10/16/25: Mearsheimer Warns On Gaza Ceasefire, Newsom Short Circuits On AIPAC, China Says Trump Will Fold

24:12We're taking you behind the scenes in our new podcast, Between Us, with me, Heather Dubrow. And me, Terry Dubrow. Between Us isn't about perfect lighting or curated Instagram grids. It's the unfiltered, behind-closed-doors conversations you wish you could eavesdrop on. Equal parts smart, funny, and a little bit scandalous. Every week, Heather will bring you an unapologetic take on the headlines, the trends, and the cultural moments everyone's texting about. And Terry will deliver insider beauty, health, and wellness insights you won't find on TikTok. Together, we'll tell the stories, spill the secrets, and share the hacks that keep life, marriage, and everything in between feeling fresh and fun.

24:51We may live in a gated community, but there's zero gatekeeping here. And plenty of, did they just say that moments? Listen to Between Us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, why don't we get to AIPAC? Yeah, so some extraordinary political moments on the Democratic side of the aisle where two big, you know, potential 2028 contenders were asked specifically about AIPAC in particular and with Cory Booker support for Israel in general and just completely crashed into the rocks for both of them. So let's start with Gavin Newsom here. He went on the podcast of a guy named Van Latham and gets asked about APAC.

25:32And his answer is pretty unbelievable. Let's take a look. I will not vote for a candidate that takes$1 from APAC. It's interesting. I mean, it's interesting. I haven't thought about APAC. And it's interesting. You're like the first to bring up APAC in years, which is interesting. Why did I say that? Not relevant to my day-to-day life. Okay. Which is just interesting. Listen. It's interesting you say that. JPEC perhaps more, but APAC less and less. Okay, fair enough. Which is just interesting. What's interesting about it? That it's just interesting as you bring up APAC that it hasn't been part of, I'm just reflecting quite openly and honestly, hasn't been part of the day-to-day.

26:12If you're just listening to that, it's extraordinary. But if you watch it, it's even more because he's like wiggling and squirming in a seat like a little kid. Keeps just repeating the word interesting. Wish Sager, I think his initial, Like, I think when he said it's interesting, his first instinct was to insinuate, like, this is low-key anti-Semitic that you're asking me about AIPAC. When I'm the governor in California, like, what do I care about? I haven't even thought about AIPAC. It was also giving a little bit—remember when David Pakman was like, is it pronounced AIPAC? Is it AIPAC? I've never heard of this.

26:44It's like, dude, you are clearly setting yourself up for a run for president in 2020. You've wanted to be president your entire life. AIPAC is one of the biggest spenders in elections. And you want me to believe you. I haven't even thought about that. I haven't thought about them in years. I have no idea. And you cannot bring yourself to just say, hey, you know what? A group that's in favor of a genocide. Maybe I don't really want their support. He is such a donor creation that he just cannot say anything other than this is interesting. It's interesting. Haven't thought about them. I don't know.

27:16Talk about like brain melt in real time. It was wild to see. I am extremely disappointed in that. And I take it personally. I trusted his political judgment much more than that, to be honest. I mean, I thought he's done quite well in general with the social media campaign. In general, you know, like standing up for Trump. I'm talking about purely in a lens of democratic politics. He's a smooth talker. He seemed to me like a coalitional manager. That just is a sheer sell in terms of political talent because it's like, dude, you're either pretending and you're not doing a very good job of it or you're actually unaware of AIPAC and the controversy that's online.

27:53Both of those are frankly disqualifying in terms of just sheer political talent. I could give you a better answer from a Democratic perspective right now, which is kind of what Cory Booker tried to do, which we'll get to in a little bit, which is I don't take corporate PAC money and I don't want anybody's money who's trying to push a particular agenda. Next question, right? And that's it. That's all it takes. But instead getting so uncontroversial – Kevin Newsom does want to take corporate PAC money. I mean that's the problem. I know. But I mean there's – as you know, when Slotkin was here and she's like, well, I don't take money.

28:21It's like, well, you took money from their bundlers, so you did kind of take money. But there's a way to rhetorically figure your way out of it. And look, no disrespect to Van. By the way, I did talk to him. I am a huge fan of the Rewatchables and the Ringer guys over there. And so it's great to have his support. He apparently watches the show quite a bit, which is very cool. But my point, just more broadly, is that for him, Van, for example, coming in this, being like, I won't take money from someone with APAC. I don't think it's that hard to square. Like, it's just one of those where you're right.

