Nov 14

Today’s News 14th November 2016

  • China Money Market Rates Spike To 1-Month Highs As Yuan Hits 7-Year Lows

    In what appears to be yet another effort to spook shorts out of speculative positions in offshore Yuan, China appears to have tamped down its liquidity spigot driving overnight HIBOR rates up a shocking 194bps to 3.53% – the highest in over a month. The spread between offshore and onshore yuan has collapsed, even as the Yuan plunges to to its weakest against the dollar since September 2009.

    As Yuan hits its post-leg record lows, it seems each streak of selling is met with a kneejerk liquidity plunge in money markets…

     

    Which has spooked the specs out of the arb between onshore and offshore Yuan…again

    Of course, while 3.53% is notable for overnight money and a big shock, there is plenty of room to go if the capital flight and speculation continues – ON/HIBOR neared 25% in September as turmoil re-appeared.

  • Backwardation Profit Taking, Report 13 November, 2016

    The big news this week is that Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States. Whether due to his comments about restructuring the government debt, tariffs on imported goods, or other economic concerns, many expected news of his election to push up the price of gold.

    They were wrong.

    Every day since last Friday (November 4) has seen the price of gold falling. From a peak of over $1308, the price fell to $1227 on Friday.

    There was a rally from $1269 to $1337 on the evening of election day, from 8pm to midnight in New York. This is roughly the time when election results began to trickle in and show that Trump was going to win. At the same time, the stock market tanked. S&P futures fell from 2150 to 2028, or -5.7%. Volume was off-the-charts high for US evening time.

    But then what passes for normal took hold once again. The price of gold resumed its slide. The stock market recovered.

    One thing is for sure. The price of gold does not go up for the reasons supposed by most gold bugs. Any more than it goes down for the reasons given by the propaganda of the paper bugs.

    There is something else going on that could drive the gold price up. I refer to the new Indian policy of demonetizing larger-denomination cash (500- and 1000-rupee notes, worth $7.40 and $14.80—i.e. not so large). So many Indians rushed out to buy gold that credible sources report a temporary 20% spike in the rupee-price of gold.

    We doubt that Prime Minister Modi can force many Indian cash holders to increase their bank balances. However, he could push the marginal cash holder to increase his holdings of gold. If that proves to be durable, that could drive the price of gold up substantially. This situation with cash and gold in India needs to be watched.

    The price of silver took a big dive on Friday, ending down a buck twenty. Yes a buck twenty, as in -6.4% (the low of the day was 15 cents lower).

    The question is: what did the election do to the fundamentals? Are people now stacking silver bars and gold coins, who had not been doing it before the election? Or is this price move just more noise that will be lost in a month, much less over the long term?

    We will give a teaser. Something changed in the market this week.

    We will update the pictures of the gold and silver fundamentals below, and show our first-ever intraday basis charts. But first, here’s the graph of the metals’ prices.

           The Prices of Gold and Silver
    prices

    Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise known as the gold to silver ratio. It rose this week, how could it not with the big price move in silver? 

    The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price
    ratio

    For each metal, we will look at a graph of the basis and cobasis overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It will make it easier to provide brief commentary. The dollar will be represented in green, the basis in blue and cobasis in red.

    Here is the gold graph.

           The Gold Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
    gold

    And now we see our old friend, who has been absent for a while. Backwardation. The cobasis is over +0.3% (30 bps).

    We admit that we have a conundrum. We are not quite sure how to handle Friday. In the US, Friday was a bank holiday Veteran’s Day. The Treasury bond market was closed, as were the banks. However, the stock market was open as was the gold futures market. And there was high volume (the third highest day of the year, after Thursday and June 27).

    We are including Friday.

    Friday had a big price move in gold, with the dollar up almost 2/3 of a milligram gold (muggles will see this as gold going down -$32).

    Last week, we said:

    “Are we predicting a crash, much less on Monday morning (as we write this, the price of gold is down in Asian trading by $11)? No, but we are saying gold is not looking like a good value here. If you don’t have any, then there is never a bad time to buy. But if you’re trading a position, we could think of better times to buy than now. Maybe now (especially at Friday’s price over $1,300) might be a good time to consider selling a covered call.”

    That was then and there (a week and 76 bucks ago).

    And something else changed. The fundamentals got stronger. Unless this turns out to be an anomaly due to the bank holiday and the absence of some market makers, the fundamentals are stronger now than they have been in quite some time.

    We calculate a fundamental price of over $1310.

    We will take a look at intraday basis charts for gold and silver, below.

    Now let’s look at silver.

    The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
    silver

    The same thing happened in silver. And unlike last week, it occurred across all contracts. Falling basis (abundance) and rising cobasis (scarcity). ‘Course, in silver, the price drop was epic, much bigger than in gold.

    We calculate a fundamental price of just over $17. So, like with gold, we had buying of physical metal and selling of futures.

    Many times over the years, we have seen reports of a big paper flush amidst strong physical demand. We have debunked several of them, and dismissed the rest.

    What happened on Friday was different than those other events. Here are intraday graphs showing basis and price (the cobasis moved pretty much inverse to basis so not included to keep the graph as readable as possible).

    Intraday Gold Basis and Price
    gold intraday basis

    From just before 13:30 (London time, or 90 minutes before the PM gold fix), the basis begins falling. The basis is the spread of futures – spot. So futures begin selling off before even the price begins to decline. Shortly after 2pm, the price of gold is still holding at $1259, but the basis is already dropping. And boy does it drop, to a trough of -64bps. From there on, the basis recovers somewhat.

    We have annotated the graph to highlight three distinct phases. In the first phase, it is simply selling, driven by selling of futures. How do we know? First, the basis begins to fall before the price. Of course, the fact that the price begins to fall while the basis continues to fall proves it.  It is simple enough, lots of traders sold gold futures and the price fell around $30 initially.

    The second phase is more interesting from a market theory point of view. Here we see the basis rising, and it’s a pretty big move up from a low of -64bps to -38bps—just about a 2/3 retracement of the original drop. However, the price is sideways to positive. The basis is
    changing but the price is not. In other words, the spread between futures and spot is compressing (basis is     negative here, so rising value means tighter).

    What this means is simple. For an hour and a half, the panicky herd of speculators stampeded at will. After that, the market makers were able to reassert some control. No, not over price but of spread! The market makers did not manipulate the price of gold up or keep it from falling. They began to decarry gold, that is sell spot and buy futures. This pushes down the bid price on spot, and pushes up the offer price on the futures contract.

    Why would they decarry? To take profits, of course! In recent months, the profit on offer to carry gold has been very high. This has tempted many arbitrageurs to exploit the opportunity: by buying a bar of metal and simultaneously selling a futures contract. They are long metal and short a future.

