Point of View February 17, 2025 – Hour 2 : Updates from the Weekend

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Just going to take a minute to talk about this one by Hans von Spakowski.

[00:00:28] You might remember he is an individual that we interview from time to time because he actually worked for the Federal Election Commission. And he talks about the Mini-Me executive branch. Okay, you probably know the connection there to Mini-Me. And the point he's making is that you have cabinet offices and cabinet officers, and then you have branch agencies and the Federal Elections Commission, the FCC, the FTC.

[00:00:58] Many of those would be the case. And so real quickly, I just want to mention this, and we'll go on to some very important issues that come from the speech that J.D. Vance gave. Well, actually two speeches, one in Germany, one in France. But he said these independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, they do not have much accountability. And he says that is long overdue.

[00:01:23] So just as we're talking about trying to reduce the size and scope of government, how about bringing a little bit of accountability from some of these agencies? And a good example, he says, is Congress has passed laws providing that the commissioners of many of these agencies can only be removed for cause, while others at the Federal Election Commission, where I once served as a commissioner,

[00:01:48] the law provides that a commissioner will continue to serve even after his or her term ends until the commissioner is replaced by a new member. However, that problem has created the issue because this has led to what has happened with an individual through the Federal Elections Commission, and that is Elaine Weintraub, who is a Democrat, and she was actually put in place, and her term ended in 2007. Okay?

[00:02:18] Then she has continued to serve from 2007 to, I'm looking at my calendar, 2024. Okay. So you can begin to see that the Democrats decided they would just not replace her, and as a result, it came time for Donald Trump to come in and said, in a letter that he sent to her, or an email, whatever it was, that he was going to terminate her, and she said, I'm not leaving.

[00:02:45] And so you now have individuals that serve in these situations, the FCC, the FEC, the FTC, and others, and as a result, this is, I think, a really important problem. And so one of the things that Hans von Spakowski says, since he served in that agency, is these mini-me's of the executive branch are, in reality, part of the executive branch,

[00:03:11] each one from the FTC to the National Labor Relations Board to the FEC Federal Elections Committee, are mini-executive branches, and as a result, there is a need for us to move on. And just imagine, if you were to maybe know of an organization, could be a business that has a board of trustees, could be a ministry that you support, that has people on the board, and they've been serving,

[00:03:37] even though they're supposed to serve lots of times, the typical one is you serve three years, and then you can repeat an additional three years. And I know there have been some times, even in ministries I've worked with, where they haven't necessarily followed that to the letter, but if you had an individual there, because the requirement oftentimes in these is to have half and half, half appointed by Republican presidents, half appointed by Democratic presidents or members of Congress,

[00:04:05] this individual that has been there since 2007, I probably think it's time to go. And so he's pointing out that while we are focusing most of our time and attention on the big cabinet posts, obviously, because that's where the money is, that's where the influence is, even more so, even in some of these mini-me executive branch agencies, there's a need for accountability as well.

[00:04:32] Some people said the other day that even though Elon Musk is bringing some savings to the table here, this still is more of a government accountability agency than it is a government efficiency agency. But, of course, as we just pointed out, that's going to change as we look at Social Security, as we look at the Treasury Department, as we look at Health and Human Services,

[00:05:01] as we look at the Pentagon, remember those $200 hammers, and on and on. There will be certainly savings, but accountability is another part of that as well. And so it's an article I wanted you to be aware of. But for the next few minutes, and I will carry this on into the next segment, there are some real concerns that our European allies are having with the fact that, as J.D. Vance one time,

[00:05:29] even said in one of his speeches, there's a new sheriff in town. I'm assuming that some of those in the Western European nations understood what that meant. But nevertheless, this particular article that comes from our friends at the Wall Street Journal really looks at two issues. So let's look at Trump first and then J.D. Vance next. The editors say the European allies knew their relationship with the second Trump administration would be challenging,

[00:05:56] even though the shocks they've received from Washington represent and constitute a crisis. The editors go on to say, start with the Ukrainian war. This was the largest military conflict on European souls since 1945, and the continent's leaders recognize the stakes for their security. But Mr. Trump's message, they say, is that the U.S. doesn't care what Europeans think about how the war should be resolved. OK, maybe a little overstated, but OK, let's move on.

