paul: welcome to the journal editorial report. president biden and donald trump secure the delegates needed to clinch their party's nomination setting the stage for the first presidential rematch since 1956, most americans don't want that. following the state of the union address president biden has been barnstorming battleground states in pennsylvania, georgia, wisconsin, and michigan which were crucial to his victory but polls show the president narrowly trailing donald trump in those states which can he turn that around as the general election campaign kicks off? let's go to doug showing. the initial polling after the state of the union suggests the president has not received a bump in his approval rating despite the fact so many democrats love that speech. are you surprised?

>> not surprised. the speech was directed almost exclusively at democrats and to show that his cognitive issues as described by special counsel and others are not an issue. he wasn't really trying to change his approval rating is much as he was trying to buttress his support with core constituents. paul: democrats you would assume would rally for him anyway. what alternative did they have at this stage. he you would think the president would have tried to target in that speech nikki haley voters or independent voters, people he needs to pull away from donald trump. why do you think the administration decided to do what it did? >> good question.

in the state of the union in 96, and thereafter, president biden and his advisers have a unique problem, 65% say they want someone else to run other than the incumbent. there was a feeling among the biden hierarchy that they needed to reassure core supporters in a way that every incumbent president doesn't have to do in his or her reelection campaign. paul: he needs to reach out and get haley voters at independents, he's doing that by going to the swing states, in wisconsin, georgia as well but those states are where the election is going to be decided. why is the president trailing

in those states? doug:he's trailing because of inflation, which in the northern industrial states has taken a toll on working people, the swing voters you are alluding to particularly independents and suburbanites. and convinced people they are economic, social and criminal law problems with the -- the southern border. i think president biden by dint of his policy initiatives and his campaigning is trying to reassure his core supporters and some swing voters if he can, that he is sensitive to their concerns about immigration, though on inflation i think he has a long way to go to make the case he

understands the difficulty and challenges working people are facing. paul: he seems to think he can blame republicans for blowing up the bipartisan deal in the senate put together. never got a vote in the house. do you think that's going to be a strategy he can drive to the election? trump is saying you own immigration, the white house seems to think this jujitsu will work. >> i don't think it will work. if i were advising president biden i would tell him to do executive orders to tighten up the asylum process, tighten up the immigration process to the extent the law allows to build more fencing to demonstrate graphically the commitment. the president in the absence of that won't when the immigration issue which from the polling i

have seen suggests it's one of the weakest, if not weakest issue the president has going forward. paul: donald trump's favorable ratings, he's not above 50 but he is as high as he has ever been. how do you explain that? >> i think there's a sense that he is among many being persecuted with the multiple prosecutions, civil lawsuits, also, he managed to be more disciplined in his rhetoric, his speech after supertuesday was more accommodating than he's been in the past. given that the president's own approval is down 39%, 40%, there is a desire among many swing voters to have a credible alternative and for trump to be that alternative he has to be

more appealing personally, something his campaign team is working with to accomplish. paul: if he can keep that contained and history suggests he probably can't. thanks for coming in. still ahead, president biden unveils a $7.3 trillion election year budget. our panel on what it tells us about his priorities and plans for a second term. it's fineeeeeeee! [splash] before advil: advil dual action fights pain two ways. advil targets pain at the source, acetaminophen blocks pain signals. advil dual action. there's nothing better than a subway series footlong. except when you add a new footlong sidekick. like the ultimate bmt with the new footlong pretzel. nothing like a sidekick that steps up in crunch time. [laughing] not cool man. every epic footlong deserves the perfect sidekick.

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paul: president biden unveiled his $7.3 trillion budget for fiscal 25. and election year wish list that heralds priority for second term including $5 trillion in tax increases but a mere 1% in defense spending which amounts to a cut after

inflation. let's bring in dan heninger, and alisha finley. dan, what did we learn about biden's second term priorities? >> president biden in the democrats, this is important to me, will not rebuild us defense capacity. 1% increase is a cut after inflation. has been true for the last several years with the democrats and their priorities are on domestic spending. we are talking about a spending package of $7 trillion and the democrats, now that they are the party of bernie sanders, from the time of the primaries in 2016 are going to focus on domestic spending and will not make the commitment necessary for the united states to position itself in a world that we know is extraordinarily volatile, the middle east,

