and a biological sex.
Okay, like why, why, why must they complicate it?
Democrat Label Critique00:07:40
I'll tell you, if they were smart, they wouldn't.
You know who knows this?
One James Carville, who just told all those crazy progressives to take their pronouns and shove it.
Can work together on pronoun politics.
He said we cannot.
I don't, but I think that you're not, this election did not teach you how damaging that is.
I don't think there's anything that I can tell you.
And you say this guy is stuck in another century, not another decade, and he represents nothing to do with the future of our movement.
I can accept that.
You're not really going to hurt my feelings.
So, maybe we could have a kind of amical split here.
And we go to post in 2026 because you don't ever run, they never run against a Republican.
All they do is run against other Democrats.
Okay.
I don't quite understand why you're so anxious to have the word Democrat in the description of what you do.
But maybe we can have an amical split here.
And you go your way, and we go our way.
And after the election, we come together and see how much common ground we can find.
Yeah, well, good luck because AOC increasingly seems to be the leader of that party.
And you guys, I get it.
Like the Democrats are up a creek without a paddle because they're splintering their own party.
You get the AOC nutjobs who are like, okay, pronoun city.
And then you have people that may have been embraced a bit by the MAGA movement because you think of sort of blue collar workers that were sort of the lifeblood of the Democrat Party.
And they migrated over to Donald Trump because they wanted somebody who's going to look out for the American economy.
I mean, we've been dealing with crazy inflation, this, that, and the other.
And yet this woman is the one who so many Democrats, I say it's good.
You know what?
It's good.
Let them do this all day long because if that's all you have to fight up against, you're in a good, good place if you're part of the MAGA camp because this woman represents absolutely the opposite.
And yet she's making money hand over fist in her political war chest.
So you've got to wonder what are her ultimate opportunities?
What is her real?
Destiny, you've got a new poll out that says most Democrats see her as the head of the party, even though, well, you know, this congressman doesn't.
And so, who would you say is the leader of the Democratic Party right now?
Well, the leader in the House of Representatives is Hakeem Jeffries, and he will be the next Speaker of the House.
He's earned the voice, though, of the Democratic Party.
Like, is that who the Democrats should be rallying around, pushing forward?
That's who should be driving the message.
Well, I think we've got a whole new generation of talent, people who are speaking out on economic issues.
I gave a speech in Cleveland on economic patriotism, our vision of how we're going to bring prosperity and manufacturing back around the country.
But the most urgent issue is to stand up against the attacks on the rule of law, on the Constitution, on universities, and then to make sure that we elect Hakeem Jeffery Speaker of the House so we have one check on Donald Trump's unconstitutional actions.
Do you think in terms of just political strategy, obviously you all have a lot of priorities, I hear you, about what you're trying to do.
But in terms of political strategy, is that step one, getting the House back in the midterms?
I think step one is to stand up for the Constitution.
We have people in this country who are getting knocks on doors from police, who are not getting due process, some of them deported, some of them deported to an El Salvador prison where they're potentially being tortured.
And that needs to stop.
You have the Supreme Court nine to zero saying that this is unconstitutional, that the Trump administration needs to facilitate the return.
This is a huge crisis.
I think every Democrat is.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
I mean, you just said it yourself, Mo.
You just said it.
They said nine zero.
I mean, this is not even debatable.
And you got some liberals on there too, nine zero, that he does have the authority and ability to do this.
Because, like I said, the federal government has all the power, right?
We've been talking about Alina Hava going after.
The New Jersey governor.
I mean, she's like, look, we're not having it.
Here's the warning for you, buddy.
You cannot stand in the way of the federal government when it comes to these deportations.
This is the federal government's job.
New Jersey governor Phil Murphy has ordered local police in the state to stop cooperating with immigration officials.
Now, we did reach out to the governor's office for a comment, but shockingly, we've yet to hear back.
Now, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Hava, is here with more.
Is that true?
Do you have proof of that?
Have you heard that to be true?
Let me give you a very brief summary of what we do know.
We know that the governor has on his website currently do's and don'ts for his local state of law enforcement.
