Point of View November 6, 2026 – Hour 2: Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. Kerby Anderson. Second hour today, Dr. Troy Miller in studio and we're going to focus some time and attention on the economy. One of the articles that I did not post but you can find it today in the Wall Street Journal,

[00:00:29] Politics Shake Up the Markets, you think? The market dropped 1,800 points yesterday and they said on Wall Street what goes up must become a correction sooner or later so it proved this week as tech stocks slid far enough down in price that they lost 10% of their value relative to the recent peak.

[00:00:49] Now that brings us up to an interesting question because we have the election on Tuesday, then on Wednesday investors as they say bid up the stocks on the seeming hope that political gridlock in Washington might be good for the economy because gridlock means that I don't have any surprises but by Thursday they noticed democratic control of so many state governments and towering majorities in Congress might not be great for business,

[00:01:16] especially for tech. And so you had a little bit of a bump and drop. And data centers especially. Yes. Yeah, and just for the historical background, typically when you have divided government, that is you have a party controlling Congress and a different party controlling the White House. The stock market actually does better than most times. So it may be that come 2027 we'll actually have a better working stock market, but it has certainly been on a roller coaster ride the last few days.

[00:01:42] And the tech stuff is up today about 364 points. So it was up Wednesday way down Thursday and it's back up again today. And again, some people think there may be an AI bubble, but back to historical perspective for just a minute. There's a little bit of a roller coaster ride, but usually a year later the stock market and a variety of other things that are investments are up. But let's get into the issue of tariffs because again, one of the articles that you can find, this one comes from National Review is

[00:02:12] Americans on Tuesday went to the polls with the state of the economy top of mind. Eighty-nine percent said, you know, that was a big issue for them. And their assessment of President Trump's signature economic policy wasn't kind. In addition to being costly, destructive, and often illegal, sweeping tariffs on nearly every country in the world have proven politically disastrous. Got a picture there of, you know, Liberation Day, which turned out not to be quite the Liberation Day.

[00:02:40] They go on to say, and then I want to get to your article, Inflation was a top concern for voters in the midterms, just as it was in 2024. Yet Trump insisted on following the victory, his victory with a comprehensive tariff regime. When the Supreme Court struck down the first effort, the president turned to another decades-old statute to reconstitute the duties. And then another, the average terror rate on U.S. hit and points out to the highest level since, are you ready for this, the Great Depression.

[00:03:10] So, Dr. Troy Miller, I've got in front of me here, and I encourage people that maybe aren't that interested in economics, you try to break it down. And I've seen you in some of these roundtable discussions have some of our fellow participants have the lights go on, because you kind of break down what you say is what Trump doesn't understand about trade. Help us out. Yeah, and what I wanted to point out there was what Trump is concerned about is the balance of trade.

[00:03:38] That is, we buy things from other countries. Other countries buy things from us. There's two aspects of it. There's goods and there's services. So services are things like entertainment, tourism, things of that nature. The U.S. usually has a trade deficit in buying goods from other countries, but we often have a trade surplus. Other countries, because of tourism, entertainment, and other things, software, and those things that come under services, other countries buy those from us.

[00:04:04] But we buy more in goods than they buy from us from services, so we usually have a trade deficit. The president is very concerned about the trade deficit. He would like to see those roughly balanced. And the point I make in the USA Today article is that we are the third largest country in the world. Only India and China have larger populations. We are by far the richest large country in the world. Right. And so Trump recently just got after Canada again.

[00:04:34] Canada has about 40 million people. We have roughly 340 million people. If every Canadian spent the same amount on buying U.S. goods and services as a U.S. person spent buying Canadian goods and services, we would have a trade deficit of about 10 times what Canada has. Just because we're a larger and we're a wealthier country. I think we make about 20% more than Canadians. So we make more than most Canadians.

[00:05:01] And it's just based on the size of the country and the income of the country, you would expect us to spend more on Canadian products and services than they spend on us. Same thing is true with Mexico. Mexico has about, I think, 130 million people, about 40% of our population. They have a much lower income. And then when you get to the two larger countries, India and China, China is a saving country. President Xi is trying to get them to spend more. They don't want to spend much.

