A Ukraine deal and a budget deal (02-26-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] One of the things that I have learned in this Trump era, and I impart the advice to everyone, pro-Trump, anti-Trump, whatever, it is simply this. Just give it a minute. Just give it a minute. Just be a little patient and see what happens.

[00:00:56] If you are migrating, illegally or legally, from one outrage to another, if you are just bouncing from one Trump truth social post to another, or one mean tweet to another, and one executive order to another, if you're just hopscotching around, getting outraged, or trying to defend every single thing in real time,

[00:01:26] you're going to miss sort of the larger picture. So you just have to kind of slow down. I know they're going very fast. Trust me, like, this is an issue for everybody in media right now because they are, as Elon Musk said, moving fast and breaking things. But he says, as he said today at the cabinet meeting, which is still going on, and they've allowed the media to come in and ask questions.

[00:01:59] That things are moving very fast. It's difficult for media to keep up. And so you're getting just this constant stream of reaction. And the reaction is largely based on prior biases. So if you hate Donald Trump and you are suffering from Trump derangement syndrome, you're just in this constant perpetual state of outrage.

[00:02:26] And here's a really good example of it. Ukraine. Ukraine. Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is coming back to America. He's going to be visiting soon. Again, he's coming back. He's going to meet with Trump. Why? Well, apparently, they have struck a deal. So whatever you thought about Donald Trump's comments from the last week,

[00:02:57] and, you know, why is he going after Zelensky? Why is he saying these things? And why is he cozying up to Putin and all of this? What is the outcome? What has it yielded? According to the Associated Press, Ukraine and the United States have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals.

[00:03:25] So, in other words, the very thing that they were trying to negotiate that Zelensky blew up. And he did. Right. He did that. You always have to keep in mind with these types of things also is that you may not be the target audience, that there may be somebody else that the message is designed to to impact. And I got to tell you, like when I saw, you know, Trump talking about Putin and.

[00:03:55] People were like, oh, my gosh, he's a Russian asset. Oh, he loves Putin. He's a dictator, too. And all the all of this. My read on it is and I'm no master negotiator, but I've I've read over the years some tips from people who do negotiations. And I've also read some stuff about psychology and. It seemed to me, at least, that maybe this is stuff he has to say, Trump, that he has to say not somebody's forcing him,

[00:04:25] but he has to say this stuff in order to get Putin to the table. And if you go in there as an outspoken ally of one side of the negotiating table, then you don't have any credibility with the other side at the negotiating table. And so, you know, you you fluff Putin a little bit there and you you make him you know, you puff him up.

[00:04:54] You make him feel like, oh, this guy might be on our side. Oh, he's receptive to us. He might be a neutral arbiter. And meanwhile, you know, he's saying what he's saying about Zelensky. Oh, he's a dictator, no elections and all of this. And so you got this war of words going on. But in the background that we don't see is that a deal is being hammered out.

[00:05:18] And is it possible that the performance that we see is not actually meant for us to see? It's meant for Putin to see. And again, I'm no expert on this, but if I can see this as a potential explanation, you know, the Russians see it as that. You know, Putin would.

[00:05:44] Even if they dismiss it as not true or that, you know, they don't want to believe it or whatever, they think that it's not designed for him or whatever. But you know that they have obviously thought about it. They have to. You got to see as many angles as possible. Right. Unchallenged ideas are easy to hold. Right. And if every single thing that Trump says or does prompts the same reaction out of you that Trump bad.

[00:06:11] Then you're not a neutral observer any longer. You've abandoned any kind of critical thinking ability. So three senior Ukrainian officials. They are not named. They are not named. But they talk to the Associated Press reportedly. If you can believe the AP. The officials who were familiar with the matter. I don't know what that means. Spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

[00:06:41] And now with that out of the way, now we can totally believe them. No, you shouldn't totally believe them either. Right. You have to keep open the idea that they don't know what they're talking about or that they are planting information in the media for another reason. You got to keep that in your mind. That's another angle that you have to keep in mind.

[00:07:03] One of them said that Kiev hopes that signing an agreement will ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support that Ukraine urgently needs. Now, if you think about this in logical terms, right, it makes a bit of sense in that if we have a deal to get all of these rare earth minerals that, you know, Ukraine will extract. They can sell them to us or give us a discount because we did send them hundreds of billions of dollars and all or give it to us for free for a little while, whatever.

[00:07:34] But strengthening an economic tie like that is going to be good for Ukraine. And it's going to be good for us because we get the rare earth minerals that we also very much need for, you know, supercomputing and all of that to build the high tech stuff.