Those do's and don'ts instruct them not to cooperate with illegal immigrants who have administrative warrants that have been issued by the court after due process saying that they are no longer welcome here.
They have gone through the court system.
They are to be deported.
It is instructing them to go against our federal rules, our executive orders.
And I am unfortunately going to announce on your show tonight, Sean, and I want it to be a warning for everybody that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Governor Murphy, to open an investigation into Attorney General Platkin, who has also instructed the state police not to assist any of our federal agencies, and they list our federal agencies that are under my direction the FBI, the DEA, all these individuals that are trying to clean up.
Our streets in New Jersey not to cooperate.
That will no longer stand.
Pam Bobby has it.
I don't get it.
Like, how can you even say that?
We're not going to cooperate with federal law enforcement because we have our own rules here in our own little state.
Well, you know what?
You belong to the United States of America, okay?
Like, this is one unit.
We're one economic and political unit.
And when it comes to the border, I don't know how many times I have to say this.
Like, it's sort of mind blowing to me that they're making this their issue.
when it comes to the board of the federal government has the responsibility and the power, which is exactly why Governor Abbott down in Texas, when he wanted the wall to go back up and Biden's like, no, no, no, we're getting rid of the wall.
He had not a leg to stand on because the federal government had the power to tear down that wall, as crazy as it sounded.
I mean, I was like, Texas, I'm with it.
You want to get the heck out of there?
Like you might want to.
I could see the succession happening because they were so frustrated.
Well, if you're New Jersey, it's a little harder.
If you're New York, it's a little harder.
You know, I mean, unless maybe you want to join Canada.
Maine could join Canada.
What do you think, guys?
I think they'd be perfect for Canada.
You know, I like Maine.
It's a beautiful state, but they may have more in common with Canada at this point.
This is so silly.
It really is.
Like they're making something out of something that they shouldn't be making anything out of because it used to be that there was a place in time we could all agree on this stuff.
Fed Independence Concerns00:07:31
And now they have just driven this wedge because it's about one thing and one thing only, right?
We hate Trump.
That's it.
They hate Donald Trump no matter what.
So much so that, you know, when I look at the markets right now and I see all this crazy volatility and you had a market that really, really sold off today.
I mean, look, I, interestingly, I bought a couple of things.
I bought some gold because I, and actually went up today that I like sort of broke my rule.
I usually buy it when it goes down, but I understand there are a lot of concerns and we'll talk about that.
And it's driving some of the gold prices.
Now, it Three but gain of 3.6 percent today, but I also went in and I bought some more on the Nasdaq when it was down more than four percent.
It actually closed down the day, down three percent, SP 500 down more than two percent, two and a quarter, and then you had the Dow almost down two percent.
There is a lot of volatility right now.
I mean, I think that the trading houses they must be making money on their spreads, right?
Because they're very busy.
There's a lot of activity going on, you have a lot of volatility, but today a lot of this downside was being driven.
By what the Federal Reserve had to say.
And, you know, look, I'll also just point out it's not just the Federal Reserve, it's also what's going on vis a vis Nvidia and it not being able to sell to China, et cetera, and just concerns about tariffs in general, which have been driving gold prices higher and higher.
I mean, 3.6% gain on gold today, and you have many analysts coming out and predicting even higher levels.
In fact, I looked at the Goldman Sachs report, they're forecasting $4,000 on gold by next spring.
And you have UBS looking at $3,500 by year end.
I got to tell you, if you see many more days like this, like today, you could be at $3,500 long before that.
Now, I'm not, you know, look, I don't have a crystal ball, but I do sort of get which way the wind blows.
And I think that there are a lot of fundamental reasons why people are migrating to gold.
One could just be the reality that the US dollar is going to be depreciated in this environment.
So then if gold is priced in dollars, right, you're going to, need more dollars to buy the gold.
So it's being used as a hedge on currency.
I have a trip coming up this summer to Ireland.
And so I actually am hedging the euro because I'm like, well, you know, I thought the trip was going to be one to one and it could be one to 1.5 or 1.6 when it's all said and done.
I've got the euro going up on me.
