Barbara Boyd opens with diesel: as Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries tighten the world’s supply, President Trump threatened to halt U.S. diesel exports unless Europe released its emergency stocks, and the G7 agreed to release 100 million barrels. She presents it as the opening move of a 35-day economic offensive running into the midterms. The week of action includes Trump’s visit to the Peterbilt truck plant in Denton, Texas, where employee Sarah Renshaw credited tariffs for 1,000 new jobs; his Oklahoma rally; a White House luncheon with tech leaders on superintelligence; what the White House calls the largest steel plant ever built in the United States, coming to Iowa; Vice President Vance at the groundbreaking of Saronic’s Port Alpha shipyard in Brownsville, Texas; and South Korea’s plans for an Alaska LNG pipeline, a 6-gigawatt power plant in Texas and eight nuclear reactors.

On affordability, the episode walks through price increases under Biden (energy up 33% from January 2021 to January 2025), Vice President Vance on the inflation crisis he says the administration inherited, refining capacity, housing regulation and immigration, Secretary Kennedy at the MAHA Summit on AI giving every patient a better-informed second opinion, and the White House fraud task force’s crackdown on Obamacare enrollments. It closes with Michael Shellenberger’s account of the student riots in France, French intelligence tying the movement to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI), and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on a new golden age of space exploration. WATCH:

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appears for an interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen. The wide-ranging conversation covered the U.S. economy, the war in Iran and the Trump administration’s approach to AI.

Secretary Bessent responds to Americans’ frustration with the cost of living; explains why he doesn’t think the AI boom is a repeat of the dot-com bubble and argues that AI leaders warning about losing control should slow down. Bessent also discusses possible U.S-China cooperation on AI risks, Treasury’s economic pressure campaign against Iran, the bond market, Trump Accounts and his clashes inside the administration.  WATCH:

Chapters:

0:00 – Cold open
0:24 – Inside Treasury’s Cash Room
1:38 – Unpacking why Americans still feel squeezed
5:21 – Bessent’s economic campaign against Iran
7:35 – Is AI in a bubble?

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Once again, you may have seen a lot of banter, interpretation and discussion in western media about Russia speaking of defending Kaliningrad with nuclear weapons if needed.  To gain a full understanding of the context, I strongly suggest reading the transcript below.

Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the 23^rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. It is a very lengthy discussion.  I am pulling out the key segment and suggest everyone take some quiet time to read.

President Vladimir Putin – […] Let me digress from the main topic for a while. There are people here in this room who hold a very diverse mix of opinions regarding an extremely acute present-day conflict – the Ukraine conflict, and what caused it. I would like to say a few words on this matter. It is a fact that many hundreds or even thousands of experts, your colleagues who will study the materials from this Valdai Club meeting, they have their own opinions on this matter. I am, of course aware that some within the expert community might ask why Russia started the war while talking about peace. I have commented this many times already, but let me say this once again in front of this audience.

Where is the truth? The truth is that we did not want and were not the ones who started to fight. In fact, they started to fight against us. They should have refrained from encouraging aggressive nationalism and Russophobia in Ukraine so as to turn it into a tool for fighting Russia. NATO should not have embarked on an effort to make our historical territories part of its military space in its own interests and should not have planned setting up its bases there. Radicals in Kiev should not have been pushed to a government coup while the de facto illegal regime should not have been pumped full of all kinds of offensive weapons after that. Plans for setting up concentration camps for the people from Donbass and Crimea should not have been drafted. Unarmed people should not have been rolled over by tanks, shelled with missiles and bombed from the air and burnt alive just for being Russian, in terms of both their ethnic background and their spirit.

The list of these do-nots goes on, but let me stop at that. I am convinced that this was an intentional effort to place Russia in a situation when it was simply forced to defend itself with arms in hand to respond to this obvious act of aggression. They pushed us to this brink knowingly and intentionally. Overall, Russophobia, oppressing and killing Russian people and destroying Russia should not be turned into state ideology while striving to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This was the way it was all articulated, right? No one forgot this. At least, we did not forget this.

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President Donald Trump holds a rally in Mobile, Alabama, ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.  President Trump is anticipated to speak at 7:00pm ET, with rally speakers ongoing.  Livestream Links Below:

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UPDATE BELOW:

According to CNN, current Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton is likely to be appointed the AI/SI Czar.  If that is accurate, and not a leak trap – which considering the source is sketchy, then that leaves the DNI position open again.

(VIA CNN) – President Donald Trump is expected to pick Jay Clayton to be the White House’s new czar of artificial intelligence, two sources familiar with the discussion told CNN.

The president could announce his decision about Clayton, who is director of national intelligence, as early as Friday, one of the sources said.

Trump announced last month that he was planning to create an “AI Force” and name an AI czar as the government faces growing calls to impose guardrails on the technology’s rapid development.

Trump gathered several AI and technology CEOs at the White House on Tuesday for a meeting that culminated in the signing of a new commitment aimed at better “self-policing” their companies’ AI models. (read more)

If it is accurate that Clayton is going to the Super Intelligence Czar position, and considering the sudden reappearance last week at the White House, is there a possibility of someone returning to the administration as DNI?