28:48I don't want special interest support. And I would say that about anybody. And then I would go into a tangent about some big business area, which he's comfortable with. And then just go in that direction. You know what would be a good pivot to try to pull off? And if you have a dogged interviewer, there's no good answer for him. Right. But, you know, if you wanted to try to pull off a pivot, you would say something like, you know, I'm really concerned about money in politics. in general. There you go. Perfect. Influence of all sorts of whether it's, you know, APAC or JPEC or the corporate lobby or, you know, like big pharma.

29:22I am so concerned about the way our democracy has been taken over by big money. Supreme Court decision coming up. Trump is bad. Next question. Right. And like I said, if you have a dogged interview interviewer, they're obviously going to press you. OK, but what specific what about APAC specifically? Like, have you taken money from them? Will you take money from them in the future? And then he just has to make a choice. Like, are you going to say no and be aligned with where the base is at this point? And we're not just the face, by the way. This has become a very mainstream concern with AIPAC as a catch-all for the incredible influence of Israel on our politics.

29:59So are you going to align yourself with them? Or are you going to keep on the table the possibility of getting AIPAC's millions of dollars? And you just are going to have to make that decision. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years, Ryder, where I could not say your name.

30:38I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened. Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of a** to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson.

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32:04Smart, funny, and a little bit scandalous. Every week, Heather will bring you an unapologetic take on the headlines, the trends, and the cultural moments everyone's texting about. And Terry will deliver insider beauty, health, and wellness insights you won't find on TikTok. Together, we'll tell the stories, spill the secrets, and share the hacks that keep life, marriage, and everything in between feeling fresh and fun. We may live in a gated community, but there's zero gatekeeping here. And plenty of, did they just say that moments? Listen to Between Us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

33:02Silicon Valley. It's also Hollywood. Even putting AIPAC aside, there are many people in both of those donor worlds who are very interested in, who are committed Zionists, who are going to want to hear you say the right things on that issue from their perspective. So he's not just thinking about, okay, am I going to lose AIPAC support and have them back some other candidate who's in the race? But am I also going to piss off a bunch of people that I'm friends with, that I've relied on for support, who have given me millions and millions of dollars over the course of my career. And that's why his brain just sort of melts and he can't say anything.

33:37Now, I am shocked. I am a little surprised that his answer was this bad. Yeah, exactly. Because he went on with this, this like gamer streamer, I'm sorry, I forget his name. But in any case, I watched it and he got asked some questions about Israel and generally like two state, one state, what do you think? And he did fine. Like he clearly anticipated those questions would be there. He said things that were not going to kill him politically. It was fine. And so it, to me, is such a sign of how incredibly out of touch these guys are with their own voters, with the base of their own party. They still think, because they look at the polling and it'll, you know, people will say, this isn't their number one issue.

34:16They do not get the way that it is serving as a litmus test for character, as a litmus test for basic morality and character. Also control. I think it's actually about control or anything. Independence, right? So I think that's, for me, that's really what it's about. It's like, bro, if you can't say that, you're just not independent. Like, it's like, you're not, you are not a original thing. I guess I should never have thought that from Gavin, and that's more my mistake. But I always thought that he had the ability, the political ability to chart a different direction. Another easy way to thread the needle is say, nobody controls me no matter what, right?

34:48You could just go off, oh man, talk about all the independent times you've bucked big money interests in California, which, I mean, Probably can't find a ton of examples, but I'm sure it should come up five or six or whatever off the top of his head. I did look up J-PAC. It's like the Jewish Political Action Committee of California. So that's what he was referencing. But it's like, look, you know what J-PAC is. You also, a really talented political person. If I think back to Bill Clinton, one of his best moments in the 1992 presidential debates. You can go watch this on YouTube if you're interested.

35:21A woman asked him about the national debt. But Clinton is smart. He's like, this lady doesn't care about the national debt. She's asking about the economy in general. She's just a voter. I'm not blaming her. So he takes it and he goes, you're concerned about the national debt? He starts ranting about trickle-down economics and people who lose their jobs, tough factories and everything. It was one of his best moments because you took the question, but you answered it in a way that got to the heart of what she was trying to say. And what Van, I think, is trying to say is I'm not taking money. I don't want to – he's like, I will not vote for a person who, to me, appears controlled by the Israel lobby because that, to me, is about independence.

