Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening. I'm Tim Wildmon with Ed Vitagliano, Wesley Wildmon, and Chris Woodward joins us now. Good morning, Chris.
Chris: Hello. How are you doing, brother? Happy to be here.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley, how many days until deer hunting season starts?
Wesley Wildmon: Archery season has been over for ten days.
Tim Wildmon: Wait, archery? What did you say?
Wesley Wildmon: October 1st.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Wesley Wildmon: October 1st is when it opened for archery, and then rifle season will open around Thanksgiving.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Wesley Wildmon: In the hunting community, people prefer to call it bow season.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, archery.
Wesley Wildmon: In Mississippi, they have a primitive weapons season.
Tim Wildmon: You want me to define that?
Wesley Wildmon: Yeah, I do. What do you get?
Tim Wildmon: Primitive weapon. What is that?
Wesley Wildmon: Exactly. It would include everything other than a rifle.
Tim Wildmon: So it would be something like a crossbow?
Wesley Wildmon: Crossbow. They have a certain type of tomahawk or a tomahawk.
Chris: Yes, a spear.
Tim Wildmon: People do not want to spear deer.
Chris: Do they really have people out there with spears?
Wesley Wildmon: No, they do.
Chris: Yeah, they do.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, yeah. I never got into it.
Wesley Wildmon: Don't forget muzzleloader. That's what I was trying to say.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, yeah, I've seen that one. Shotguns, things like that.
Bert Harper: Don't forget that this weekend starts youth weekend.
Tim Wildmon: That's right.
Bert Harper: Bennett and I will be going at some point this week.
Wesley Wildmon: Kids 12 and under?
Bert Harper: No, I think it's 16 and under.
Tim Wildmon: So deer hunting is limited to that age?
Bert Harper: They give the youth two weekends, basically.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I know deer hunting season is about to start, right around the corner. All right, you're listening to Today's Issues. Chris, have you got any breaking news for us?
Chris: I do. While you were on the previous hour with Fred Jackson, news outlets, including Fox News, broke in to say that Mike Johnson will not be running for House Minority Leader in this new Congress that takes office next January. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan have thrown their hats into the ring. Jordan will sell his experience as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and all his work in investigations.
Tim Wildmon: I think Jim Jordan is going to sell his soul.
Chris: Not yet.
Tim Wildmon: But you're saying he's not selling his soul?
Chris: No. He's basically going to say, "Hey, I've run the House Judiciary Committee, which is a big thing for Republicans. Vote for me as House Minority Leader." Steve Scalise has also held some high-ranking positions in the House.
Tim Wildmon: He's been number two and number three. He's from Louisiana, Steve Scalise.
Tim Wildmon: So why isn't Mike Johnson running?
Chris: They did not say that in the initial reports from Fox. It could just be that this loss occurred under his leadership.
Tim Wildmon: Sometimes that's when you kind of fall on your sword.
Chris: In politics, you're the leader, so you're seen as responsible.
Tim Wildmon: Mike Johnson is one of us, by the way. He's a godly man and a conservative.
Chris: He is. He's a Christian and loves the Lord, but he predicted that the Republicans would hold the House.
Tim Wildmon: That was happy talk.
Chris: That was like when the coach tells the team, "Get out there. Anybody can win on any given day."
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Give 110 percent.
Chris: That's what he was doing. "We can beat these guys."
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Chris: Even when you know, "No, we're playing Alabama. We're about to get our tails kicked."
Tim Wildmon: I don't know. I guess that was the reason. That's why you wonder. In the world of sports and the world of politics, people are affected by this, and you can never really trust everything everybody says all the time because they have to spin. They have to try to convince people. They don't want to depress voters.
Chris: I spin at my house. When my wife says, "The trash needs to go out," while I'm watching a game, I'll say, "Yeah, I'll do it at halftime." I spin.
Tim Wildmon: You spin.
Chris: We all spin.
Tim Wildmon: "I'm going to put that out at halftime." She walks out of the room, and you go to halftime of the next game.
Chris: Yes, right.
Tim Wildmon: So Fox is reporting that Mike Johnson will not run?
Chris: That is correct.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, so it's going to be a North versus South battle for House Minority Leadership between the guy from Ohio and the guy from Louisiana, and possibly somebody else.
Chris: Mike Johnson is from Louisiana. Those two guys are both popular, I think, within their own caucuses.
Tim Wildmon: But they are going to have small numbers to work with compared to the Democrats in the House right now.
Chris: They sure will, if things stay the same.
Tim Wildmon: I saw a breaking news statement on CNN, so I looked it up. Donald Trump Jr. fully endorsed Vice President J.D. Vance's assessment that the Iran war was the primary reason for the Republican Party's historic midterm losses.
