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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just told Congress that the war in Iran has already cost over $37 billion, and then he requested another $70 billion. Yeah, that would be $100 billion. But don't worry, the money's being put to good news. Trump is spending $50 billion on a giant horse to sneak into Iran. It's just a gift. It's just a gift from us.

Oh, I get it. It's an Odyssey joke, sort of, maybe related effort, attempted comedy. Fail. Yeah, straight up fail. That's a fail. It is Thursday on the Chris Plant Show. Michael Pelka is my name in for Chris Plant. How are you? You look great. Glad to be here. Happy to be here. Yet another consequential day in front of us, following a day filled with interesting, informative, and from the Democrats, some pretty crazy things that were said. And we will attempt to dive into each and every one of them. I suspect a three-hour show may not be enough to get everything brought out here. There also are some societal questions I have as I'm reading reports that show 30% of Americans are shoplifting. 30% admit to shoplifting. Kind of disturbing, isn't it? Especially if you're in the retail business. If you're in the retail business and you have your own stats on this, maybe you should give us a call at 888-630-9625, 888-630-9625. The study is being posted in all news outlets that I've seen this morning, and it does claim that more than three, more than three, so it's more than 30 percent of Americans say they've shoplifted at least once over the past year. This is from LendingTree. They did the survey, and it says that's up from 23% in 2024. Shoplifting within the last year, many people saying it's inflation, economic pressures, so you're justifying stealing and effectively causing more inflation. Because guess what? When retail theft happens, that makes it more expensive for the retailer to operate, meaning they're going to have to raise prices to cover the loss that they get when people are shoplifting. that's a it's a disturbing trend to say the least and it's uh kind of really doubly disturbing when you see the breakdown inside of this story that four in ten younger americans are doing the shoplifting so it's mostly younger americans gen z that means people ages 18 to 29 they make up 40 percent of those who are shoplifting gen z winning a prize they didn't want millennials

that we we often make fun of the millennials because we can ages 30 to 45 reporting that almost 40 of them 38 of shoplifting so the people who are 18 to 45 make up almost 80% of all those who are shoplifting. Hmm. Baby boomers, not big shoplifters. But apparently men are shoplifting at higher rates than women, which is kind of, I look at the numbers here, and I've kind of got questions for the people at LendingTree because they say men report shoplifting at higher rates than women, 36% to 23%. That adds up to 59%. So what gender are the other shoplifters? Is that like two-spirit people are shoplifting? Hmm. This is troubling. This is troubling. Food and non-alcoholic beverages. So food and... Drink, not alcohol. The most common stolen items. 30% saying they take food and drink. Clothing and accessories followed right behind that at a quarter. And then 20% were personal hygiene products. Grocery stores were the most common target. Almost 40% of shoplifters said they stole from grocery stores. And Walmart apparently the biggest target. Walmart with almost 50%. So Walmart is getting hit with loss from shoplifting bigger than almost any other operation. I'm just throwing this out there. If you're shoplifting, you have to know that you are causing prices to go higher. You're part of the problem. You're making the problem worse. I'm just saying. The survey also showed that shoplifting was reported across all income levels. Forty percent of the people who shoplifted with household incomes of $100,000 or more. Forty percent of the $100,000 households are shoplifting. And the people earning less than $30,000 had a smaller percentage. That's kind of a crazy story. That just stuck out to me, a societal commentary. Now, there's a lot of hay being made that many in the mainstream media are posting stories, are posting this story, but they're using file photos of young white girls to point out who's shoplifting. I don't think that's something we should be even arguing about. It just points out that what are these guys doing, posting the same kind of pictures across all the mainstream media outlets? Kind of crazy.

Other big stories today. Yesterday, we talked about it briefly. The agreement was signed last night with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, our agreement with the Saudis to allow the kingdom to start a nuclear energy program for energy, not for weapons. They'll allow them to make sure they have enough nuclear-enriched material to operate nuclear power plants. And a lot of people are freaking out about this. Well, there is breaking news today, this morning, that the president has put a condition upon this, that the Saudis must join the Abraham Accords. Now, is this because the Israelis are not happy about the Saudi deal? Maybe. That's a great possibility, a distinct possibility. And it's also another way that the president can herd the Saudis into this deal, into the Abraham Accords. And that would be a smart thing, I think. I hope that's happening. I don't have a problem with the Saudis having access to creating nuclear energy. Nuclear energy, as we know, is safe, clean and affordable. Back in the 70s, we were all panicked with things like Three Mile Island and movies like The China Syndrome and Silkwood that made us all freak out and believe that nuclear energy was just too darn dangerous for us to use. When in reality, it's been used for decades now, especially in Europe and the French again, again with the French, me giving the French some props. I'm sorry I'm doing that, but it's it's a real deal. Nuclear energy in these smaller generators, the smaller reactors, quite safe and quite efficient. Other than the the radioactive material, which, you know, we're eventually going to have to find a place to store it. Maybe maybe Elon Musk is going to be sending it out into space. I don't know. But the nuclear waste that comes from it is is not that gigantic of a problem. We've been dealing with, as I said, especially in France for decades. And there are nuclear power plants all over this country. Where I'm sitting in my studio is I think we're less than 100 miles from the one that's in New Jersey. I drive by it when I'm headed down to the beach all the time. Never had a question about it. And we're talking about utilizing small nuclear power generating facilities that are nuclear power plants in a lot of these data centers. So maybe that's a good idea. I don't have a problem with the Saudis.