35:57I'm outraged about what's happening in Gaza. I don't know why that is a very difficult needle to thread. And so the fact that Gavin is not either online aware or whatever enough or that the lobby is so powerful he thinks that they're necessary for his election, it's honestly mystifying to me for any prevailing politician. I think even Buttigieg has given better answers about that. I don't know. I'm not saying he's given a good answer. He gave some really bad answers too. Okay, but his first interview with Pod was a disaster. Terrible. But did you notice with Andrew Callahan, there wasn't a single viral clip that came out of that one.

36:27Like, I mean, look, maybe that's Andrew. And by his own admission, he didn't press him that hard or whatever on the Israel question. But he tightened it up enough to where it didn't go viral for a moment like this. And I mean, look, Gavin is a talented guy. So I'm not going to count him out just yet. You know that it eats his soul that something like this does go viral. You never want to go viral for a bad answer. So maybe you'll come up with a better answer and you might be able to thread the needle. But the fact is, is that if you're most talented people in the party, you're stars. And this is where they're at.

36:58Man, we got a lot of work to do. Yeah, like if you're in the echelon, like you got a lot of work to do. Let me go ahead and play the Cory Booker with my girls, the ladies over at Thigh Padded podcast. because part of the problem for these like, you know, slimy career politicians is they want to like word salad, like rhetoric their way out of it. When people really just want a very simple yes or no, like, am I going to take money? Are you going to take money from ABAC? Yes or no? Like there's no rhetorical flourishing your way out of it. At the end of the day, you either are or you aren't. And so she asked Cory Booker, is you'll recall he did that photo op with Benjamin Netanyahu where he was like trying to hide behind people.

37:38Remember that picture that came out of it? And so she asked him just flat out, OK, is he a war criminal or not? Let's take a listen to how Corey responds. One of the things I dislike about the Democratic Party is that we do a circular firing squad all the time. Their party, they disagree. There's a wild disagreements in the Republican tent. And yet they don't shoot at each other. And we have a really good way of holding up these purity tests. So if I agree with you on 95 - That's such bullshit. That is such bullshit. Come on. They fire at each other all the time. Trump has sent so many people out to pasture, so many people that he calls rhinos.

38:11Liz Cheney can tell you that they have the firing squad as well. It's not a purity test. It's are we in this fight and are we being beholden to corporations and corporate interests? Are we really the party of the working class? I'm one of a handful of people that don't take corporate PAC money. I don't understand my Democratic Party. What about APAC money? You take APAC money, don't you? That's a minuscule percentage of my resources. I read it's like 800 ,000. Yeah, but that's a lifetime number of raising tens of millions. The Democratic base feels like there is a disconnect. We hear you like when you did your 25 hour speech.

38:46I was like, go, Corey. I love this. That is amazing. And then there's a photo shoot with you with Benjamin Netanyahu. And I was just like, what in the actual fuck? Like, how can he do that? It was heartbreaking. I felt betrayed. And that is, hang on. And that doesn't just happen in an echo chamber. Democrats like you wear the base. We should make each other better. It's not a purity test. We want credible messengers because when we are down the middle, beholden to corporate interests, we leave this vacuum and that's how fascism has flourished. For myself and a lot of our listeners, when I saw the picture with Benjamin Netanyahu, I felt like it diminished your 25 hours.

39:28That's how it felt to me. Do you think he's a war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu? Do you think he's a war criminal? I, again, these are, these are questions that a lot of people think are the important litmus tests that are loaded and hot. My urgency is to be an effective leader in bringing an end to this crisis. And I get these questions all the time that to me undermine my urgency. I think the thing that Democrats get so frustrated with where we are right now, where you see like the Zoran Mamdani's and the Graham Plattener's rise up because you we can they can go on podcasting you can say do you think Benjamin Netanyahu's a war criminal and they just say yes and that's the end of it it's not all of the rhetoric answering it's like what happens to democratic politicians they go through this like prism and then we can't ever get like the answer to yes or no conversations like you do with Bernie and others and that's the frustration for the Democratic face with leadership?

