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, and we're giving you, we're bringing those prices down rapidly, lower prices, bigger paychecks.
01:25And you're getting much higher wages. I mean, the only thing that's really going up big, it's called the stock market and your 401ks.
01:33It's going up.
01:34The president's message comes as economists say the opposite has been true in recent months, pointing out that inflation picked up again after his sweeping global tariffs took effect in April.
01:46And 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.
01:55New 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, American 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, but it comes amid a broader buildup.
02:51American forces were also seen unloading trucks and heavy equipment from military ships in Puerto Rico, a visible expansion of the U.S. footprint in the Caribbean.
03:01President Trump has said land operations are coming, though he's offered no timeline on specifics.
03:06Since 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.
03:34Hegseth 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.
03:52No 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 his 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,
04:24and arguing Zelensky is losing the war after Russia seized large stretches of territory years before Trump returned to office.
04:31Well, he's going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things.
04:35You know, when you're losing, who's he 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.
04:48On 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,
06:33and 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.
07:05They see that these sham proposals for health care savings accounts and tax credits
07:13are simply a ruse and a sham by Republicans
07:17to disguise the fact they are blocking extension health care subsidies that make insurance affordable.
07:25Democrats say their plan is the fastest, cleanest fix.
07:28No gimmicks, no strings, and everyone in their caucus is on board.
07:33Republicans, 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,
07:58the Department of Government Deficiency,
08:00Elon Musk is now reflecting on his time
08:03running one of the most controversial projects of the Trump administration
08:06and 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.
08:19And he made one thing pretty clear.
08:20If he had to do it all over again,
08:22he 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,
08:38you know, worked on my companies, essentially.
08:41So, and not, and the cars,
08:44they wouldn't have been burning the cars.
08:46Do you think you were successful?
08:47We're a little bit successful.
08:51We were somewhat successful.
08:57I mean, we stopped a lot of funding for,
09:02that really just made no sense.
09:05That was just entirely wasteful.
09:07Where, like, for example,
09:10there was, like,
09:12probably $100, maybe $200 billion 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.
09:35Finally this morning,
09:37a prehistoric surprise out of Bolivia.
09:40Scientists say Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives
09:43loved this part of South America about 60 million years ago.
09:48A team of paleontologists has documented
09:50more 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.
10:02Researchers found the prints across ancient shorelines
10:05and lake beds near Toro Toro,
10:07no, 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
10:19and 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
10:37to 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
10:47at the Supreme Court where 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
11:03wrapping 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
11:13meets 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,
11:28you see the dark background?
11:29We here in Omaha are experiencing like 50 mile an hour winds
11:33and we took a power hit mid-broadcast
11:36during Unbiased Updates.
11:37But thanks to you for sticking with us.
11:39Thanks to our crew behind the scenes
11:41for scrambling to get us up and we soldiered on.
11:44So there you go.
11:46All right, those are your Unbiased Updates for this Wednesday.
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