[00:05:30] They have a lower per person income. When you get to India, they have a much larger population, but they make less than $3,000 a year. And so if you're making less than $3,000 a year, even with lower prices, you as an Indian don't have a lot of extra money to import things from America. So the point I want to make is the balance of trade, the president's concerned about this, but just given the size of some of the populations and their incomes,

[00:05:56] it's unreasonable to think that Canada is going to be spending as much on our goods as we spend on them, even though they come really close. I think it's about a 6% or 7% trade deficit. I mean, it's not. Arguably, they spend a whole lot more on our products than we spend on theirs on a per-person buying ratio. And one of our callers in a minute wants to talk about all things Trump has done, and let's talk about that economically. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. I think securing the border.

[00:06:26] And frankly, as unpopular as the war was, I do not want a nuclear Iran. And so in some respects, people forget that. And I think it gets back to some of those pocket issues and kitchen table issues. So let's give one of our callers a chance to make that case, and that is to go to Georgia on GNN. Cheryl, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Oh, thank you for having me. I understand what he just said about trade and all that with the country.

[00:06:55] But what I don't get is nobody has talked about age for $8 when Biden was in office. Dash in Georgia, it was $5.55. I don't know what it was everywhere else. And it seems to me that they need to put their pennies on it and get over it. Because we're – I mean, seriously, I'm a Christian. I'm a 68-year-old white woman. I'd go for him again. Give the man time. This is not Burger King. You can't get something overnight.

[00:07:24] It took him four years to tear it up. Give him time. And I understand he's not perfect. Okay, my son was 21 years in U.S. Marines. Yeah, stay over there and do what you've got to do. I don't want him over here. He agrees with it. Now, he may not have done it right, but what did Biden do right? What did Obama – I mean, come on. Give him a flight. I just don't understand why everybody turned. It's like they want their cake and eat it too.

[00:07:51] But you live – this country's already been created in a pagan country. I mean, if we ain't close to Solomon and Gomorrah, I'm going to get over it, you know? I just don't understand it. I think you had a good point. And, again, we'll take a break. But some of the commentators this week just said Americans have short memory. Oh, yeah. The one big beautiful bill, all sorts of issues like that.

[00:08:13] But also – and I do want to come back after the break to talk about the media because there was a time when George Herbert Walker Bush, as you said, lost some of the favorability. When actually the economy was doing pretty well and that allowed for the election of Bill Clinton. And the same sort of thing. I mean, can we remind people what it was like just a few years ago with 9% inflation? And that's under what it really probably was. And, as she said, the cost of eggs and everything else.

[00:08:42] So we'll come back and talk about that because some of it has to do with perception and the media. And we'll talk about that. And we'll take some more phone calls too. 1-800-351-1212. We'll be back right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson.

[00:09:06] For more than a year, the European Union and the European Central Bank have been developing a retail and wholesale central bank digital currency known as the digital euro. It has been promoted as a more efficient means of transacting commerce and settling accounts. Some even argue that it would provide billions of unbanked people with access to digital money. One frequent concern of CBDCs is the lack of privacy and the possibility of using it for surveillance.

[00:09:33] This would allow central banks and government to track and monitor every transaction. The government would know even more about you, your family, your clients, and your charities. Another significant concern is the fact that CBDCs could make it easier for governments to freeze your financial resources. If the current government disagreed with your purchases, they would have the power to shut down your digital currency. In fact, the CBDCs could be programmed to prohibit people from buying certain goods or at least place a limit on how much they might purchase.

[00:10:02] It might also have a limit that would require the digital money to be used before it's expired. The expiration dates and the bans on specific purchases and the ability to freeze accounts could be used to punish or censor citizens. A few years ago, President Joe Biden signed an executive order encouraging the Federal Reserve to study the feasibility of digital currency. When he took office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned government agencies from taking any action to create or promote a CBDC.

[00:10:32] Unfortunately, attempts to write this into law have not been successful. That is why we need to continue to evaluate what is being done by our government. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net.

[00:11:00] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Once again, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. You know, Cheryl might want to look at our piece by Kevin McCullum. He goes through two dozen things that we learned. And one of those, lesson number four, is never assume voters will look past the sign at the corner gas station.

[00:11:23] It reads, or read, 298 the day the war began and 4-15 on election day, the highest ever for midterm. Isn't fair that Trump takes the blame for 4-15 for gas when it was 5-0-2 with Biden's calling card and some other things. It's also politics, but recognize that voters drive past the sign every day. And certainly that gets into some of the issues. But to be fair, let's go back and talk about that. We talked about some of the economic issues.