40:27Do I think Antonio is worse than Trump? Yes. Do I think that we right now in America should be doing everything possible to bring peace, not just to that crisis, but to the ones that shock me that no one talks about? And I hope, and I don't know if you guys have or not. And I think what Jennifer hits on there with like, listen, our frustration, why can't you just say yes or no? Right. Like all of this, oh, it's, you know, trying to talk your way out of it or talk your way around it. Like it's a yes or no question. Is he a war criminal? And frankly, I'm actually a little surprised that he couldn't even say that because what a lot of liberals do is they will try to do like, oh, Israel's great and amazing.

41:06There's no problems. It's just Netanyahu. He's the problem. And try to – because at this point it's undeniable like the war crimes, the horde, the genesis, all of that is like undeniable. So the best bet for a lot of liberal Zionists is now to say, yeah, but I really hate Netanyahu. And yeah, he's the real problem. So it is actually a little bit surprising that Cory Booker can't even do that. I agree. Yeah. I mean, I found that extraordinary. And I think she was probably surprised by it too. The whole thing is shocking. By the way, Cory Booker in 2022 sponsored a war crimes charges being bought against Putin, in case anybody's wondering.

41:38He knows what a war crime is. He also – look, if that's the liberal framework that you believe in, this is always what's screwed to the pro-Israel liberals is because they're happy to call for regime change in Putin and Russia, war crimes. But with Israel, they're like, oh, it's complicated. The ICJ is so biased, right? That's what he's like. Oh, he said that too. Yeah, he said the ICJ singles out. Singles out Israel. And then he also tried to do the whole like, well, why don't you care about these other conflicts? Why don't you care about these other things? So he used all of the dodges. Because we're not funding all of them, dude.

42:09It's an easy answer. This is just bullshit. People just see right through it. I'm not as surprised. And I'm so sick of, you know, one of Tucker's best moments was when he called out Ted Cruz for insinuating he was an anti. Yeah. Like, I am so sick of all of these, like, little passive-aggressive ways of insinuating someone's an anti-Semite. Fucking come out and say it. You know what? If you think it's anti-Semitic that she cares about Israel, just fucking say it. Don't be such a weasel. Yes, I agree. Such a worm. I'm so sick of that shit. I agree. I couldn't agree with you more. I think, look, with Corey, Corey's not actually talented.

42:41That's my thing. And so I expect this from him. It's still Gavin I'm stuck on, where I'm like, dude. Look, Corey is a discount Obama from the day he came to office. He's always been trying to do the affect. He's always trying to go for his veganism or whatever. It's cringe. He's been cringe from day one. He's obviously controlled by the big money guys in New Jersey. So this isn't all that shocking. I guess what's more shocking is why he agreed to go on the podcast and why he was so shocked that he was getting pressed on Israel. He's so confident in his abilities. But that's – one thing that a lot of people underestimate is that these politicians, you don't get to this position from nothing.

43:20You are an egomaniacal narcissist to a degree that the average person has never interacted with. Like this type of political – this type of personality profile is extremely rare and they gravitate to Washington for a reason. So yeah, he has supreme confidence in his ability to school her or any of that. But I think what he is not able to deal with is – it would almost respect him more if he'd be like, look, I'm pro-Israel for this and this reason. And if you could articulate a case, it would be respectable. But for me, it's all of the split the difference stuff, which is just mealy mouth. It's weaselly.

43:54It just seems like you're trying to have it both ways. You see that with Gavin. You see it with Corey. It's just a sheer lack of political talent. And I think what these guys underestimate, to your point about the polls, no one says it's the number one issue, but it's a proxy for are you independent, controlled, are you going to say what you actually think? And if you can't say it, then get out of here. It reminds me, at the time, Trump 2016, radical Islamic terrorism. You remember this? And Hillary just wouldn't say it. It's like, why won't you say it? She just was like, I prefer radical jihadism.

44:29And everyone was like, you just – it's like for everybody else, for people who were concerned about it or anything, they're like, you seem more concerned with political correctness than you do about keeping us safe. That's why it was an issue, right? You can object to the term or whatever intellectually, but politically, that's what it was about. This is like that on steroids because this is an active hot war where you actively are taking money and you're actually participating and sending bombs to fund it. But that is just – look, beyond even just morality, again, for most people, especially a lot of young people who are out there, I presume that's what Newsom wants.