Wesley Wildmon: That's what I said, too.
Tim Wildmon: No, he framed the Iran war as number one.
Wesley Wildmon: Yes, absolutely.
Tim Wildmon: The important thing is that Trump Jr. said it.
Chris: He responded to Vance's post saying that the reason we lost was the war. Trump Jr. shared J.D. Vance's post with the caption, "Every word of this."
Tim Wildmon: So you're telling me J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. are against Donald Trump?
Chris: I think this says Donald Trump admitted that the war was part of the defeat, but J.D. Vance says it was the reason.
Wesley Wildmon: No, they're not against Trump.
Tim Wildmon: They're not against Trump?
Wesley Wildmon: They might be interpreted that way.
Tim Wildmon: That's a division in the camp is what I'm saying. But go ahead.
Wesley Wildmon: No, it's not against Trump. It's a reflection after last night, trying to assess why we lost, and their conclusion is the war. That does not mean they were opposed to going to war with Iran at the time, with the information they had.
However, I still support it. I was okay with going to war, with bombing Iran, taking out their leaders, and having a game plan to put them back 15 or 20 years. However, we are starting to see the state of our involvement. We're nine months in and still talking about it, and there is no plan to get out.
Tim Wildmon: With all that said, that's an honest assessment, and that's the most hopeful thing.
Wesley Wildmon: My question would be, whose job is it in the United States government to have a plan to get out?
Tim Wildmon: It would start with the secretary of war presenting it and saying, "Here's the plan."
Chris: I would think so.
Wesley Wildmon: Maybe Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, would have it rolled in there, but ultimately it would be the president. He's commander in chief.
Chris: Nobody can do anything without the president of the United States calling the shots on the military.
Wesley Wildmon: Anything of a substantial nature having to do with Iran would depend on what President Trump's view is. Right now, President Trump's view is to stay the course, whatever the course is.
Tim Wildmon: But what J.D. Vance and his own son are saying is that staying the course is killing us.
Wesley Wildmon: For the sake of Republicans in 2028, this is what needs to happen by Thanksgiving. This needs to be all done.
Tim Wildmon: Next week?
Wesley Wildmon: Two weeks from now.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon: There needs to be a major announcement by President Trump that military operations are ending.
Chris: He does not even have to make the announcement himself. He could get somebody else, like Marco Rubio, to make the announcement.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, we'll see whether that happens. I said back in the spring that it needed to be wrapped up by Memorial Day or it was going to impact the election in November, and that's exactly what happened.
Tim Wildmon: Next story, Chris.
Chris: If anybody listening to the sound of my voice is concerned about their 401(k) today as a result of the midterm elections, you have nothing to worry about, at least not right now. I say that because the stock market is doing quite well today, even though liberals have regained control of both the House and the Senate.
The Dow, for example, is up 1,490 points. The S&P is up 131, and the Nasdaq is up a lot as well. According to various people on television, one thing driving the increase is that uncertainty is gone. We are not going to worry about how the elections are going to go.
Tim Wildmon: So we have said goodbye to uncertainty.
Chris: There are also people thinking that Democrats controlling Congress might do away with the expansion of these data centers, which some Americans are concerned about. Donald Trump is not concerned because he says we need them to keep countries like China from expanding their data capabilities.
Corporations are also doing well under this Trump economy. Those three things are driving stocks up. That was a big issue last night in the knee-jerk reaction to Democrats taking the House and the Senate. People like Larry Kudlow were talking about how stocks were going to tank today. "Don't even bother looking at your 401(k)." But they are not.
Tim Wildmon: At least not right now.
Chris: We still have a couple of trading days later this week.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley was telling me that historically the stock market does well under a divided government. I don't know why exactly. Maybe investors feel like the Republicans check the Democrats and the Democrats check the Republicans from excesses.
Chris: I think that's right.
Tim Wildmon: Sometimes the best thing for the economy is the government doing nothing because they will not pass regulations and they will not raise taxes. There is not going to be much done right now because Trump has veto power, and I think corporations like that.
Chris: Companies like that.
Tim Wildmon: If we have to sit here today, I want to ask you guys: In January, in just a couple of months, what two names on the Democratic side and the Republican side are we going to be talking about as leading presidential candidates?
I'll throw out two right now: Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom.
Chris: I would also say Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.
Tim Wildmon: I don't think Rahm Emanuel is going to drive many people to be excited.
Chris: But he is going to run. I think he is going to run.
Tim Wildmon: Nobody is going to announce until after this.