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Today, President Donald Trump is visiting Peterbilt Motors Company factory in Denton, Texas, to emphasize the economic wins within the jobs and manufacturing industries.

Current economic growth is anticipated to exceed five percent GDP as the prior investments now materialize in jobs and production outputs.  Simultaneously, trade deficits are declining as the U.S produces ever-increasing amounts of domestic goods needed within the U.S. economy.  This domestic activity expands jobs and the economy at rapid rates.

President Trump is anticipated to begin his remarks around 4:30pm ET with Livestream Links Below:

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The United States is hosting the G20 Summit this year.  As part of the G20 Process various ministers and ambassadors from all of the G20 ministerial sessions, attend summits in the lead-in to the political leader summit in Miami this December.

During the opening session of the G20 trade plenary session, Greer outlined four strategic priorities that President Trump is bringing to the center of the G20 trade group this year. “There are four workstreams the U.S. Presidency has focused on over the course of the year: (1) the weaponization of food, (2) structural excess capacity and production, (3) the Most-Favored-Nation principle, and (4) forced labor in global supply chains.” [READ MORE] These were the directed topics at the beginning of the summit.

Speaking from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the G20 Trade Ministerial Session, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer gives important remarks and answers questions from the media at the conclusion of the two-day event. WATCH: 

Within one question from an EU/Canada media stenographer, there’s a rather brutally obvious statement from USTR Greer. Absolutely epic. Both Canada and Europe are missing a very key something from their economic model, CONSUMERS!

Instead of focusing on growth within their domestic economies, both Canada and Europe rely on the USA to provide the CONSUMERS for their goods. Negotiating from that position is not too difficult.

ESSENTIALLY, currently Canada sends their overproduction to the USA (hence their trade surplus). Currently the EU send their overproduction to the USA (hence their trade surplus). Block those inbound surpluses and what exactly is Canada and the EU going to do with their newly acquired excess?

The two lowest growth economic systems, that are both missing the critical component of ‘consumers’, are going to send their excess products to each other?  Think about it.

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U.S Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer, is attending the G20 Trade Summit in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and appars on Bloomberg News to outline some of the current issues and events being discussed during the assembly.

Greer notes the U.S. energy team is talking to the European energy ministers about using part of their diesel reserve supply to supplement the global refining shortage that might relieve some of the pricing pressure on the energy sector.

Additionally, Greer is questioned about the dumping issues of steel and aluminum that is part of the larger G20 trade discussion.  Greer notes the EU needs to take some action to address the issues on their end, which is part of the ongoing talks at the plenary session.  As to the discussions with Canada and the USMCA, Greer notes the bilateral trade negotiator, Dominic LeBlanc from Canada is not present at these discussions, so no forward activity is noted.  WATCH:

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President Trump delivered impromptu remarks to the press today as he departs the White House for an event in Texas.  The assembled press pool asked a variety of questions based on current events.

President Trump is heading to Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Alabama and Nebraska for campaign events. WATCH:

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Most people will not read the Inspector General Report in full [SEE PDF HERE].  But if you did, you might come to the same conclusion as myself.  The entire FED and IG Michael Horowitz should be fired, arrested and prosecuted for corruption at a level that is simply jaw dropping.

The issue is really simple if you cut through the fog of the report.  The FED Board awarded a no-bid contract to the contractor, without an agreement on the building renovation project and the construction costs associated with it until President Donald Trump began drawing attention to it.  This is gross corruption at a massive scale.

To use the terminology of the report, start with this aspect:

…”the Board selected a different project delivery method, construction manager at risk (CMAR), for the Eccles-1951 renovation project. A well-managed CMAR contract allows a building owner—in this case, the Board—to transfer certain construction risks, including those related to cost and schedule performance, to its construction manager (also known as a construction manager as constructor, or CMc). To effect this risk transfer, a CMAR contract provides for the owner and CMc to agree on a guaranteed maximum price (GMP) for the project, usually around the time construction begins or building design is substantially complete. Once the GMP is set, the owner has greater cost certainty and the CMc is incentivized to carefully manage costs. If costs exceed the GMP, the CMc absorbs them with limited exceptions, such as when the GMP may be increased to account for change events like owner directed changes or other adjustments like unforeseen site conditions“… {Source pg, 5}

So, the FED board established, at least with themselves, that they would have an agreement on cost for the project.  However, if you go to page 60 of the report you find this:

…” in connection with a multibillion-dollar contract, the Board did not ask its CMc for a construction cost estimate or a GMP until December 2025—about 3.5 years after construction began and after the Board had already awarded more than $2 billion. Specifically, the Board did not take advantage of several key opportunities to request a cost estimate from the CMc”…. (Source pg, 60}

It wasn’t until President Trump drew attention to the FED having spent over $2 billion, that FED Chair Jerome Powell, and the FED board requested the construction manager and construction company to provide a cost estimate.  This is unreal, especially considering that IG Michael Horowitz finds no unlawful decision-making in the overall fiasco.

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