    When the basis drops, that provides an opportunity to close the position and make more than one would have made by holding to maturity. For example, suppose you put on this trade on June 27. You locked in a profit of 1.45% on your investment (in dollars, of course). Ever since then, the basis has been declining. Now the basis hit a low of -0.64b%. At that moment, the cobasis was +0.44%. So you could close your trade a month and a half early, and add 44 bps to your profit.

    And after this, in the third phase, the basis goes sideways while the price falls another $13. In this phase, the arbitrageurs are still decarrying. What’s our evidence for this? The price is moving down, which means lots of selling again. But in this phase, the arbitrageurs are keeping up. They are decarrying as fast as speculators are selling.

    As we have described in many past Reports, while basis is rising the marginal demand for metal is to go into the warehouse. It feeds the gold carry trade. We emphasize that when this builds up, it’s dangerous because the marginal demand can abruptly turn off and a new marginal supply come online. A high basis cannot predict the timing, but it can tell you that the market is ripe for a drop the way a supersaturated solution is ripe for a precipitation. They have seen their opportunity to profit, and are reluctant to keep holding their positions and risk the basis continuing to rise.

    Intraday Silver Basis and Price
    silver intraday basis

    We did not mark up the silver chart. It is interesting that the basis correlates more highly with the price. Or, in other words, while the selling pressure in gold largely abated, it continued in silver. The total drop in the Dec silver basis was nearly 100bps.

    If you had carried silver on August 10, you could have locked in a profit of 156bps. If you decarried it on Friday, you could have added another 95bps.

    If gold was in a supersaturated solution, then silver was in a superdupersaturated solution.

    It will be interesting to see this week, if the arbitrageurs can catch up in silver and we see a rising basis. And if the elevated silver fundamental price of $17.08 holds.

    It is also possible that some market makers were off on holiday on this Veteran’s Day.

     

    © 2016 Monetary
    Metals

  • Harry Reid Erupts Over Steve Bannon Appointment: "White Supremacists Now Represented In The White House"

    Following the biggest political news of the day, namely Donald Trump’s official announcement that RNC chairman, Reince Priebus, will serve as his chief of staff while Stephen Bannon will serve as chief strategist and senior counselor, the political and pundit response – as manifsted by statements on Twitter – splintered. On one hand, pundits and politicians praised establishment figure Priebus – for obvious reasons as he is seen as a symbolic figure in how Trump approaches the so-called “swamp”; on the other hand political outsider Steve Bannon – the head of Breitbart News and the person directly responsible for getting Trump elected as CEO of his presidential campaign, was furiously criticized.

    Fellow Wisconsinites Paul Ryan and Scott Walker praised the choice for chief of staff, while former Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter said Priebus would “make the trains run” in the White House.

    Not everyone was enthused: Louisiana Senate candidate and ex-KKK leader David Duke seemed less enthusiastic about the pick of Priebus, who is aligned with GOP leadership.

    * * *

    However, the reaction by prominent members of the establishment to Steve Bannon’s elevated role was critical and swift, and none was more vocal in their disgust than a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a vocal critic of Trump, who said the hire “signals that White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels” of the new administration.

    Others – such as Intelligence committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff and many others – joined Reid in accusing Bannon of being “anti-Semitic” and “misogynistic.”

     

    Even the anti-defamation leage joined in:

    Bannon has been widely criticized by the left for articles Brietbart ran while he was in charge. Democrats worked hard during the campaign to link Trump to the so-called “alt-right” movement, which we assume is a bad thing, and associate him with racist and anti-Semitic groups. 

    They highlighted some of Breitbart’s controversial headlines, including one about Never Trump Republican and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol: “Republican spoiler, renegade Jew.

    * * *

    And now, moments ago, the NYT which may or may not be losing subscribers as a result of its coverage of the presidential election, has decided to turn its focus to Bannon’s Breitbart website, saying “there is talk of Breitbart bureaus opening in Paris, Berlin and Cairo, spots where the populist right is on the rise. A bigger newsroom is coming in Washington, the better to cover a president-elect whose candidacy it embraced.

    Mainstream news outlets are soul-searching in the wake of being shocked by Donald J. Trump’s election last week. But the team at Breitbart News, the right-wing opinion and news website that some critics have denounced as a hate site, is elated — and eager to expand on a victory that it views as a profound validation of its cause.


    Stephen K. Bannon, left, and Larry Solov flank a picture of Andrew Breitbart.
    Mr. Bannon is to be chief White House strategist and senior counselor

    Judging the amount of hatred spewed at Bannon by virtually every member of establishment media and politics, he must have done something right.

  • Stunned Morgan Stanley Admits Nobody Has A Clue What Trump Will Do: "His Policies Are Like Schrodinger's Cat"

    As the sellside reports analyzing the post-president Trump world keep pouring in, one that caught our attention was from Morgan Stanley’s Andrew Sheets in which the strategist openly admits that pretty much nobody has any idea what is coming: “Most remarkably, however, after three debates, two conventions and an election that seemed to last forever, there remains a great deal of uncertainty over what type of president Trump will actually be. In an election that was dominated by coverage of tweets, videos and emails, policy questions received surprisingly little airtime. And those questions are now crucial for markets.

    To a remarkable extent, investors we’ve spoken to both before and after November 8 disagree on what President-Elect Trump will actually do. Many have told us, confidently, that they believe that, while he said some extreme things on the campaign trail, he is ultimately a moderate, pragmatic businessman. A deal-maker who will delegate policy to experts, lead with market-friendly (almost Keynesian) fiscal stimulus and ultimately avoid a large fight on trade. Other investors take a less benign view. They say the President-Elect should be taken at his word, and that since the start of his campaign he has defied predictions that he would moderate his tone or policy message.”

    The problem, according to Morgan Stanley, is during the campaign, “Trump was a master at keeping both possibilities open, broadening his appeal. Like Schrodinger’s cat, his policies existed in a state of being both pragmatic and radical, all at the same time. Upcoming cabinet appointments offer clues to which interpretation is right. Until then, we promise to keep an open mind, and focus on modelling the different paths a Trump administration could take, and what it means for markets.”

    Here is the full MS note for those who want to add to their confusion:

    And Now The Questions Get Answered

    Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States, in a win that defied expectations and political convention. He won without a fundraising advantage or the support of many in his party’s establishment. He is a wealthy businessman who rode to victory with a historic swing of working class Midwesterners. He ran a populist campaign and yet is likely to lose the popular vote narrowly.

    Most remarkably, however, after three debates, two conventions and an election that seemed to last forever, there remains a great deal of uncertainty over what type of president Trump will actually be. In an election that was dominated by coverage of tweets, videos and emails, policy questions received surprisingly little airtime.