[00:06:26] Mr. Trump, as they point out, spoke on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin last week about ending the conflict, a development that actually caught European allies off guard. These, they say, are slaps to the North American treaty organization known as NATO allies whose security is threatened by Mr. Putin's imperial ambitions, and they have contributed cash and equipment towards Ukraine's defenses.

[00:06:54] But again, if you want to start adding up the numbers, the percentage that these European nations are giving, first of all, to NATO, are something that Donald Trump raised in his first administration. He's raising it in his second administration as well. Well, let's get back to the editorial from the Wall Street Journal,

[00:07:12] because they also have pointed out that they are convinced that the Team Trump's theme in Europe last week also surfaced some issues. And one was the Summit on Artificial Intelligence, which took place in Paris, in which, in that case, Vice President J.D. Vance offered a bracing warning that Europe will leave itself behind in the next industrial revolution

[00:07:41] if it over-regulates today's frontier technology. And as the editors point out, Europeans aren't accustomed to being told so bluntly by U.S. officials that Europe has impoverished itself with this issue, but someone had to say it. Then in Munich, Mr. Vance delivered a more surprising rebuke when he asserted that Europe's biggest security danger is a threat from within. We come back from the break.

[00:08:10] I want to talk about these two speeches and also get on to the next article, which has the rather interesting title, J.D. Vance takes European elites to school. You can see two ways the press has covered this. Some which have said this hillbilly has been saying entirely too much and he needs to go back to the United States and he's warming up too much to the far right in Europe. Or you can look at the other point in which he is saying something we've said around the table.

[00:08:39] When you try to prevent free speech, when you try to circulate all sorts of rumors of disinformation, misinformation, it's not really helping a democracy. We'll come back and talk about that right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Progressive activists often talk about the long march through institutions.

[00:09:08] For the last few weeks, we've had a fast sprint through the institutions by President Trump, followed by Elon Musk. The flurry of activity by the president and his administration have raised an important question. What are the limits to presidential authority? U11 provides a rule of thumb for executive power debates. Of course, we can find the limits to executive power in the Constitution, in the Federalist Papers, and in various court decisions. But he breaks Trump's power down to two contexts.

[00:09:35] In relation to the executive branch over which he presides and in relation to the larger constitutional system in which he plays a part. When it comes to the president's authority over the executive branch, his power is supreme. The Constitution says the executive power shall be vested in the president of the United States of America. Of course, there are some limitations to that power, as illustrated by the confirmation hearings in Congress that have been taking place.

[00:09:58] However, when it comes to the government as a whole, the president's role is constrained and is in many respects overshadowed by Congress. His core function is to take care that the laws Congress has passed are faithfully executed. The Constitution and subsequent court decisions deal with both sets of presidential powers. It allows the president to have expansive powers in dealing with the executive branch, but constrains those powers when dealing with the whole government.

[00:10:25] Although many Supreme Court judges would hold to this same view found in the Constitution, we are seeing some federal judges rule against some of President Trump's presidential actions. I predict that many of those decisions will later be overruled. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.com

[00:10:54] viewpoints.info.com You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, and you're going to be probably hearing about this oftentimes when a vice president goes and speaks overseas. It's maybe like the old, if a tree falls in the forest and the New York Times doesn't cover it, does it ever make a sound? But in this case, it has created a stirrer, so you're going to be hearing about it.

[00:11:21] And that's why we wanted to give you one that was somewhat critical of his speech, and that comes from the Wall Street Journal. If you want to find some that are even more critical, there are some links in some of the material we've provided, so you can see the howling that was taking place, when in many cases he was saying the things we've been saying around the table. Which illustrates how in Europe they are completely disconnected from what we're talking about here.

