Trump Economy, Midterm Updates , and Big Pharma

SPEAKER_1 (0:11)

From Memphis, Tennessee, it's America's favorite gun totem, Bible-clinging, deplorable American. Todd Starnes.

Andy Hooser (0:28)

Oh, yes, it is. What is up, my friends? Welcome into it. It is the Todd Starnes Radio Show. It is not Todd Starnes, however, he is still out this week as he is out in California for his spiritual conference. But don't worry, we got you covered. We are sitting in that saddle and doing the thing like we do every single day here. And today is that pre-Friday celebration. It is the greatest day of the entire week. And we are so excited to be here with you as Andy Hooser. That's my name, sitting in here for Todd Starnes, moving that Liberty University studios out from Memphis, Tennessee, out here to Wichita, Kansas. And my big flagship station, KQAM, Wichita's Big Talker, and a great affiliate of the Todd Starnes Radio Show. Welcome in to it, and I want to hear from you because there is so much going on today that your head's going to be spinning by the end of this program, with how much we're going to try to cram in here. 901-260-5926. Again, 901-260-5926.

A lot of great guests and some more economic news. Now, apparently, affordability and the economy is the number one priority for voters going into midterm season. But some new information is coming out, and I have to ask a really simple, basic question. I know that we're frustrated with gas prices, but is it really stopping you from spending money and actually investing into the economy by buying the goods and services that you normally do?

According to the economy, they say no, that is not stopping you. So we'll get to that here in just a moment. Alejandro Martinez will be on the program at the bottom of the hour. He's with the National Food and Commerce Union. We are going to chat with him about the relationship between the United States and Mexico with the price of goods coming across the border, the battle against cartels, and some of the other issues with our relationship with Mexico. Are we getting better in that relationship? I know that the president of Mexico not necessarily happy with us in the ongoing deportation efforts at the same time. We're not dealing with cartels any longer. We're not going to tolerate crime any longer, and we're helping them actually stop it as well with their shadow government, so to speak, down in the nation of Mexico. We'll get to that here in just a little bit. First and foremost, though, the economy, big news wrapping up last night with the Associated Press coming out with their economic numbers for the second quarter of the United States of 2026, showing the US economy grew by a solid. That's word of the Associated Press, not by me, by the AP. The US economy grew at a solid 2.2 percent pace for the second quarter, April through June, as consumer spending and business investment came in strong. According to the report, they say the growth in gross domestic product and the nation's output of goods and services decelerated from 2.5 percent pace from January to March through the Commerce Department, reporting it yesterday as the second quarter growth was an improvement in the previous estimates, where they came in guesstimating 1.5 percent, but came in at a solid 2.2. So roughly the same as what we had seen in the first quarter. This comes at a time, obviously, when economy and affordability and price of gas and price of food and price of everything else is priority numero uno for voters across the nation.

So I ask you, I want to ask you the simple question, are you upset with the economy? And do you know, as we kind of mentioned on this program yesterday, that it's a conditional issue based on the conflict and I ran with the energy prices outside of that inflation is really less than a percent right now under the Trump economy, way better than the cumulative 30 plus percent inflation we saw over the four years of Joe Biden, inflation outside of energy costs is at an all time low right now. We're doing really well, but yet, polls nationwide taken with a grain of salt for election season show that only 26 percent of Americans actually approve of the current economic state in the nation. I have questions. How can we all say that we disapprove of the economy and have 26 percent approval rating when we're still growing at a near two and a half percent quarter by quarter? How is that possible?

Because if you're still spending money, that means that you're still spending money. You're okay with letting go of your money. So either one of two things is happening. Either we refuse to let go of any spending habits that we have in our lifestyle, in our style of living, to therefore we're getting further in debt to spend the same, and be okay with, by the way, spending more money for the same goods and services and continue on with that as opposed to changing your habits or we're totally okay with the things that are going on.