    And those questions are now crucial for markets. To a remarkable extent, investors we’ve spoken to both before and after November 8 disagree on what President-Elect Trump will actually do. Many have told us, confidently, that they believe that, while he said some extreme things on the campaign trail, he is ultimately a moderate, pragmatic businessman. A deal-maker who will delegate policy to experts, lead with market-friendly (almost Keynesian) fiscal stimulus and ultimately avoid a large fight on trade.

    Other investors take a less benign view. They say the President-Elect should be taken at his word, and that since the start of his campaign he has defied predictions that he would moderate his tone or policy message. They point to the surrogates that surrounded his campaign. They point to Republican control of the House, Senate and Presidency, which means there is no check on policy. They worry more openly about the implications for foreign relations.

    Which interpretation is right? During the campaign, Trump was a master at keeping both possibilities open, broadening his appeal. Like Schrodinger’s cat, his policies existed in a state of being both pragmatic and radical, all at the same time. Upcoming cabinet appointments offer clues to which interpretation is right. Until then, we promise to keep an open mind, and focus on modelling the different paths a Trump administration could take, and what it means for markets.

    For macro, this could mean big changes. Our narrative for 2016 has been ‘slow growth, slow reflation and slow policy normalisation’. A Trump administration could affect all three. When our US economists and strategists attempt to quantify a ‘middle’ scenario of looser fiscal policy but only modest trade protectionism, GDP and inflation could both be 0.3pp higher in both 2017 and 2018. But that boost could mean more Fed tightening, and potentially a sooner end to the US cycle than we previously assumed.

    This analysis emphasises that other outcomes are also highly plausible. In a scenario where one takes most of President-Elect Trump’s proposals at face value, there could be a trade-induced shock of 0.6pp to GDP in 2017. In a scenario where divisions in the Republican party bog down proposals, there could be relatively little change from our previous baseline.

    Until we know which version of Trump we get, our market views have to be more tactical than we would like them to be. For now, we think low risk premiums and the potential of fiscal policy mean curves are likely to steepen and rate volatility can rise. Upside risks to the Fed path coupled with downside risks to global trade should support USD against low-yielding trade-focused Asia currencies (JPY, KRW, CNH). We think this supports equities in the US over Europe and EM, with the former benefiting from hope over tax cuts and repatriation, while EM faces headwinds from a stronger USD and Europe needs to deal with a heavy political calendar in 2017. In US equities, this points to overweight industrials, healthcare (especially biotech) and credit cards, and underweight consumer staples.

    This has been a long and emotional election cycle in the US. There is an unusual level of uncertainty among investors over what type of leader the largest economy in the world has elected, and what policies he will pursue. The next several weeks are likely to bring more clarity. A famous US President once said “Trust, but verify”. The assessment of policy may call for the reverse: Verify, then trust.

  • Chaos Ensues As Europe Splinters In Response To Trump: UK, France, Hungary Snub EU Emergency Meeting

    While America’s so-called “establishment”, the legacy political system and mainstream media, appear to be melting, and transforming before our eyes into something that has yet to be determined, Europe also appears to be disintegrating in response to the Trump presidential victory: as the FT reports, in a stunning development, Britain and France on Sunday night snubbed a contentious EU emergency meeting to align the bloc’s approach to Donald Trump’s election, exposing rifts in Europe over the US vote.

    Hailed by diplomats as a chance to “send a signal of what the EU expects” from Mr Trump, the plan fell into disarray after foreign ministers from the bloc’s two main military powers declined to attend the gathering demanded by Berlin and Brussels.

    The meeting, which comes as Trump appointed his key deputies – chosing the more moderate establishment figure, RNC chairman Reince Priebus, to be his chief-of-staff over campaign chairman Stephen Bannon, who becomes chief strategist and counsellor – was supposed to create a framework for Europe in how to deal with a “Trump threat” as Europe itself faces an uphill climb of contenuous, potentially game-changing elections over the coming few months as we described last week in “European Politicians Terrified By “Horror Scenario” After Brexit, Trump.”

    Instead The split in Europe highlights the difficulties “European capitals face in coordinating a response to Mr Trump, who has questioned the US’s commitments to Nato and free trade and hinted at seeking a rapprochement with Russian president Vladimir Putin” much to the amusement of famous euroskeptic Nigel Farage who was the first foreign political leader to meet with Donald Trump at the Trump Tower over the weekend.


    Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. Taken from Nigel Farages twitter page.

    Trump’s move infuriated members of Europe’s fraying core, with Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, tweeting: “If Trump wanted to look statesmanlike to Europe, receiving Farage was probably the worst thing he could [do].”

    As the FT adds, British foreign secretary Boris Johnson dropped out of the Brussels meeting, with officials arguing that it created an air of panic, while French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault opted to stay in Paris to meet the new UN secretary-general. Hungary’s foreign minister boycotted the meeting, labeling the response from some EU leaders as “hysterical”.

    Johnson’s refusal to attend will add to an already difficult relationship with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has told colleagues that he cannot bear to be in the same room as the British foreign secretary.

    In short: total chaos.

    Ironically, the German foreign minister had wanted to demonstrate that the EU was capable of rapid response when it came to foreign policy. Instead the disarray highlighted a familiar problem for Berlin, according to diplomats. “When the EU’s most powerful country wants to lead, other member states don’t necessarily follow,” said one EU diplomat. But the German foreign ministry put a brave face on events, saying on Sunday: “It’s good that the EU meets … to look into the consequences of the election of Donald Trump for Europe.”

    A combination of Trump’s election and Britain’s vote to leave the EU had triggered calls for a total overhaul of the EU’s foreign and defense policy, with Berlin and Paris demanding greater integration. “If the US disengages from Europe, we need to look after our own security,” said one EU diplomat. Those ministers who do attend the meeting, will discuss plans such as bolstering the EU’s ambition to mount joint operations during a scheduled meeting on Monday, which Mr Johnson and Mr Ayrault will attend.

    Elsewhere, as reported yesterday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned both the US and its European partners against “going it alone” on defence matters. Paris and Berlin had been co-ordinating their response to Mr Trump’s election, while London has jockeyed to maintain its position as the US’s main European ally. The French president and German chancellor spoke before releasing two separate, guarded welcomes to the president-elect last week. 

    Meanwhile, other European leaders have openly criticized the incoming president. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker last week accused Mr Trump of ignorance. “We must teach the president-elect what Europe is and how it works. I believe we’ll have two years of wasted time while Mr Trump tours a world he doesn’t know.”

    But the most concerned of all will likely be Italy’s PM Matteo Renzi, who as explained on various occasions, and as Bloomberg writes, is “Next in the Crosshairs for Anti-Establishment Wave.”