[00:11:47] Or if you think they're right by actually shutting down an election and stamping out any kind of controversial ideas, then I guess we're out of touch. But the kinds of conversations we've had here with Lathan Watts and Kelly Shackelford and Penna Dexter, and even with the former head of the ACLU and others about the value of free speech, it seems to me that that's what they should have been applauding, and they did not. But I'll get to that in just a minute.

[00:12:18] I want to finish off at least hearing from the Wall Street Journal. And that is, the issue that they're saying is that some of the German politicians were upset, because he had actually, if I believe right, met with the Alternative for Germany AFD, which is considered by the Europeans as a far-right group. Of course, he met with others as well, and some thought maybe that was undermining the possibility

[00:12:45] that Frederick Mertz, who may be the next chancellor in Germany, would be less sympathetic to the United States. So we'll see. But nevertheless, as this editorial points out, even from the Wall Street Journal, that are critical somewhat of J.D. Vance, they point out that even many of these Europeans there were conceding that the Trump team has a point,

[00:13:07] at least on Ukraine and defense matters, because French President Emmanuel Macron is convening an emergency summit of key European leaders this week to discuss their approach to Ukraine talks. You also have the British Prime Minister saying over the weekend that he actually wants to increase defense spending from the Great Britain and from Europe as well.

[00:13:32] And, of course, they then warned that a U.S. withdrawal from Europe would be a historic mistake. I think we're very far down the road before we would ever see that happening. But nevertheless, last week, Europe was on notice that Mr. Trump is expecting the Europeans to address some of these issues, because if they won't, he will. But let's get to the speeches themselves, because this other article by David Diebel, I think,

[00:14:00] reminds us that as it opens up, the vice president, J.D. Vance, has proven himself to be an effective and slashing communicator in the face of hostile interviews. And at the 61st Munich Security Conference on Friday, he added to his reputation by delivering a speech. And we have a link there so that you can actually read the speech. I've watched it on YouTube because some individuals passed it on to me as well.

[00:14:29] And so you can read it for yourself, in which he's really challenging, that if indeed you say you believe in democracy, then democracy allows people to have an open and free expression of ideas. And he goes on to say that even though Vance's remarks have been received by both European and American elites as an attack on Europe, the reality is he's really just calling for them to believe in freedom and democracy.

[00:14:55] But nevertheless, of course, he has been, he's got a link here to people accusing him of hillbilly theology. You knew that was coming since he wrote the hillbilly elegy and the rest. But actually, this article by David Deaver says just the opposite. The speech at Munich showed that indeed it was a sophisticated speech that really encouraged people to actually take seriously freedom.

[00:15:22] Early on when he was introduced, he said, well, I hope that's not the last bit of applause that I get. But it sort of was. He did get a little bit of a limited applause there. But he immediately dove into the heart of the topic. And that is, it is natural and right to think about issues of external security at such an event, because that's called a security conference. But he says, now I'm quoting him, what I worry about is the threat from within,

[00:15:52] the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values that are shared with the United States of America, unquote. And so then he talks about how a former European commissioner on television sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He probably would have been wise to say, we almost had the same thing happen four years ago, but he didn't. But nevertheless, here you actually have an election.

[00:16:20] And since the people in government didn't like who was elected, they annulled the election. And there you go. And so the argument was because of so-called Russian interference, which at the time he said was the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. But as he said, if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country,

[00:16:48] then it wasn't very strong to begin with. I could see on the faces of a lot of people they didn't like that. But he says, now the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently feel and fear. But nevertheless, this one also shows that there is quite a bit of evidence that this whole claim was nothing of the sort, but it was used as a pretext to annull an election.