china, vladimir putin and russia. it's not a normal peacetime era and we need to address the defense structure and the democrats won't do that. paul: you've got the war in ukraine, china building a new navy and defenses in the middle east and maybe iran goes nuclear and yet it is like nothing changed in the president's budget. >> classic populism. he you wants to spend on domestic issues but he is ignoring, one of the big glaring problems, they don't have enough money to pay people what they need to pay them and there are other big technology problems like satellite vulnerability. you go from boots on the ground to high-tech stuff and he's not willing to pay up for any of it

and that is a problem for our role in the world. paul: what about the taxes? mary:what makes me laugh about the taxes in the budget which is classic populism tax the rich is he looks at this as static. he has a wealth tax, he will increase tax on 1000 billionaires he has identified. he acts as though people are not going to behave differently. he has a very static analysis of how the economy responds and the other thing that's depressing, to see a president with this kind of experience not recognize that corporations don't pay taxes, people pay taxes so the likelihood that a lot of these taxes will be passed on to consumers is high. paul: the details on the taxes, 28% rate he wants for corporate income tax up from 21 and an

increase in capital gains tax in terms of capital, could go up to 50% or close to it. mary:it goes to those paying, in california, under new york state tax, some people could be playing up to 60%. he extended the medicare payroll tax 3.8% obamacare and initiated, he increases to 5% and small businesses paying a top rate of 37%. they are paying 44.6% and he reduces brackets, kicking at 400,000 instead of 690. paul: not that anyone under 400,000 will get a tax increase but that's not index for inflation. mary:those who earn 200,000 would experience a tax increase.

paul: this is a big deal, this taxing issue. the 2017 income tax rates expire for in 2025. >> president biden reversed trump. he brought taxes, the corporate tax, repatriated hundreds of billions in overseas profits, did that on the expectation of taxing a lower rate. this will create pressure once again for corporations that find a way to get out from under that. individuals, not so easy. corporations can find a way. paul: he couldn't passes this.

he is banking on a big electoral suite. thank you all. special counsel robert hur takes a beating from republicans and democrats about the documents probe. prosecutor fans about i will us. mucinex instasoothe sore throat medicated drops. uniquely formulated for rapid relief that lasts and lasts. that's my babyyy! -ow! get mucinex instasoothe. it's comeback season. but st. jude has gotten us through it. st. jude is hope for every child diagnosed with cancer

because the research is being shared all over the world. my name is dana bellefeuille, and my husband and i own the village bakery located in hayden, idaho. our mission is to employ people with different abilities. tiktok is allowing us to show what acceptance looks like on a day-to-day basis, here at the bakery. this is a community of just complete and utter love. it's the people that lift you up when you're down. people on tiktok do that on a daily basis, and i've never found a community like that, ever.

paul: former special counsel robert hur faced fire from both sides of the aisle on tuesday as he appeared before the house judiciary committee to testify about his investigation into president biden's handling of classified documents with republicans attacking for his decision not to prosecute the president and democrat slamming him for including comments about mr. biden's memory in his final

report. a move he defended on tuesday. >> my assessment about the president's memory was necessary, accurate, and fair. most important, what i wrote is what i believe the evidence shows and what i expect jurors would perceive. i did not sanitize my explanation, nor did i disparage the president unfairly. paul: we are back with dan heninger and bill mcgurn. the democrats tried to beat up hur as a partisan because he mentioned the president's memory. did they succeed and is it fair? >> it's not fair. when hur released the report in february they savaged him for bringing that up. the kid pointing out the emperor not wearing any clothes and they hate that because everyone sees it.

it is his big weakness. they tried the hank johnson, accused him of wanting a federal judgeshipped from trump and doing his bidding, asked if he was with the federalist society. i don't think it worked. a lot of them concentrated on the parts that were favorable. no criminal charges despite four decades of mishandling classified information and distinctions between trump and biden's case, the smarter ones tried to turn the hearing into a trial on trump, not on biden. it points to a weak spot. hur didn't make up biden's mental infirmities, he just pointed them out and he had to. paul: once he decided biden had willfully retained documents, which is, landed claim ironed you indicting him? he said i don't think i can get

a jury to convict because the president's memory, he's a well-meaning old guy who can't remember anything. can't remember enough. he had to do that. what do you make of the republican argument that hur should have indicted? >> biden is sitting president, so that would have been difficult for the department of justice to do. against the rules of the department. the republicans may, to some extent, a credible argument that there's a double standard. president biden has been holding onto classified documents throughout his career. he was reading some of them to his ghostwriter. donald trump didn't -- did the same thing, he had the documents in mar-a-lago. the key difference is president biden wouldn't be charged with obstruction of justice, trump is going to be charged on that. has been. on the question of criminality