    Of course, with the US finding itself in a state of post-presidential election shock, it is only reasonable that Europe’s own establishment forces are next, and this time the impact will be far closer to the core, slamming first Italy, then France, the Netherlands, and ultimately – perhaps – Germany itself.

  • Liberals Scared to Death by Their Own Caricature of Trumpettes

    This article by David Haggithwas first published on The Great Recession Blog:

    Liberal caricature of Trump Supporters

    Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked.” What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You’re fired!” Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him.   –Michael Moore on the failure of both political parties in America 

     

    How delusions become reality

     

    This past week, as I put together my coverage of Hell Week, I read how some liberals are creating petitions for the west coast to secede from the union. I read about the Canada immigrations web site being overwhelmed after the US election by visitors looking for an escape route from the US. I read about high-school kids who once sat peaceably next to each other in class rising up in class to beat up their classmates who voted for Trump. Prior to the election, I heard my own liberal friends say how they’d have to leave the country if Trump won.

    Why? The country isn’t any different the day after Trump won than it was the day before … except that perception has changed dramatically everywhere because of one man who deliberately spoke as far outside of political correctness as he could … and won the highest office in the land by doing so.

    Liberals are afraid of their own shadows right now. That’s because they’ve created anti-matter, Mr. Hyde caricatures of the Trumpettes — the average little guys who support Trump. These shadows that liberals have cast by their own self-deceit now surround them, and they believe the grotesquely exaggerated images they have created.

    This false belief like any phobia is taking on its own life by creating mass hysteria in the streets of America. By that step, belief becomes reality. While the initial description that liberals painted of Trumpettes is false — they’re all misogynistic, homophobic racists — the hysteria is real, and that causes people to react with violence against whatever they fear. Those violent reactions become very real horrors that are not just painted in the imagination, and they divide the nation deeper, creating  fears that are now based on real horrible events that came about due to the original false beliefs. It’s like a panic attack that feeds on itself.

    And the more people continue to believe the caricature that liberals created out of Trump supporters and then react in fear to that caricature, the more real-life bad events will create real horrors. It can quickly become a self-fueling social vortex that all began from false fears.

    Liberals have for months been retelling each other every day that Trump supporters are all bigots, homophobes, xenophobes and misogynists. They painted Trump supporters with a broad crimson-stained brush as being entirely motivated by hatred. On one level, I’m sure they created this image of the Trumpettes in order to win the election — by making making them look like the KKK fan club, which no decent person would want to belong to.

    There is, however, a deadly downside to this kind of demonization: you cannot do it unless you also convince yourself that the stereotype you are creating is true — otherwise you’d live in the knowledge that you are a liar. Nobody wants to live in the knowledge that he or she is a liar, and it is simple to convince yourself that the stereotype you are believing is true because that is who you want to simplify the other side anyway.

     

    Political correctness kept liberals from seeing how the election would turn out

     

    As a result, liberals were shocked, while I was not, that Trump won. They were shocked to discover that they live in a nation filled with haters. (They don’t, of course; but they believethey do, which explains their sudden horror that wasn’t there a week ago. A week ago, they believed Hillary would win by a landslide because they thought (as liberals tend to do) that the majority thinks and feels like they do.

    I suspected Trump would win, as I’ve said here, because he was far more likely to have a horde of closet supporters than Hillary was. Why? Because not everyone in this world is brave or politically inclined, even though they vote. And when liberals demand political correctness by demonizing those who don’t stay in those bounds, they simply drive people underground.

    When politically correct speech rules the day, those who do not think in politically correct ways and who are not politically inclined decide they’re just not going to talk about who they vote for because they don’t want to have arguments with friends or even lose friends. They don’t want to be labeled as racists for their views when they know they are not racist but don’t know how to prove they are not against such charges.

    Thus, when pollsters call them, they say they are undecided when, in fact, they have already decided to vote for Trump. They may do that because they are afraid someone will overhear, and they don’t want to be tarred and feathered. Mostly they do it because they have already decided how how they’re going to vote and have decided not to say not a word about it by simply answering that they are “undecided.” They don’t care about pollsters, nor even like them, so they give them the same stock response. Policing for politically correct speech drives all but the boldest of free-thinking people underground.

    That is exactly why America has always supported the ideal of anonymous voting. It’s the only way you can be sure all people will vote for what they believe is right and not simply cast the vote they think will create the least trouble for themselves. Not everyone is brave, and political correctness causes those who are not as brazen as Trump to hide their views. So, I was pretty sure we’d discover Trump had a large number of closet voters that the pollsters can’t sniff out. Trump’s campaign didn’t know he had those voters either; they just hoped they did. The brave supporters, who are outspoken, are readily counted; but the less brave would remain unknown until election day.

    Because Trump is boisterous, bellicose and all-around obnoxious, Trump supporters had more reason  to be afraid to say, “I support that guy.” If not for the fact that he was the only guy left in town who was clearly saying he would tear the establishment apart, many probably wouldn’t support someone like that. It also may be that this kind of arrogance is what it takes to have shoulders that are broad enough to knock the establishment apart because you don’t care what others think. They saw Trump as someone who could bear the slings and arrows that would certainly come to anyone who tried to break up the corrupt establishment. Rather than being reviled as horrible human beings for supporting someone like Trump, they just remained silent.

    That is how liberals created their own blindness and their own shock and awe as to how this election turned out. It’s really nothing more than a panic attack. I wasn’t surprised by a Trump victory (though the sea of red counties across the nation was more amazing than I thought it might be) because I am quite certain that most Trump supporters are not bigots. They didn’t vote for him because of racists inclinations but voted because they are angry at the establishment, and they want a junk-yard dog who can tear into it.

    Because I never believed the stereotype that was created for Trump supporters by the left, I don’t suddenly fear that I live in a nation filled with bigots. As a result, I’m not shocked by the election results nor afraid, even though I didn’t vote for Trump (or Hillary). Nor am I afraid Trump supporters will beat me up for saying that. But liberals are now deathly afraid of the illusion they created. They are running from their own straw man who appears to them to have suddenly caught on fire.

    Sure, Trump attracts bigots like a light in the night attracts most bugs. Maybe they make up as much as 10% of Trump supporters, though I doubt it; but because liberals have convinced themselves that all Trump supporters must be that kind of person, liberals are now scared by their own manufactured caricature. In their perception, they have just awakened to the Night of the Living Dead in a world where everyone around them might be a zombie.

     

    Trump is his own self-made caricature

     

    Trump is a master at playing the media because the media wants to be played, and Trump knows it wants to be played. Trump deliberately avoids all politically correct speech and belts out the most provocative statements he can make because he knows the media will love a story about a celebrity who is peeling the skin off of people’s ears by saying things that are politically incorrect in a world where political correctness has become the highest virtue.