[00:07:49] So. It seems like a pretty good idea for this deal to get done, especially for the Ukrainians, because if they are our access for these rare earth minerals, that's going to make us more likely to want to protect that supply chain. Right. The agreement could be signed as early as Friday. Plans are being drawn up by or for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

[00:08:18] I he's got two wise at the end of his name. That's why I do that. So to travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump. Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelensky to Trump and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kiev is eager to finalize the deal. Right. That's the thing about deals. Both sides have to feel like they get something. According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be determined.

[00:08:48] However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the U.S. five hundred billion dollars worth of profits from Ukraine's rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kiev. Right now, how about this is not an unreasonable ask either, by the way. Right. We have given them a whole bunch of stuff.

[00:09:14] And I understand that the vast majority of the military aid that we have, quote, given to Ukraine is actually the money has gone to fund defense contractors in America. Right. Those are contracts that American companies have done. And then the products have been sent over to Ukraine. But they're still Ukraine is still deriving that value. They're still getting that stuff, the finished product. They're still getting that for free.

[00:09:43] So you can argue and negotiate over the the actual the actual figure there. But I think the concept is sound. Right. We're giving you a whole bunch of military stuff. So maybe you should give us some of your rare earth minerals as compensation, whether that's five hundred billion, three hundred billion, two hundred billion, whatever. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too.

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[00:10:36] I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15 percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:11:02] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. I have a couple of tweets here from Dina or Dina. I don't know. They are Pete tweets. The mineral deal with Ukraine is fair because Ukraine agreed to pay back most of Europe's assistance, but not ours. Even if part of it is returned to us in military contracts, the remainder may be in mineral rights.

[00:11:31] It's fair based on Ukraine's other payback agreements. And didn't Zelensky admit that he could not count count for nearly half the money the U.S. had sent? Maybe some of that money went to pay back Europe. That's possible. I don't know. But I remember seeing the quote a couple of days ago and then I saw that there was some, you know, cleanup of the quote as well.

[00:11:58] But, you know, regardless, the what is the number like 300 or 350 billion dollars that has gone to fund Ukraine? You know, a lot of that has been actually going to U.S. military defense contractors. I want to say more than half. So, again, whatever the numbers are that you guys want to tweak in this negotiation is fine by me. Okay?

[00:12:25] If they don't want to give 500 billion dollars worth of the rare earth mineral profits to us, fine. Give me another number. You know, that's part of the negotiation. Like I said at the outset, when it comes to Donald Trump and the Trump administration and what they're trying to do, just patience. Just give it a minute. Let's see what happens. Right? The U.S. and Ukraine would have a joint ownership of a fund, according to this AP report.

[00:12:52] Ukraine would, in the future, contribute 50% of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas. One official said the deal had better terms of investments. And another one said Kiev secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as positive. The deal does not, at this time, include security guarantees.

[00:13:19] One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet. Right? So, that's a positive development, I think. That's a positive development. And it's why I wanted to see how it would shake out with whatever it was that Trump was trying to negotiate with Zelensky. Here's another one. Let's just give it a minute. The House Republicans passed their own BBB.

[00:13:49] Not the Build Back Better, but the Big Beautiful Bill. Actually, it could be the BBBB. The Big Beautiful Budget Bill. Okay? With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans sent a GOP budget blueprint, a blueprint, a blueprint to passage yesterday. A step towards delivering his big, beautiful bill. Quote, unquote. With $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion. Sorry, $4.5. Did I say that?

[00:14:19] $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts. And that is over a decade. Okay? So, that's not one year. That's – this is the way they do this stuff in the D.C. budgeting process. They make all these projections and it's like, oh, these are things that are going to materialize down the road. So, like, yes, we're heading to the deficit next year. But in, like, nine years, it'll be fine. And then, of course, everybody forgets that with the next cycle or the next continuing resolution.

[00:14:49] And you never see the savings that they say are going to come. So, that's always something to keep in mind here, too. They passed this despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans. It's just a blueprint right now. The Senate has its own version. The Senate is doing something also. The House has passed one thing and the Senate has passed another thing. And now they're going to hammer out some differences. The vote yesterday was 217 to 215.

[00:15:19] All Democrats opposed it. And one Republican opposed it. I believe that was Thomas Massey from Kentucky. Passage of the package is crucial to kick-starting this process. See? So, it's the beginning of the process. So, let's give it a minute. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain? And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:16:41] Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. All right, so the House GOP pushes through their budget blueprint last night. 217 to 215 was the final vote. The Associated Press reporting, quote, Passage of the package is crucial to kick-starting the process.