And look, it's not entirely bad if our currency gets deflated a little bit in the near term with the reality being we will be able to offset some of those tariffs and sell more things overseas.
If we have a depreciated dollar.
So, you know, there's kind of like a yin yang to all this stuff.
And I get that it's complicated, which is why I encourage you to go look at my.
This is mine.
This is my baby.
I started it with my dear friend, Rob Horton, who's actually in Japan right now as we are negotiating.
He's not doing the negotiations, but he is talking to a lot of fund managers over there and getting a lay of the land.
He's in Japan as we speak.
They are our biggest, one of our very biggest trading partners.
They're one of the very biggest purchasers of US treasuries.
So, Japan is important in all of this.
But again, today we got first news that Nvidia cannot sell their chips in China.
And part of that is retaliation.
Part of it may be, you know, we want to make sure that we own that AI future and we don't want whatever China's going to do to take that away from us.
And so this created a little bit of a headwind, if you would, this morning.
And then you had Powell out there kind of saying, one, that, you know, he really wouldn't be doing anything.
There would be no Fed coming to the rescue.
Now, maybe he has to say that.
Because let's face it, the Fed always comes to the rescue.
It's one of those things that, you know, back in March 2020, I'm like, okay, I realize you're all going crazy.
Markets off 2,000 points.
But, like, let's be realistic here.
The Fed is probably going to swoop in and print money because the Fed loves to print money.
Now they get Donald Trump in there and they may be annoyed with Donald Trump and they may say, oh, you know, Trump, he created this mess.
So we're going to let him live with it.
Well, you don't want to do that, right?
If you're Powell, because then you will go down in history as just being kind of petty.
And If he's a petty person, then he would not do the right thing for the economy because of Donald Trump.
Let's hope he's not a petty person because, well, I think history will judge him very poorly.
But he's sort of saying, look, we're so independent.
We're not going to be muscled by the president or even Scott Besant, who's basically making a list as we speak of the replacements for Powell for when his term is up.
Here he is speaking at the Chicago Economic Board today.
Club.
Turn to Fed independence.
You've reiterated that you intend to stay in office until the end of your term, and that certainly reassured many in financial markets.
What are the levers the government or the legislature have to pressure the Fed?
And should one worry about threats to the Fed's independence once you're gone?
So, our independence is a matter of law.
Congress has, in our statute, we're not removable except for cause.
We serve very long terms.
Seemingly endless terms.
So we're protected in the law.
So, you know, Congress could change that law, but I don't think there's any danger of that.
Fed independence has pretty broad support across both political parties and in both sides of the Hill.
So I think that's not a problem.
There's a Supreme Court case, people will have read probably in today's journal, at which the Supreme Court may decide whether independent agencies generally. whether their authorizing laws can contain a provision that prevents the president from firing members of a commission other than for cause.
And that's a case that people are talking about a lot.
I don't think that that decision will apply to the Fed, but I don't know.
But it's a situation that we're monitoring carefully.
Generally speaking, Fed independence is very widely understood and supported in Washington, in Congress where it really matters.
And, you know, the point is we can make our decisions, and we will only make our decisions Based on our best thinking, based on our best analysis of the data about what is the way to achieve our dual mandate goals as we can to best serve the American people.
That's the only thing we're ever going to do.
We're never going to be influenced by any political pressure.
People can say whatever they want, that's fine, that's not a problem.
But we will do what we do strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.
Okay, big applause.
So the other big thing that he said, and take that however you want in terms of independence, maybe that's good.
Maybe he's telling you he's totally apolitical.
And when push comes to shove, if the Fed has to jump in, he would.
But there was something else that was said.
And it said whether or not, the question was, could the central bank find itself in a dilemma between controlling inflation and supporting economic growth?
And he said, and I quote, if that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is.
Portfolio Hedging Strategy00:02:29
from each goal and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.
So again, he's like data dependent, data dependent.
And the data, by the way, shows that inflation has been coming down.
It's just that it's not really real time data enough.
I've actually looked at some real time data that does suggest some weakening in the economy vis-a-vis, believe it or not, Las Vegas bookings.
Like you look at the real time data in Las Vegas bookings, it tells you a lot.