of taking classified documents, one is as guilty as the other. on the underlying behavior. and exercise of prosecutorial discretion on robert hur's part, we hope jack smith would do the same for trump but we are beyond that point. paul: does the handling of these things just from the public mind a wash? it is all the same and this won't be a factor? >> dan is right about distinctions. people follow these tales. what they take away is once again trump faces 40 felony counts on this, president biden skates. i think that is going to feed into the narrative this is persecution and maybe another political winfred donald trump plus the fact that hur is pointing to president biden's obvious weakness, his mental acuity. paul: let's turn to the georgia

case, fani will us, the team, and some pretty scathing, scathing language. is that a good judgment or should she, should the judge have said you've got to step down? >> you should make the argument he should have told her to step down, but that would destroy the case. he probably wants to leave it up to a jury but what he said about her is extraordinarily unprofessional, poor judgment, unprofessional behavior. the idea that fani willis is going to present a case when her credibility was damaged by that behavior that everyone saw on television, will they be able to form a jury that would be disinterested about this?

it's going to be appealed for months and months. it will never come to trial this year. i think the judge though he didn't fire her, pretty much undermined the case. paul: no question some of the issues here would be ripe for appeal assuming fani willis can make a conviction but prosecutions being so tainted politically they will be dismissed by the voters no matter what happened? >> it was a clown show. everyone can see it. the special prosecutor, fani willis is so discredited, helping trump in the state cases in new york and georgia, so flimsy and so ridiculous came before the federal cases which are more serious but may undermine it in the public mind. paul: the fight over tiktok heads to the senate after the house overwhelmingly votes to

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this is remington. ...he's a member of the family, for sure. we always fed them kibble— it just seemed like the thing to do. but ...he was getting picky we heard about the farmer's dog... and it was a complete transformation. his coat was so soft, he had amazing energy. he was a completely different dog. it's a no-brainer that (remi) should have the most nutritious and delicious food possible. i'm investing in my dog's health and happiness. paul: the house voted to require breakdance, the chinese parent company of tiktok, to sell the popular apps, the bipartisan 35265 the aggressive

lobbying campaign against the legislation that appears to have backfired amid growing concern the current ownership structure is a national security threat. republican congressman mike gallagher after its passage wednesday. >> every biden and trump official says under its current ownership structure, the threat is too safir but i don't think courting the clicks of 17-year-olds should take precedence over allowing our foremost adversary to dominate is becoming the primary news source in under the age of 30. paul: bill mcgurn and alisha finley, tiktok is in fact a national security threat. >> gathered a lot of news outlets, the first issue is

data privacy and what bike dance, the chinese owner of tiktok is collecting. our goal is a us company. the data sent back to china where bike dance engineers can fully algorithms, and the chinese, sparta could have access to it under its own national security clause. paul: those algorithms, basically would allow the chinese communist party to mount political influence campaigns, and sensors certain speech like the hong kong protest. paul: there is a disparity between what appears on instagram and tiktok.

that's the evidence you are referring to. tiktok is saying this is a violation of free speech. is that right? >> it's not a violation of free speech, they are trying to sever ownership, and one of the -- the chinese on this. google and meta-and china, the same thing was 0. paul: they have been banned. >> the chinese trail us businessman over there in hong kong. alisha is right, the idea they could collect all this data and transform it and feed it into

the united states, it is soft warfare. hard to imagine the videos undermine a country like the united states the fact, lobbying congress not to do this shows the potential power of what tiktok could do. paul: politically this is extraordinary, you won't see that these days, opposition came from the democratic left, the squad and others and the republican right though that small group. to what do you attribute the success in this measure? >> people realize the threat. china's involvement screams national security concerns. paul: easy fbi director.

>> china is involved, institutes and influence schools and universities. this is one part of the effort and people have woken up to that. there is agreement on that. i think people of both parties realizes that. i have to admit i am for the legislation, and suspect, one has tiktok on her iphone again. i know how popular it is. paul: how do you explain donald trump's which on this issue. in 2,020 he tried to do the same thing, failed in court but now, it is tiktok.

