00:00A new pitch on prices. President Trump hits Pennsylvania with a full court press, saying he's turning the inflation story around.
00:09Plus, the clock's almost up. Health care subsidies for millions about to expire. And Washington, nowhere close to a deal.
00:17And Elon Musk unfiltered. Looking back at the department that axed thousands, would he take the Doge gig again?
00:24The stories that matter, clear and credible, from across the country to around the world.
00:32These are your unbiased updates from Straight Arrow News.
00:38Good morning, I'm Craig DeGrelli. President Trump is offering a new message on the economy this morning.
00:44After weeks of dismissing the country's affordability problems as a Democratic hoax, he's now saying inflation is no longer a problem at all under his watch.
00:53At a rally-style event in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, the president struck two notes at once, calling affordability a term invented by Democrats,
01:02while also insisting he has no higher priority than making the country more affordable.
01:07They gave you high prices. They gave you the highest inflation in history.
01:13And we're giving you, we're bringing those prices down rapidly.
01:21We're getting inflation, we're crushing it. And you're getting much higher wages.
01:27I mean, the only thing that's really going up big, it's called the stock market and your 401ks.
01:33It's going up.
01:35The president's message comes, as economists say, the opposite has been true in recent months,
01:40pointing out that inflation picked up again after his sweeping global tariffs took effect in April.
01:45And while inflation is far below the 2022 peak of just over 9 percent, consumer prices were still rising, up 3 percent year over year in September.
01:56New numbers, delayed by the government shutdown, are now expected after the Federal Reserve meeting that happens later today.
02:03Meanwhile, voters appear to be growing more skeptical.
02:06A CBS News YouGov poll from November found nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the president's policies are making grocery prices go up.
02:15As tensions between the United States and Venezuela continue to climb,
02:20American fighter jets just made their closest known approach to Venezuelan airspace in years.
02:26The Pentagon flew two F-A-18 fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday.
02:31The nearest U.S. military aircraft have come to the country's airspace since the Trump administration launched its expanded anti-drug mission in the region.
02:41A U.S. defense official told Fox News the flight was a routine training mission meant to show how far the aircraft can operate,
02:49but it comes amid a broader buildup.
02:51American forces were also seen unloading trucks and heavy equipment from military ships in Puerto Rico,
02:57a visible expansion of the U.S. footprint in the Caribbean.
03:00President Trump has said land operations are coming, though he's offered no timeline on specifics.
03:07Since September, the U.S. has carried out multiple strikes on what it says are drug-smuggling boats off Venezuela's coast.
03:14Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims the U.S. is using those missions as cover to try to force him from power.
03:21And now one of those early strikes is facing scrutiny on Capitol Hill.
03:25Lawmakers are demanding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth release the full, unedited video of a follow-up strike that killed two survivors of the initial attack.
03:35Hegseth said Tuesday he's still deciding whether to make that footage public.
03:39A new turn this morning in the push for Ukraine to get on board with a peace deal.
03:45President Zelensky now says Ukraine will present its updated plan to the United States today.
03:50And he's drawing a hard line. No land will be given to Russia.
03:55After a whirlwind tour through London, Rome, and meetings with European leaders,
03:59Zelensky made it clear Ukraine has no legal or moral right to give up territory.
04:04Not Donbass, not any of it.
04:06In a statement on X, he says the revised peace framework is ready for Washington, writing,
04:11Together with the American side, we expect to swiftly make the potential steps as doable as possible.
04:18This comes as President Trump ramps up public pressure, again suggesting Ukraine must play ball,
04:23and arguing Zelensky is losing the war after Russia seized large stretches of territory years before Trump returned to office.
04:32Well, he's going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things.
04:35You know, when you're losing, who's losing?
04:38Do you think Ukraine has lost this war?
04:42Well, they've lost territory long before I got here.
04:45They lost a whole strip of seafront, big seafront.
04:49On Tuesday, a rare and striking rebuke from Pope Leo after meeting Zelensky outside Rome.
04:55The Pope condemned Trump's recent remarks in that Politico interview about European leaders being weak
05:01and the president suggesting the U.S. scale back support for Ukraine.
05:05I think, unfortunately, some parts of it that I have seen make a huge change in what was for many, many years
05:17a true alliance between Europe and the United States.
05:22The remarks that are made about Europe, also in interviews recently,
05:26I think are trying to break apart what I think needs to be a very important alliance today and in the future.
05:33Zelensky also met with Italy's Georgia Maloney, who reiterated Europe's support
05:39as talks with the U.S. remained bogged down over the Trump administration's proposal
05:43that Ukraine surrendered Donbass, a demand that Kyiv and Europe have flatly rejected.
05:49A high-stakes health care fight is about to break open on Capitol Hill,
05:53with dueling plans from Republicans and Democrats heading for back-to-back votes on Thursday,
05:58and neither side is expected to hit 60.
06:01Republicans walked out of their lunch Tuesday ready to push their own proposal,
06:05a bill from Senators Cassidy and Crapo that doesn't extend the expiring ACA subsidies,
06:11but instead sends that money straight into health savings accounts for people on bronze-level plans.