I know many people on the left are freaking out about this, saying this is a dangerous deal. I don't think so. And what happens if Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, currently the leader of the kingdom, even those. His father, the king, is still alive. He's basically handed over control to the crown prince. What happens when Mohammed bin Salman is no longer in that spot? Well, he's relatively young when you consider some of the other world leaders out there. So I don't think we have to worry about that. It's a 30-year deal. If you have a thought on it, you're welcome to put it out there. We can debate this as well. So I'm I'm hopeful this will do a couple of things. This will give the Saudis the opportunity to create efficient energy for themselves, efficient, cheap energy for themselves. and it will widen the Abraham Accords, which President Trump has been pushing since his first term to try and make the Middle East a much calmer, better, friendlier place with neighbors actually talking to each other instead of just shooting missiles at each other. Just putting that out there. A couple of other things we have to talk about today. The fight against the virus of communism, the virus of Democrat socialism continues. And I think it's going to continue for quite some time. We're going to have to stay vigilant in this battle because it appears the young people have been taken in. They've been indoctrinated since they've been in school. They've been told that this capitalism is evil. And I'm old enough to remember when that Irish guy from U2 was going around telling people that, no, capitalism is not a bad thing. It was barely seven years ago when Bono was at the World Economic Forum, the WEF, as the cool kids call it, talking about capitalism and actually saying positive things about capitalism.

I think we just we have to just ask some deeper questions about where we are with the project called capitalism.

A project? Excuse me, project? Okay, I get it. I get it. Not everybody in the world is jumped on board of capitalism. Continue, sir.

And, you know, capitalism is is not immoral. It's amoral.

Wait a minute. The left is all telling us that capitalism is immoral. It's immoral for people to make double-digit returns on investments. One of the leaders of the DSA said that on Fox News the other day. It's absolutely immoral to do that. Bono kind of says it's amoral. Maybe. Continue, Mr. Bono.

It requires our instruction. Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ism.

Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Maybe that needs to be clipped and put into a campaign commercial for anyone who's running against a Democrat socialism, a socialist. Let's let's hear that again, Mr. Bono. I would put this in a campaign ad.

Destruction. Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ism.

Capitalism. Taken more people. Out of poverty. Than any other ism. Just just drink that in. We are seeing all kinds of reports in some conservative mainstream media outlets that are trashing communism. and socialism. And they're right to do that. You're right to remind everybody just how many people have been killed by communism and socialism in the last hundred years or so, because the numbers are staggering. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of people killed by communism and socialism. And I think the young people that are getting uh romanced by the push towards uh the killing of capitalism they're immune to this what i think we need to do what we need to do is sell capitalism versus trashing socialism we all know that socialism and communism are bad we all know that what we're not hearing enough of At least in my opinion, we're not hearing people singing the praises of capitalism. And I can't believe I'm quoting Bono, but this is the guy who said it. Capitalism has taken more people out of poverty than any other ism. Is it perfect? No. Do we have to make sure that it isn't abused? Yeah, of course. What's wrong with that? I think we need to go on the effect.

Defensive, not on the defensive. And I'm looking at, like I said, all these reports. Fox, David Asman over at Fox is doing a whole big thing on all of the evils of socialism and communism. We know that. We need to seduce the young people with the benefits of capitalism, what it provides. It's not an easy road, but it's got a lot of great stuff to it. All right. What do you think? 888-630-9625, 888-630-9625. It is a Thursday, and we have a whole lot to get to today. It's Mike Opelka in for Chris Plant on The Chris Plant Show.