And those started to soften actually in March, before we got into Liberation Day tariffs etc.
There are some people that also believe Ray Dalio has come out and talked about this at Bridgewater Associates that there are sort of structural reasons that you are probably going to see some downside in the markets because things had gotten so frothy and so heady.
I mean look, I love the Ai revolution, I think there's a ton of opportunity there and it's going to create economies of scale that will be very beneficial in the future.
But what happens in the near term?
Right, I think that's where you got to sort of hedge it out and play it out, and it's one of the reasons why we recommend gold In our model portfolios at 76 Research.
It's the reason why we've been saying all along, look at gold.
By the way, we said look at Bitcoin too, because Bitcoin has actually stabilized throughout all of this, which is rather interesting and amazing.
But what we kind of predicted might happen.
If you're interested in investing in gold, which I encourage you to do, my friends over at American Heart for Gold, one of the sponsors here on the show, we're fully independent, but we need those sponsors, right?
We love our sponsors.
And so I encourage you to take a look at American Heart for Gold.
I'm going to give you the handle, trishlovesgold.com.
So you cannot forget that, right?
It's pretty easy to remember.
Trishlovesgold.com.
I'm actually going to put it up on the screen.
And these guys will really help you.
They'll really help you just try and figure out what you want to be doing in this environment because I know it's tricky, et cetera.
But let me just put that right there.
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The best part about this, guys, is you get up to $15,000 in free silver.
with qualifying offers.
So just a great, I was really happy about that when we, I've always loved gold, by the way, like I've been talking about gold forever, like long before I ever had a sponsor for gold.
So this is just kind of fortuitous.
But the great thing about these guys is that you get up to $15,000 in free silver.
So that's a total plus, right?
So check them out.
They'll really help you think through all of this right now.
And I get it.
Domestic Spending Issues00:07:44
There's a lot to think through.
I want to go back to Powell for a moment because he also spoke there in Chicago.
on debt.
And he said something that kind of surprised me.
Basically, he's sort of like shuffling it off.
He's like, ah, you know, like we can handle it, that it's not too crazy.
I mean, I kind of beg to differ.
I think we have a lot of debt, and I'd like to see that decline.
But anyway, here's Jerome.
You mentioned amongst the issues you were focused on was the U.S. fiscal situation.
Well, clearly, U.S. sovereign debt continues to rise.
And what are your thoughts on the longer-term implications for interest rates and economic stability?
How much further can we go in terms of national debt before we cross a line that might be unsustainable in the long term?
So the U.S. federal debt is on an unsustainable path.
It's not at an unsustainable level, and no one really knows how much further we can go.
Other countries over time have gone much farther, but we're now running very large deficits at full employment, and this is a situation that we very much need to address.
Sooner or later, we'll have to, and sooner is better than later.
In terms of, if I can say from my time working on these issues, it's not the Fed's issue, but if you look at a pie chart of federal spending, the biggest parts and the parts that are growing are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and now interest payments.
And so that's really where the work has to be done.
And those are issues that can only be touched on a bipartisan basis.
Neither party can.
Figure out what to do without both parties being at the table.
So that's critical.
All of domestic discretionary spending, which is essentially where 100% of the conversation is, is small as a percentage of federal spending and is declining.
It's already declining as a percentage of federal spending.
So when people are focusing on cutting domestic spending, they're not actually working on the problem.
Domestic discretionary spending is already going down.
I like to make that point because so much of the dialogue. that the politicians offer is about domestic discretionary spending, which is not the issue.
Not the issue.
Not the issue.
So that's sort of surprising because as I understood it, consumer spending was like 66% of the economy.
But who am I to argue with Powell except for the fact that I was completely right and he way overprinted and I was pounding the table saying this is absolutely insane in August of 2020 saying, for goodness sakes, guys, you can't have both fiscal and monetary stimulus.
You're going to have massive inflation.
Now, who was right?
Yours truly.
Just saying.
Okay, so Paul, before you completely dismiss domestic spending, I'm just going to tell you it's like 66% of the overall economy.
We need domestic spending.
We need the U.S. consumer to be vibrant and healthy and well.
