Latest / The Whitfield Report / TWR Monday | Cinco De Mayo: Trump's First 100 Days Part 1!

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TWR Monday | Cinco De Mayo: Trump's First 100 Days Part 1! · The Whitfield Report

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  The right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of
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  speech that we have to put up with.
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  It is the heart and soul and lungs of freedom of speech.
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  It is the coursing lifeblood of human protests.
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  It is the instigator of liberty and modernity and science and
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  understanding. What a laughingstock today's
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  student leaders are that they can so casually dismiss the
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  right to be offensive without realizing that their lovely,
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  enlightened lives are the gifts of individuals who gave offence.
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  Offensiveness is not just something we have to
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  begrudgingly accept. Offensiveness is the motor of
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  human progress. Now broadcasting from the Right
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  to Offend media studios in sunny South Florida, bringing you the
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  latest in politics, current events, art and pop culture.
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  This is the Whitfield Report live with Sam Whitfield.
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  But giving offense is good. In fact, it's essential.
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  Hey there folks. Welcome to tonight's edition of
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  the Whitfield Report Live. I am your host Sam Whitfield,
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  broadcasting from South Florida. Joined as always.
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  Well, not as always by Gabe. I I'm sorry saying joined as
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  always by Max Sand that I just automatically, you know, say the
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  thing. But no.
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  Joining us for a special edition of the podcast is Gabe Aya
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  Caboni and we will be joined later by our former American
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  Watchman colleague, Joshua Johnson as well.
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  And gave happy Cinco de Mayo to you, Sir.
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  Yeah, to happy Cinco de Mayo to you as well, although I mean
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  snippet about me to your audience.
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  I'm a big Star Wars guy, so you know how yesterday was.
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  May the fourth be with you. Well, I've I've seen that now.
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  It's Revenge of the 5th. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Revenge of the 5th. So it's revenge.
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  Happy Revenge of the 5th to everybody.
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  Well, no, that's actually more, that's actually more appropriate
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  because like also like not, not too many people know this, but
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  Cinco de Mayo like nobody, nobody in Mexico like
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  celebrates. It's it's an American hall
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  holiday that that was actually like I think was invented in
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  Texas, but then like everyone assumes that, you know, because
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  it's like they, they think it's Mexican holiday.
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  Well, it's, it's an opportunity for us to go drink, I mean.
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  Well, yeah, I mean, you know what else?
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  What else is there but? Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah. You know, anyway, so you know,
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  we are closing in on, we're not quite at 100 days, yeah, of
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  Trump's presidency, although we we might.
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  Actually, we, we might be it. I don't recall when his
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  inauguration was actually. I mean, I, I can, I can look it
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  up. Actually, I I think we're, we're
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  either right there or we're, we're right after.
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  Yeah, also, Max, I do see you in the chat, so good evening.
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  Feel free to jump in if you want to.
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  I just know that, you know, Monday's with your, you know,
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  Monday is a school night. So, you know, I know you've,
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  you've got the boy and whatnot to help out with.
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  So, but yeah, we, I think by the time a lot of people listen to
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  this in archive, we will be, you know, close to 100 days.
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  So overall, Gabe and I know we, I know we'll have Josh join us
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  here in a bit, but what are your overall thoughts?
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  Just kind of a an overhead view of Trump's first 100 days.
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  I mean, if I had to, I mean if I had to give him a grade, I mean
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  that that this is the spoiler without any details.
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  The details will come later. But if I had to give him a
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  grade, I would probably give him a grade of and maybe this will
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  make your audience mad. I don't know.
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  I'd probably give him a grade of like AC plus to B minus.
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  Really. Yeah, I mean, so it, it depends
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  what you grade him on. I, I think, I think he's
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  fulfilling a lot of promises that he can through executive
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  order, but in terms of like policy and, and substance, it's
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  all being done by executive order and that is, that is ripe
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  for being overturned. And, and I, I understand that we
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  live in a hyper polarized country and you have to have
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  like 60 senators, which is almost impossible.
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  The house is a nightmare. But I think, I think the way
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  he's gone about trying to implement these changes, trying
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  to shrink the federal workforce. I mean, it's, you could argue
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  it's kind of a trial and error thing, but I'd also argue that
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  it's just been incredibly inefficient and just not, not
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  necessary if they'd had a plan to begin with.