[00:17:16] But basically, it was a nice way of telling the Europeans to knock it off. Then, in the midst of the speech, he began to tell the story that we've heard from Lathan Watts. Now, if you're familiar with Lathan Watts, he's with the Alliance Defending Freedom. And Alliance Defending Freedom, of course, has told us the story of an individual, 51-year-old army veteran and physiotherapist who was charged by the British government with, as he said, the heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic

[00:17:46] and silently praying for three minutes. You've heard us talk about this before, and it was amazing that he actually brought that up because it's the kind of thing we've talked about here on Point of View. The crime is due to the fact that there's supposedly a buffer zone. So even standing within 50 meters, because the buffer zone apparently is 200 meters, and praying is enough for you and force him to have paid thousands of British pounds.

[00:18:15] Then he went on to talk about the fact that this was no fluke, because this October, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses were actually within the so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Now, some have said, no, that's an overextension.

[00:18:41] So this article actually then links to an X in which you can actually see the letter, and I've got it on my computer right now, from Safer Scotland, in which it clearly says that if people are visibly praying in their home in a safe access zone, they will be found guilty. So again, you would think at this point some people would be shaking their heads going, okay, I think that's gone over the top, and maybe it's time to pull that back.

[00:19:08] But he admitted then some of the, sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within America, not within Europe, excuse me, but from within my own country, America, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. So he's quite willing to say, look, I see the problem in your country. We've had the same problem in our country as well. But then goes on to say, in Washington, there's a new sheriff in town,

[00:19:36] and under Donald Trump's leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square agree or disagree. I was waiting for the applause. There was none. Maybe smattering, but nothing. That's something you can say in America that you would hope that liberals and conservatives would agree with, and it kind of shows you where we are. And then, of course, at the Munich Security Conference, he also honed in on another issue,

[00:20:05] and that is the issue of immigration. And he again points out that simply trying to shut down conversations about immigration policies are not going to result on anything good. Healthy societies and competitive economies require an atmosphere where people have the right to say something. And that's where he then had a line that people have repeated more than once. If you're running in fear of your own voters, there's nothing America can do for you.

[00:20:36] Now, some took it as, if you're going to continue down this road, you're on your own. We're not going to support you. But I think he was simply saying that we have a path of censoring citizens, shutting down elections, forbidding people from taking part in public conversations, and that is not something that we are going to allow in America. Maybe it's time for those of you in Europe not to allow it there as well.

[00:21:02] When you think of where free speech came from, in my booklet on censorship, I take you back to John Stuart Mill, and it is interesting that now you actually have more people talking about free speech in America than you have people talking about free speech in Europe. And that's why he gave that speech in the first place and quoted some of the things we've talked about right here on Point of View. We'll be right back.

[00:21:30] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:22:00] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:22:27] Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. Pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Final half hour, if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212. Let me just mention that tomorrow we're going to have our Millennial Roundtable, so I think you will appreciate that conversation.

[00:23:23] Then, as we go into the week, we'll get into all sorts of other topics and issues. Spend a little bit of time talking about that speech that J.D. Vance gave. Actually, two speeches. And I will come back to this in just a minute, because we also have a piece that we've posted here on Marco Rubio, because he was on, of course, the news, and much of the conversation had to do with his meetings with individuals in Panama and Israel and the rest.

[00:23:51] But also, one of the things that came up because of the CBS News anchor, Margaret Brennan, was some of the speech by Marco, by certainly J.D. Vance, and asking the Secretary of State Marco Rubio about that. Let me just, before we go on, though, mention my commentary today. Since it is President's Day, I think it is fortuitous that my commentary is about presidential authority.

[00:24:15] This comes from an attempt to try to think through all the claims that are going to be made over the next couple of weeks, and even some of the decisions that come down from federal judges. And the first is, of course, that the president, as the head of the executive branch, according to the Constitution, has executive power which is vested in him. That means that the framers intended,

[00:24:41] and I think many Supreme Court decisions that have come down since then, recognize that if you're the president of this executive branch, you obviously have access, and should have access, to all the information there. The individuals that serve in the government serve at the pleasure of the president. Now, that, of course, are those that have been picked by the president. We have some pretty significant civil service rules.