So the other thing that he said that kind of just sort of caused everyone to think twice, if you would, was basically that he's not giving you any sense of what they're going to do at the next meeting.
I think it's like May 7th.
I would not be surprised.
I'm just going to throw this out there.
I would not be surprised.
And this might be the only point in time where I actually think that they're doing the right thing by cutting.
Like I'd love to see 25 basis points.
I really would.
And normally, you know me, I'm like, don't cut, don't cut, don't cut because you don't want to run the risk of inflation.
But these guys are always a day late and a dollar short.
They always try and make up things after the fact.
And in this particular case, you might want to be looking at things like, oh, I don't know, those Vegas bookings that I've been tracking, right?
And they've been declining since late March, suggesting that you are looking at some headwinds.
Now, again, as an investor, like you got to think about this in two spaces.
You've got to think about, can I get some value?
Can I get some bargains?
I should probably keep dollar cost averaging in because you know what?
We're not going to be hanging out in the doldrums forever.
I wouldn't bet against the U.S. long term, but you also might want to be thinking about, hey, you know, how do I hedge this, et cetera?
And so that's when cash is king.
That's when treasuries matter.
And that's when gold, of course, comes into play.
And I'm just blown away by the 3.6% increase in gold.
Again, book club last night.
You know, when the moms are getting together and all of a sudden gold comes up, you know, like, you know, that should maybe that tells us it's a top.
It was up 3.6% today.
I'm just amazed.
I'm absolutely amazed.
But here's the thing we don't really know where all this trade is heading other than hopefully we'll start to get some better deals.
Here's Scott Besson, our Treasury Secretary, talking about the need for those better deals and how he is now involved, which, by the way, is a good thing because he's very smart.
He's very sophisticated.
I mean, heck, the guy broke the Bank of England, did he not, with Duncan Miller back in the day?
Like, he gets this stuff.
So, you want somebody who's really, really smart, kind of manning the ship, so to speak.
Here we go.
So, less than two weeks ago, you and I were talking outside of the White House after what the president called Liberation Day.
And you said you weren't part of the negotiations.
Now you're leading them.
What's changed in these past 12 days?
No, no, no.
What I said was I didn't construct the actual.
Tariff rates.
The tariff rates.
I've always been part of the tariff policy.
I had been focusing on tax.
Maybe you want to talk about that later.
That's going very well.
And now with the trade negotiations, I'm going to be part of that.
And the president has hit a 90 day pause button, and we are moving quickly with many of our most important trading partners.
So we had Vietnam in last week.
We had Japanese in on Wednesday, South Korea next week.
So it's going to move fast.
But the important thing for your viewers to know is we're setting up a process and we are going to run that process.
It's going to be orderly.
And at the end of the day, especially for the most important trading partners, the president's going to be involved.
Okay.
So the president's going to be involved.
I think, like, look, at the end of the day, this is his baby, but you've got some smart people around him, Lutnick.
You know, okay, he's pretty smart.
I mean, you know, he ran a big bond house, and you don't get there from scratch without figuring out a few things along the way.
And Besson, I mean, you don't break the Bank of England without understanding how currencies work, shall we say.
Um, so I think, in the end, like everything's going to be fine, but it doesn't change the fact that it's stressful in the interim, right?
I get that, I get that, I get that, which is why, again, I just say, let us be a resource for you.
You can.
You can swing a dollar a month.
Okay, it's just a dollar a month for the first two months and then it goes to 995 a month, but it's worth it.
Right, because you want to be sort of on top of all this and I can promise you we are totally authentic.
It's my company.
I started with my friend and we, you know he's worked on Wall Street for decades and run billions of dollars and you know me, i've been on the front lines of all these financial crises and I know a lot about how they play out and how the media, by the way, has a role in all this too, and selling begets more selling and you get this pessimism and it kind of feeds off each other and then That's, you know, I'm not discounting it because I feel it too, guys.
Like, I get it.
Equity Market Caution00:02:10
It's stressful.
And especially if you want to retire next year or in a couple of years, you're sitting here going, wait a second.