45:06That's why he's in his jeans and his shirt and all that on the higher learning pod is he's trying to reach these younger audiences. This is hot. Like you just can't get away from it. Look, by the way, this is a right-left phenomenon. There's this TPUSA thing going on right now where Glenn Beck and Megyn Kelly and all these people are out there. Glenn Beck is torturing himself over Israel. Every single event, they're like, okay, give Charlie his due. He was actually not much better at it. And part of the reason why he had the focus groups and he had much more workshop dancers. You could see all the text messages and things that have come out.

45:42What's he working through? He's like, I don't know how to deal with all of this stuff that's bubbling up on campuses. So you're seeing this happen at every level. And if he can't just say the truth, you're done, in my opinion. So, you know, left liberals, you guys, you deserve everything that's coming to you. You deserve your tea party moment because you, again, not Corey, but Gavin, Pete, you were talented enough. You had the ability, but you tried to split the difference and somebody is going to beat your ass who is, has believes in a whole other type of stuff simply because they're just going to seem like they're real.

46:15That's it. Cory Booker is particularly offensive to me, as you guys know, if you watch my monologue about him, because he postures like he's the civil rights hero, moral crusader. And he wants to have basically the positions of John Fetterman on Israel and still wear the mask of some progressive humanitarian icon. And this is very binary. Like the rubber has met the rote and you are either going to be a humanitarian who cares about innocent women and children getting murdered with our tax dollars, or you're not. And you are a complete fraud and a phony. And I think we all know what is really going on there.

46:53I mean, this is a guy who bragged about being text message besties with the head of APAC. This is who he is. He was super, super close with Rabbi Shmuley for years and years and years. They did ultimately have a fallout over, apparently, they were, I don't know, Shmuley ended up being too self-promotional even for Cory Booger, which is an extraordinary thing. You can go back and look at all the details of how that all went down. But, you know, this is who he is. And a part of that is this is going back. I don't know if you guys remember in Obama 2012, Cory Booker came out and he was a spokesperson, like a major spokesperson for Obama's campaign and was so upset about Obama going after private equity and said that publicly and it was a whole thing.

47:38I mean, that's where his bread is buttered. Like he represents New Jersey. He gets all his money from a bunch of like, you know, finance guys, Wall Street, those types. There are a number of those donors who are also very interested in this issue. And, you know, and he wants the APAC money, whatever. And so that's who he is. So I think this is going to this trend of liberals trying to posture like their progressives, trying to posture like their humanitarians, I think, and getting exposed is going to continue. Because in a certain sense, again, with a dogged enough interviewer, there is no good answer here.

48:10Now, he could have said on the war criminal thing, he could have said something like, Like, well, he's indicted by the ICC and, you know, I believe in international law. And so I'm going to watch that. But they don't. They don't believe it. But like that's you. You would have to do something like that. But I don't think that's going to be totally really satisfying to people at this point either. They just it's refreshing when you hear a Graham Plattner or Zoran Mamdani just be able to say, yes, he's a war criminal. Yes, he should be indicted. Yes, he should be in the Hague. Like that is what people actually want to hear.

48:41And if you aren't prepared to say that, then just do the Fetterman. Just be John Fetterman. I agree. You know, there's like, you are not going to make anyone happy with this attempted middle ground bullshit. And you can actually split the difference, too, because then you get the accusation of like, why are you obsessed with Israel? Actually, Zoran is the best of this. He did his interview yesterday with Fox News and she kept. He's so good. Yeah. She kept pressing and being like, should Hamas disarm? And he's like, I think New York City should have less cost. And it was like, I don't have an opinion on Hamas.

49:09I do have an opinion on affordability. Exactly. I was like, wow. Again, look, I mean, I got a lot of beef with Zoran, Mr. Zoran, but I'm like, I respect talent where I see it, man. And like for that, why, why is it so, why is that even a refreshing answer to be able to see something like that from Corey, from Gavin, all these guys, I don't know. I just get the feeling again to the proxy of control. It's like, dude, if you're going to say that, that means you're never even going to wink in my direction to anything that I particularly care about. And this is for anybody. It's about being controlled.