[00:25:08] As a matter of fact, when I was digging up some of the story about that individual who found out she was exempt from that deferred retirement, there were some articles I came across that talked about the convoluted and arcane rules having to govern federal particular workers. If we already have said that it's hard for Elon Musk to figure out the lines of authority

[00:25:34] between Social Security and the Treasury Department and how money flows, you can see that some of those same problems exist in terms of individuals that are part of the executive branch. But at least in theory, the president, whoever that might be, whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump, should have ability to evaluate what is happening in his executive branch, which is by definition different than the legislative branch,

[00:26:04] which is Congress, or the judicial branch, which is the Supreme Court and the federal courts. So that, I think, is pretty clear. The other part that's very clear in this article is that when you're then interacting with other branches, those particular powers are more constrained. And that is certainly the case. We would expect that there are times when a president wants to assert authority that he or someday she does not have.

[00:26:34] And we have seen that many times under Barack Obama, under Donald Trump, under Joe Biden, and now again under Donald Trump. Things that the president would like to do. And the previous president, Joe Biden, many times knew he couldn't do it, but tried it anyway to see if the courts might go along with him, and they did not. So again, I think we are seeing that right now there is every reason to believe that some of these federal judges that have ruled against President Trump's presidential actions,

[00:27:03] some of those will be overturned. And over the last hour and a half year, we've talked about two of those that actually have been changed due to some rulings that have come down. Let me now get to another piece, and this one has to do with the back and forth that took place between CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan, who actually was interviewing the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. And this took place on Sunday on Face the Nation,

[00:27:33] in which in the course of talking about Israel and talking about Panama and the Panama Canal and some other things, she was then criticizing the vice president because, as she said, was roasting the European leaders. And the speech, as this article points out, drew a howl of protest. And if you'd like to see some of those, the links are there for you. A German president said that the words were not appropriate.

[00:28:01] The German defense minister said they were unacceptable. And, of course, in the midst of all of that, what I thought was so interesting is Marco Rubio actually took some time to say, look, I think if anyone is angry with his words, that would be the words of J.D. Vance, they don't have to agree with him, but to be angry about it I think actually makes his point. I think it was actually, he says, that is Marco Rubio said,

[00:28:29] that J.D. Vance's speech was a pretty historic speech. Whether you agree with him or not, I think the valid points he's making to Europe is that we are concerned about the true values we share, the values that bind us together with Europe, are things like free speech and democracy and our shared history and winning two world wars and defeating Soviet communism and the like. And when you see that backsliding, you raise that's a very valid concern. He went on to say,

[00:28:58] we can't tell them how to run their countries. He's simply expressing in a speech his view of it, which a lot of people frankly share. I think that is certainly the case. And I thought he said a lot of things in his speech that needed to be said, and honestly, I don't know why anybody would be upset about it. You don't have to agree with someone's speech. I happen to agree with a lot of what was said, but you don't have to agree with someone's speech to at least appreciate the fact that you have the right to say it and that you should listen to it and see whether those criticisms are valid.

[00:29:28] And then, interestingly enough, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, went on to say, I assure you, the United States has come under withering criticism on many occasions from many leaders in Europe, and we don't go around throwing temper tantrums about it. Well, in the midst of some of this, Margaret Brennan was trying to then interrupt,

[00:29:53] and he was making the claim that J.D. Vance was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and there is where you had an interesting back and forth that I think Margaret Brennan probably wishes she could back off of that because she said, well, wait a minute, he's talking about weaponizing in a speech in a country that had a genocide. That's Germany.

