9-25-26 Hour 1 - Trump and Xi on Iran

The Chris Plante Show

Mike Opelka discusses the recent diplomatic visit of Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the White House and the implications for US-China relation

Key takeaways

• President Trump hosted Xi Jinping for a state dinner to discuss trade and Iran security.
• Ambassador David Perdue warned that China is weaponizing its single-source control of rare earth minerals.

Main topics

• Trump-Xi Diplomacy
• US-China Economic Competition

Notable quotes

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Conclusion

The episode highlights the tension between high-stakes international d

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:03) Republican Senator Jim Justice held a party outside of his Senate office yesterday for his dog's seventh birthday. Or, if his constituents ask, working on bringing down the price of gas. We can't afford groceries and you're throwing a birthday party for a dog? I'm just glad Mitch McConnell isn't alive to see this. He is? He is? Speaker 3 (0:29) Actually, Speaker 5 (0:29) I like the Mitch McConnell angle on that. I thought that was acceptable. Wow. I'll give him that one. That's the first one. And welcome to Friday. I know you're waiting for me to say it, aren't you? It's Mike Opelka in for Chris Plant. And as is my wicked custom, we celebrate the weekends by saying Friday-lujah. We are happy to be here on the weekend. Although, for those of us here in the Northeast, in the crosshairs of a Nor'easter. Speaker 5 (1:08) I'm a little bit concerned about the weather, mostly because of my golf game, but it's going to be a damp weekend for those of us here in the Northeast. The network television weather people are already out spreading their fear porn today. 40 million people are in the crosshairs of Mother Nature. And I'm sure they're going to also tie it to global warming or bad behavior by those of us who actually drive cars using internal combustion engines. Yeah, we'll be demonized. Anyway, we have a Friday lined up for you. And as you heard, Seth Meyers making fun of Senator Jim Justice having a birthday party for his dog. his dog being wheeled about the senate Speaker 5 (2:03) Not actually inside the well of the Senate or inside the chamber, but in the halls of the U.S. Capitol in a cart. And there was singing and just generally a silly waste of time. And I agree with some of the raised eyebrows on this one. Is this really the best use of your time, Republican Senator Jim Justice? Is that truly what we should be doing? And then I look back at the week and I say, well, we probably passed the Save America Act, right? We probably, oh. Speaker 5 (2:43) No. No, there's been really nothing done on that because we've been told for months the votes aren't there. We just can't. Never mind the American people. 80 % on both sides of the aisle want that. We've been told the votes aren't there. We just can't do that. We can't. We can't make sure voter ID is a thing. Never mind that Iceland and Sweden and New Zealand and Denmark and Canada and Ireland and Switzerland and Finland and Australia and Luxembourg and Netherlands and Germany, Austria, Malta, the UK, Spain, the Mauritius, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, France, South Korea, Costa Rica, Botswana. I could go on and I would. All of these countries, all of these countries at the end of the list, Haiti. Speaker 5 (3:34) Iraq, they all have passed laws requiring voter ID. Speaker 5 (3:45) But we couldn't do that in the U.S. Senate. We couldn't get that done. We couldn't get the Save America Act even brought up for consideration. We couldn't even decide, hey, let's just cut out the extraneous stuff and get the voter ID thing locked in there. Wouldn't that be a great idea, John Thune, Leader Thune? Wouldn't that be just wonderful? No. So instead, we're talking about Jim Justice wheeling his dog around. We're talking about Senator Tommy Tuberville or Tuberville or whateverville you want to call him. Ranting about furries in the cabins of commercial airliners. We'll get to that. If you don't know what furries are, look them up. Speaker 5 (4:37) It's a real thing, a predilection, if you will. And then there was action in the Senate this week. There was a lot of compassionate debate in the Senate this week, but it had to do with making a law to limit the amount of money that college coaches Speaker 4 (4:57) were being paid. Speaker 5 (5:00) Yeah, so we couldn't we couldn't get off our butts to vote about protecting the vote in America, protecting the most sacred right of Americans by mandating voter I.D. But we could get all emotional about limiting how much money a college coach is paid. I know Cory Booker was really in his feelings on this, really, really upset about this. just amazing to me. America has a minimum wage. We don't have a maximum wage. That's one of the beauties of capitalism. You are free to make as much money as you can with your brain, with your back, whatever, your muscle, your brain power. That's the gorgeousness of capitalism. Speaker 5 (5:50) There is no maximum wage. But if you're a sports-obsessed Democrat, and there were a few Republicans in that discussion as well, you want to put a limit on how much a college coach can be paid because you've decided $5 million is enough. Talk about a misplaced priority. Speaker 5 (6:16) And the gender issue, yesterday you had Tommy Tuberville talking about gender and about the furries. He was talking about both of those. Got up in front of God and everybody in the U.S. Senate. And didn't we basically fix most of the gender thing? I thought, I know their states are legislating it, and I think that probably is a good thing for states to get involved in. But wouldn't it be smarter to get the elections secured? Speaker 5 (6:46) Before you go back to an issue that helped you win the 2024 election, we really should secure the elections and then maybe we could talk about affordability instead of talking about gender issues and furries in the cockpits. Is that really the biggest problem facing the airline industry today? And putting a limit on what we pay college coaches. Just saying. Meanwhile, as that was going on in the Senate yesterday, there was a very important visit happening at the White House. The president welcoming Xi Jinping. Speaker 5 (7:30) The Chinese leader. And there were many, many, many, many people who were questioning the appropriateness of welcoming the Chinese leader to our White House, to having him inside of our White House and giving him this pomp and circumstance and the beautiful. The beautiful celebration in the Rose Garden yesterday. Did you watch it? There was about a 10-minute presentation that was done. Military precision. I spoke about it earlier. The silent drill that the U.S. Marine Corps put on, followed by the brass band playing the emotional battle hymn of the Republic and punctuated at the very end, putting a very solid exclamation point on it with the flyover. That's about 10 minutes of absolute stunning American pageantry. If you haven't seen it, it's worth your time. It's out there on social media. Really was beautiful. I got chills. Chills watching it. And the flyover at the end, that's always one of my favorite things. And then there were the discussions, the bilats that happened yesterday. And we'll get into some of that because I want to share with you what... Ambassador Perdue shared with CNBC this morning talking about what the president got done with China. Again, there are many people who said we shouldn't have China here. We shouldn't have a dictator who has millions of slaves in work camps. The Uyghurs are being tortured in China and being forced to make things. And I go back to. Speaker 5 (9:18) The sage wisdom from The Godfather 2. It's not from Sun Tzu. A lot of people say this quote is from Sun Tzu's Art