Chris: Rahm was actually trying to campaign this morning on Fox, where he was already throwing out ideas about what Democrats should do. He has to get ahead of the curve and get ahead of some of the better-known candidates.
Tim Wildmon: That's a good thing. James Talarico can't run.
Chris: He could. Obama was only a couple of years into his Senate term, so there is something to be said for that. I could see people making a push for Talarico because of what he did in Texas. They might say, "He can heal America."
Tim Wildmon: I hear what you are saying, Wesley. Maybe in the future, four years from now, we may be talking about James Talarico, but I don't think he is going to be a candidate this time.
Chris: The other candidates are the ones who are going to be talked about.
Tim Wildmon: The only one I disagree with you all on is Kamala Harris. I don't think she is going to make a comeback.
Wesley Wildmon: We have to hope so.
Chris: We have to hope so.
Tim Wildmon: That's interesting because if she is in the race, it is going to be hard for the white people running on the Democratic side to try to push out potentially the first black president and defeat her.
Wesley Wildmon: Plus, she is endorsed by what she has been. First of all, she's not African American. She is a woman of color.
Tim Wildmon: Your dad was Jamaican and your mom was Indian.
Wesley Wildmon: She claims to be black.
Tim Wildmon: I understand what you are saying, but nobody on the Democratic side is going to say what you just said.
Wesley Wildmon: No.
Tim Wildmon: You are right about that.
Chris: But I think there is a more practical reason why she will not emerge. She got beat, so she has the loser tag on her. She is a very bad candidate, and she speaks in word salads. Democrats are not going to sign up for that anymore.
Wesley Wildmon: I like salad.
Chris: Furthermore, I don't think she is much of an ideologue. She is a liberal, but I don't think she understands what drives some of these Democratic socialists.
Tim Wildmon: So you think the Democratic leadership will come to her and say, "Now, Gavin Newsom is a possibility"?
Chris: He has been the governor of the biggest state in the country. He is telegenic.
Wesley Wildmon: Newsom and Whitmer would be the better candidates. Whitmer would be hard to beat because she would bring Michigan into play, and you need Michigan to win the presidency.
Chris: After last night's results were announced in Georgia, people were also throwing out the name of Senator John Ossoff. Remember, he won reelection. That is a possibility.
The problem for Republicans is that once you get past Kamala Harris, who is a loser in the sense that she lost and has that tag on her, you have some pretty articulate people. Harris is the word-salad queen, but you have some articulate people, and there is a large percentage of the American people who are going to listen to the leftist message at this point. Any of the people we just named would be dangerous.
Tim Wildmon: Which ones we just named?
Chris: Gavin Newsom, Whitmer, and probably others too.
Wesley Wildmon: Shapiro.
Chris: Shapiro will not because he is Jewish.
Wesley Wildmon: That is in the party of inclusion and diversity.
Chris: He is going to be unwelcome. But articulate people are why Talarico and El-Sayed won. They were very articulate. They could dodge and deflect. Remember, El-Sayed was dodging and deflecting all kinds of questions, saying, "I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about what people are suffering under."
When you are able to do that and then put forth a message and a reason for people to go to the polls, that becomes a dangerous political combination, especially with the media behind you and all kinds of money.
Tim Wildmon: What about the Republican side? We have talked about that some before. Chris, go first.
Chris: I would say three names right now, really two. You have probably got a tie between Vance and Rubio. Then I think Governor Ron DeSantis will probably try, and he will campaign as the outsider.
Tim Wildmon: Sarah Sanders, I think, may throw her hat in there as well. She won reelection last night as governor.
Chris: I was going to say those names. I think those are the four.
Tim Wildmon: The first three you named were Rubio, Vance, and DeSantis.
Chris: DeSantis, of those three, and this would be true about Sarah Sanders, could be out there as an outsider. They could say, "I did not support going into the war in Iran, and here is what I would do."
It is going to be a little more difficult for Vance and Rubio to distance themselves from the policies of the man they supported.
Tim Wildmon: Donald Trump.
Wesley, do you think President Trump will get behind Vance because he is his vice president?
Wesley Wildmon: Vance has not said he is going to run yet. Maybe that is just posturing, but he said, "I am a procrastinator, and I have a young family. I have a lot of things to consider."
Whoever the person is, unfortunately, I don't think Trump will do what we would like, which is hand the baton off. I don't think he will do it all the way up until 2028. I think he will always be causing problems with the next person in line.
That is not the question I am concerned about. I expect that and predict that out of him. What I am most concerned about is the next person in line being willing to move on from that and call it like they see it, be honest and truthful, get the party back in line like they should, and not worry with everything they say, "Do I have Trump's approval?"