[00:11:51] Another one that comes to mind is the Trump accounts, which even Democrats are saying were a good idea. Yeah, the Trump accounts that he created was for every young child in the country. Michael Dell has stepped up and put up, I think, $6 billion to go in there. I think some others have said they would do the same. I wasn't a fan of providing $1,000 from U.S. taxpayers for each of these accounts, simply because we have a $2 trillion deficit. So we have to borrow that money to put it in the accounts.

[00:12:20] But the Trump accounts could become a real benefit at some time in the future. And then there's also Trump Rx, which is the place where you can go and get prescription drugs and other things at a discounted price. Some of them are significantly discounted. I think Mark Cuban's cost plus drugs actually is a little better in some cases than they've got more drugs. I've looked at the Trump Rx a few times, and it's filling out. It's still early, so it's got a ways to go.

[00:12:45] But just for Cheryl's standpoint, you know, I think the Abraham Accords that he did in the first administration, the moving of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, I was a big fan of that. So he's done some good things. But just as far as people go, we tend to remember the bad times better than we do the good times. And we've got some bad times right now, and voters as well.

[00:13:11] And again, this list by Kevin McCullough reminds us of some things that maybe future candidates should learn from. And even it says some very nice things about, for example, Sarah Huckabee Sanders in terms of four years of governing the LEARNS Act, nearly 54 percent voters reward Republican efforts when it is that. Then, of course, it talks about Ron DeSantis and a number of others facing, in some respects, some very significant headwinds.

[00:13:39] You and I are old enough to remember a time when Florida was sort of seen as blue or at least purple. And my goodness, I mean, all the way through from top to bottom. Now, some of the races were a little closer, but nevertheless, Florida has become quite red. So is West Virginia. West Virginia used to be blue when Robert Byrd was in the Senate. And Iowa used to be blue or purplish at times. And both of those have changed.

[00:14:08] But now I didn't hear anything about West Virginia, but Iowa went, I think, mostly Democrats in its election. Glad you mentioned West Virginia because we just picked up a radio station there. We did welcome them the other day. So just, again, for those of you hearing that mention. And, you know, we haven't talked about this, but in Iowa, in the Midwest, where you have a lot of farmers, Trump's tariffs hurt them in some ways because Trump imposed tariffs on China. China said, well, we'll just stop buying your soybeans for a while.

[00:14:34] And I heard a number of Iowa farmers. I've got a wife from Iowa who were talking about, you know, my soybeans are stacking up. Prices are going down. We can't find a place to sell them. And you had some of the Midwest turn against President Trump, Kansas being one, simply because of some of the tariffs that affected them. You know, one of the articles that we have here about the tariffs point out that this was actually used as a leverage.

[00:15:00] And you and I are old enough to remember when even Ronald Reagan, who you would not have ever guessed would have gone for a tariff, recognized that sometimes that can be a very significant way to get people to actually pay attention to what you're trying to accomplish. Ronald Reagan, George Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama all used tariffs, but they used them in usually small, specific ways. Right.

[00:15:27] And they've got some criticism for that, but it was usually temporary and small and specific, which Congress has given the presidents the ability to be able to do that. What President Trump has done is he's used him sort of as a massive hammer. And it's somewhat arbitrary into when he decides I'm going to host tariffs here versus not there. And that has been part of the pushback that people have had against it. One of the other issues that this article talks about is the fact that people were furious about the issue of corruption.

[00:15:53] Now, I heard people say that, and I can understand in Texas there was all sorts of issues associated with the former attorney general, then candidate on the Republican side for the U.S. Senate. But when they talk about it nationally, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there were certain companies and industries that got certain kinds of carve-outs. The president, who probably doesn't know a whole lot about cryptocurrency, developed a whole industry. Or liberty financial.

[00:16:20] And so in some respects, that one was higher than anything else. Virtually 90% of the individuals in the exit polls, and this is both Republicans and Democrats, said corruption. And I thought, isn't that interesting? Because even people that went in and voted for the Republican still said, one of the concerns I have is about corruption. And you would have thought that's the kind of thing you would have heard back after Watergate or something like that. But we're hearing it again. We're hearing it a lot.

[00:16:48] And then the president created a meme coin. He had, May, after he got elected, he had a private meeting with people who were the biggest investors of the meme coin. And many of these were foreigners. And at that meeting, and the press was excluded, the biggest investors got to sit next to the president. And these were usually foreigners. And then you say, whoa, this doesn't, I'm not sure this sounds good.

[00:17:15] Incidentally, the meme coin went down, I think it lost like 85, 90% of its value. So that, you had the Middle East, people investing a lot of money in World Liberty Financial. You had the 747 airplane that came from Qatar over there. The president said, I'm accepting this for America, not for me. But then he said he wants to put it in his library in the middle of downtown Miami. I'm sorry.