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It is the Chris Plant Show on this Thursday. Michael Pelka in for my friend Chris Plant. And I think I need to clarify something because there was apparently a little confusion in Florida yesterday. Chris Plant and I are friends. We grew up in the same Chicago suburban neighborhood and then reconnected as grownups in the world of talk radio. And I do many, many fill-in hosting gigs for Chris. And we've been friends for over a decade now as grownups, which is great. We're not related. I have a nephew who's a professional tennis player and was at a restaurant in, I think it was in the Delray Beach area yesterday. And a lady came up and introduced herself to my nephew, Riley Opelka, quite a nice young man and a great tennis player, and said, I know your cousin, Chris Plant. And Riley wrote and asked, do we have a cousin named Chris Plant? No, we don't. He is a brother in spirit, though. He is truly a kindred spirit. I call him a brother always. But, no, just kind of funny. Very funny. Interesting. Anyway, let's grab a phone call or two here, 888-630-9625. Tom in Pennsylvania. What part of Pennsylvania, Tom? Welcome.

Well, it's about 20 miles from where Chris's grandpa was stationed here in Sharon, PA. Okay. I'm 20 miles from that and 20 miles from Butler, where they shot our great president and shot at our first president down there near Harmony, PA. That's where he was shot at, George Washington, back in the French-Indian Wars. Yeah, that's the old steel country back when I was growing up. Steel flowed into the Beaver River. It flowed orange. And we were making all types of steel, all types of little factories and machine shops. That all disappeared by the 80s. You know, I left and went into service because there was no opportunity, and the best thing I ever did. Got to see real expansion in Houston as they were riding on a bus from Lackland to Keesler Air Force Base. I learned advanced electronics. But in either case, I've watched the crony capitalism take place because I've been blessed to be in many different industries. And my last tour of duty was over in Asia. And they actually ended up in China when Xi Jinping was put into power in 2012. And I was watching curiously in 2022 when he didn't leave power. You know, every 10 years, every five that have elections, but generally when somebody got in there, they were in for two terms. And Xi Jinping didn't leave in 2022. And I watched him get rid of the old regime over there. It was pretty scary.

Yeah, communism, once they're entrenched, they don't like to go anywhere. Thank you for your service, Tom. It's Opelka in for plants on the Chris Plant Show.

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Lights, lights. Welcome back to the Chris Plant Show. Mike Opelka in for my friend Chris Plant. This Thursday, just keeping an eye on what the markets are doing as we're kind of off to a rough.

start today. We'll see what happens. I think uncertainty in the Middle East is causing a lot of trouble there, but we'll keep our eyes on what might be happening as last night, I believe, was the 12th night consecutive, 12 nights of delivering a very stern message to Iran to straighten up and fly right and be a good neighbor in the region. They don't want to work and play well with others. That's just, I think that's just the reality. That's the absolute stark reality here. It's not going to be as easy as Venezuela and certainly has proven to be nowhere near as easy as what we did in Venezuela. We'll see what happens. We'll keep our eyes on that. We'll also talk about what's going on in New York City. I kind of mentioned it yesterday when we played the pre-produced video from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and how he called Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, saying, you know, I'd like to arrest him, but I can't. You know, this pesky American law prevents me from arresting him. But I believe he's a war criminal. And he listed all of the claims that are made that Netanyahu has killed or injured how many tens of thousands of children? And I feel that Netanyahu is now at serious risk if he comes to this country for the United States or for the United Nations General Assembly. That the mayor of New York appears to be whipping people into a frenzy and there could be an attempt on the life of Benjamin Netanyahu. There certainly will be organized protests against Israel during the U.N. General Assembly. I guarantee you that. But it's very irresponsible. And is nobody in the Democratic Party speaking up about this? No, they are not. They need to. In my opinion. But I've got I've got a handful of clips about Mom Donnie that we we need to play and discuss. It's it's really troubling. God forbid something happens to a world leader who comes here and not just a world leader, but a good friend of of this country. who comes to this country, and if there is an attempt on his life, it doesn't reflect well on America. I'll drill into that in a little bit. I want to talk about yesterday and the president. He did attend the dignified transfer of the remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where I live. It was a somber event. I was frankly very happy to see the president did not wear the USA baseball cap that he wore during the last dignified transfer and took a lot of heat for that.