49:41And that's part of the probably, you know, if you look at some of the Gen Z and some of the Gen Z like disillusionment with Trump, in particular with men, Israel is a huge part. I mean, I don't think people are grappling with that. Like from TikTok to the general feeling of like, I feel betrayed because one of the reasons that a lot of Gen Z guys even supported Trump is like, he tells it like it is, right? I'm sick of these liberal. They seem like they're controlled by these big groups and all they care about is some woke bullshit. And Trump is offensive, but that's good because it means he's authentic.

50:15But then when you start pulling the chair out for BB and rolling out the red carpet and giving them everything they want, that's the rubber meet the road issue. And they're like, yeah, man, I'm sick of this. And so that's why I think this is such a potent thing. It's not number one. I never would claim that it is number one, but it's a gateway drug, if you will, to this person is independent. And yeah, I mean, right now they're just giving it away to the Platners and the Zorons and to everybody else. And I don't know, in a way, I don't feel bad for them at all. I'm like, you deserve, you deserve everything that's coming to you.

50:45You deserve to get beat out in the election or lose a primary or look foolish on the internet because this is a political talent question. And these people are purely cynical. They don't care about anything. So it's just obvious that they don't have what it takes, at least right now from my perspective. Indeed. Yeah. All right. Do we have anything else on the Israel thing? We can wait. Oh, we had that one. That's okay. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune.

51:20It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years, right, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened. Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of a** to come around here and my wife.

51:56Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

52:29at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. Almost 30 years together, four kids and some of reality TV's most unforgettable moments, we know a thing or two about living life out loud. We're taking you behind the scenes in our new podcast, Between Us, with me, Heather Dubrow. And me, Terry Dubrow. Between Us isn't about perfect lighting or curated Instagram grids. It's the unfiltered, behind-closed-doors conversations you wish you could eavesdrop on. Equal parts smart, funny, and a little bit scandalous.

53:04Every week, Heather will bring you an unapologetic take on the headlines, the trends, and the cultural moments everyone's texting about. And Terry will deliver insider beauty, health, and wellness insights you won't find on TikTok. Together, we'll tell the stories, spill the secrets, and share the hacks that keep life, marriage, and everything in between feeling fresh and fun. We may live in a gated community, but there's zero gatekeeping here. And plenty of, did they just say that moments? Listen to Between Us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to China.

53:38Okay. Let's go to China. Yeah, huge story. Really, huge story come out of China. There's been all of these swings in the trade war. So, for example, you guys covered with Emily. Trump announces a 100 percent tariff on China in retaliation for rare earth minerals being cut off. The Chinese are holding incredibly firm and the administration is now taking a very different tone, saying, actually, we are in a sustained trade war now with China. Let's take a listen to Trump yesterday in the Oval Office. You're meeting with President Xi in a few weeks. If you can't come to an agreement or a deal at that meeting, are we in for a sustained trade war with China?

54:19Well, you're in one now. Look, we have 100 % tariff. If we didn't have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defense. We're in one now. So he's declaring the trade war. This actually needs to pair with these comments from Secretary Scott Bessent, who is ripping the Chinese negotiators, taking a very, very hard line, despite some of the things going on behind the scenes we'll tell you about in a bit. But let's take a listen to that first. What happened from your point of view? Because I thought Talks were going well. Lines of communication were open. And then we learn about this rare earth mineral restriction from China.

54:56And now it's back and forth and things are heating up again. They are. And the Chinese are trying to backfill the narrative, saying, well, the U.S. did A, B and C. Therefore, we had to do D. And that's not true. is that there was a lower-level trade person who was slightly unhinged here in August. I think his name is Li Kuangong, and threatening, saying that China would unleash chaos on the global system if the U.S. went ahead with our docking fees for Chinese ships. And this is clearly something that they were planning all along. I think that things can de-escalate, that we don't want to have to escalate.

55:49We have things that are more powerful than the rare-earth export controls that the Chinese want to put on. And so to be clear, this is China versus the world. It's not a U.S.-China problem. Good news is that this is IMF week. A lot of my counterpart or all my counterparts are here. We're going to be speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies. And we're going to have a fulsome group response to this because bureaucrats in China cannot manage the supply chain or the manufacturing process for the rest of the world. So he frames it as China against the world.

