Transcript - America This Week, Dec 16, 2025: "Trump's Speech and the 'Lost Generation' of Men?"

Discussing Jacob Savage's viral Compact essay, plus werewolves of the West in "Train Dreams."

Matt Taibbi: All right. Welcome to America this week. I’m Matt Taibbi.

Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how are you doing?

Walter Kirn: I’m doing so well today. I don’t know why I woke up in the Christmas spirit, maybe because my daughter drove through Las Vegas the other day and we got to go Christmas shopping together, and I got to hear about the life of my adult child as she thrives out in the world. Nothing could be happier for a dad, and it was a gift, so I decided to start counting down to Christmas in a grateful and excited way.

Matt Taibbi: Wow. Wonder how long that’s going to last?

Walter Kirn: Maybe this whole broadcast.

Matt Taibbi: We’ll see if we can’t depress you and throw you off by the time we get done here. Yeah, so we got a little ull log going. That’s good. There was a presidential address last night. We’re going to get to a few things today because it’s kind of a grab bag type of week

Walter Kirn: Presence under the tree,

Matt Taibbi: Right? Yes.

Walter Kirn: Some of them full of coal,

Matt Taibbi: Right? Yes. Yeah. Stocking, I guess, right? Or I guess, did they put coal into the tree too?

Walter Kirn: I don’t know. Actually. I think you’re right. I mean, my grasp of Christmas traditions is getting fragile as civilization turns down and enters the AI period and the great forgetting descends.

Matt Taibbi: You know what it is? It’s Thomas Friedman’s tree, so that’s why there’s coal under,

Walter Kirn: It’s actually made of coal Thomas Friedman’s tree. It’s a completely incinerated tree without needles.

Matt Taibbi: The tree is flat. Okay, so we had a speech last night, well, this would be two nights ago for our listeners by the chief executive that got some interesting reviews from folks, but let’s hear a piece of it

Donald Trump : In America, 11 months ago, I inherited a mess and I’m fixing it. When I took office. Inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans. This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word affordability, our border was open, and because of this, our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people, many who came from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums. They were drug dealers, gang members, and even 11,888 murderers, more than 50% of whom killed more than one person. This is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country, and it can never be allowed to happen again.

Matt Taibbi: Okay. Walter, what were your first impressions from that? I have a few thoughts, but there’s something I want to check before we get into those, but

Walter Kirn: Well, of that clip or of the speech in its entirety?

Matt Taibbi: Well, I mean I think of that clip. I would imagine the consumer price index stuff is interesting of interest to you. No,

Walter Kirn: Yeah. Yeah, so it comes out this morning, and I think it was probably part of the motivation for this speech that the consumer price index is lower than has been anticipated and modeled and estimated by the leading lights, the authorities, wall Street, maybe the Fed. That’s really significant if only because it has been predicted that we are just waiting for the other shoe to drop on Trump’s tariffs, and it’s been predicted for a while now, and when prices will soar and everything will be revealed as voodoo economics, but in fact that didn’t happen. Trump has continually criticized Jerome Powell’s stance on interest rates and has now more fodder to do that. I think he has every right to stand up before Christmas, the great consumer holiday about a year after coming into office and crow about his achievements. Nobody else is going to, I mean, Trump’s alone and praising Trump these days, and so if it has to be done, he has to do it himself.