Jay Weber Show transcript 8-7-25
I do worry about the future of this country and for the future of ‘truth’.... Given how we already have republicans and democrats living in two completely alternate universes when it comes to ‘facts.
Most of you know that the Drudge report started out as a conservative and libertarian-minded website but- even before the trump era- Matt Drudge had sold out to leftists who’s links and postings have become increasingly bizarre and ‘counter-truthful’.
I can go to Drudge’s website any day of the week, now, and find a link to some lefty poll or another that has results that are completely- starkly-different than what all other polls are saying.
If you are a leftist who only wants to exist in a comforting bubble where your own news sources are tailored to lie to you and misrepresent reality just to make you feel better going to drudge or ‘huff po’ is the way to do it.
It's a lefty alternate reality over there...as it still is with so many of the legacy news outlets. The so-called accomplice media outlets.
Other than CNN, which, in all fairness- is- trying to bend back toward the middle and some even-handed coverage-
(and I’m not saying they’re accomplishing it, but i have noticed a change of tone on that network and an occasional pro-trump or positive GOP news story) ...
But aside from CNN, I’m not seeing a single legacy newsroom....or single left-wing accomplice newsroom...really change the tone or content of their coverage yet.
And it’s one reason that we live in an America now in which half of your news sources are going to insist the trump economy is tanking and a recession is looming... And the other half are going to say ‘this is going great. Trump is saving America’s economy again.’
So-which is it?
The truth on the economy, currently, is somewhere in the middle. It’s a huge deal that inflation has leveled off under three percent and that Trump’s tariff plans, so far is leading to new growth at the treasury and huge new promises of foreign investment and new manufacturing and technology activity.
It's a big positive that wage growth is sizable again, and is outpacing the rate of price increases...so consumer confidence is bouncing back-
But again-you’ll get two very different stories on that depending on the newsroom.
It’s a big deal that the long-time, independent surveys of small business and corporate leaders are showing the first real optimism for a brighter future and new expansions since covid.
But if you only watch or click on traditional media, you don’t know any of this, and if you believe drudge or the NY times, it’s ‘dire times ahead’.
As part of Trump’s tariff maneuvers, we’ve seen other countries and companies promise something like 6 to 10 trillion dollars in new investments in America.
6 to 10 trillion!
How is that not hugely positive for America?
Barrack Obama inherited a recession. He didn’t leap to cut foreign deals and pressure domestic businesses to return jobs here and/or invest in America.
Neither Barry nor ‘ole Uncle Joe’ could say they’d lured in 6-trillion dollars in new u-s investments in under six months.
But...Trump’s economy is terrible? And is this going terribly?
Come on. You are living in an alternative universe if you believe that...or if...as an economist...you ‘write that’.
Yesterday, apple committed another 100-billion dollars to US manufacturing...just a few months after trump asked them to commit 500 billion. And they did.
Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, joined trump at a news conference yesterday afternoon to highlight the good news.
Is there a link on drudge about this this morning? A prominently featured story on the NY Times or wash post website?
Probably not.
Another significant bit of business news that’s being ignored today: yesterday we learned that a whopping 82 percent of the companies on the S&P 500 beat their quarterly earnings estimates.
More than 8 in 10 businesses in that group beat their profit projections in the second quarter of this year....as.... Trump’s terrible tariffs were dominating the news.
Who would have guessed it?
Certainly not the so-called experts in DC, NY, and Chicago. They just keep getting it wrong.
RealClearPolitics has a division they call realclearmarkets....
And realclearmarkets has an ‘investor confidence’ formula that they track: how jazzed or pessimistic are the nation’s investors at any given moment?
Well- their latest investor optimism index soared. Soared. Over the last few weeks and months.
This doesn’t sound like an economy that’s angering and depressing everyone and on the precipice of a recession.
And this is one of those ‘index formulas that’s not easy to describe over the radio...and it deals in tenths of a percent. And so....the investor confidence number was 48.6...but now it’s 50.9....and so....that’s a huge move...
And we, as average people say.... okay....as our eyes glaze over. So, I won’t bore you with the geeky numbers....
But...realclearmarkets says, basically, consumer and investor optimism in July and August has soared to four-year highs.
They say this consumer confidence index they do has a strong track record of accuracy ...and foreshadowing what’s to come, economically. Okay, great. And it has three basic components:
American confidence is up in all three of those areas. And significantly enough to represent a four-year high in this measure.
That’s got to account for something, doesn’t it?
But if you watch or read only mainstream news outlets, oh, no..no..no. This is going terribly.
And these were the same news outlets who spent the four years of the Biden administration insisting that Biden was ‘saving’ the economy...and no, no... you don’t understand you dip wads...this is going great.
Ignore the 9 percent inflation and the fact that you are getting corn-holed on every purchase you make....and that your rent keeps going up every two months...no, no.You don’t get it. This Biden economy is great.
Why would you even believe ‘those sources anymore?
And yes, I can say ‘cornholed’ on the radio when I’m talking about the economy. That’s an official term in the ‘broadcasting economics’ media guide.... under the sub-head... Describing a bad economy.
But- it’s like we are living in two different worlds, these days, when it comes to the state of this economy. If you are a leftist who’s only looking at left-wing news outlets....oh, this is going terribly. Trump is killing the country.
But if you are listening to fox and reading conservative-leaning websites...then the economy is finally starting to strengthen again...and this is really going great. Many reasons for optimism.
And that takes-is- closer to the truth than the dower lefty version. It is.
Democrats and their analysts are, naturally, obsessing over last week’s bad jobs report: my god, only 73-thousand jobs were created in July. That’s terrible.
But not if they were all full time, better paying, private sector jobs...that were going to American workers....as they were.
During the Biden era, nearly all the jobs being created were- no kidding- low paying, part time, and government jobs....and virtually all the new jobs being created were going to illegals.
Sy. How is that superior to what’s going on now?
It took two or three days before-any-media outlets figured out what we were talking about last Thursday and Friday: that if trump’s deportation effort is stunting these monthly employment numbers for the time being- fine. That’s a good thing.
So, should we stop the deportations just to make government formulas look better?
No.
We should acknowledge that those ‘imperfect’ government measures are going to be screwed up for a while and aren’t really going to represent what’s going on out there in the labor market until things even out.
But the so-called ‘experts’ have been living in such a rigid, blind box for years...that they can’t see the situation.
photo credit: Getty Image
audio version of the segment here > Trump's economy is set to soar or tank, depending on the news source