[00:17:43] Where you get enough space to put a 747 in the downtown of, the middle of downtown Miami is a bigger issue. But yes, things have just raised a lot of eyebrows out there on things that are happening. And the Democrats are going to look into this, and we'll see what we find. And again, we said before, nothing may be illegal, but it just looked unseemly, or as they say in the U.K., bad form, I guess. And that's, I think, the issue.

[00:18:10] And we have in the past interviewed Peter Schweitzer, who has talked about the scandals. Most of them have been Clinton and Obama, but also some others as well. And I've got a feeling right now he's got enough for a book. And the sad reality is, more is perhaps going to surface because don't give your enemies opportunities to attack you. I think some of the attacks on Trump, impeachment, all that were not appropriate.

[00:18:35] But don't give your people that are going to disagree with you enough material to work with to fill up the next two years with investigations. And, you know, one of the things we did on this program is we talked about Hunter Biden and his connection with the president. And it oftentimes seems like he was profiting off his name recognition. And Hunter Biden has actually come up and conceded that that was the case. But you have the Trump sons who are investing in all kinds of companies, many of which create weapons and so forth.

[00:19:04] And then you find out that the Pentagon is giving them a big contract. And there may not be any connection there, but it doesn't look good. And there will be some investigations and see what we find out. There is a lesson to be learned, and that is if you're going to run for the presidency, then have a blind trust and don't deal with the stock market and a number of other things. So even the propriety of any kind of collusion simply evaporates. But I wanted to end before I get on to some other issues.

[00:19:33] For too long, Congress has abdicated its Article I authority over tariffs, assuming the president would exercise it responsibly. It should no longer do so. That's the argument coming from the editors on repeal the tariffs. And it does seem to me that if we really believe that the Constitution should be implemented, then I think tariffs are part of Article I congressional authority, isn't it?

[00:19:58] Democrats have said that they are going to one of their early pieces of legislation will be to do something with the tariffs. I don't know if they're going to repeal or restrict or how they're going to do this with the president. And then they'll look for Republicans to vote for it. And Republicans have, prior to Donald Trump, Republicans have been opposed to tariffs. I mean, generally the vast majority of them. And they were quiet when Donald Trump was doing his tariffs. So we'll see what happens there.

[00:20:22] But the Democrats are going to highlight a number of things that Trump has done that has typically been something that Republicans would have agreed with but have not during Donald Trump's time. Well, we're going to take a break. And I'd love to take some more phone calls if you would like to join the conversation. I did mention a couple of times this piece by Kevin McCullough. He said, I wanted to wait 36 hours before he wrote it. And what he wrote was very good because about two dozen really interesting reflections.

[00:20:50] I gave a couple of ideas on how when Cheryl called in a few minutes ago, she could actually pull some of those facts and figures and statistics out and things of that nature. And it's just, again, looking back to what happened on Tuesday. But we also want to look ahead. So we'll talk about that as well. But if you'd like to join the conversation today, 1-800-351-1212. If you find yourself saying, I'd really like to look at some of these articles that you're talking about, that's why we've posted them. There's a way to fix this. Lessons from the election.

[00:21:20] When we come back, where are all the riots, the military and the nukes, all things we were warned about in some of the liberal press? We'll talk about that right after this. I'm sure that you've noticed that social media is now filled with information generated by AI. Why? Dramatic descriptions of politicians and music stars supposedly making statements about a current issue.

[00:21:46] Leaning into the microphone, looking into the lens, opponents silenced. It's powerful. It's riveting. And it's all lies. Even several national television networks were recently found using enhanced pictures, meaning manipulated, falsified, literally not giving a true picture. So many liars. So much deception. Where can we turn for truth? Right here.

[00:22:14] From Kirby and the team at Point of View. We need your support. Please join the Point of View Truth team today with a monthly gift of $30 or more. Together, we can shine the light of truth and dispel the darkness and deception of this day. Give now at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:40] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:04] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of the station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, if you'd like to join us, 1-800-351-1212 or just sit back and listen to some of the other commentary. And I thought for just a minute we'd talk about the Democratic Party because I want to talk about the negative and then we'll talk about the positive because there are some individuals that have run and been very successful.

[00:23:32] But one of the things that we were warning about, and I started the program earlier this week with some of these comments by Hillary Clinton on The View. Don't quote The View very often. But she was saying, you know, we've got to pay attention here because they might have ICE agents at the polls and they might use Social Security to figure out how people are thinking.