I want somebody who is doing what is best for America as a Republican candidate, not what they feel is going to be criticized by Trump.
Tim Wildmon: I am looking at RealClearPolitics.com, which Chris just pulled up. This is a survey of Republicans and Democrats.
Chris: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: This is current?
Chris: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: Just to tell people, this is what the survey says. It is a survey of Democrats and Republicans and who they wanted to be their candidate for president if it were today. Kamala Harris leads in the Democratic Party, and Newsom is second.
Chris: Buttigieg is third.
Tim Wildmon: Who else is in that mix?
Chris: There are several people. Ocasio-Cortez is at 11.8 percent, which is two points higher than John Ossoff.
Wesley Wildmon: With Ossoff, you do not get the baggage you might get with AOC.
Chris: But these names are listed without some people who may emerge. If Ossoff or Gretchen Whitmer were to announce, you would see changes because some people are going to announce and emerge on both the Republican and Democratic sides who are not on this list.
Tim Wildmon: It does list J.D. Vance number one and Marco Rubio number two, with Vance at 38 percent and Rubio at 26 percent. Donald Trump Jr. is third.
Chris: I don't know where that came from. I think it is because of his last name.
Tim Wildmon: The one thing DeSantis would have over Trump Jr. is that he could say, "I was the governor of a state that is practically a country."
Chris: Is DeSantis on the list at all?
Tim Wildmon: He is at 7.5 percent. He is listed as fourth.
Chris: I like Governor DeSantis and the job he did. He was a two-time governor of Florida and governed as an executive in a large state the way you are supposed to govern.
Tim Wildmon: A solid conservative.
Chris: Solid. He got a lot done. Remember when the bridge to Sanibel Island was wiped out and they were talking about it being out for a year or whatever? He got it back up in a few months. It was something absurd.
Tim Wildmon: But the problem is it is going to be hard for him to get out of that 7.5 percent range. He is not a dynamic candidate.
Chris: Another thing is that people defer to whoever the vice president is.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Chris: That is true for both Republicans and Democrats. It happened with Kamala Harris. They did not even have a primary, did they? They just decided over a weekend to give it to her.
Tim Wildmon: That is what I am saying. Even Obama was warning that they needed a primary because Kamala Harris was going to lose.
Chris: I remember him saying that.
Tim Wildmon: He did not say it straight out loud, but Obama was warning that Trump would beat Kamala Harris because she was a bad candidate.
Chris: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: People defer to name recognition and what a person's job is. It is not surprising that Republican voters right now are saying J.D. Vance is the guy. But they do hold Marco Rubio in high esteem.
As we have mentioned here before, I have read that Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance will not run against each other in a primary because they are good friends.
Chris: So I guess, at this point, you are just waiting on J.D. Vance to say yes or no.
Tim Wildmon: That's it.
Chris: You know what could really throw a wrench in Vance's plans? The direction Ohio seems to be going. We have all heard the age-old saying that no Republican wins the White House without Ohio.
Ohio just moved to the left yesterday with a Democratic governor-elect. They have a Democratic senator now. It voted blue.
Wesley Wildmon: I think we still need to wait to see if some of these moves are actually moves to the left or are protests.
Tim Wildmon: That's true. Florida stayed red.
Chris: South Carolina, I cannot imagine that being a trend.
Tim Wildmon: I agree with that. It is not going to be a trend. I think it was just a snapshot in time yesterday when the American public rejected Trump and said no to war, no to high gas prices, and no to the cost of living going up. They said, "Stop it."
Chris: Some of them also said, "Stop with the behavior. Quit calling Canada the 51st state. Quit saying we are going to invade Greenland. Quit dissing Israel." That is my opinion.
Tim Wildmon: Some people said, "Quit talking about people's body parts from the campaign trail."
Chris: There was some of that behavior from Trump.
Tim Wildmon: A lot of people were saying, "Let's get this one under control."
Chris: I know. I know. But when you combine all of that together, yesterday was a rejection of Trump. Maybe he can get back into the good graces of a majority of the American people, but that is up to him.
Tim Wildmon: We will see what happens. We'll see you tomorrow, everybody.
Tim Wildmon: Hey, welcome back, everybody, to Today's Issues on the American Family Radio Network. Thanks for listening. I'm Tim Wildmon with Ed Vitagliano, Wesley Wildmon, and Chris Woodward joins us now. Good morning, Chris.
Chris: Hello. How are you doing, brother? Happy to be here.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley, how many days until deer hunting season starts?
Wesley Wildmon: Archery season has been over for ten days.
Tim Wildmon: Wait, archery? What did you say?