    Controversy sells. There is a reason to be provocative if you want your message to be heard. There is a cost, too, because being so provocative makes it hard for many people to trust or respect you. Trump by nature doesn’t care, so he’s the perfect provocateur.

    The media knows they’re being played. You hear them mentioning it from time to time as if they speak about “the other guys” in the media, but notice they are covering the same story the other guys are about the latest ostentatious thing Trump said while they make their statements that Trump is playing the media. Why? Because they don’t care either. It makes a hot story that sells. By talking about how Trump is playing the media, they can rise above being played themselves while selling the same blisteringly hot story.

    Trump know all of that.

    So, Trump says things like “we need to keep out Mexicans who are rapists,” and the media and liberals start chattering among themselves about how Trump believes all Mexicans are rapists. I note, as the chatter takes off, that he didn’t actually say “Mexicans are rapists.” He said we need to keep out any that are. (That may be only 1% of Mexicans that he wants to keep out, and why wouldn’t we want to keep out convicted rapists, whether they are Mexican or any other nationality?)

    Trump lets the story play the way the media casts it because it gets coverage all over the nation for days on end, and his supporters see that he doesn’t cower from it. He goes right out for the next outrageous statement to kick the hornets nest again. They want someone with guts, and he’s showing them he has that.

    Nor did Trump ever say he has grabbed a woman by the crotch. In fact, he actually said he struck out with seducing the one woman he was talking about. He said celebrities can get away with outrageous actions. He did not say it is good behavior or that he has ever done it. (Notice, he switched from saying “I” to saying “you” at that part of the conversation.)

    He deliberately named the most outrageous thing that popped into his head because celebrities DO get away with that. We’ve all heard stories about how mobs of women throw themselves at rock stars and say, “Take me!” They rip off their own blouses at concerts and get on people’s backs to make sure the celebrity can see their bare breasts bounding above the crowd. There are some who, if a rock star grabbed them the way Trump described, probably would jump up and wrap their legs around him and say, “Bring it on, Big Boy!”

    So, we know it happens. (Not with most women, for sure, but enough to keep the limited number of rock stars happily busy.) And that is PROBABLY all Trump was really saying: “Since celebraties get away with the worst imaginable things, I was surprised I couldn’t even seduce this woman by offering her a shopping spree to furnish her apartment. She was having none of it.” That doesn’t leave him as a good guy, but it probably wasn’t as horrible as the story was made out to be by those who wanted to use it to defeat Trump.

    Trump routinely says things in reckless ways, and while that works great for publicity, it may prove damaging as a president. It certainly grabs the press by the crotch, which the press seems to like. Like the kind of woman I described above, they say, “Take us! We want to go for the ride” … and Trump obliges. Trump’s provocative speech gets endless replay by the press, so he doesn’t immediately correct himself because that would defeat the purpose in being provocative. (It’s also against his nature to correct himself.) A lot of it may be because he’s reckless, but it worked for him as a candidate. How well it work as a president is an entirely different manner, but it appears to me he realizes that and has immediately toned it down.

    Is there anyone in this country that really wants to import rapists from Mexico … or from Russia … or from Canada or any other country. Of course not. So, why be upset that Trump says we need to stop importing racists from Mexico … unless you deliberately misread that statement to mean he thinks we need to stop importing all Mexicans because they are all rapists? Liberals jumped to that conclusion because it fit their political aims to believe it. They created the lie and immediately believed their own lie … because they wanted to. But now it leaves them afraid of something that was never real in the first place.

    Trump was speaking about an incident where some actual criminals who were illegal aliens raped someone after they were known by the government to be both criminal and illegal aliens. He was saying that we should never allow known criminals into our country from other countries (Mexico or otherwise), and we should always deport aliens if we find out they are rapists. What do we need rapists for? What’s wrong with that? He was pointing out that it is ludicrous that those rapists were still in the country since their illegal status SHOULD make it very easy to get them out.

    In a liberal’s world, I guess, removing any immigrant for any reason is bad. We need more rapists. So, don’t dare use their illegal status as a way of getting the problem out of the country. Trump was showing how deliberately naive our nation is regarding corrupt people. He knew it would resonate with a large group that is fed up with the kind of blatant stupidity that says, “We have to keep rapists here because its not right to send them away.”

    The majority of people understood what Trump was saying, and that’s why he won. He didn’t bother to clarify it for the rest because the provacative way he said it gave it endless replays, and he knew that his supporters would be glad to see that controversy didn’t cause him to waver. He also knew that the few who really are racists would take it as affirming their racist views and would vote for him because of it, too (and a vote is a vote), while those who mischaracterized it as meaning he thinks Mexicans are rapists would never vote for him regardless. Apparently, a fair number of Latinos understood all of that, too, because Trump doubled the Republican share of Latino votes over what Romney got.

     

    Liberal demonization of others creates racism

     

    Painting the story in blood by making it sound like Trump believes all Mexicans are rapists is where the real evil begins because people start to believe this demonization and apply it to anyone who would support someone like Trump. As a result, perfectly wonderful Mexicans who live in this country start to fear that everyone who supports Trump is one of those kinds of people who believe Mexicans are all rapists. So, they see a Trump bumper sticker and think, “That guy hates Mexicans.” The tragic part of demonization is not how it hurts Trump or his supporters; it’s that many people are now afraid that all Trump supporters are racists when they needn’t have any such fear.

    As this liberal manufactured fear grows, it spreads like a dark fog over the landscape, and when the fog lifts, the ground is sometimes stained crimson as in this story about Black people dragging a White guy out of his car and beating him and dragging him down the road with his car while the whole crowd laughs … just because he  identified himself as a Trump voter — probably had a Trump bumper sticker.

    That’s what demonization does. It creates, in this case, a narrative that all Trump supporters (or whatever group is being demonized during that particular season) are evil and hate-filled. Therefore, it is OK to drag them down the street with their own cars after beating them up over and over while laughing about it and taking a video. It no longer matters what you do to these individuals because they are demons who are responsible for all the bad that ever happened to you.

    They stop being people and become the are caricatures  you have made of them. And that excuses your own hatred when you act in rebellion against them. (We do the same thing in war to make it easier to shoot the enemy. If we thought of that soldier in the opposite trench as a mother with children, we might be slow to pull the trigger and, thus, die, ourselves.)

    Trump helps create this problem by constantly speaking in language that is easily interpreted in outlandish ways, and he doesn’t clarify what he means because the provocative way he says it is the very thing that gives it air time. Thus, he gets the lion’s share of media attention without paying for any of it. He makes himself a spectacle on their dollar (and makes a lot of money for them by giving them a story, so they don’t care). That’s how it works.