[00:17:09] Trump wants the Republicans who control Congress to approve a massive bill that would, number one, extend the tax breaks that he had secured during his first term, but which are expiring later this year. Think about the timing of this, right? Had Trump done two terms back-to-back,

[00:17:32] he would not be here to extend the tax breaks that were put in place during his first term. I mean, I guess maybe they could have, like, tried to extend them with special legislation, but they are expiring. And that is an average of, like, $1,500, or, like, more than $100 per month for the average American that you are keeping of your own dollars. The Senate, where Republicans passed their own version, will now take up that bill,

[00:18:03] along with theirs, right? More big votes are ahead, including an unrelated deal to prevent a government shutdown when federal funding expires on March 14th, and those talks are also underway. It's all unfolding amid emerging backlash to what's happening elsewhere, as billionaire Trump advisor Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies with his Department of Government Efficiency, firing thousands of workers nationwide.

[00:18:32] Again, he is not empowered to fire anybody. These are things that the department and agency heads are doing. And then the AP throws in that angry voters are starting to confront lawmakers at town hall meetings back home. Okay, those are Democrat angry voters. Those are Democrats that are showing up at the town halls. This has been a common tactic the left has employed. They actually stole the tactic from the Tea Partiers,

[00:19:01] which I think yesterday was like the anniversary of the first Tea Party protest, which occurred under Barack Obama. And you'll remember it was about spending. Lo, those many years ago, Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange saying, stop spending, stop spending, stop spending. Because that was their response to the mortgage collapse.

[00:19:32] Right? Which was a byproduct of government policies. So the Tea Partiers were showing up at these town hall meetings and just grilling lawmakers. And this was seen as an effective tactic because Tea Party candidates won a bunch of races. And so Democrats started doing it as well. Because, like, that's right in their wheelhouse. Like, showing up and throwing tantrums. You know, the performance.

[00:20:00] They really have it perfected. You know, they really do. And so now you've got these performances occurring at town hall meetings back in Republican districts where a bunch of Democrats get up there and are like, you know, I'm a moderate or, you know, I'm a centrist. Like, you're not. But, how dare you cut the spending? Hakeem Jeffries, never one to exaggerate things, said, quote, our very way of life as a country

[00:20:30] is under assault. Which might seem a bit like hyperbole. Even as they press ahead, the AP reports, Republicans are running into a familiar problem. Slashing federal spending is typically easier said than done. With cuts to the Pentagon and other programs largely off limits. See, again, for now, we don't know. This is what Doge is doing. These agencies and the Congress, as they are looking at their funding levels,

[00:20:59] they are going to be relying on the data that is collected by Doge. And so they're going to be able to say, we're going to make a certain amount of cuts. They all understand the mission. The mission is to keep us out of bankruptcy. Right? Talking about our way of life is under assault. Our way of life is unsustainable. It has to change. And if you don't address it,

[00:21:27] it certainly will change. This is inevitable. Okay? History is full of examples from Argentina to Venezuela to Rome. Right? When you devalue your currency. By the way, do you know why if you look at a quarter, for example, and the dime, do you know why the edges are ridged? Right? Because, like, the penny,

[00:21:57] it's a smooth edge. Right? Like the, not the big flat circle part with Lincoln's face on it, you know, but the edge, the real thin edge around the sides. It's because throughout history, when you make coins, people shave off the coin. And if it's a smooth edge, it's harder to detect. But if you make ridges around the edge and somebody starts trying to shave

[00:22:26] the precious metal off of the edge to cheat you when they buy something from your store, for example, right, they're going to short you a little bit because the coin isn't worth the full value because they've shaved a bunch of it off and you collect enough of the shavings and then you can turn that into something else of value. But you're shorting somebody else. That's why they put the ridges there. So you will know if somebody is shaving the edges off of the coins.