Wesley Wildmon: October 1st.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Wesley Wildmon: October 1st is when it opened for archery, and then rifle season will open around Thanksgiving.
Tim Wildmon: Okay.
Wesley Wildmon: In the hunting community, people prefer to call it bow season.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, archery.
Wesley Wildmon: In Mississippi, they have a primitive weapons season.
Tim Wildmon: You want me to define that?
Wesley Wildmon: Yeah, I do. What do you get?
Tim Wildmon: Primitive weapon. What is that?
Wesley Wildmon: Exactly. It would include everything other than a rifle.
Tim Wildmon: So it would be something like a crossbow?
Wesley Wildmon: Crossbow. They have a certain type of tomahawk or a tomahawk.
Chris: Yes, a spear.
Tim Wildmon: People do not want to spear deer.
Chris: Do they really have people out there with spears?
Wesley Wildmon: No, they do.
Chris: Yeah, they do.
Tim Wildmon: Oh, yeah. I never got into it.
Wesley Wildmon: Don't forget muzzleloader. That's what I was trying to say.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, yeah, I've seen that one. Shotguns, things like that.
Bert Harper: Don't forget that this weekend starts youth weekend.
Tim Wildmon: That's right.
Bert Harper: Bennett and I will be going at some point this week.
Wesley Wildmon: Kids 12 and under?
Bert Harper: No, I think it's 16 and under.
Tim Wildmon: So deer hunting is limited to that age?
Bert Harper: They give the youth two weekends, basically.
Tim Wildmon: Well, I know deer hunting season is about to start, right around the corner. All right, you're listening to Today's Issues. Chris, have you got any breaking news for us?
Chris: I do. While you were on the previous hour with Fred Jackson, news outlets, including Fox News, broke in to say that Mike Johnson will not be running for House Minority Leader in this new Congress that takes office next January. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan have thrown their hats into the ring. Jordan will sell his experience as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and all his work in investigations.
Tim Wildmon: I think Jim Jordan is going to sell his soul.
Chris: Not yet.
Tim Wildmon: But you're saying he's not selling his soul?
Chris: No. He's basically going to say, "Hey, I've run the House Judiciary Committee, which is a big thing for Republicans. Vote for me as House Minority Leader." Steve Scalise has also held some high-ranking positions in the House.
Tim Wildmon: He's been number two and number three. He's from Louisiana, Steve Scalise.
Tim Wildmon: So why isn't Mike Johnson running?
Chris: They did not say that in the initial reports from Fox. It could just be that this loss occurred under his leadership.
Tim Wildmon: Sometimes that's when you kind of fall on your sword.
Chris: In politics, you're the leader, so you're seen as responsible.
Tim Wildmon: Mike Johnson is one of us, by the way. He's a godly man and a conservative.
Chris: He is. He's a Christian and loves the Lord, but he predicted that the Republicans would hold the House.
Tim Wildmon: That was happy talk.
Chris: That was like when the coach tells the team, "Get out there. Anybody can win on any given day."
Tim Wildmon: That's right. Give 110 percent.
Chris: That's what he was doing. "We can beat these guys."
Tim Wildmon: Right.
Chris: Even when you know, "No, we're playing Alabama. We're about to get our tails kicked."
Tim Wildmon: I don't know. I guess that was the reason. That's why you wonder. In the world of sports and the world of politics, people are affected by this, and you can never really trust everything everybody says all the time because they have to spin. They have to try to convince people. They don't want to depress voters.
Chris: I spin at my house. When my wife says, "The trash needs to go out," while I'm watching a game, I'll say, "Yeah, I'll do it at halftime." I spin.
Tim Wildmon: You spin.
Chris: We all spin.
Tim Wildmon: "I'm going to put that out at halftime." She walks out of the room, and you go to halftime of the next game.
Chris: Yes, right.
Tim Wildmon: So Fox is reporting that Mike Johnson will not run?
Chris: That is correct.
Tim Wildmon: Okay, so it's going to be a North versus South battle for House Minority Leadership between the guy from Ohio and the guy from Louisiana, and possibly somebody else.
Chris: Mike Johnson is from Louisiana. Those two guys are both popular, I think, within their own caucuses.
Tim Wildmon: But they are going to have small numbers to work with compared to the Democrats in the House right now.
Chris: They sure will, if things stay the same.
Tim Wildmon: I saw a breaking news statement on CNN, so I looked it up. Donald Trump Jr. fully endorsed Vice President J.D. Vance's assessment that the Iran war was the primary reason for the Republican Party's historic midterm losses.
Wesley Wildmon: That's what I said, too.
Tim Wildmon: No, he framed the Iran war as number one.
Wesley Wildmon: Yes, absolutely.