    But now we need to recognize the demonization for what it is AND the way Trump’s speech deliberately plays with that fire, and we need to back it down; or we’ll go down the vortex where our fears create our reality by causing real horrible acts that should be feared. Let’s start with undoing the stereotype that has been created.

     

    What does a true Trump supporter look like?

     

    The fact also is that most of these Trump supporters who were reviled are no more vile than are Hillary’s supporters. They are just baking apple pies and setting them on the window sill, chatting about Kim Kardashian, and putting Halloween costumes on their children. And they are not racists for one second of their lives. They are not afraid of other cultures (xenophobic). They don’t hate people who are homosexual, even though they might feel uncomfortable around them because that isn’t their norm.

    They’re just living their lives because they are not as political as many liberals, who may wrongly assume that everyone is as political as they are. These quieter Trump supporters that swung the election aren’t that interested in politics so they don’t talk about politics. They are more interested in turning the garden under for winter.

    You don’t have to hate Mexicans or anyone else to decide that you liked life better when you could afford to buy a house (which most Americans cannot any more) and could afford to buy a new car every four years, even while paying much higher interest than you do today.  Because liberal Democrats have tried to paint these immigration concerns, as I’ve written about in another article today, as racism or xenophobia for years, the middle class finally rebelled because they finally had a candidate who didn’t care about political correctness.

    Donald Trump was the only person left speaking for those who have been shut out of good-paying jobs with great benefits the Reagan days onward by both Democrats and Republicans. Bernie had already been sidelined.

    While seeing their own lifestyle slowly diminish, middle-class Americans watched banksters get fabulously wealthier, and Obama did nothing about it. No one was brought to justice. Republicans supported bailing them out because they were too big to fail, but then Republicans never did a thing to make them smaller afterward so that we wouldn’t face that threat again. Democrats bailed the wealthy out for the same reason and then let them get bigger and wealthier so all the more too-big-to-fail.

    Trump rose as the anti-Republican Republican, and the middle class needed an anti-Establishment hero because the corporate establishment owns both parties. So, he won, and any liberal or conservative who is sick of the Wall-Street establishment should HOPE he succeeds in doing that one thing — busting up the establishment’s hold on government and should support him in that mission because it is likely to be your only chance to bust up the establishment, short of its own complete failure into anarchy, which will be violent for everyone.

     

    Moving on beyond hatred

     

    If you hate everyone who simply wants to gain back the middle-class life that their parents once enjoyed or that THEY once enjoyed, then you are going to have a lot of people to hate. Since you don’t want to be a “hater,” you will paint all of them with a broad brush as being the haters, themselves, while you are just defending the defenseless against them. That way you can nobly hate half of America, and write their concerns off with one word — racism — while you hold your head above the masses.

    Problems don’t go away because you deny them. Denial actually creates new problems or makes old ones worse. Trump’s supporters have revolted now because no one was listening to them, and they’re not going away now that they have finally awakened and started fighting for themselves. They chose Donald Trump as their strongman leader because he was brazen enough that he didn’t care what the entire world said about him. He has many characteristics that most Trumpettes don’t like either, but he is still the only person who stood up for them and who survived the establishment’s efforts to put him back in his place, which Bernie did not survive.

    If you’re a liberal, you can jump in your yacht and try to find an uninhabited shore in Canada to land on, or you can scare yourself to death with the notion that 50% of America is suddenly a bunch of violent, xeno-homo-phobic, redneck bigoted haters -or- you can throw away the stereotypes and start dealing with reality, which is that the middle class will now fight the establishment tooth and claw in order to gain back the jobs and benefits and lifestyle that eroded out from under them for thirty years. Whatever one makes of Hillary’s politics, you have to admit she represented the establishment, while Trump became the sole survivor representing the dis-establishment.

    That  means stopping the demonization that says immigration concerns are about racial hatred or xenophobia. That’s a convenient stereotype to shut off all discussion. Sure, there is a small mob of people for whom it border security and tightly controlled immigration is all about hatred; but that doesn’t explain the massive sea of red counties that spread across the political map on the second Tuesday of November. It is completely rational to believe that determined terrorists might be smart enough and opportunistic enough to hide themselves among 500,000 unknown, illegal immigrants each year. If we don’t know who those half million people are, how can we know there are not 10,000 terrorists among them? We need to KNOW.

    Trying to caricature the masses into a comically grotesque bunch of “Deplorables” is only going to flood your own world with true hatred and violence because people believe that caricature and strike out against the “Deplorables” who then strike back. A part of racism is in perception. Perception becomes reality because we respond to the world with an intensity that is based on our perception, and our response becomes the next person’s reality and becomes self-inflating.

    If, for example, we perceive people like Trump’s supporters as being racist who are really just sick and tired of becoming poorer, then we’ll interpret their actions, such as their Trump bumpersticker, as being racist. We’ll feel slighted by a bumper sticker — by what we interpret as their display racism. We’ll see their statements that they want less immigration as being all about race, even if it truly is all about jobs or about their fear that the borders are not being watched carefully enough to keep out the few people who genuinely want to bury us in mass graves.

    When you start seeing people in that crimson hue, you’ll start to fear them more; and they’ll perceive that you act differently toward them because of your fear, and they’ll start to fear you more. Then they act differently toward you because of their fear. False, demonizing beliefs quickly wind up into a vortex mass hysteria.

    Perhaps the worst kind of Xenophobia there is is the kind that fears half of our neighbors as being from another planet, not just another culture. We have a few people like that who now want to carve the west coast off of the rest of the country, showing themselves to be just as deeply isolationist as the people they angry at for being so isolationists!

     

    How do we bring a divided America together again?

     

    If we can take the demonization back out of politics now and deal with the real concerns that are eating our society — the concern about lower-paying jobs and fewer jobs because jobs are being deported, drastically reduced benefits, the end of the middle class to the benefit of the top 1%, justice against those who truly did rape society — then  maybe we can get through this.

    We need to stop thinking about whether something is Republican or Democrat but about how we can serve and protect the middle class or we’ll simply wind up with a greater number of lower-class people all around us. The rich will always have enough.

    The elephant in the room is awake now. So, either deal with it, or live in fear of it because it is definitely not going away. The one thing Donald Trump has done for all of us is become a lightning rod that woke the sleeping giant — the middle class. In the end, going back to policies that build the middle class can be good for all of America, and the rich will still be rich at the end of the day.

    Whatever party you belong to, stop it! The two-party systems has polarized the nation purely for the survival goals of each party.