06:17Here's the majority leader.
06:18This is a failed program, and it does nothing but drive premiums up,
06:23and the increase in premiums, who's that going to?
06:25That's going to the insurance companies.
06:28So the proposal we'll put out there will bring insurance premiums down,
06:32it will be fiscally responsible,
06:34and it'll get us away from the practice of giving the money all to the insurance companies
06:38and put it back in the hands of the patients.
06:40John Thune says the GOP plan saves money and lowers costs,
06:44while Democrats, he argues, are staging a show vote to extend the current subsidies for three more years.
06:51Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, now just three weeks away,
06:55a change that could mean double-digit premium increases for millions of Americans.
07:00Here's Senator Richard Blumenthal.
07:02The American people are not dumb.
07:04They see that these sham proposals for health care savings accounts and tax credits
07:13are simply a ruse and a sham by Republicans to disguise the fact
07:20they are blocking extension health care subsidies that make insurance affordable.
07:25Democrats say their plan is the fastest, cleanest fix.
07:29No gimmicks, no strings, and everyone in their caucus is on board.
07:32Republicans, meanwhile, are scrambling for unity,
07:36even floating several competing ideas in recent days.
07:39But with 53 GOP seats, no proposal, Democratic or Republican,
07:44is expected to cross the necessary 60-vote finish line for passage.
07:48Tomorrow, side-by-side votes will, however,
07:51force every senator to take a position before premium spike.
07:55Six months after walking away from Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency,
07:59Elon Musk is now reflecting on his time running one of the most controversial projects
08:05of the Trump administration and whether he would do it again.
08:08On a podcast hosted by former Trump aide Katie Miller,
08:12Musk described Doge as kind of a made-up department,
08:15even saying its name came from an Internet joke.
08:18And he made one thing pretty clear.
08:20If he had to do it all over again, he would not take the job,
08:24even if he thinks the mission had some wins.
08:26Would you do Doge again, knowing what you know now?
08:30I mean, the thing is, like, I think instead of doing Doge,
08:34I would have basically built, you know, worked on my companies, essentially.
08:41So, and not, and the cars, they wouldn't have been burning the cars.
08:46Do you think you were successful?
08:49We're a little bit successful.
08:51We were somewhat successful.
08:52I mean, we stopped a lot of funding for,
09:01that really just made no sense.
09:05That was just entirely wasteful.
09:07Where, like, for example, there was, like,
09:12probably 100, maybe 200 billion dollars worth of zombie payments per year.
09:15President Trump created Doge on day one of his second term,
09:20tasking Musk with slashing federal spending,
09:23shutting down what he called wasteful programs,
09:26and driving massive workforce cuts through layoffs and buyouts.
09:30In some cases, entire agencies were eliminated,
09:33including the U.S. Agency for International Development.
09:36Finally this morning, a prehistoric surprise out of Bolivia.
09:40Scientists say Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives loved this part of South America
09:45about 60 million years ago.
09:48A team of paleontologists has documented more than 16,000 dinosaur footprints.
09:53Look, the largest collection of theropod tracks ever recorded.
09:57It's amazing.
09:58They are bipedal and mostly meat eaters,
10:00a group that includes the T. rex.
10:03Researchers found the prints across ancient shorelines
10:05and lake beds near Toro Toro, no, not the lawnmower,
10:08a village and national park in Bolivia's Andes Mountains.
10:12They also uncovered nearly 1,400 footprints preserved in mud,
10:17evidence that these dinosaurs were wading and splashing through rising lake waters.
10:21And the size range is wild,
10:24from tracks belonging to a creature roughly 33 feet tall
10:27to prints just a single foot long,
10:30likely from smaller dinosaurs traveling with the herd.
10:33A remarkable window into prehistoric life
10:36and the closest thing we'll get to watching a T. rex take a morning stroll.
10:41How do you like that?
10:42That is fascinating.
10:44A busy day in Washington.
10:45Here's what we're tracking starting this morning at the Supreme Court
10:48where justices take up a major case
10:50on how IQ testing should affect death penalty eligibility.
10:55Later, senators dig into America's health care problems,
10:58hearing from industry groups and everyday ACA enrollees.
11:01This afternoon, all eyes on the Fed wrapping up its final policy meeting of the year
11:06with a likely rate cut and new signals about 2026.
11:10In Florida, a key house redistricting committee meets again as a new map takes shape.
11:16Hey, your coffee doesn't come with context.
11:18That's where we come in.
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11:26Before we go, I wanted to make mention,
11:27you see the dark background, we here in Omaha are experiencing like 50 mile an hour winds
11:33and we took a power hit mid-broadcast during Unbiased Updates.
11:37But thanks to you for sticking with us.
11:39Thanks to our crew behind the scenes for scrambling to get us up
11:43and we've soldiered on.
11:44So there you go.
11:46All right, those are your Unbiased Updates for this Wednesday.
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