Tim Wildmon: The important thing is that Trump Jr. said it.
Chris: He responded to Vance's post saying that the reason we lost was the war. Trump Jr. shared J.D. Vance's post with the caption, "Every word of this."
Tim Wildmon: So you're telling me J.D. Vance and Donald Trump Jr. are against Donald Trump?
Chris: I think this says Donald Trump admitted that the war was part of the defeat, but J.D. Vance says it was the reason.
Wesley Wildmon: No, they're not against Trump.
Tim Wildmon: They're not against Trump?
Wesley Wildmon: They might be interpreted that way.
Tim Wildmon: That's a division in the camp is what I'm saying. But go ahead.
Wesley Wildmon: No, it's not against Trump. It's a reflection after last night, trying to assess why we lost, and their conclusion is the war. That does not mean they were opposed to going to war with Iran at the time, with the information they had.
However, I still support it. I was okay with going to war, with bombing Iran, taking out their leaders, and having a game plan to put them back 15 or 20 years. However, we are starting to see the state of our involvement. We're nine months in and still talking about it, and there is no plan to get out.
Tim Wildmon: With all that said, that's an honest assessment, and that's the most hopeful thing.
Wesley Wildmon: My question would be, whose job is it in the United States government to have a plan to get out?
Tim Wildmon: It would start with the secretary of war presenting it and saying, "Here's the plan."
Chris: I would think so.
Wesley Wildmon: Maybe Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, would have it rolled in there, but ultimately it would be the president. He's commander in chief.
Chris: Nobody can do anything without the president of the United States calling the shots on the military.
Wesley Wildmon: Anything of a substantial nature having to do with Iran would depend on what President Trump's view is. Right now, President Trump's view is to stay the course, whatever the course is.
Tim Wildmon: But what J.D. Vance and his own son are saying is that staying the course is killing us.
Wesley Wildmon: For the sake of Republicans in 2028, this is what needs to happen by Thanksgiving. This needs to be all done.
Tim Wildmon: Next week?
Wesley Wildmon: Two weeks from now.
Tim Wildmon: Yeah.
Wesley Wildmon: There needs to be a major announcement by President Trump that military operations are ending.
Chris: He does not even have to make the announcement himself. He could get somebody else, like Marco Rubio, to make the announcement.
Tim Wildmon: Anyway, we'll see whether that happens. I said back in the spring that it needed to be wrapped up by Memorial Day or it was going to impact the election in November, and that's exactly what happened.
Tim Wildmon: Next story, Chris.
Chris: If anybody listening to the sound of my voice is concerned about their 401(k) today as a result of the midterm elections, you have nothing to worry about, at least not right now. I say that because the stock market is doing quite well today, even though liberals have regained control of both the House and the Senate.
The Dow, for example, is up 1,490 points. The S&P is up 131, and the Nasdaq is up a lot as well. According to various people on television, one thing driving the increase is that uncertainty is gone. We are not going to worry about how the elections are going to go.
Tim Wildmon: So we have said goodbye to uncertainty.
Chris: There are also people thinking that Democrats controlling Congress might do away with the expansion of these data centers, which some Americans are concerned about. Donald Trump is not concerned because he says we need them to keep countries like China from expanding their data capabilities.
Corporations are also doing well under this Trump economy. Those three things are driving stocks up. That was a big issue last night in the knee-jerk reaction to Democrats taking the House and the Senate. People like Larry Kudlow were talking about how stocks were going to tank today. "Don't even bother looking at your 401(k)." But they are not.
Tim Wildmon: At least not right now.
Chris: We still have a couple of trading days later this week.
Tim Wildmon: Wesley was telling me that historically the stock market does well under a divided government. I don't know why exactly. Maybe investors feel like the Republicans check the Democrats and the Democrats check the Republicans from excesses.
Chris: I think that's right.
Tim Wildmon: Sometimes the best thing for the economy is the government doing nothing because they will not pass regulations and they will not raise taxes. There is not going to be much done right now because Trump has veto power, and I think corporations like that.
Chris: Companies like that.
Tim Wildmon: If we have to sit here today, I want to ask you guys: In January, in just a couple of months, what two names on the Democratic side and the Republican side are we going to be talking about as leading presidential candidates?
I'll throw out two right now: Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom.
Chris: I would also say Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.
Tim Wildmon: I don't think Rahm Emanuel is going to drive many people to be excited.
Chris: But he is going to run. I think he is going to run.
Tim Wildmon: Nobody is going to announce until after this.
Chris: Rahm was actually trying to campaign this morning on Fox, where he was already throwing out ideas about what Democrats should do. He has to get ahead of the curve and get ahead of some of the better-known candidates.
