The Affordability Issue & the Epstein Files With NewsNation's Leland Vittert

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on a lot of items that we find in grocery stores. And why I thought that was notable, not just the impact it might have on prices, but also because despite the president saying there's no affordability issue in this country, it's actions like that. It's the floating of the $2,000 tariff dividend check, stuff like that that tells me the administration does know that affordability is an issue right now. Well, you mean taxes, you know, tariffs raise prices? I didn't know that, right? There's also a little bit of an admission in taking that action. Lower tariffs prices come down. Does that mean if you raise tariffs prices? Oh, they go up. Yeah. It's how it works. You know, it's still a little early for me on this Monday morning. I'm a night guy. I'm not really, I just want to make sure I got all that. Well, it also, it's tough when, you know, you're putting tariffs on stuff like coffee. And that's not something that we can just manufacture here in the U.S. doesn't really work like that. Right. No, this is, I think President Trump realizes a couple of things. Number one, and I think, you know, the one thing we've learned about President Trump is that he really understands his base better than anybody does. What I would say is that he realizes he is very vulnerable on prices, number one. Number two, he also realizes that when he is playing the affordability game. he's losing because inherently that is a democratic talking point. The answer to affordability is to give away free stuff. The answer to helping Americans get ahead is lowering prices. Those are two very different things and Democrats will always win the contest of who can do away more free stuff. So I think that is going to be you're seeing I don't want to say a divide, but you're seeing in real time Trump and Republicans trying to figure out how to navigate that. Because as your listeners know, especially given the large immigrant populations from Venezuela and Cuba in Florida know, socialism just makes life more expensive. When you start giving away everything for free, everything gets more expensive, just the way of life wars. So that's number one. I think number two on Epstein that you brought up very smartly. Trump's flip on Epstein, I think is a realization of two things. One, he can't stop this. It's going, it's just going to keep festering. And number two, as we've learned, whenever people are attacking Donald Trump on, I'm going to sort of loosely say this sort of. his personality, right? About criticizing John McCain, about the border wall and everything else, about the grabber by the PK, whatever it is. When they're criticizing him personally about Russia, he is winning. And he's winning with his voters. And that is where I think you see this going.

Okay, a couple of things. Let me go back to the affordability issue for a second. I also think that we've reached a point now. Now we're, you know, 10 plus months into the administration where it's starting to get harder to do the whole, you know, this is Joe Biden's affordability crisis. Yeah. You're the guy behind the Resolute Desk. This is yours. You owe this. Yeah. Whether it's fair or not, that's just how it works. And heading into the midterms next year, it's going to be Trump's affordability crisis if Republicans don't find different ways to get it under control. On Epstein, and we're joined by News Nation Chief Washington anchor Leland Bitter. There's one thing that I'm going to be looking for. The vote's going to pass. If it happens tomorrow, if it happens Wednesday, whenever it happens, the vote's going to pass in the House to force the Department of Justice to release these files. Then it goes to the Senate. But. With Trump directing the Department of Justice and Attorney General Pam Bondi to open these investigations into people like Bill Clinton and Larry Summers and others, even though, you know, we had previously heard from the Attorney General, there was no predicate to do those kinds of investigations. With that happening... I wonder if there's less of a concern about the vote, not just because it wasn't going to win this battle, but also because they'll be able to say, well, we can't release the files right now, even with this vote, with this bill passing, because we've got active investigations underway now. You are wise beyond the hours of the day. That's what I'm watching. I think I think you're right. I still come back to and I can't quite understand why Trump is. My only feeling about why he's allowing this to continue, and you're right, by having the vote, maybe even allowing Republican senators to vote for it, maybe even signing it himself and then saying, oh, but it's still under investigation. Yeah. It just keeps it in the news more, which is exactly what he wants because he would much prefer to fight on Epstein than he would fight on health care. And, you know, the Republicans are in, I think, one of those positions where be careful what you wish for because you might get it. They now own health care. They now own the economy. They now own whatever's going to happen with Venezuela, which is just sort of wacky right now. They own all these things. And when you own all of them, you got to fix them.

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