56:35However, big news actually just out this morning from New Delhi. The finance minister of India is actually skipping this year's annual meeting of the World Bank and of the IMF over unresolved differences on trade and the Indian purchases of Russian oil. By the way, Trump did say yesterday Modi told him he would stop buying Russian oil. Has yet to be confirmed by New Delhi. So I'll let you decide whether that one's true or not. All right. And I did check the overnights coming out from there. But the point remains, China's holding firm. They're like, no, do it then. Do it. And the reason why, it's kind of amazing.

57:08I've been reading into their strategy. Let's put this up here on the screen from the Wall Street Journal, who obviously got this from the CCP itself. It's from their Beijing bureau. They say, China, betting it can win a trade war, is playing hardball with Trump. I just want to read this to all of you, just to show the incredibly weak position that we are in. Xi Jinping is betting the U.S. economy cannot absorb a prolonged trade conflict with the world's second largest economy. China is holding a firm line because of its conviction that an escalating trade war will tank markets as it did in April after Trump announced Liberation Day, prompting Beijing to hit back.

57:42China expects the prospect of another market meltdown will ultimately force Trump to negotiate at an expected summit with Xi later this month. Beijing continues to play hardball this month, escalating the trade fight by Monday, sanctioning U.S. units of South Korean shipping. The move whipsawed U.S. markets on Tuesday, triggering a sharp early sell-off as hopes for easing tensions had faded before markets partially rebounded and steadied in the afternoon as it looked, again, as if negotiations were going to happen. Beijing is imposing restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals, which is vital to the consumer electronics and tech industry.

58:20Now, if you want to know how America is going to hit back at China for rare earth minerals, literally one of the most critical things that we have, let's go ahead and put C5 on the screen just to see the cards that we're holding. This is from Trump. I believe China purposefully not buying our soybeans and causing difficulty for our soybean farmers is an economically hostile act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with cooking oil and other elements of trade as retribution. I'm sure there's no substitutes for that. As an example, we can easily produce cooking oil ourselves.

58:56We don't need to purchase it from China. Oh, devastating blow. China's got us on rare earth minerals, which we need to power consumer electronics, iPhones, everything. Rare earth minerals, EV bat, whatever. You know, so many different things. We're like, yeah, but we won't buy your cooking oil. Not great. It's not great. OK, so yeah, it's not good. OK, I'll just put it that way in terms of like so much smarter than we look. I mean, they plan. We when Emily and I covered this, we were talking about Arno's thread where he's talking about like one of the vulnerabilities China actually had was on helium, which is like something you wouldn't necessarily think of.

59:36But they're very dependent on us for helium. And so over years, they were like, we're going to make sure we're not dependent on them for helium. So that if push comes to shove, we can take some actions like, you know, we're not going to send you rare earth minerals anymore. And they will have limited ways that they can retaliate. So they did all that planning in advance. Meanwhile, Besson's comments about like, oh, it's the world versus China. You all picked a fight with the entire freaking world. I mean, this is something you and I have been saying since Liberation Day. If you actually want to isolate China, then you have to isolate China.

1:00:09You have to have friendly relations with the rest. So we have to give them reasons that we want to be on your side and not looking for a reason to actually side with China. And so you see the fallout with India. We've been extraordinarily provocative and irritating towards them and really screwed up that relationship. So, yeah, we're not in a great position here. And I think the smart money is on Trump taco because the Chinese are absolutely right. Our entire economy is just a bet on AI. And China can screw that up. Like they can pop the bubble. So, you know, I think they're intelligent enough to realize that Trump lives and dies by what the stock market is doing.

1:00:47So, you know, when they're able to genuinely threaten the performance of the market in a way that really stings. Yeah, he's going to back down. I think that's a good bet. The S &P is near an all time high. If you see even a 10 percent correction, it's going to be big problems for Trump because that is floating the whole economy. And if you start to see stops in our credit markets, which is fueling all of this AI stuff, good luck. Because then when we – what do we talk about here all the time when we talk about AI? It's literally covering up an actual recession. Without them, we're dead. We have a recession in almost every other industry.