Tim Wildmon: That's a good thing. James Talarico can't run.
Chris: He could. Obama was only a couple of years into his Senate term, so there is something to be said for that. I could see people making a push for Talarico because of what he did in Texas. They might say, "He can heal America."
Tim Wildmon: I hear what you are saying, Wesley. Maybe in the future, four years from now, we may be talking about James Talarico, but I don't think he is going to be a candidate this time.
Chris: The other candidates are the ones who are going to be talked about.
Tim Wildmon: The only one I disagree with you all on is Kamala Harris. I don't think she is going to make a comeback.
Wesley Wildmon: We have to hope so.
Chris: We have to hope so.
Tim Wildmon: That's interesting because if she is in the race, it is going to be hard for the white people running on the Democratic side to try to push out potentially the first black president and defeat her.
Wesley Wildmon: Plus, she is endorsed by what she has been. First of all, she's not African American. She is a woman of color.
Tim Wildmon: Your dad was Jamaican and your mom was Indian.
Wesley Wildmon: She claims to be black.
Tim Wildmon: I understand what you are saying, but nobody on the Democratic side is going to say what you just said.
Wesley Wildmon: No.
Tim Wildmon: You are right about that.
Chris: But I think there is a more practical reason why she will not emerge. She got beat, so she has the loser tag on her. She is a very bad candidate, and she speaks in word salads. Democrats are not going to sign up for that anymore.
Wesley Wildmon: I like salad.
Chris: Furthermore, I don't think she is much of an ideologue. She is a liberal, but I don't think she understands what drives some of these Democratic socialists.
Tim Wildmon: So you think the Democratic leadership will come to her and say, "Now, Gavin Newsom is a possibility"?
Chris: He has been the governor of the biggest state in the country. He is telegenic.
Wesley Wildmon: Newsom and Whitmer would be the better candidates. Whitmer would be hard to beat because she would bring Michigan into play, and you need Michigan to win the presidency.
Chris: After last night's results were announced in Georgia, people were also throwing out the name of Senator John Ossoff. Remember, he won reelection. That is a possibility.
The problem for Republicans is that once you get past Kamala Harris, who is a loser in the sense that she lost and has that tag on her, you have some pretty articulate people. Harris is the word-salad queen, but you have some articulate people, and there is a large percentage of the American people who are going to listen to the leftist message at this point. Any of the people we just named would be dangerous.
Tim Wildmon: Which ones we just named?
Chris: Gavin Newsom, Whitmer, and probably others too.
Wesley Wildmon: Shapiro.
Chris: Shapiro will not because he is Jewish.
Wesley Wildmon: That is in the party of inclusion and diversity.
Chris: He is going to be unwelcome. But articulate people are why Talarico and El-Sayed won. They were very articulate. They could dodge and deflect. Remember, El-Sayed was dodging and deflecting all kinds of questions, saying, "I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about what people are suffering under."
When you are able to do that and then put forth a message and a reason for people to go to the polls, that becomes a dangerous political combination, especially with the media behind you and all kinds of money.
Tim Wildmon: What about the Republican side? We have talked about that some before. Chris, go first.
Chris: I would say three names right now, really two. You have probably got a tie between Vance and Rubio. Then I think Governor Ron DeSantis will probably try, and he will campaign as the outsider.
Tim Wildmon: Sarah Sanders, I think, may throw her hat in there as well. She won reelection last night as governor.
Chris: I was going to say those names. I think those are the four.
Tim Wildmon: The first three you named were Rubio, Vance, and DeSantis.
Chris: DeSantis, of those three, and this would be true about Sarah Sanders, could be out there as an outsider. They could say, "I did not support going into the war in Iran, and here is what I would do."
It is going to be a little more difficult for Vance and Rubio to distance themselves from the policies of the man they supported.
Tim Wildmon: Donald Trump.
Wesley, do you think President Trump will get behind Vance because he is his vice president?
Wesley Wildmon: Vance has not said he is going to run yet. Maybe that is just posturing, but he said, "I am a procrastinator, and I have a young family. I have a lot of things to consider."
Whoever the person is, unfortunately, I don't think Trump will do what we would like, which is hand the baton off. I don't think he will do it all the way up until 2028. I think he will always be causing problems with the next person in line.
That is not the question I am concerned about. I expect that and predict that out of him. What I am most concerned about is the next person in line being willing to move on from that and call it like they see it, be honest and truthful, get the party back in line like they should, and not worry with everything they say, "Do I have Trump's approval?"
I want somebody who is doing what is best for America as a Republican candidate, not what they feel is going to be criticized by Trump.
