At a recent pre-election speaking and podcast event, comedian and Libertarian political commentator Dave Smith expressed his view that it is very realistic that the next President Donald Trump could successfully negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. 

Smith’s view is optimistic, as he articulated that he believes Trump’s expressed desire to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza is genuine. But Smith also laid out that much depends on who Trump puts around him in top national security positions. Below is the hard-hitting segment featuring the prominent commentator addressing the question: will Trump be able to end the war in Ukraine?

PBD: Will Trump be able to end the war in Ukraine?

Dave Smith: Yes, If he listens to Tucker Carlson, Bobby Kennedy, and Vivek Ramaswamy, but not if he picks Mike Pompeo, Liz Cheney’s pick for Defense Secretary, or John Bolton, Hillary Clinton’s pick for National Security Advisor pic.twitter.com/1f5kQZQEW4

— Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) November 6, 2024

Below are Dave Smith’s words from the segment on Trump and Ukraine below [emphasis ZH]…

“Why the hell are we even expanding our military alliance to Ukraine? And listen, Donald Trump always says that the war ‘never would have happened if I was president, and I would negotiate an end to this.’

And I gotta say I think he’s right about that. I don’t think the war would have happened if he was president – I think he will negotiate an end to it.

I don’t think he’s right that Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel if he was president – that seems kind of ridiculous to me. But he’s right: the Ukraine war could be over tomorrow if American wanted to negotiated a peace to it.

Vladimir Putin has been trying to the entire time… 

Well the question becomes who does Donald Trump put around him? If Donald Trump puts Mike Pompeo, aka Liz Cheney’s pick for Defense Secretary… if he puts John Bolton, aka Hillary Clinton’s pick for national security adviser – then maybe not, maybe it doesn’t happen.

But if he listens to Tucker Carlson, and ‘Bobby’ Kennedy, and Vivek Ramaswamy, and all the smart people around him – then yes, he could negotiate an end to that war.”

* * *

Indeed, the question ultimately becomes: will Trump really keep the ‘swamp’ out of his administration this time around? We hope so.

Via SchiffGold.com,

On Friday Peter capped off the week by discussing the latest round of troubling data. With the nonfarm payroll report coming in far below expectations, Peter elaborates on the predicament the Fed is in. With mounting political pressure and an election in mere days, how will the Fed possibly manage both inflation and a stagnating labor market? Peter’s answer? They can’t.

During the last several months, the media and political class have insisted the economy is healthy, even if it is cooling. But disappointing economic metrics and multiple downward revisions to important data reinforce the American consumer’s intuition. The economy is not doing well:

“Voters are not necessarily fooled. That’s why so many want change – they don’t want to stay the course. They’re not buying what the media is selling about how great the Biden-Harris economy is. In fact, all the data coming out this week confirms that this is a weak economy. We’re probably in a recession. It’s stagflation, or worse—recession and inflation at the same time.”

The Fed’s gambit to cut rates and hope for the best is backfiring. The cuts have actually triggered long-term rates to rise, and the recent nonfarm payroll report is only going to make things worse:

“Rising government debt is causing bond investors to lose confidence in the Treasury’s ability to repay without creating inflation. What’s happening in the bond market is exactly what I predicted. … Today’s results offer more proof. They were expecting 125,000 jobs, but we ended up with just 12,000—well below the lowest estimate of 57,000. Plus, the prior two months were revised down.”

The Fed is stuck between inflation and a stagnating economy. The nation’s eyes are on the election, and it’s very unlikely Jerome Powell will be able to resist political pressure to start printing more money:

“The Fed’s not going to do anything about it—they can’t. In fact, they’re going to fuel the fire. They’re going to cut rates, going back to quantitative easing, because the recession is going to keep getting worse. The economy will weaken as inflation gets stronger. So what can they do? They can’t fight both; they have to pick. And all the political pressure, whether from Harris or Trump, will push them toward stimulating the economy.”

Turning to the latest campaign headlines, Peter notes that the betting market have seemingly backed off of their Trump optimism. In reality, Peter says, this fluctuation is probably the result of traders closing their positions, not a sudden loss of confidence in Trump:

“It reached about $55 a share on Tuesday and then closed barely over $30, at $30.56. DJT stock was plunging as traders took profits on DJT, covering their bets on Donald Trump and unwinding them. That’s why we saw this big move today, with Harris shooting up and Trump collapsing. It’s not that the polls really changed or that Trump is much less likely to win today than yesterday; it’s simply that those who made those bets now have an incentive to cover because they exited their trade.”

In other news, Michael Saylor’s company, MicroStrategy, is planning on purchasing over $40 billion in Bitcoin. Peter shows his literary side, comparing Saylor to the myopic Captain Ahab:

“He really is Captain Ahab, and Bitcoin is his Moby Dick. But he’s going to go down, and everyone on the ship is going down with him. Even if I were bullish on Bitcoin—I know there are people who watch this podcast and say, ‘Hey, I agree with everything Peter Schiff says, except for Bitcoin.’ So, if you really like Bitcoin, here’s what you need to do: Sell your Bitcoin now and buy it back when MicroStrategy goes bankrupt.”

Peter wraps up what may be his last podcast before the election with a sober dose of reality. Donald Trump is undoubtedly the best hope America has to fix our political dysfunction, but we shouldn’t pretend his track record is something to be proud of: 

“Everybody knows I support Trump. I’ve encouraged my supporters to vote for him. But I am not going to say that his first term was an economic miracle. Now, I know people like to oversell, hype it up to get votes, but that destroys all your credibility. If we’re ever going to solve the problems that need solving, we can’t pretend that Trump’s first term was great. All the problems got worse under Trump. They would have gotten worse under Hillary too, but they got worse under Trump. Government spending increased—where’s the miracle? Trade deficits hit record highs under Trump even before COVID. … They slashed interest rates to zero, and we had massive quantitative easing. That’s the illusion that was created.”

Make sure you catch up on other news from last week with JD and Joel’s analysis on the SchiffGold Gold Wrap Podcast.