[00:23:51] And this piece here that we posted by Derek Hunter reminds us that on MS Now and a lot of these podcasts, they were basically assuring their audiences the president was on the verge of launching a military to seize the ballots across the country, block certifications of results. Then basically, even suggesting that there were going to be some other issues that would be trying to prevent the election of individuals. Of course, none of that took place.

[00:24:21] And what he says is, well, why were these people lying? Of course, maybe they believe all of this. I don't know. But again, the consequence is, well, you might get a book deal or a CNN contract. And I think it just illustrates the fact that oftentimes with some of the really radical Democrats, it's projection. Because if they were in that role, that's what they'd want to do. And I think we see this in a very striking way. An individual that I quote quite frequently is Scott Galloway.

[00:24:51] He's written a very good book about how, in some respects, we have the economy, which is structured towards the old and not to the young. But the other day, he's making this comment that Elon Musk is a traitor to the West. We lined up the Rosenbergs against the wall. Musk is a traitor to the West, and he should be held to the same standards. Reading between the lines, it's like he's ready to assassinate Elon Musk.

[00:25:16] And some of these Marxists that have been elected want to confiscate the businesses that have been started by Elon Musk. So that's the negative side of the Democratic Party. And I do believe that even though in a minute we're going to talk about some of these individuals that look nice on camera and look reasonable, there's going to be a real push from the Democratic Socialists and the really rabid progressives to have Democrats say and do some things we would never have imagined.

[00:25:46] Well, that's certainly true. On the election aspect of it, I don't think Donald Trump helped himself on this because when the Department of Justice filed a preemptive suit against Alaska, and we're going to have this suit unless our guy wins, sounds like you're saying, okay, well, if our guy wins, we'll drop the suit. But if he doesn't, we're going to – and then in January of last year, because I went back and looked at all this,

[00:26:11] there were some people around him after the 2020 election that said you need to go out and seize the voting machines. Yes. Trump didn't do it. He has told media in this year he sort of regretted that he didn't do that. And that sort of raises the question, okay, if it's really close, what happens? Of course, it was such a blowaway election. Right. Even in really red states that it would just look silly to even try to do anything like that. So I think it's all – they may still try to move forward on Alaska.

[00:26:41] Right now, Peltola has a small lead in that state. So we'll see what happens. But it was just a blowout election for the Democrats. Too close to calling Mississippi and Alaska. Yeah. States with voter ID and a lot of changes that Trump would agree with still went blue. So there's not much of an argument there for him. Yeah, I did do a commentary yesterday on gerrymandering. It didn't really help very much.

[00:27:08] But I raise that first because let's just point out, and you've said this on the program before, that when you watched Zoran Mamdani, when you've watched James Tallarico, we know maybe what they believe, but they present themselves very well in front of the camera. Absolutely. I watched Tallarico and Gina Hinojosa when she won. And she comes out, and they look like they're personable, likable people. They're positive.

[00:27:34] When James Tallarico came up, he always had a smile on his face, engaging, talking with people, not using bad language or cursing other people or talking about people who were not real Democrats. It just was a very engaging person. And I argue that so many of Americans just look at those sort of images. And when I looked at Ken Paxton, his eyes were droopy. He hardly ever smiled.

[00:28:02] He hardly raised his voice. It just looked like he was sleepy Ken Paxton versus vibrant, exciting Tallarico. And if I'm a person who doesn't watch this, I'm going to pick Tallarico. He looks like the young, up-and-coming, dynamic person. And Democrats did that with a lot of their candidates, and I think that helped them. Well, and again, you said that when you looked at James Tallarico, you thought of John F. Kennedy. Oh, yeah.

[00:28:29] If you look at the hair, they're the same age that Kennedy was when he first became a senator. And you look at sort of just the overall look. I'm not saying he looks like him, but there's a sort of a Kennedy-esque aspect to him that really drew people back in 1960. And so on the flip side, Donald Trump backs a number of candidates who were just not good candidates.

[00:28:54] Darlene Graham may be a great person, but she was not up for running for senator and having the debates and so forth. Tom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, he's very good, and yet he wasn't with Donald Trump on everything, and Donald Trump threatened to primary him. And Tom Tillis said, if the president of my country who is in my party does not want me to run, I'll step out. And that went to a Democrat. Yes.