Tim Wildmon: I am looking at RealClearPolitics.com, which Chris just pulled up. This is a survey of Republicans and Democrats.
Chris: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: This is current?
Chris: Yes.
Tim Wildmon: Just to tell people, this is what the survey says. It is a survey of Democrats and Republicans and who they wanted to be their candidate for president if it were today. Kamala Harris leads in the Democratic Party, and Newsom is second.
Chris: Buttigieg is third.
Tim Wildmon: Who else is in that mix?
Chris: There are several people. Ocasio-Cortez is at 11.8 percent, which is two points higher than John Ossoff.
Wesley Wildmon: With Ossoff, you do not get the baggage you might get with AOC.
Chris: But these names are listed without some people who may emerge. If Ossoff or Gretchen Whitmer were to announce, you would see changes because some people are going to announce and emerge on both the Republican and Democratic sides who are not on this list.
Tim Wildmon: It does list J.D. Vance number one and Marco Rubio number two, with Vance at 38 percent and Rubio at 26 percent. Donald Trump Jr. is third.
Chris: I don't know where that came from. I think it is because of his last name.
Tim Wildmon: The one thing DeSantis would have over Trump Jr. is that he could say, "I was the governor of a state that is practically a country."
Chris: Is DeSantis on the list at all?
Tim Wildmon: He is at 7.5 percent. He is listed as fourth.
Chris: I like Governor DeSantis and the job he did. He was a two-time governor of Florida and governed as an executive in a large state the way you are supposed to govern.
Tim Wildmon: A solid conservative.
Chris: Solid. He got a lot done. Remember when the bridge to Sanibel Island was wiped out and they were talking about it being out for a year or whatever? He got it back up in a few months. It was something absurd.
Tim Wildmon: But the problem is it is going to be hard for him to get out of that 7.5 percent range. He is not a dynamic candidate.
Chris: Another thing is that people defer to whoever the vice president is.
Tim Wildmon: Yes.
Chris: That is true for both Republicans and Democrats. It happened with Kamala Harris. They did not even have a primary, did they? They just decided over a weekend to give it to her.
Tim Wildmon: That is what I am saying. Even Obama was warning that they needed a primary because Kamala Harris was going to lose.
Chris: I remember him saying that.
Tim Wildmon: He did not say it straight out loud, but Obama was warning that Trump would beat Kamala Harris because she was a bad candidate.
Chris: That's right.
Tim Wildmon: People defer to name recognition and what a person's job is. It is not surprising that Republican voters right now are saying J.D. Vance is the guy. But they do hold Marco Rubio in high esteem.
As we have mentioned here before, I have read that Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance will not run against each other in a primary because they are good friends.
Chris: So I guess, at this point, you are just waiting on J.D. Vance to say yes or no.
Tim Wildmon: That's it.
Chris: You know what could really throw a wrench in Vance's plans? The direction Ohio seems to be going. We have all heard the age-old saying that no Republican wins the White House without Ohio.
Ohio just moved to the left yesterday with a Democratic governor-elect. They have a Democratic senator now. It voted blue.
Wesley Wildmon: I think we still need to wait to see if some of these moves are actually moves to the left or are protests.
Tim Wildmon: That's true. Florida stayed red.
Chris: South Carolina, I cannot imagine that being a trend.
Tim Wildmon: I agree with that. It is not going to be a trend. I think it was just a snapshot in time yesterday when the American public rejected Trump and said no to war, no to high gas prices, and no to the cost of living going up. They said, "Stop it."
Chris: Some of them also said, "Stop with the behavior. Quit calling Canada the 51st state. Quit saying we are going to invade Greenland. Quit dissing Israel." That is my opinion.
Tim Wildmon: Some people said, "Quit talking about people's body parts from the campaign trail."
Chris: There was some of that behavior from Trump.
Tim Wildmon: A lot of people were saying, "Let's get this one under control."
Chris: I know. I know. But when you combine all of that together, yesterday was a rejection of Trump. Maybe he can get back into the good graces of a majority of the American people, but that is up to him.
Tim Wildmon: We will see what happens. We'll see you tomorrow, everybody.
Tim Wildmon and company discuss reports that Mike Johnson will not seek House minority leader in the next Congress, with Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan emerging as possible successors.
The hosts examine whether the Iran war contributed to Republican midterm losses and debate President Donald Trump’s responsibility for setting a military exit strategy. They also discuss the stock market’s reaction to divided government and concerns about the economy.
The conversation turns to possible 2028 presidential candidates, including JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Ron DeSantis, Sarah Sanders, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer. The hosts consider how the midterm results could reshape both parties and the Republican field.
Live
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