just moments ago president trump called
on congress to amend
the covet 19 bill to include two
thousand dollar stimulus checks
watch this i'm asking congress to amend
this bill and increase the ridiculously
six hundred dollars to two thousand
dollars
or four thousand dollars for a couple
[Music]
so okay that just happened moments ago
let's bring in our panel mark thiessen
american enterprise institute scholar
jeroy murdoch contributing editor
at national review online and raymond
arroyo author of the spider who saved
christmas
all our fox news contributors great to
have all of you here tonight um let's go
down the line here mark first of all
your response to this
news good to have you uh that the
president has gone back to asking for
something that he asked for
much earlier on in this process which
was two thousand dollar checks
across the board as part of this bill
what do you think
um we're not gonna get two thousand
dollar checks the reality is is that
they've been trying to pass this since
july um despite the fact that they
agreed on almost every element of it in
some way shape or form
uh but only we're able to do this now uh
it did there
there's you can argue with little with
pieces of it not everybody likes every
part of it
uh but one i don't think two thousand
dollar checks are are justified
and two uh i don't think there's any
chance that congress is gonna do this
yeah so jewelry why is why do you think
the president's calling for this tonight
what's what's behind
it in your mind well i
think he's disappointed that the amount
of money given out in checks is smaller
than he wanted you i think he wanted
eight uh
1800 or sorry 1200 i think it was just a
couple months ago
and that was rejected now we're down to
600. um you know
what i'd like to see is some targeted
relief for restaurants the restaurant
industry is aching i live in new york
city i'm actually right now sitting
just outside of a a wonderful old
restaurant called barbacon that's now
dead and has been dead for months
every restaurant on this block is kaput
they really should
get some help because they've been told
sorry you can't do any business and a
lot of them have just
either gone kaput or just barely holding
on uh and i think some uh targeted tax
relief would be great like just
you know how about no corporate tax rest
this year and uh you know don't pay your
payroll tax
until middle of next year something like
that so things of that sort would help
more than i think just sort of blanket
checks
so raymond one of the things that i
think is so frustrating for people who
watch this process
is that we were basically around where
we are now last summer
but but nancy pelosi refused to
negotiate
on this deal i mean there's no other way
to look at it than to assume that she
simply did not want
anything to pass before the election
because she now got the same deal she
wanted then basically
and she called roughly around 600
pathetic
when it came to the tax cut now she says
it's it's a substantial amount of money
this martha this ends up being the
lobbyist relief
stimulus that's what this ends up being
and the president tonight
is calling nancy pelosi and the senate
on this
i mean when you've got and he called it
out when you've got a billion dollars
for the smithsonian 10 million dollars
for gender programs in pakistan
why aren't we giving that relief to
these restaurant tours as deroy said a
moment ago
50 of the restaurants here in new
orleans are about to shut down
they urgently need help this is the
moment and for congress to fritter away
this opportunity
and and to give paola to these to these
lobbyists it's disgusting
under the veil of helping the american
people escape the covet pain
yeah i just want to remind people mark
that there is 1.6
trillion dollars so we've done about
with this new package about five
trillion dollars of stimulus 1.6
trillion of it
has not been allocated yet and yet we've
just signed up for another whole package
i mean
try to explain that to people if they
took out you know a 1.6 million
one you know 160 000 loan right
and they didn't spend any of it that
they're gonna go back and get a lot more
at that point it just defies
good common sense well like anytime
you're trying to do
something this big and get nancy pelosi
and chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell
and president trump on the same page
there's going to be lots of stuff in
there that shouldn't be in there from
both perspectives
um but here's the reality the paycheck
protection program which is the most
important part of this bill
literally saved the american economy
when it was passed in the cares act
and the reality is right now democratic
we're in the worst part of the pandemic
that we've had that we've had
democratic governors like mario like
andrew cuomo and
gavin newsom are shutting down
restaurants and forcing people out of
work
and people need people need this money
in order to make it over to the next
year keep in mind this is all going to
come to an end
we've got the vaccine uh the the the
people are going to be the the all the
at-risk population's going to be
vaccinated by next spring
and the worst of this is going to be
over uh so we just need to get through
the next few months and keep those
businesses afloat so the american
economy
can survive
deroy i just heard you piping in there i
just want to give you a chance
yeah well i think well mark makes a good
point that uh we have not just one
vaccine but two
by the way it is amazing that so many
people who are uh
have yelled at president trump for being
incompetent doesn't know what he's doing
obviously a buffoon
somehow this guy who has no idea what
he's doing was able to bring us not one
but
two vaccines in about uh nine months
since the emergency was declared more on
the website you know
it's a biological manhattan project and
that's amazing
and i think we get get the point where
people are vaccinated most of us will be
behind us we just need the economy
content to continue until that time
yeah but yeah martha yeah you know
saying you know oh well when we get back
to normal right
go ahead raymond and then i want to ask
you guys about the pardons that just
came in but go ahead raymond yeah
joe biden today and nancy pelosi said
this is just the beginning martha
they're expecting another relief package
on the back end of this
so there's more coming no matter the
vaccines and that's what concerns
the president tonight i think that
concerns a lot of taxpayers and i'm
infuriated over it yeah well we need to
what we need is to get things open and
get people back to work and back to
school and all of those good things and
some of this re
some of this stimulus will start to take
care of itself and it will be
you know a really beautiful thing when
people get back to their lives because i
think that's really what they want more
than anything
um pardons tonight for several people
including george papadopoulos uh who you
know had a few drinks at a bar one night
and talked to
someone who used to do some spy work for
australia and you know perhaps some
other
uh agencies closer to home uh he has
been
pardoned uh and so has duncan hunter
your thoughts
um certainly papadopoulos deserve to
deserve to pardon
uh he uh this this whole russia
collusion conspiracy theory we spent 10
million
tens of millions of dollars in two years
uh chasing nothing what turned out to be
nothing but a conspiracy theory and he
was at the heart of it
uh so that's without question that's
deserved
do roy uh i agree i happen to read
george papadopoulos's book which i
recommend everybody
in the audience and uh just read about
this uh idealistic young man who want to
work for president trump and just found
himself the middle of what seemed to be
a real life spy novel
with all these people claiming that he
was working for the kremlin and the
mossad and all that and he was just a
guy
trying to get a man elected president
ended up in jail and i'm glad he got
pardoned and i hope he turns around
and sues all the people involved and
gets a nice big fat cash payment for all
of his tremendous
undeserved inconvenience and lack of
freedom
yeah it's um pretty unbelievable when
you look back at the
the just the incredible reeking of havoc
on these people's lives and carter page
as well um
raymond what do you think when you look
at this you know just before christmas
some pardons sprinkled around
uh george papadopoulos and duncan hunter
well look
the papadopoulos is certainly deserved
people might quibble about the
the duncan hunter thing but uh certainly
papadopoulos
was a guy who was just roped into the
middle of a made-up conspiracy
it didn't pan out uh and so this is
deserved this is what these presidential
pardons
exist to do to clear people's names
allow them to get on with their lives
after a hellacious period
um but we all need pardons this year i
think martha
after the year we've been through yeah
there's 15 in this package um we're
waiting on the rest of those names
tonight
gentlemen great to have all of you with
us mark troy and raymond if i don't see
you merry christmas
thank you guys very