Sinclair's Eric Bolling and guest agree “we got to reopen the economy” despite the health risks
Bolling's interview of Jim DeMint, who also called the coronavirus pandemic response an “overreaction” and “what socialism looks like,” aired on at least 43 Sinclair-owned or -operated TV stations in 34 states
Published
Citation From the July 18, 2020, edition of Sinclair Broadcast Group's America This Week
ERIC BOLLING (HOST): This week, former Vice President Joe Biden delivered a speech outlining his plan to rebuild the economy, which also heavily leans on a focus on combating climate change. Joining me now to discuss is White House Economic Revival Task Force member and former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. Also a good friend of mine, for a long time. Senator, tell us about the -- well, let's focus in on Biden’s economic plan. What are your thoughts?
JIM DEMINT: Well, it relates to what I’ve been talking about all week -- my new book, Saving America from Socialism. If you look at the plan, certainly if you read between the lines, Eric, this is a plan to move America toward socialism. Higher taxes, more government control, more regulations. And if you want to see what socialism looks like, we’ve seen it under this COVID crisis overreaction, I think, telling us what businesses are essential, which ones aren’t, where we can go, who we can meet with. There’s just a -- I think there’s enough out there to sound the alarm. This election is going to be key.
BOLLING: And what -- you know, I watch, and, you know, I’ve been a student of the economy for many years, many decades, in fact. I started my television career talking about the economy, a financial analyst on TV after 20 years on Wall Street. You know, I am blown away at the resilience of the economy. It’s just -- I can’t believe some of the -- we’ve seen a recession, we’ve seen unemployment -- double digit unemployment -- and yet it keeps bouncing back. What do you attribute that to, sir?
DEMINT: Well I think people want to get back to work. I was talking to a car dealer who had been closed down in California and opened up despite the governor’s restrictions, and they had the best month they’d ever had in their history because people were ready to come out and shop. Now, we’ve lost some businesses we’re not going to get back, and I think it’s going to take a while to get back to below 5% of [unemployment], but people in America want to work, they want to shop, they want to make things. And if we just stop suffocating this economy and open it back up, we wouldn’t need these giant stimulus plans to get the economy going.
BOLLING: Well, you bring up a stimulus plan -- there’s another one around the corner. You know, when -- I’m looking at a stock market that’s, it's basically almost back to where it was prior to COVID. You know, how many more -- and the reason why I’m asking this, sir, is you and I are fiscal conservatives, staunch fiscal conservatives. And, you know, we have to kind of hold our nose when we say, “OK, another trillion dollars in stimulus.” How many more waves of stimulus are we going to need?
DEMINT: Well, it makes me particularly sad, Eric, because I had so many fights with Republicans and Democrats trying to save a few million dollars. Now suddenly the faucets are opening and we’re spending trillions. But worse than just spending and borrowing, Eric, is you know what’s happening here. The Federal Reserve is adding to their balance sheet, expanding the monetary supply, but we know it’s printing money. And the market is looking fairly good because the feds are out there buying a lot of bad debt from the big banks and keeping liquidity out there, but this is just like keeping the economy going on steroids. We’ve got to -- we can’t keep propping it up with this fake spending. We've got to let Americans get back to work.
BOLLING: You know, I agree with that. And we got to reopen the economy. I know there’s a lot of, you know, health risks to it and those things need to be considered. But you got to get the -- you know, it’s America, we got to get this engine running again. My concern, sir, is we’re adding trillions upon trillions of dollars of debt.