[00:29:21] And again, let's just be honest, we're in the television age, and we learned that in 1960. You remember that presidential election? Absolutely. People who listened to the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960, if they listened on the radio, they thought Nixon won this hands down. When they saw the television image, and political science classes use these now, because Nixon had his 5 o'clock shadow on there, he was sweating, Kennedy was upbeat,

[00:29:50] looked like he was talking to the camera and so forth. That sort of sold Kennedy to the public. And so he didn't win by a lot, but they did sell him. You just see this age of television coming in now that really works for people. And, you know, we've got the age of social media coming in, and President Trump uses these in very negative ways, and that may have actually turned off some people. Can the Republican candidates learn that?

[00:30:16] I know that you have interacted with somebody who has known Marco Rubio for a long time, and I believe that he actually said that Marco Rubio is one of the most natural candidates. He said he was a generational candidate. Yes. And this is a person who was working with Marco Rubio some years ago when he was in the House in Florida and then became a senator. He thought he was a generational candidate. You just don't get somebody that good coming along that often. And now we're hearing, I've seen two stories, that Marco Rubio may be stepping down sometime soon.

[00:30:45] If he's going to run for president, he's got to start trying to put distance between himself and Donald Trump. And now that Stephen Miller is going to be the chief of staff, you're going to have to be able to explain why you differ from the president. Yes. Well, and again, who would have predicted, as we said before, even a week ago, that you would have had Blue Texas, but who would have also predicted that Ron DeSantis, who lost to Donald Trump

[00:31:11] and then has been a very good governor in what's called the free state of Florida these days, they call it that, the free state of Florida, and now is stepping down. And many people say he's also the odds on possible candidates. Very good candidate. When you are a governor, you have run a state. And governors oftentimes move into the White House. Senators very seldom do. And vice presidents even less often, at least for the next election.

[00:31:39] So sometimes you'll have a vice president who moves in sometime later, as Joe Biden did, but not usually in the next one. I just don't think that J.D. Vance is going to do very well, because you just can't distance yourself from the president. You cannot distance yourself, especially from this president. He may let you distance himself. But the media is going to ask, J.D. Vance, did you support the war in Iran? Did you support the tariffs? Did you support some of the things he said about this person?

[00:32:05] And you either say, yes, I did, and then you get all that baggage, or you say, no, I didn't. And then the question is, why didn't you speak out at the time? Yes. And again, that's even something that will affect Marco Rubio, because you went along with that. And so we'll see where this all goes. But on the Democratic side, I would have predicted a long time ago that Kamala Harris is not going to run, or even if she does, she won't get very far. And maybe a few others.

[00:32:32] So that's kind of wide open right now, too, don't you think? I think Republicans, and there are actually a number of stories about this, Republicans who need to start distancing themselves from Donald Trump and his policies. And if Trump would allow that separation, then that works in favor of Republicans. If he calls them rhinos and can criticize them, that's going to make it hard for them and for him.

[00:32:58] And, of course, some of the Democrats can now distance themselves from Biden and everything else. And so we'll see how that goes. I would have never thought anybody would have called Greg Abbott a rhino, but President Trump did right after the election. Even though he had actually said some nice things about him two days before, right? Absolutely. So we will certainly pay attention. In some respects, it's too early to talk about a presidential election, but in some respects, that started two days ago, as Richard Lim pointed out. The election's here. It is here.

[00:33:26] And, of course, you're going to be seeing some various kinds of jockeying taking place. And we've got a senator from Georgia. We've got a governor from Pennsylvania. We do have a governor from California. We may see Republican debates coming up here within six or seven months. You could. And you could also see some of the Democrats kind of doing some of that jockeying as well. Let's take a break. We have commentary by Penna Dexter right after this.

[00:33:59] A report compiled by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reveals that between 2020 and 2025, the nine largest U.S. banks deprived certain customers of banking access due to their politics or their religion. De-banking results in the often sudden closing of client accounts, denial of credit, or refusal to provide payment processing services. Banks offer reputational risk as a rationale for de-banking certain clients.

[00:34:24] OCC examiners sifted through nearly 100,000 complaints to produce the 47-page review, concluding that bank policies disadvantaged holding certain political, religious, and social views. The report cited J.P. Morgan's payment operation, WePay, for closing the accounts of several conservative groups, as well as that of a business that sold merchandise promoting President Trump and the Make America Great Again brand.