1:01:22We have problems with employment. We have problems with consumer demand. We have the bifurcated economy of the rich and the poor. If you see the contraction of, again, even 10%, that's going to cause fear in the top 10 % of consumers. they will cut back, which means that's 50 % of all consumer spending, which will take a hit. By the way, it's October. We're going into November and December, which is when the vast majority of retail sales happen in a very short period of time during the Christmas season. That also factors into travel, everything. It can go on forever. And so the point just broadly with the China tariffs and with the war of where we are right now is they know exactly who we are.

1:01:58They know who we are. And the problem is that we created the situation in like multiple different ways. So, for example, we blew our wad entirely in sanctioning Russia. And we showed that even with the full force of United States sanctions against you, that as long as you have enough material, enough weapons and a war and some sovereignty and some few allies like China and India, not only can you survive, your GDP can grow. China has, what, orders of magnitude, 20, 50, 100 times more powerful than Russia. So for them, they're like, yeah, it'll hurt for sure. But as I told everybody in the original parts of the trade deal, they have a functioning government.

1:02:36So when they knew that Chinese producers were going to have a hit to their sales as a result of tariffs, what did they do? They created an immediate slush fund. They don't need Congress or Kristen Sinema or whatever. They created an immediate slush fund and they gave it to producers and said, here is a way for you to tide over. Then they forced the Amazons of China to say, you guys are all going to massively discount made in China products to make sure that production doesn't die on the Chinese side. And of course, they survived. By the way, meantime, they have thousands of bureaucrats intimately studying.

1:03:17And these aren't just our bureaucrats. These are people who are actually highly educated to the technocratic engineering state, which studies all of their critical industries and is looking with a one, a five, a 10 year plan and intimately making sure that they have no disruption, that not all of this is in there. And it's not as if they haven't been planning for this for the last five years because they knew Trump was going to come into office. So just compare that level of seriousness to where we are. Of course, it's not going to work. I mean, yeah, if we had a requisite similar program, we could do it.

1:03:47I have no doubt that we don't have the human capital or the money. Of course, we have the money. We have the political capital. There's so much that we could, but not under this. Not under this. Like, yeah, not only in terms of blinking, but it does look like they're going to get everything that they want because it's not just going to be rare earth minerals. Trump has caved on TikTok. Trump has caved on, I mean, on NVIDIA, on the chips. Like, the most hawkish members, China hawks of his former first term, are freaking out about this. They're writing open letters in the Wall Street Journal. And the Financial Times, they're like, this is a disaster.

1:04:19It's basically capitulation. That's what Trump has chosen. Like, the path of independence is gone, in my opinion, especially after the tax bill. We had a chance there, but that's it. It's over. Like, I mean, didn't I say that in our—maybe I said it in our last show. You only open up a tax code every five years. Five years from now, where's China going to be? You know, it's done. Yeah. Yeah, and our sequencing is all wrong. Like, they're talking now about, oh, we're going to take more states and companies and designate certain things as, like, national security risks. We're going to put price fours in place.

1:04:48It's like you do all of that preparation before you launch the trade war. That's the way that that works. I did look it up. According to Grok, U.S. imports of Chinese cooking oil account for approximately 0.007 % of China's GDP. So we're really hitting them where it hurts. Critical, critical part of their economy, that 0.007%. Yeah, exactly. That is so crazy. 0.007%. I can't even get over it. I can't even get over it. By the way, do we even want that stuff? You know, they cook with vegetable oil. I thought this was Maha, right? What happened to Maha? This seed oil's galore over there. Again, this is, again, according to Grok.

1:05:28And I have, in fact, checked it outside of Grok. But apparently most of their exports consist of used cooking oil, a byproduct collected from food services, processed for export as a biofuel feedstock. So it's not like the stuff you're buying in the grocery store. or it's like going to livestock or whatever. It's just going into the fuel or into the livestock, which we also eat, right? Got it. Again, what happened to Maha? What happened to that? Everyone needs to take care of their mental health, even running back B. John Robinson. When I'm on the field and feeling the pressure, I usually just take a deep breath.

1:06:03When I'm just breathing and seeing what's in front of me, everything just slows down. It just makes me feel great before I run the play. Just like B. John, we all need a strong mental game on and off the field. Make a game plan for your mental health at loveyourmindplaybook.org. Love your mind. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Foundation, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, and the Ag Council. Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step.

1:06:43And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying. And drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:07:24This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.