>> meta-previously known as facebook which included him and a lot of his followers, his platform which owns instagram, he holds a grudge against meta-i don't know if it would help, a new social media platforms that comes up now. i saw a report that netflix, 75 more minutes to date to watch videos. paul: biden says that -- this will help biden get to the right of trump. >> most people think of china in terms of the threat in the union pacific and as i was saying earlier, neither of them to rebuild. have to ask donald trump as well. paul: he's not talking about

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paul: the labor department reported consumer prices rose faster than expert in february, 3. 2% from a year earlier while core inflation and volatile food and energy prices rose 3.8%, the opposite direction where the federal reserve wants prices to go as it attempts to return to its 2% annual inflation target. as the central bank sets to meet next week investors are optimistic interest rate cuts could becoming as early as june after fed chairman jerome powell told congress rate reductions are likely this year.

and prices go down. what's happening? >> reporter: only a little harder, not some sort of spike. the disappointment, in the habit of thinking this is going to be linear. the last mile was always going to be the most difficult. and at the editorial page, the amount of money the us government has thrown at the economy and that is making it more difficult for how to bring those numbers down. we are not going to have as many rate cuts as the market thought at the beginning of the year. paul: financial conditions are

loose, bitcoin prices are soaring, gold is rising. junk bond spreads, it doesn't look like tight monetary conditions to me. >> the real interest rate is below 2%, lots of activity in terms of employment. consumers are still spending. that makes it more difficult to him but he's shrinking the balance sheet little by little which is providing less accommodation to the financial system. on the other side, the economy being hot. you have them 2 shrinking, the money supply, inverted yield curve or at least a 5-year-old

curve so you have indications if he is too tight and not going to know if he is too tight until later he will tip the economy into recession. he will walk that thin line between tipping the economy into a recession and keeping interest rates tight enough to bring out the inflation. paul: the markets are betting powell is going to cut, they shrugged off the inflation report and the interest rate cuts are going to happen but the federal reserve chairman, certainly not paul volcker would be cutting rates in an economy as strong as it is with financial conditions. >> that is what jerome powell wants to do, to follow what paul volcker did. there are two interests at

stake. lower interest rates. wall street wants that. they had virtually 0% interest rates for 10 years. it generates a lot of deals, generate a lot of income from making deals. on the other side of that, if inflation rises, it hits the middle class, it eats into their income, their wage increases. powell is trying to avoid that with interest rate increases and try to make sure inflation is under control. on behalf of all americans who are hurt and who know they are being hurt. paul: let me turn to another subject. president biden's statement that he opposes purchase of $14.1 billion starting with intervention. good decision? >> i spent a lot of time talking about economic rationale for that decision.

this is a political decision, riskier than the president is acknowledging. this is throwing out crumbs, but if they kill this deal and the cleveland cliff, the us competitor that wants to purchase u.s. steel is next in line as a suitor you have people talking about antitrust. the us auto industry will go bonkers over this idea that you will consolidate the u.s. steel making industry. president biden may end up with nothing for the antiquated u.s. steel company which is not able to meet the capacity the us economy needs. paul: the idea that we are

going to impose foreign investment of the united states, not just put tariffs at the border, when we come back tensions flyer. chuck schumer calls for a new israeli leader and president biden draws a redline for benjamin netanyahu over his planned offensive in rafah. >> to make sure october 7th doesn't happen again. nce? i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. kayak... aaaaaaaahhhh kayak. search one and done. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. okay y'all we got ten orders coming in... big orders! starting a business is never easy, but starting it eight months pregnant...

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paul: the public clash between top democrats and benjamin netanyahu has escalated with chuck schumer calling for new leadership in israel saying netanyahu is an obstacle to

peace following president biden's suggestion for plans to clear hamas from its last stronghold in the city of rafah is a redline it should not be crossed citing concerns about civilian casualties. the israeli primus responded that israel will finish the job. >> cannot say you support israel's right to exist and defend itself and then oppose israel when it exercises that right. you cannot say you support the goal of destroying hamas and then oppose israel when it takes the actions necessary to achieve that goal. paul: i am joined by elliott kaufman who just returned from israel. you were there for a week. let's start with chuck schumer's speech saying benjamin netanyahu has got to go and israel needs to elect new leaders. how is that being received in israel? >> hasn't been received well in israel because israelis think

that question should be up to them, not a us senator no matter how powerful he is. you've had the strange effect where politicians who would like to say bad things about benjamin netanyahu, his opponents find themselves with no choice but to rally to him and say we respect you but this is not your call when israelis vote. will: do you think the israelis conclude what schumer is doing is not about israelis but the us election in november and try and get to help the democratic party and biden manage the anti-israel left? >> that is where the smart money is. defenders of the prime minister of israel tend to look at it as