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  So he hasn't done a bad job, but I do think if his team had a
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  plan when they came into office, which is kind of surprising, I
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  think he would, I think he could have had a lot more of a
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  successful 100 days. You know, I, I think that's, I
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  honestly am a little surprised by that, but I, I kind of like,
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  like that take just because it's, it's a, it's a bit, it's
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  a, it's a bit different. I definitely agree with you that
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  the, the executive order thing is definitely where I guess, you
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  know, he has, I mean, and he did this the first time and every, I
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  guess one of my one of my big problems with the executive
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  order with the executive branch rather over my lifetime really,
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  is it seems like almost everything is done by executive
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  order these days. You know, Bush did it for, you
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  know, a lot for a ton of stuff. Oh, Obama did it and you know
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  now, and I mean, Trump's done it, you know, a bunch.
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  And but I mean Biden too, although you know, people, as
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  the joke goes with Biden, nobody really knows who was running the
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  the administration, right? Yeah, yeah, you.
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  Know, but no, I, I think that's, you know, if you're looking at
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  it from that perspective, I think that's a, that's a
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  fairpoint. I do think he's a lot.
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  I do think, you know, I think I'm, I'm pleasantly surprised
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  with some of the stuff that he's, you know, kept promises on
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  because there's a lot of promises he made specifically
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  with Doge that like, I didn't even think that Doge was going
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  to be a thing. I thought that was just a giant
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  meme generator. And then the fact that he
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  actually made a thing, I was like, wow.
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  So. I mean, I think, I think he's
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  setting, I mean he is setting up a, a collision course between
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  the power of the executive and the power of the legislative
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  because I think from the, the executive orders on things like
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  DI and are, are I think within his purview, like I don't think
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  there's a, a constitutional issue with that.
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  The question. The question I think, and his
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  team is very deliberate. I mean, I will admit his team
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  had this plan going in. It's very clear that they want
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  to have a case go to the Supreme Court where there's where the
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  question is posed, can the president like halt or stop
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  spending that Congress has appropriated and a like a prior
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  president has signed into law? Well, I mean, a lot of that
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  stuff was, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the DEI stuff was done
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  via exam or to begin with, you know, in the 1st place.
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  And I always think that like a lot of the US aid stuff that was
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  like nobody, even nobody even knew what that was until, you
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  know, like even a lot of liberals who are now like trying
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  to defend it, they didn't even know what USAID was until like,
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  you know, 3-3 months ago. And so.
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  There's there's the, the, I I can't remember if it's buried in
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  I can't remember if it wasn't. It's not buried in ARPA.
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  But the, this the like $20 billion in the Ellen blanking at
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  the, the, the, the big, like the, the big bill that they
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  passed that Joe Manchin was, was the deciding vote on it was the,
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  it, it was, I can't remember what it's called, but there's
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  like a $20 billion slush fund that they created for the
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  Department of Energy that went to like these eight liberal
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  nonprofits. And Stacey Abrams, like
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  benefited significantly from it. Yeah, Yeah.
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  I mean that that stuff is perfectly, that stuff is
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  perfectly fine and valid. And if you get a new secretary
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  coming into the Department of Energy and they want to
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  investigate it and they don't want to spend it like that's
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  there, I don't think there are any issues with that.
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  And I don't think that there are issues with doing audits like
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  that and cutting that spending or determining like we're not
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  going to allocate this because it's just not not cool.
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  Like it's not legal. I think stuff like that is
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  really cool to see where, where I think I take issue with DOGE
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  and how it's been implemented is it's just been, it's just been
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  kind of lazy. Like they've, they have rolled
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  out all these cuts, but and then they, and then they step them
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  back. So the, the concept of Doge is
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  really cool. Like here in Idaho, we actually
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  like the legislature passed like their own version of DOGE, which
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  is kind of it's, it's kind of a joke because it's legislators
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  who are going to be doing it. They didn't actually out, they
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  didn't actually make any agency actually do it.
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  So they're going to sit in meetings and do nothing.
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  But the concept of doge is really cool if it's implemented
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  effectively. But this this honest.
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  What Doge honestly reminds me of is, and this is going to date
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  myself a little bit, sequestration from like a decade
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  ago where they. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
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  Forgot where they were going to cut like 10% of every agency's
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  budget and it was so unpalatable that they came back to the table
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  the next year and like, OK, guys, we can't, we can't let
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  this happen anymore. So I don't, I feel like Doge is
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  kind of that same thing where they're going to, they're going
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  to nibble at the edges, They're going to cause a lot of, of
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  instability in the system, which some people want.