    For conservatives, that means stop worrying about the need to take care of the rich so they can trickle down jobs to you. That hasn’t worked after thirty years, and it never will. That means the Trumpettes need to start with making it clear immediately that the Donald’s trumped-up, trickle-down tax plan is over before it even begins. He may have the guts to break up the establishment, but that plan feeds everything toward the establishment.

    Use the advantage of your numbers to make sure ALL of the tax breaks go directly to the middle class and the poor. Stop believing the nightmarishly repeated lie that money will ever trickle down or that all jobs are created by the rich. The bulk of jobs are created by small, middle-class-owned businesses all cross the nation.

    It’s time for the rich to pay their fair share in taxes. Don’t believe the Republican establishment lie that the rich pay more than their fair share already. They don’t. Yes, the wealthiest 20% of the people pay 75%  of the taxes, which sounds like they are doing far more than their share. However, that is only because they make more than 80% of all the wealth in the country — a number so obscene it is hard to comprehend. Therefore, they should be paying 80% of the taxes. Moreover, the 1% make about 60% of all that wealth and pay a smaller percentage in taxes than the middle class! So, don’t fall for a third round of trickle-down economics.

    You won’t get what you need if you don’t fight for it, and Trump has already started to make the mistake of surrounding himself with establishment advisors. Maybe he knows what needs to happen but doesn’t know how to do it and is looking for advice from the wrong people, or maybe he was the establishment’s Trojan horse in the first place — someone to take the heat of imminent economic failure while still being certain to support the rich.

    Either way, don’t let it happen. Force him into being the hero he has set himself up to be. Don’t think your job is done just because you voted. The job has only now begun. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to look out for the underprivileged. Their needs don’t end just because we are finally going to start making the great middle class great again.

    For liberals, just consider all that I’ve said above, and start doing the demonization, start looking to find common ground on areas of immigration concern where it has more to do with how it affects the job of the neighbor you love and more to do with how to be wise about terrorism. That doesn’t mean the doors are slammed shut, but you ought to be able to focus on the common ground and work with accomplishing what can happen there. You just may find the things that bind us together are greater than the things that alienate us once we stop demonizing the other side and seek common ground.

     

    Let me close with a comment by Chris MacIntosh when he predicted Donald Trump’s election because he believed the left is blinded by their own political correctness:

    When only right-wing demagogues are prepared to say what a politically correct establishment is unwilling to say, then it will be right-wing demagogues that are elected to power. (Capitalist Exploits)

     

  • Suicide Hotlines Get Record Number Of Calls After Trump Win: "Phones Have Been Ringing Off The Hook"

    Submitted by Mac Slacvo via SHTFPlan.com,

    Things have gotten steadily worse for Democrats after Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency of the United States. Scores of celebrities are freaking out across social media, Hillary supporters are holding “Cry Ins” to help each other cope, visits to Canada’s immigration website have skyrocketed, and coping videos are starting to make the rounds online.

    While many shocked Clinton supporters have found solidarity with thousands of others by protesting and rioting in the streets, some, like movie star Robert DeNiro, have fallen into a depressive state.

    And according to The Hill, those overwhelming feelings of depression have led to suicidal thoughts in many. So much so that suicide hotlines across the country are struggling to keep up:

    Phones have been ringing off the hook at suicide hotlines since Donald Trump was named president-elect Tuesday.

     

    According to multiple reports, many of those calling or texting into hotlines are members of the LGBTQ community, minorities and victims of sexual assault who are worried about Trump’s victory.

     

    The Suicide Prevention Lifeline told “The Washington Post” it is seeing calls “unmatched in the hotline’s history,” with a response unlike that in 2008 or 2012.

     

    …

     

    Election stress is nothing new. Psychologists have noted upticks in anxiety and stress during and following contentious election cycles. This specific election, many have observed, is no exception and is exceeding average numbers in those seeking mental care and counseling.

    If you are someone you know can’t handle the stress, please share this video.

    You’re not alone:

    By way of helping, here are 7 things liberals should have learned from this election (but won't).

    1) The Standard Liberal Rhetoric Against Republicans Is Nuts: Last week, Bill Maher said the following, “I know liberals made a big mistake because we attacked your boy [President George W. Bush] like he was the end of the world. He wasn’t. And Mitt Romney, we attacked that way. I gave Obama a million dollars, I was so afraid of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have changed my life that much, or yours. Or John McCain. They were honorable men who we disagreed with. And we should have kept it that way. So we cried wolf. And that was wrong."

     

    Whether you love or hate Trump, you have to agree that his behavior, temperament and style are wildly different than that of George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. Yet, the Left’s charges against Trump seem to be largely identical to the ones it leveled at Bush and Romney. Racist? Check. Sexist? Check. Is a mean, hateful person? Check. Fascist? Check. A Nazi? Check. When you try to paint every person that doesn’t agree with you as the devil, then you’ll soon find you lack the ability to describe someone you truly believe to be the devil if he appears.

     

    2) Smearing People As Racists Has Consequences: A big part of Barack Obama’s initial appeal to many of the Americans who voted for him in 2008 was the unspoken promise that he’d lead us into a post-racial era. How racist could America be if we had a black President, right? Unfortunately, Obama and his allies on the Left took us in exactly the opposite direction. Day in and day out, any white person who didn’t toe the liberal line was called a racist and falsely accused of having white privilege. Anyone who complained about it was told in not so many words, “You’re white; so shut up.” Meanwhile, the clear majority of people being called racists didn’t agree with that assessment. They seethed; they got angry about it and many of them got their revenge by voting for Donald Trump.

     

    Read more here…

  • What Happens When 2-Term Presidencies End?

    Four words – nothing good for stocks.

     

    h/t @ConvertBond

    With the election decided, the burning question now is, “What next?” And, as Axioma details in their latest report, as “unprecedented” as the 2016 US Presidential election may have been, there are at least some precedents to which we can point for insights into what may now lie ahead.

    Granted, the economic impact of policies introduced by Donald Trump will not be seen for many months or years. Nevertheless, we can look to other market events to get an idea of what we might expect in equity and currency markets over the near term, while the markets are still absorbing the news.

    Admittedly, two examples of vote-related surprises (2000 uncertainty post-election, and Brexit) and associated market movements and volatilities, along with the example of how the market may view one of Trump’s signature issues (NAFTA agreement in Jan 1994), are hardly comprehensive indicators of what we might see in markets over the next few months; and of course, the economic impact of trade and other policies may not be known for months or years. But we believe the uncertainty and associated market volatility we have seen in the past may well come to pass again, and market volatility may become the order of the day, as the US transitions to a substantially different style of administration from the past eight years and new policies are put into place.

  • Donald Trump's First Interview Since Winning The Election: Key Highlights And Full Transcript

    In his first televised interview since winning the election this week, a “more serious, more subdued” Donald Trump spoke to CBS’ 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl from his penthouse in the Trump Tower.