[00:22:57] You cannot beat the free market. Okay? These rules, these principles of economics, they don't change. When you print more money, when you devalue your currency, you end up in the same place every single time. And you can deny it all you want, but that doesn't make it so. You are going to fail. Failure is simply your stupid projection

[00:23:26] running into reality. And that's why you failed. Several Republican lawmakers worry that the scope of the cuts being eyed, particularly some $880 billion over the decade to the committee that handles healthcare spending, including Medicaid, for example, or $230 billion to the agriculture committee that funds food stamps will be too harmful to their constituents back home. So, they're afraid of the messaging here. Because everybody

[00:23:56] is now talking about, they're cutting Medicaid, they're cutting Medicaid. And they haven't cut Medicaid. And in fact, the exact opposite has been promised. You can agree with that or disagree with that, like whether or not you believe the promise from Donald Trump, but that's what they have said. They're like, we're not cutting Medicaid. But that's going to be the narrative and that's what Republicans are most worried about is the narrative that, excuse me, the narrative that the Democrats

[00:24:25] and media, but I repeat myself, are going to promulgate ahead of the midterm election and that's going to cause their defeat. But even if it does cause your defeat, that's worth it. It's worth it. Because again, we are racing towards bankruptcy and the complete collapse of our economic system. And when we lose the dollar as the world reserve currency, our standard of living

[00:24:55] will be cut. I've seen various estimates, but somewhere probably in the neighborhood of 20, 25 percent immediately, overnight, that happens. We are the world reserve currency and there are direct benefits in all of our lives for that. We are the solid currency. And when we cease to be, our standard of living will immediately decline. That is something that I think

[00:25:24] is worth protecting. Now, you may not agree, that's fine, but if you do agree, then whatever political prices to be paid in order to protect our status as world reserve currency and to protect us from going into economic bankruptcy, it should be worth it to you. That's what being a leader means. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us

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[00:26:54] pushed the idea of MMT, which is modern monetary theory, I believe, or just endlessly spending and printing money, and that doesn't matter. Deficits don't matter. That's, quote, MMT. Like, they dress it up with this fancy name, modern monetary theory, but all it means is just keep printing more money and it doesn't matter. It'll all be fine. But the Democrats through Biden especially was, but the Dems,

[00:27:24] through Biden especially, was faking a good economy through government jobs and spending. Yeah, they keep coming out with these revisions to the economic forecast and number, not forecast, but the reports, the numbers, like, you saw it with the unemployment numbers, they had to revise them, like, oh, I know we said we created, you know, a billion new jobs, but it actually, upon further review, it turns out we lost 100,000, right? Like, they've come back and they've been, you know,

[00:27:55] adjusting all of their earlier reports. Now that we have the actual data, I know we said this one thing that made Biden look good before the election, but now it turns out that the numbers weren't so good. I was watching Piers Morgan uncensored, his YouTube program, and he's got this leftist, quote, influencer, Jojo from Jersey,

[00:28:25] and Ben Ferguson, talk show host. They were debating, and Taylor Lorenz was in there, as was Kevin O'Leary, like, four guests, which is, I think he should just stick with, like, fewer guests. He brings in, like, four people at a time and then they all yell over each other and you can't really hear anything, but they're attacking Trump for the price of eggs. Have you, like, this is, every Democrat now is talking about the price of eggs because that's what was being cited

[00:28:55] during the campaign, which was, let's see, January, February, December, four months ago, four to five months ago, during the campaign, the price of eggs was used as an indication of the health of the economy and the cost of inflation, right, the upward pressure on prices for essential foods and stuff. So, now you're seeing, and I saw it the other day, we went out to eat, and there was a

[00:29:24] place that was like we're charging temporarily a 50 cent surcharge on every egg. So, if you get a three egg omelet, it's an extra buck fifty. Because, why? Because Donald Trump? Because Donald Trump in four weeks has created a spike in the price of eggs? This is the same crap they pull with any Republican president and gas prices, right? They have all the explanations in the world as to why the gas

[00:29:54] prices shouldn't be held against a Democrat in the White House, but as soon as a Republican comes in, now it's a big deal. And, you know, George W. Bush is in there at his keyboard, like, entering in the price for a barrel of crude or something. It's just, it's dishonest. It's gaslighting. And, the same thing we are seeing with eggs. You know why eggs are expensive? There's a thing called the avian flu, the bird flu.

[00:30:24] Now, I'm no farmer, I don't raise chickens, but, I think there may be a bit of a logical breakdown in our response to avian flu, in that if they detect avian flu in your herd, your flock, they murder every single one of your chickens. Like, that's the protocol, apparently. Did you know this? I just found this out. Some farmer did a YouTube video, and he's like, why don't you just kill the ones that have the flu? And then the ones that don't have the flu,

[00:30:54] they may have some level of immunity, and then they would survive, they would breed, and then you would have a herd or a flock that now is better able to survive another round. But when you keep murdering every chicken, you're not building up herd immunity. how is it? How is it that we are this stupid? It continues to boggle the mind. Did we learn nothing from COVID? No, actually, we didn't.

[00:31:24] No, we didn't. Because we don't want to learn anything from COVID. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.