But it was a very solemn event. The president did talk to the families of those we lost. And then he flew to Marietta, Georgia right after that, just a pretty short hop from lower, slower Delaware to Marietta, Georgia, where there was a rally of sorts. And these are the kinds of rallies the president is doing ahead of the midterms in an effort to maybe juice turnout a little bit, because I think turnout is a great concern. I was looking at the turnout numbers for the last few elections, and I think there's a serious concern over who is going to show up. If you look at our presidential elections in 2020, we kind of had the highest turnout overall. And now let's not forget a lot. That was mail-in ballots because of COVID. And there certainly is great speculation about the legitimacy of some of those mail-in ballots that were just flowing into states. But in 2020, we had 66 percent of the people that are eligible to vote who voted. The highest since the early 20th century by many measures. And then the last presidential election, it dipped just a little bit. we were at 64%, or it was actually 65.3% of the citizen-aged voting population per the census reports. About 154 million people voted in that election. Still, not quite two-thirds of the country. The long-term average over the recent decades hovers between 55% and 60% turnout for elections. And if you look at the midterms, which we're about to face in the next three months and a few days, if you look. the midterm elections, those are consistently lower turnout. In 2018 and 2022, there was a lot of interest. And we actually had 50 to 53 percent based on some of the measures. But the typical modern midterm elections sit between 40 and 46 percent, meaning 15 to 17 percent of those who vote in presidential elections, just stay home. And I think President Trump and the Republicans realize, aside from the typical midterm historical issue that the party in power has in midterms, there's usually a shift in D.C. power in the House and the Senate when the midterms come around.

And it's kind of everybody uses the analysis saying that, oh, it's just a way of leveling things out to make sure that one party doesn't have too much control. Whether or not that's true, we don't know. But it's been the case historically. It's very rare that the party in power will succeed again during the midterms. And the Democrats had that generic ballot advantage of 20 percentage points early this year. It's down to 4 percent. So it's really close. And I think President Trump is attempting to make sure turnout is strong, especially in states like Georgia. Now, we talked about Senator John Ossoff, who's running, and he's he's got apparently a huge advantage currently in the polls. We'll see what happens. But the turnout, that's what this is all about. It's all about turnout. And President Trump showed up after there were several speakers. Scott Besant was there. There were several local candidates speaking. The president showed up and gave a little bit of classic Donald Trump to the faithful in Marietta, Georgia. A little USA, USA chant. USA, USA, USA.

USA! USA! USA!

Well, thank you very much, everybody. It's a special place, and I am here to announce my candidacy.

He's smiling at the people in the crowd as he said, I'm here to announce my candidacy. And the crowd realizing what he's doing. I think they realized totally what he's doing. decided to play along as well.

I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding.

Not running for anything. Only kidding. But I think that's typical Trump fashion. He was very comfortable yesterday. The president was very, very comfortable yesterday with the crowd. Why shouldn't he be? It was a very friendly crowd in Georgia. Whether or not we'd be able to capture the Senate seat from Ossoff, we don't know yet. But the president was very, very comfortable. and entertaining yesterday in Marietta, Georgia. He also talked about what I've been talking about this first hour of the show today, and that is the threat of communism, socialism, infiltrating our government and causing a problem. The president addressed this issue yesterday as well.

While our administration is lifting up the next generation with the power of freedom and american capitalism proven all over the world when it's done right it's not always done right but when it's done right there's nothing like it the radical left is actively trying to destroy our children's future with the disaster known as communism it's communism this isn't social democrat these are communists by another name right he's right uh they can call

it democratic socialism and the dsa is now pretty much completely out of the closet when it comes to what they want to do what their mission statement is they want to get rid of the u.s senate they want to get rid of the president of the united states that's right they've actually said that they've talked about they've talked about what they're going to do get rid of the president of the united states uh what would they have in their its place well what would you

replace the president with i don't know what we would call it in the future we could call it the

head honcho of whatever you know sure and we'd all take turns being the head honcho it's just like the un where somebody gets to preside over the security council uh every month and they just

rotate through. It's a complete waste of time. It would be a very failed experiment. But I'm happy to see the president out there pushing capitalism. He pushed greatly, spent a lot of time talking about the Trump accounts, which I think this is one of the strongest positive things this administration has done, is the creation of the savings accounts for new Americans born in this country, I just wonder how many birth tourism kids will set up the Trump accounts. No, but the establishment of Trump accounts, and if you can deposit a little money every year into those when your child turns 18, that kid's going to have a great advantage as they become adults. Now, if the Democrats have their way, they won't have to wait until they're 18 to become adults. They will make them adults at 13 and allow them to vote at that time as well. A great day yesterday for the president. He's going to be doing more of these. I think this is one of the Susie Wiles directed movements by the president. He's going to be making as many of these speeches as he can all around the country. And to back it up, we see that the president is very popular among Republicans, which would be then important for him to get the turnout that we need for the midterm elections. Yesterday on CNN, as the president was preparing to speak in Marietta, Georgia, Harry Enten, the numbers guy at CNN, was putting out the latest numbers about President Trump, his approval rating, and higher than any other president this century at this point.