[00:30:22] Germany never likes to be reminded about Nazi Germany, but it did happen there, and argued that, well, then the vice president was meeting with the far right, which, again, is the alternative Deutschland party, but, of course, he also met with other major German political parties. You can meet with liberals. You can meet with centrists. You can meet even with the future chancellor, who is kind of right of center, but if you meet with those people that are referred to as far right, well, that just illustrates that you're far right,

[00:30:52] and, interestingly enough, was making the case then that this is not helpful because that's what actually Nazi Germany did. Well, again, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime

[00:31:21] that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities. There's no free speech, and there was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There were also no opposition in Nazi Germany. There were the sole and old party that governed that country, and so that's not an accurate reflection of history. If anything, the argument he was making is

[00:31:46] is that we should be concerned about the erosion of free speech and the growing intolerance coming from many of the European elites towards any kind of opposing values, and I think this was a very good speech by J.D. Vance because it reminded people, you know, we are not saying that we're perfect. As a matter of fact, we've had a time here where there was a deliberate attempt,

[00:32:15] as we've documented many times on this program, by the federal government, by the Biden administration, by various actors in the administration who knew that they could not limit a person's free speech because that's First Amendment, and government cannot do that, but they encouraged other social media platforms to do that. And of course, if you believe in free speech today and you go on to college campuses, you will be surprised

[00:32:42] that many times there's only a free speech area, as we talked about the other day with some of the individuals at one of these Georgia institutions where if you step outside of this free speech zone, free speech is not allowed. And I think we have gone too far, and if anything, this totalitarian temptation that seems to be surfacing sometimes in Europe

[00:33:09] is one that J.D. Vance called out, and I again want to give credit also for the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for defending it in that particular back-and-forth on Face the Nation. If you'd like to see the entire speech, if you'd like to see the back-and-forth between Margaret Brennan and also Marco Rubio, this article that we have posted there, Marco Rubio leaves CBS News' Margaret Brennan speech

[00:33:37] after she claimed Nazis weaponized free speech. It's available on our website. You can follow all the links and read it for yourself. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes, and let me again mention that tomorrow we're going to have our Millennial Roundtable, but I thought I'd end by saying

[00:34:06] there is a real need for anyone in a position of authority to show that they're really serious about what is taking place. Under the Biden administration, there were times when you just said, are we even serious? Are these people really serious? And I think this is about time to raise that question with the Trump administration. And I'll do this by actually looking at something indirectly. And that is, if you've been watching

[00:34:35] what's been going on in Argentina, this is a country that has really focused a lot of time and attention on some of the financial and economic challenges. And so the election of President Javier Millet was done so that they could do the kinds of things we're talking about here on Point of View, to begin to cut the size and scope of the Argentine government. And as a result,

[00:35:04] one of the ways in which individuals who are losing purchasing power with the Argentine peso would be that they could actually buy Bitcoin or something else that would give them at least a chance to not have all of their time, energy, and wealth eroded away. So, so far, so good. Until this weekend, and now you have Argentine's President Javier Millet that created a coin.

[00:35:33] This is one of those kind of meme coins. And it's hard to take them seriously because what he did was post and has a dollar sign Libra coin. And it was to actually encourage economic growth by funding small businesses and startups. Well, if you've been in the cryptocurrency space for any length of time, you know that these meme coins are, they go up in value and then they go down. And they actually cause

[00:36:02] a lot of people to have the rug pulled right out from underneath them. They are, you know, actually scams. And to have an individual who up until now looked like he was really serious about cutting expenses and providing the citizens of Argentina with a more stable government and a more stable currency. Of course, a few hours after that went up, it dropped. It's classic rug pull,

[00:36:32] classic scam. He deleted the post that he had on X. And now you have all sorts of lawyers filing fraud complaints against the president of Argentina. You might say, OK, how does that relate to the United States? Well, there is the Melania coin and there is the Trump meme coin out there. Now, again, you've got to be backing up and recognizing that's been a lot of conversation saying at a time when we have

[00:37:00] $36 trillion in debt at a time when we are spending $7 trillion a year and our tax receipts are only $5 trillion, we've got to do something. And so one of the ideas put forward was the idea of a Bitcoin strategic reserve. Cynthia Lummis in Wisconsin has proposed that. Now you have two individuals who are very credible individuals. Scott Besant, who is the Secretary of Treasury,