    As CBS’ Lesley Stahl summarized the interview, “what we discovered in Mr. Trump’s first television interview as president-elect, was that some of his signature issues at the heart of his campaign were not meant to be taken literally, but as opening bids for negotiation.  

    Before we get into the nuances of Trump’s interview whose full transcript is presented at the end of this post, for those pressed for time here are the key highlights from Trump’s interview:

    • Trump says he will talk with FBI Director Comey before deciding whether to ask his resignation, says “I respect him a lot”
    • Trump, on pledge to appoint special prosecutor to investigate Clintons, says “I don’t want to hurt them. They’re good people”
    • Trump says he is “fine” with same-sex marriage; says He Does Not Intend To Overturn Supreme Court Ruling on Gay Marriage
    • Trump confirms he will forego salary as president
    • Trump tells protesters: “don’t be afraid”
    • Trump condemns harassment of minorities
    • Trump vows to name pro-life, pro-gun rights Supreme Court justices

    Among many things discussed, Trump told Stahl that Clinton’s phone call conceding the election was “lovely” and acknowledged that making the phone call was likely “tougher for her than it would have been for me,” according to previews of the interview released by CBS. Trump said “she couldn’t have been nicer. She just said, ‘Congratulations, Donald, well done,’” Trump told Stahl. “And I said, ‘I want to thank you very much. You were a great competitor.’ She is very strong and very smart.”

    Trump’s tone in the interview contrasted his attacks on the campaign trail, in which he nicknamed Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and encouraged chants to “Lock her up!” during his rallies. 

    Trump also told Stahl that former president Bill Clinton called him the following day and “couldn’t have been more gracious.” “He said it was an amazing run – one of the most amazing he’s ever seen,” Trump  said. “He was very, very, really, very nice.”

    During the campaign, Trump had tried to use Bill Clinton’s infidelities as a way to attack and embarrass Hillary Clinton. For the second presidential debate, Trump had sought to intimidate his competitor by inviting women who had accused the former president of sexual abuse to sit in the Trump family box. Debate officials quashed the idea.

    In the interview with Stahl, Trump did not rule out calling both of the Clintons for advice during his term. “I mean, this is a very talented family,” he said. “Certainly, I would certainly think about that.”

    Ironically, Trump was also asked if he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s private server as he suggested he would during the second debtate.

    “I’m going to think about it….I don’t want to hurt them,” he said in the “60 Minutes” interview. “Um, I feel that I want to focus on jobs, I want to focus on healthcare, I want to focus on the border and immigration and doing a really great immigration bill. We want to have a great immigration bill. And I want to focus on — all of these other things that we’ve been talking about.”

    Trump also reiterated on “60 Minutes” that he may keep portions of the Affordable Care Act, something he had mentioned he might do after meeting with President Barack Obama in the White House on Thursday.

    When Stahl asked whether people with pre-existing conditions would still be covered after Trump repealed and replaced Obamacare, Trump said they would “because it happens to be one of the strongest assets.”

    “Also, with the children living with their parents for an extended period, we’re going to… very much try and keep that,” Trump added, referring to portions of the healthcare act that cover children under their parents’ insurance through age 26. “It adds cost, but it’s very much something we’re going to try and keep.”

    When Stahl questioned whether there would be a gap between the repeal of Obamacare and the implementation of a new plan that could leave millions of people uninsured, Trump interrupted her.

    “Nope. We’re going to do it simultaneously. It’ll be just fine. It’s what I do. I do a good job. You know, I mean, I know how to do this stuff,” Trump said. “We’re going to repeal and replace it. And we’re not going to have, like, a two-day period and we’re not going to have a two-year period where there’s nothing. It will be repealed and replaced. I mean, you’ll know. And it will be great healthcare for much less money.”

    Trump’s campaign promises included fully repealing the Affordable Care Act, forcing Mexico to pay for a border wall and banning Muslims from entering the U.S., however in the last few days Trump appears to have taken a more moderate stance on these matters and now seems to be walking back his more extreme positions.

    * * *

    Trump was also asked for his take on the Supreme Court and Roe v Wade.

    On this important issues Trump said that he is “pro-life. The judges will be pro-life. They’ll be pro-life, they’ll be– in terms of the whole gun situation, we know the Second Amendment and everybody’s talking about the Second Amendment and they’re trying to dice it up and change it, they’re going to be very pro-Second Amendment. But having to do with abortion if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states. So it would go back to the states.” He added that perhaps women “will have to go to another state.”

    * * *

    On the topic of violence in the streets since his election victory, Donald Trump says he’s “saddened” to hear some of his supporters are inciting violence: “If it helps. I will say this…Stop it”

    Trump said had he heard about reports of racial slurs and personal threats against African Americans, Latinos and gays by some of his supporters.

    Donald Trump: I am very surprised to hear that– I hate to hear that, I mean I hate to hear that–

    Lesley Stahl: But you do hear it?

    Donald Trump: I don’t hear it—I saw, I saw one or two instances…

    Lesley Stahl: On social media?

    Donald Trump: But I think it’s a very small amount. Again, I think it’s–

    Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?

    Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.

    Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims–

    Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it– if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it.

    Trump was also asked about his opinion on demonstrators:

    Lesley Stahl: [T]here are people, Americans, who are scared and some of them are demonstrating right now, demonstrating against you, against your rhetoric–

    Donald Trump: That’s only because they don’t know me. I really believe that’s only because–

    Lesley Stahl: Well, they listened to you in the campaign and that’s–

    Donald Trump: I just don’t think they know me.

    Lesley Stahl: Well, what do you think they’re demonstrating against?

    Donald Trump: Well, I think in some cases, you have professional protesters. And we had it– if you look at WikiLeaks, we had–

    Lesley Stahl: You think those people down there are—

    Donald Trump: Well Lesley—

    Lesley Stahl: are professional?

    Donald Trump: Oh, I think some of them will be professional, yeah–

    Lesley Stahl: OK, but what about – they’re in every city. When they demonstrate against you and there are signs out there, I mean, don’t you say to yourself, I guess you don’t, you know, do I have to worry about this? Do I have to go out and assuage them? Do I have to tell them not to be afraid? They’re afraid.

    Donald Trump: I would tell them don’t be afraid, absolutely…. We are going to bring our country back. But certainly, don’t be afraid. You know, we just had an election and sort of like you have to be given a little time. I mean, people are protesting. If Hillary had won and if my people went out and protested, everybody would say, “Oh, that’s a terrible thing.” And it would have been a much different attitude. There is a different attitude. You know, there is a double standard here.

    * * *

    The full interview is below:

    * * *

    And the full interview transcript is below:

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