Sandra Smith
Appearances
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I've been critical of my party over the last several months for the way we have handled the aftermath of the election. You look at just as a juxtaposition, you look at several of the special elections that have been held since November. Democrats have fared somewhat well, I think largely because those Democrats running are are actually in the country.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You just recently had a mayor in Nebraska and Omaha, a Republican, a Democrat beat him. They're not tapping into this Democratic message. The autopsy the Democrats need that lays out, that tries to lay out and determine why we lost, how we lost, no one has seriously done it at the federal level.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
So as a result, you have free agents like Mr. Walts, and when I say free agents, they're known political figures. Obviously, Senator Clinton is a known, Secretary Clinton's a known political figure. But they're not saying things with any coordination or symmetry And for that matter, they don't sound as if they're really in touch with the things that happen.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You talked about the transgender athlete. That's an issue that we as Democrats, if we don't get serious about and realistic about and credible on, we're not going to be listened to on other issues that are credible and meaningful in people's lives. And until you understand where the path is and what the issues are, they're going to push us forward.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You're going to continue to hear these voices, these free agent voices out here. talking in really kind of a diasporic and frankly unorganized and really ineffective way about the things that people care about. My advice, if you can't do it at the federal level, the autopsy, at least listen to what those who are winning in these special elections in the state races, the local races.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
What are they saying that's appealing to everyday Americans in a broad cross section of the country? But until you get an autopsy, until you figure out and we all understand to get the painful lessons. you're going to continue to show these kind of silly bits enough to sit up and respond to this nonsense.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
So I think a couple of things. You and I agree on this for a slightly different reason. To give some sense, there's no doubt this bill here is the forecast, the single largest increase forecasted in debt pressure of any bill that's ever been considered. Two, in the last 10 years, to your point about the spending cuts, put some perspective.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You talked about population growth, Jesse, in the last segment in a different context. But our national debt has grown by 98 percent. That's just round up to 100 percent. So it's it's doubled in the last 10 years. Our population, however, has only grown 5 percent and tax collections have gone up 60 percent. So there's no doubt for Democrats who think we should just tax everybody.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You can't do that. You have to cut spending. And for those who say we should not that we should not think about raising taxes on the ultra rich in the country. I give you this number. The 10 richest Americans, when you combine their net worth, they're worth almost one point nine trillion dollars. I don't begrudge wealth, but our entire discretionary budget, which is anything but defense.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
Social Security, Medicare and interest on the debt is only one point nine trillion. So you have 10 people with that net worth. I'm not a believer that we should overtax people, but I definitely believe we shouldn't overtax working people, middle class and poor people in the country. The president has said that tariffs are an answer.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
Jesse and I've had some beautiful, big, brawling conversations about this. Tariffs largely impact the middle class and poor first. Why? Because so much of their income is used to buy things and consume things. Tax cuts. As much as the president and Republicans want to say this tax bill, extending these things are going to help middle class Americans.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
The vast majority of people are going to be helped by the tax cuts are the wealthiest because there's one other number. Over the last 12 years, the S&P has gone up almost 400 percent. And the only way to benefit from the stock market is if you have money invested in the stock market and you have to have a lot for that to benefit you. So I say to Democrats, you have to cut spending.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I say to Republicans, stop kidding Americans that you're not raising that you're not cutting taxes for the richest Americans. Why not raise taxes on those earning two and a half million or more to pay for these things? So we may differ a little bit. But one thing we agree on, the debt is not going to go down because of this.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
And the people are going to benefit the most are not middle class, working class Americans. It's going to be some people around this table and people much richer.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I don't disagree, but I don't think you should. You should raise it on the people who need it most is all I'm saying.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
All I say is pay for it and give working people the tax cuts, not the richest. All right, we get it.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
Harold, what about you? What do you think? Look, I agree with Sandra. I love Kid Rock. I love UFC. I love Chick-fil-A. And they say their politics, all three of those entities and people, their politics may be different than mine. And I don't think about even when they say things that I know that are different than my politics. I wish that people and I'm a Bruce Springsteen fan.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I wish that people wouldn't go overseas and criticize the country. President Trump was a little guilty of it when he criticized Dana's old boss W for talking about nation building. We're going to get away from all that. He can have those views, but just don't do it. Do it overseas. And I hope Bush by name. He basically did.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
But he certainly I mean, he essentially said that our policies of nation building and telling you what to do, we're going to in spreading democracy in those ways, we're going to get away from. He has every right to those opinions. I just wish you wouldn't do. I wish no one would do that when you're on when you're not on American soil. And, you know, I don't necessarily disagree.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I think people who meet the president like him. I think he president finds himself agreeing with people he meets and the people he meets finds themselves find themselves agreeing with him a little bit more. And that's called democracy. In my book, bipartisanship and common sense and people coming together to try to solve problems. Or the Uniparty. Yeah, something like that.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I'm trying to give you a welcome back. Is the ultimate alpha male move a finger flex? Watch this. Turkey's president giving French President Macron's finger a death grip. Refusing to let go for a few seconds before finally releasing it. The two world leaders were at a political summit in Albania. He still got that. What do you think about this, Katie? Is this something... Exclamation point.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
Now, do you think you think that maybe the president of Turkey was asking Sandra for if indeed they do the peace summit between Ukraine and Russia, the Vatican, that he can be there with? Because we probably be there.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
Friday night at the Garden was big. The Knicks made history. First time in 25 years headed to the Eastern Conference Finals. Beat their arch rival. Our arch rival was Celtics. The fans had a ball. They poured into the streets, taking over parts of 7th Avenue. Climbing poles, celebrating a win. Game one versus Indiana is Wednesday night. We still got a ways to go, but go Knicks.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
So my prayers, like yours, Jesse, go out to his family. This is a tough diagnosis. I have friends and family who have this, who've had the diagnosis. And I can only I only imagine a tough struggle and a tough road ahead. I line with Jesse on this. I think that the.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
The fact that the president of the United States is not getting as exhaustive of a review of a physical of the kind of medical examination one would expect and then to have all of that revealed to the public in 2025, 25 years into the 21st century.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
You combine that with some of the things that we people were saying about President Biden throughout his presidency, questioning the cognitive abilities, some of the mental health abilities, and then the physical things that happened when he fell down, fell up the stairs, down the stairs, off his bike. We deserve better.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I hope what we really learn from this, I'm not one to look backwards, although I pray for him. I hope that what we do going forward is to ask these doctors and physicians, we ought to have a different standard for all of this.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
When you think about the president's role of growing the economy, keeping the country safe, we're in basically a new economic cold war with China, and Russia is emerging again. We need to know everything about our president, and this shouldn't be by chance. by any measure. I listen to Dr. Emanuel. He's far brighter than I am and more experienced and more educated than I am in these matters.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
I do have a dear friend whose wife got a stage four cancer diagnosis very late. They had not seen it before and she had had an injury and got the diagnosis and passed about a year later. So these things I imagine can happen. When you are the president of the United States, with the kind of care the president should get, we should not be surprised by these things. But I'm like you.
The Five
The Five 05-19-2025
My thoughts and prayers are with he and his family. I know this road ahead is going to be is going to be a difficult one.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News Crashes on Live TV as Trump Loses All Control
The stock market, to Steve's point, since Election Day is almost flat. It's only down 2% since he was elected president again. And since Inauguration Day, it's down 5.5%. I mean, we're not talking about... That's a lot.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News Crashes on Live TV as Trump Loses All Control
Okay. All right. Well, when we're talking about the market meltdown, I see these headlines out there.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News Crashes on Live TV as Trump Loses All Control
And that's still where you are.