[00:37:30] and Howard Letnick, who is the Secretary of Commerce, talking about maybe even creating a sovereign strategic reserve. How you do that when we're running deficits, I don't know, but OK, these are smart individuals. And what you are starting to see is again the possibility that if you really would like to address this issue, back to my favorite line, you can't solve a problem if you don't admit it exists. You can't

[00:38:00] solve a problem with the way in which we deal with Social Security if you can't admit that there's a problem. You can't solve the fact that we have a growing and rather dramatically increasing national debt. It just isn't that the national debt's going up sort of arithmetically. It almost seems to be going up almost exponentially. And so the rate of increase is going up. then obviously you want to do some things to actually assure people that this would be

[00:38:30] a good idea. And I would have to say that President Trump, with his Trump coin and the Melania coin, this is a good classic illustration of optics. It's hard to take you seriously when you want to try to come up with a strategic reserve that might eventually deal with this problem of national debt when you're producing some coins. That might be a real kind of difficult thing to follow

[00:39:00] because you don't understand the economics of it. So let me take you to Daytona 500. And if you haven't seen that, as you may be well aware, the President of the United States not only went to the Super Bowl, but also decided to bring this huge car known as the Beast down there. Actually, he flew Air Force One over Daytona 500, and the cost is millions of dollars.

[00:39:29] There's an interesting article that surfaced just today saying how did Elon Musk allow Donald Trump to actually spend millions of dollars for what I think most people would agree is a publicity stunt. And so in some respects, they're looking not only to blame the President, but Elon Musk as well. And again, it gets back to one of the phrases we use very often, and that is optics.

[00:39:58] If you want the government to tighten its belt, the best way to show that the government can tighten its belt is to show that you're tightening your belt. And every time the President, whether it was Barack Obama, and I know some people say, what about the times when Barack Obama's wife went to Africa? Okay, there have been times when presidents have spent enormous amounts of money, and of course, there is a lot that is

[00:40:28] entailing an individual to get on Air Force One, to then bring another cargo plane to bring that particular car, and then to race around Daytona 500. And if the theme right now is we need to begin to cut the budget, I'll be the first to admit that we're talking about some millions that were spent on the Daytona 500 race, and we are in many cases talking about billions and

[00:40:57] trillions of dollars that are being misspent, got that. But optics matter, and if indeed you want people to take you seriously, whether it's the producing of a coin, and again, I think the credibility in Argentina of President Javier Millet has been really damaged significantly with his Libra coin, and before it's all through, it's going to be a lot harder to get

[00:41:27] Congress to consider a sovereign strategic reserve, or even a Bitcoin strategic reserve, when the President of the United States is producing a Trump coin and Millennia coin. Do you get the point? And it's something that maybe there are some people close to the President need to say, Mr. President, that was a really bad idea. But nevertheless, we're going to keep watching where the money is being spent, and I think it is intriguing to me that

[00:41:56] if you go to the U.S. debt clock, that's where I get those numbers about how much money is coming in, $5 trillion, how much money is going out, $7 trillion, but it also now has a doge clock there as well, so you can see some of the spending that is actually being reduced, about a billion dollars a week. At the end of the year, that's $50 billion, but we're talking about trillions, so a lot more needs

[00:42:26] to take place if we even want to come close to balancing a budget. If you want us to take you seriously, then act seriously and pay attention to the optics. That's all I got for today, but I thought if you would like to know a little bit more about America's godly heritage, we've got some great material by Jerry Newcomb. Want to know a little bit more about that speech that has rattled a lot of cages there in Europe by J.D. Vance. We've got those articles on the website. And of course, on President's Day, my commentary is on presidential

[00:42:56] authority. Most importantly, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. We'll see you back here tomorrow, right here on Point of View. It was not that long ago that censorship appeared to be almost inevitable. Free speech was being attacked and strangled in many places. And some of us wondered if this was the end. But now,

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