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  And that's, that's perfectly fine.
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  But I don't, I don't see Doge being successful long term.
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  I kind of see it as like this passing thing and then and then
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  it and then it'll go away. Oh, oh, oh, of course that.
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  But like that's kind of for anyone who was paying attention.
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  That's what it was. That's kind of what it was going
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  to be for, for the beginning. It wasn't going to be a, it
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  wasn't going to be a permanent agency at all like it was.
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  It was basically like a special commit committee like from from
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  the beginning. Yeah, yeah.
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  And they, I mean, they've they've they've gone kind of
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  gone through their wave. And if the rumors are right,
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  like Elon's going to go back to fix Tesla.
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  So he's he's not going to be he's not going to be around
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  anymore. But I mean, I mean, this is,
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  this is the, this is kind of the issue for like both, both
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  parties and, and their coalitions is the only way that
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  you're going to sustainably address the deficit is you're
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  going to have to tackle entitlements.
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  And for what? For many reasons, for the
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  party's coalitions, I don't see that happening, because touching
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  entitlements is still the third rail of politics.
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  Yeah. Well, well, we and we've talked
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  about that like, shoot, even going back to the American
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  Watchmen days. I mean, it was, it was true a
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  decade ago when we talked about it and it's true now.
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  Nobody wants to, you know, nobody wants to cut the, the
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  entitlements even a little bit on either side.
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  Yeah, they may, they might, they may.
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  The Republicans may posture about it when it, you know, like
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  during election season, but it never, it never happens.
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  Now I will say it again. This is this is going back to
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  the DEI, to the to the DEI stuff.
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  I am glad that like that. Like, for instance, you know,
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  there are reforms that are saying, yeah, transgender
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  surgeries are not going to, you know, be covered under Medicaid
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  or Medicare because, you know, they're not, you know, they're
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  not actually medically, you know, necessitative, I guess.
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  So, you know, there, there are things like that that, you know,
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  are, are good. But like, yeah, you're not going
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  to, you're not going to. We have so many, you know, baby
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  boomers who are, you know, retiring now that you're not
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  going to cut Social Security. Which which is ironic because
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  actually most baby boomers are becoming more liberal.
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  This, this is like the, this is like The Dirty little secret of
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  politics now is like baby boomers are actually more
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  liberal because, because the, the, the, the, the joke or the,
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  the, the truism in our politics for like, since Ronald Reagan
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  was like, Republicans were the party of like the business class
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  or consistency. And so therefore, boomers loved
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  them because, you know, if you're at retirement age or
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  you're near retirement age, you don't like instability because
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  then you're like, Oh, you're cutting my, that the, the, the
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  programs that I paid into my entire life, like my 4O1K is
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  going down. But now it now it's the opposite
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  because they see, they see Republicans in power and
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  they're, they're upsetting the apple cart.
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  And so now, ironically, Democrats have become the party
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  that they perceive as like, oh, here you're the party of
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  stability now, Like you'll, you'll save our, you'll save our
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  entitlements in our four O 1K. But yeah, by the same token,
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  like Republicans have become more of a working class party
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  and the working class also is more liberal on entitlements.
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  And so they want to those working class voters want to
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  preserve the entitlement system. Well, that that's and again,
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  going back to kind of, you know, not so much Trump, but like
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  Trump's, I guess, you know, more like populist, you know,
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  movement like or not like that was that was one thing going
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  back to to like 2016 that I tried to argue with some of the
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  with some of the red millennial, you know, people when we were
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  when we were there, because I because I had written a piece
• 17:20
  for them that never got published because Julia, she
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  didn't want to, she did not want to.
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  She basically stuck her finger on hers and did not want to, you
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  know, read it. But basically, like what I what
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  I had said was just from interviewing people on my
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  college, you know, campus, they were all all the people who were
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  like supporting Trump were mostly, you know, that they
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  were, they were working class, you know, males who were, you
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  know, going to college part time and then working part time.
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  And a lot of them, a lot of them also were, you know, and maybe
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  this is just because I live in Florida, but a lot of them were,
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  you know, Hispanic or South American, you know, descent.