an attempt to undermine the prime minister, bring him down. people with a little more perspective on the issue step back and say he is speaking to americans, to american liberals you can say anything about benjamin netanyahu and it is okay. israel another story but netanyahu, go for it. paul: there seems to be an attempt by schumer and president biden to say a unique obstacle is benjamin netanyahu but does benjamin netanyahu -- it is an outlier position or is that an israeli national consensus that you have to go into rahah and clear hamas out? >> on most issues prime minister benjamin netanyahu is not popular in israel right now but on every question that

president biden has picked and made an issue of, chuck schumer too, on those issues, there's a national consensus behind benjamin netanyahu's standss. ra rafahis a perfect example of that. paul: why is that? if you can't to go into that, you can't a laminate hamas and if you can't a laminate hamas gaza remains a terrorist sanctuary? >> that's right. the logic of the war doesn't make sense without an operation on rafah. the goal is to destroy hamas. hamas is in rafah. 40% of its fighting force is there. are you just going to leave it there? if you do, you haven't destroyed hamas and you can't to. paul: what progress do you feel israel is making in the conflict with hamas. are i they were on the way to finishing this or is that a much longer fight?

>> the answer is both. israelis believe in the senior officials believe they are close to finishing the job. what they mean is finishing the main fighting, cracking, breaking hamas's battalions, breaking it as a fighting force as an army. after that there's a much longer process mopping up stabilization. paul: culminating the tunnels, that sort of thing? what about the two state solution debate? biden is pushing that, schumer push that, benjamin netanyahu resisted that. is that something the israeli public is resisting now after the trauma of october 7th? >> yes. netanyahu opponents wish american leaders would stop talking about it because it

undermines them, not the prime minister. after what happened on october 7th, israelis look and say that is what happened when the palestinians were given a territory they could run. look what they did with it. as a response, give them an even larger territory next to jerusalem, close to tel aviv, israelis see more massacres, deadlier massacres. paul: in the war government now, as an opponent of netanyahu everybody assumed a sooner or later, if you replace benjamin netanyahu what anything change on the 2 state solution? >> not right now. not right now. the israeli public would not allow it, would not go for it. another issue is humanitarian aid.

he is worried benjamin netanyahu is allowing too much. president biden has misread the situation. paul: misread the politics because he's trying to play to the politics here at home. thanks, elliot. we have to take another break. 10 misses of the week. iting fo. the first fda-cleared at-home skin tag remover clinically proven to remove skin tags safely in as little as one treatment. can neuriva support your brain health? mary, janet, hey!! (thinking: eddie, no frasier, frank... frank?) fred! how are you?! fred... fuel up to 7 brain health indicators, including your memory. join the neuriva brain health challenge.

♪ ♪ time now for hits and misses of the week. mary you are first requests a miss of her vladimir putin went after an ally of the late descendent this week outside his home in the lithuanian capitol. he was attacked with a hammer. his car window was smashed. his arm was broken and spokesman for the late dissident said he can hardly walk. this is pure putin. his worst fear is people would simply speak and circulate ideas

that are not his own. >> a bill? >> eight miss for at west point. this week the military academy announced a new mission statement that deleted the words of duty, honor, country that is mebeen west point tomato. now, they defend themselves by saying that model remains just we updated the statement. the question is why would they remove that? i suggest they go back to macarthur's 1962 speech if they want some advice. that is a mission statement. >> alicia? what does that missed it former new york governor andrew cuomo who repudiated everything he had done a in his 10 years as goverr in a n "new york post" op-ed ths week he called for a suspension of the congestion pricing tax on drivers entering manhattan, why? because the city to economically fragile, why? because of his covid lockdown,

tax increases a in the bill he signed. cooks are right dan? what the hit to robert f kennedy jr. who made the grimmest presidential campaign imaginable was giving us the entertaining prospect of its divisive printable pic on march 26 and emerge it could be either new york jets quarterback aaron rodgers or perhaps former minnesota governor and x pro wrestler jesse, the body, ensure this raises the question where the kennedy campaign is mostly a running gag though i still think joe biden and donald trump don't think it's a laughing matter. quicksort dan think of that is it for this week show. thanks to my panel into all of you for watching. hope to see it right here next week. ♪ ♪ ♪ speed but tends to stand up en