[00:34:46] It revealed that Wells Fargo induced a vendor to close a nonprofit's account after highlighting the nonprofit's views on same-sex marriage. According to The Washington Stand, conservative and pro-marriage organizations lost banking access due to the recommendations of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Banks often used the SPLC's hate group designations to de-bank clients. In an article for the Daily Signal, Heritage Foundation economist Alan Mendenhall reports that

[00:35:12] businesses engaged in lawful but unfashionable lines of work were among the entities denied banking services. He lists oil and gas, coal, firearms, tobacco, private detention facilities, digital assets. Supposedly, banks are cleaning up their act with some saying they have reformed how they assess reputational risk. New York Post columnist Miranda Devine points out that although all nine banks told the OCC they had revised their practices, the regulator said the reforms have not gone far enough.

[00:35:40] As Heritage's Alan Mendenhall points out, banking is not a luxury. Modern life runs through the financial system. He says only Congress can provide a durable remedy for the discrimination that results from de-banking. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, Melinda Preston in studio, and we had somebody off here asking about the wars

[00:36:09] and didn't really cover that today, partially because they couldn't find a real good article that kind of gives a summary. But, of course, we have a war with, of course, Ukraine and Russia. We, of course, have the Iranian war. And I think it is probably fair to say that some very significant funding priorities will switch almost instantaneously there in Congress. Yes. The Democrats have already said one of their first things they're going to do is defund the war in Iran.

[00:36:35] Now, we'll see how they're going to try to do that because there is the War Powers Act and other things. Yes. But I've heard Chuck Schumer say today that Congress has the control of the purse and they're going to defund that. We'll see how they try to do it. My guess is they're also going to try to provide funding for the war in Ukraine because that's perceived as Russia wanting to start with Ukraine and also expanding its power in other places. And they feel like if you've got to fight this battle with Russia and Vladimir Putin, better do it in Ukraine than in the NATO country.

[00:37:05] So we'll see how it goes. But Democrats are going to flip that approach. And, again, how they're going to do that will create maybe a constitutional challenge because, on the one hand, they want to defund the war, but they don't necessarily want to defund the Pentagon. Right. And they've said that. And, again, you're just thinking about the commander-in-chief should have the discretion over the funds. So it will be interesting to see how that plays itself out.

[00:37:32] And there is this, I don't want to say a contradiction, but it's a paradox in the Constitution because Congress has the power to declare war. That's Congress. But the president has had a foreign policy. And so is Iran foreign policy or is it a war? And the president at times says, I don't call it a war, but everybody calls it a war. And we've oftentimes other things called military action or other things, so it's not a war. But presidents historically have gone to Congress to say, I'm engaging this.

[00:38:02] I need the funding for that. President George W. Bush did this in Iraq. It was a contentious debate, but they ended up funding it. But President Trump did not do that. And then later on he said he's angry because they may not want to fund it, but he never went to them to make the case in the beginning. Well, let me see if we can find an article maybe next week or even a conversation we can do next Friday about how that unfolds because it is kind of intriguing because on the one hand, the president is the executive branch,

[00:38:32] and he's the head of the executive branch. He's also the commander in chief. So in some way you've got to figure out if you're a Democrat, you'd even thread the needle of saying, I don't want to fund this war, but I do want to fund that war, but I'm doing that through the Pentagon and defense. And one of the things I think he's absolutely right on is that NATO and the European Union should have been funding more of their own, providing more funds for their self-defense.

[00:38:57] And I heard Harry Fleischer, press secretary for George W. Bush, say one time, George Bush would go in and say, you countries need to be spending more. Yeah, we need to, but they'd never do it. Trump actually forced them to do it. He certainly did. Well, just before I ran out of time, the commentary today by Penne Dexter is called Debanked, which is interesting because I have one coming out next Wednesday on debanking, but it's all based on the same thing. And that is we a while back, of course, had Latham Watts in studio,

[00:39:24] and we were talking about the fact that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency actually put together a 47-page report in which he found, they found, that a number of banks actually either denied, debanked, or discriminated against conservatives, Christians, and certain businesses. And we're talking about everybody. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, on and on and on. And so she gives a few examples.

[00:39:54] In mine I give some others, but situations in which they decided that they would not fund an organization because they did not believe in same-sex marriage. They found, for example, that one particular media group had some positions that they disagreed with. And then the one that really bothers me is at least four of those banks actually mentioned that they relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center to determine whether or not they would fund those.