Trump is still very popular with Republicans. Just take a look here. OK, 21st century own party approval rating about at this point, the second term, we got Trump, we got Obama, we got Bush. Look, they're all fairly popular, but the one who is the most popular and we have seen this time in and time out, no matter when you look, is Donald John Trump. He's the only one who's over 80 percent. Eighty three percent of Republicans still approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing.

Now, Barack Obama, 76% at this time in his second term. George W. Bush, 78% approval rating at this point in the second term. Donald John Trump, 83%. Big number.

President, he still has that magic touch. We'll see if it carries over to South Carolina, but we've seen it in primaries this year, Senate primaries, and that's because he is still a very popular man, historically popular when it comes to his own party liking and approving of the job that he's

doing. Now, the question is, is Donald Trump more popular among Republican voters than he is unpopular among Democrat voters? You need to think about that for a minute. Does Donald Trump's popularity with Republican voters eclipse the hatred that the Democrat voters have for the president. And we talked about this on Monday. I think we talked about how many Democrats are not running against their opponent. They're not running based on their policies. They're running on F Trump. They're running on hatred of Donald Trump. They're not running against anyone who's on the ballot with them. They're all running against Trump. And if that drives turnout higher on the left than it does on the right, that could create a problem for any hopes the GOP has in saving the House and maintaining the Senate majority in the midterms. It's a big stinking deal. And thus, this is why the president is going out to these important states and doing these rallies to attempt to gin up the turnout ahead of the midterm elections. I hope it works. I think it's a good strategy. But you have to also look at what what is voter turnout doing among different groups? We talked about the voter turnout in the midterm elections, historically very low, 15 to 17 points lower in terms of turnout in midterms than versus presidential elections. But you also need to look at who turns out racially, ethnic group, racial group, whatever you want to call it, who's going to turn out, who's got the highest turnout there, and then the breakdown based on faith or religious affiliation. There is a great concern that the religious affiliations will be sort of a betrayal to the GOP because the organizations within the Muslim communities...

even though they're a smaller sample, are more engaged when it comes to voting versus Christians or versus non-religiously voted, affiliated people. So I'm keeping my eyes out for any shift in these groups, whether or not the religious affiliations will be participating in the midterms and whether or not it's going to be stronger GOP this year. It needs to be if there's any hope. All right, that's my wonky assessment of the midterm elections. I think the president's right doing what he's doing. We'll keep diving into this. I'll grab a call when we get back. I'll see the phones are lighting up. 888-630-9625. 888-630-9625. It's Opelka in for Plant from the Chris Plant Show.

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flavor responsibly it is the chris plant show chris is on the cruise this week with a bunch of listeners i haven't gotten an update which means everything's going very well either that or they're being held captive somewhere which i doubt is happening because it would have made the news i guarantee you uh we are uh wrapping up the first hour going to the phones uh triple eight six three zero nine six two five the lovely jasmine answering the phone so be polite would you always be polite whenever you call a radio show dan in reston virginia joining us hey dan

what's up hey mike hey uh this whole thing with socialism in unless uh certain populations come out to vote, people are going to have, this is unstoppable. And I think because they've been sold a bill of goods. If the Christians, and I think you were just talking about this, if the Christians and the gun owners or the people that are pro-Second Amendment would come out to vote and get off the sidelines, this whole thing would be moot, right? And so this whole socialist stuff is silly and but the people that are pro-socialism seem to be motivated and the other people the people that could neutralize this just sit back and complain when it happens but if they would come off the sidelines this whole thing would be moot it's the same thing in the last election it didn't it trump won but it was uh if if the christians and the and the gun owners would stay

engaged this whole thing would be moot well i think we're seeing that now in new york city where a tiny, tiny section of New Yorkers voted to put Zoran Mondani past the primary. And once you win the primary as a Democrat in a city like New York, you're pretty much guaranteed to win that election, which he's done. So the buyer's remorse is just beginning there, and it's going to get a lot worse. I don't think they have any idea. We're going to dive into that next hour, but you're right. Christians and gun owners, which oftentimes are an overlapping demographic, need to make sure they don't allow their existence to be voted out by not participating. And that will happen. The left is very organized when it comes to getting to the polls. The left is very organized. And unless we stand up and make sure we are heard as a voting bloc, it's not going to be a good future for us and the people that think like us who are younger. So it is one of those key issues. I hope the GOP is on it and turnout will be the number one issue going forward in the midterms as well as 2028. But we got to get to 2028. And that means we got to be active in 2026. Just a couple of months. All right, it's Mike Opelka stepping aside. I'm in for Chris on the Chris Plant Show.

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