And it's why it's very important as you get older, you want to look at portfolios if you're in the equity market, similar to what we have, say, in our income builder portfolio, because we're saying, hey, all right, you know what?
You want to get some kind of dividend income in your older years, right?
And the inflation protection is sort of a similar dividend play.
And so, So those are opportunities within the equity markets to be a little bit more cautious.
And I think that's important right now as we figure out just exactly where we're heading.
Now, as I said, like it will probably, I mean, hopefully, for goodness sakes, because I'm not about to bet against America.
Oops, this is markets down.
We've got the wrong arrow, unfortunately, down on Nvidia.
And you may see some of this volatility here continue as we get sort of lumpy news coming out on these trade deals.
And it's going to be a lot of news.
So when you look at the VIX.
Do you guys know the fear index, the volatility index?
Let me see where that one was today.
Look, we had it at 60 shortly after Liberation Day came out.
And that was a big deal.
I mean, when you start seeing the VIX hanging out at 60, I'm comforted that it was only at 32 today.
You know, still up 8% from the day before, but 32 on the CBOE volatility index is at least, you know, not 60 or say 80 something like it was back in March 2020.
All this stuff will eventually find its way of working out.
But again, it doesn't change the concern in the near term.
And I think that there's a lot of concern out there.
So again, check me out at 76research.com.
We have lots of notes coming your way.
And it's important right now.
It's important to understand what you're doing and what your future is as we watch all the political action going on.
It's just like, I'll call it that.
I mean, I know you guys love, love, love President Trump, his policies, Doge.
I'm looking at this.
Don Backeye, are you debating my height?
5'2", I'm definitely not 5'2, more like 5'7.
Future Political Outlook00:02:50
And then with heels.
Anyway, I appreciate, oh my gosh, Don, you knew it.
Ha ha.
I'm looking at the comments.
I'm adding you in here.
Don knows, Don knows Trish's height.
Trish is, oops, I lost it.
Okay, I don't know.
Maybe he's met me in person at one point.
But I am 5'7.
That's correct.
Definitely not 5'2.
Although my husband's like super tall, he's like 6'7.
I feel sometimes like I'm 5'2 because he's really tall.
But anyway, I wear high heels for a reason.
It's great to have you.
I get it, Joseph.
It feels like nobody's retiring in the working class.
I hear you.
Again, you know, that's what the income builder portfolio is because even if you're still working, you want to have some extra income coming in so you're not completely dependent on that, Joseph.
And I think that in some ways, I get it.
Nobody's retiring.
I hope I never retire.
You know, I could have gone and retired after I was done with Fox and said to heck with it.
And, you know, who needs this?
And I said, I need this.
I need to have the engagement from an intellectual standpoint and from a viewer standpoint.
And I need to have the opportunity to do something totally new and totally different that is really just all me.
Right.
Because all of these networks, my gosh, I mean.
I've worked at enough of them and the networks are tricky in that there's always somebody in charge.
And I thought, if I have the opportunity to totally just speak my mind all day long, which is what I do at my financial research company, which is what I do here, then that is a game changer.
And I'm doing it for me.
Now, not everybody has the luxury of that, right?
I get it.
You know, you're working at Walmart or a factory or anything, like it's not necessarily because you want to.
And, you know, look, is it because I want to?
Is that why I work?
I don't know.
I've been working since I was 12.
I don't really know how not to work.
My kids say that to me all the time.
I mean, you guys saw me.
I was traveling.
I was with my family.
And guess what?
I was still here.
I was still working.
Every place that I go, I'm still working.
I'm interviewing people on the street.
I want to know what you are thinking in the here and now.
I was in Italy.
I couldn't believe the enthusiasm.
This is over the new year for none other than Donald Trump and all that the U.S. stood to accomplish.
And I'm telling you, Italy wants to be part of that.
We got Maloney here in D.C. I'm not here in D.C., but here on this side of the pond, shall we say, this week.
So it will be interesting to see whether she can soften the negotiations at all with Donald Trump.
Right now, the European negotiations are not looking so hot, but Maloney could be the game changer.
We shall see.
I will be back here with you again tomorrow with a full report.