[00:40:23] Hopefully the Comptroller of Currency will prevent that. That came back to bite them. Yes. Because of all the problems with the Southern Poverty Law Center that we found. For sure. And again, I'll just give you two quotes real quickly from my commentary. She has some in there from Miranda Devine and others. But the Comptroller of the Currency says, Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views. The Trump administration is committed to ending the weaponization of finance against hardworking Americans.

[00:40:52] Of course, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer says, No, American should be locked out of the banking system for being a conservative or Christian. And the Trumps themselves were debanked. Right. And one of the things that the banks had, they defended themselves by saying, We're trying to look for laundered funds, illegal funds, and other things of that nature. And that made a certain amount of sense, except when it comes out, and that's not what you were doing. So they defended themselves by saying they were trying to be careful about this, but it looks like they were going much, much further than that.

[00:41:21] And again, they would use the idea that it would be reputational risk for them to do so. Well, we can go all the way back to England. There were some individuals that were debanked, some very prominent individuals because they supported Brexit, for example. And here you can find individuals that were debanked because they supported cryptocurrency.

[00:41:41] We had one individual, Mark Andreassen, who was on with Joe Rogan saying he knew of about two dozen individuals in Silicon Valley that were debanked on some of these issues. So you have had some problems under both the Obama administration and the Biden administration. You would hope that this would be the end of it, but I fear that we'll probably be talking about it again sometime in the future. And find out more about it in the future. Well, let me, if I can, real quickly give you an oversight for Monday.

[00:42:09] I know, for example, one of the questions that people are always asking about is AI. And Liberty is going to be doing, in the first hour, an interview on this book, Breaking Babel. I really want to read that book myself. How a Mysterious Biblical Story Can Help Christians Survive the AI Revolution. You're going to get into some other very important issues, oftentimes some that I think would be very helpful for women.

[00:42:32] But I know you're going to be covering Tuesday in part because I'm going to be with a former Muslim who's become a Christian and really want to learn a little bit more about what he's doing. So maybe we could even have him on the program. But nevertheless, you on Tuesday are going to be talking to some very interesting people as well. Right. John Early, I've had him on before because he and Phil Graham wrote a book a while back which looked at our welfare system.

[00:42:57] And what they point out is that there are an awful lot of benefits in the welfare system, cash transfers and other things that aren't caught in the official census numbers. And so we actually provide people with much more benefits than you would see in the official numbers. It's important because the Democrats are coming in saying we need to restore funding to Medicaid. We need to restore funding to the Affordable Care Act. We need to get some of these people who were taken away from their welfare benefits and get them back.

[00:43:27] And we'll look at that. Yes. And you gave me a copy of Sarah Isker's book, which I want to read. It's called The Last Branch Standing. I heard a very good interview that Hugh Hewitt did with her. And you're trying to get her on, but not Tuesday. Not Tuesday. Maybe next time we'll see if we can schedule that as well because that's an important issue because it might be the last institution's standing. Because the last branch standing, it may be prophetic in that time. I know. So, again, great writer and just a lot of very important issues.

[00:43:57] Let me just mention that, of course, we did talk about the fact that Penna Dexter's commentaries on debanking, mine was as well. But mine, one today, deals with some of those other very important issues. Digital currency. What about a CBDC, a central bank, digital currency? They are all in in Europe for that. Absolutely. And what that's going to mean. They are. Yesterday, of course, I did one on drawing lines based on some things about the gerrymandering.

[00:44:22] So, if we didn't cover the topic you wanted us to cover, well, just stay tuned because you're back on Friday. Yeah. Back here. Yeah. You're on Tuesday. Tuesday and next Friday. Tuesday and next Friday. So, I'll see you on Friday from now. And you'll be sitting in this chair on Tuesday. And that's really very good. Most importantly, I want to thank, there's two Megans. Megan number one came in today because Megan number two was sick. And so, Megan, thank you for engineering the program. And, of course, Derek, thank you for producing the program. He's wearing his Texas Tech shirt.

[00:44:52] And it's been a good year for Texas Tech. He keeps reminding us of that. Who knew? They didn't used to be. But Texas Tech has become a powerhouse now. So, some of you can watch some football over the weekend. If not, just go out there and touch grass and enjoy this. Whatever happened and however you think about the election, I think the opening comment by Adanya was a very good one. But have a great weekend. See you back here on Monday on Point of View. Where does moral truth come from?

[00:45:18] According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth. And morality can even change over time. Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God. I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth. And that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil.

[00:45:47] People with biblical beliefs are called bigots. Or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free. And that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth. God's Word. At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal. And if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life.

[00:46:13] Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net. Or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net. And 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.