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  So, you know, they want and they like the idea.
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  Do you have like a businessman running things as opposed to,
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  you know, Hillary Clinton or, you know, George Bush who had
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  been, you know, they saw they saw those those two as the
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  awaits kind of and Trump was, you know, the outside force, you
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  know, and I know that's going back a decade.
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  But that that populist mentality never really, I guess left and
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  with JD Vance now also, you know, being from, you know,
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  basically like, you know, mountain, you know, Hill Country
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  as some people say it, that, you know, that that mentality is
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  still there. Yeah.
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  I mean, I think, I mean on JDI think that he, he actually, I
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  mean, like he's the one who's who's going to carry forward
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  Trump's mantle. It might not look, it might not
• 19:16
  look exactly the same, but that's 'cause I generally think
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  JD is guided by a set of principles and I think Trump's
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  principles are kind of here or there, like, like his cabinet is
• 19:29
  a hodgepodge of people. I don't think JD would would
• 19:32
  operate the the same way. And I mean, I think JD would
• 19:37
  make the GOP an actual right wing populist party, which means
• 19:45
  maybe that actually Republicans may become more liberal on
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  entitlements and Democrats actually become more, I won't
• 19:53
  say conservative, but more, more maybe moderate on, on
• 20:01
  entitlements because because The thing is like that.
• 20:04
  The, you have the AOC's and you have the Bernie Sanders wing of
• 20:08
  the Democratic Party, but that wing is never going.
• 20:11
  That wing is never going to win. Like that wing is not where the
• 20:14
  money is. It's not where the power is.
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  And like that was the, that was kind of the story of 21 of the
• 20:21
  stories of 2024 was like all these, all these affluent
• 20:25
  liberals and all these packs spent like a billion dollars and
• 20:30
  they all came from like the suburbs and wealthy donors.
• 20:33
  And it didn't do anything because they completely ignored
• 20:36
  the fact that like DI and was front and center in the campaign
• 20:41
  and they couldn't walk away from it.
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  So I think, I mean, I, I think that they're, they're in,
• 20:50
  they're in a, in a tough spot. And that's why I think Trump
• 20:54
  continues to hammer away on on those those issues because he
• 20:58
  knows they're easy and they're winning issues.
• 21:02
  Oh yeah, ABS absolutely. You know, I, I think like to
• 21:09
  that end though, you're right that like, you're right that
• 21:12
  like the mainstream, like average everyday, you know,
• 21:17
  Democrat is not the elite. But like even Bill Maher hasn't
• 21:22
  has admitted even just last week that like that, that elite, that
• 21:29
  elitist, you know, like the AO CS and the, you know, the Bernie
• 21:33
  Sanders, the, the really elite ones who like to more like
• 21:37
  preach to everyone. Those are the ones that like run
• 21:41
  the DN, the DNC now. And even though they're losing,
• 21:47
  at least the people have who who run that party, they haven't
• 21:51
  woken up and, you know, realize that like they need an attitude
• 21:55
  to change the thing, the thing that really, you know, the thing
• 22:01
  that I guess really kind of messed the Democrats up last
• 22:05
  election. And we kind of talked about this
• 22:07
  the last time you guys were on here, but that they, they, they
• 22:12
  kicked 2 like major individuals out of the party that could have
• 22:17
  been like the more modern voices at the time.
• 22:21
  And that, that is Tulsi Gabbard and then RFK Junior.
• 22:27
  And yeah, I, I know, I know some people think that like RFK
• 22:32
  Junior is a is a quack, but like, you know, he's more
• 22:39
  moderate on like a lot of other things aside from the vaccines
• 22:44
  and you know what, not then a lot of other Democrats are.
• 22:50
  Yeah, yeah, for, for for sure. I mean, I, I think Trump has,
• 22:56
  Trump has brought in Trump's cabinet is very all, all say
• 23:01
  interesting in, in terms of the fact that they kind of, they
• 23:06
  kind of run the run the gambit of the ideological spectrum.
• 23:12
  You know, 'cause you have like hardcore conservatives like Pete
• 23:15
  Hegseth, but then you also have people like RFK who are not
• 23:21
  hardcore, who are not hardcore conservatives.
• 23:25
  And I like his USDA pick. I think that's Brooke Rollins.
• 23:30
  Like she's she's more moderate. So that's why she's like going
• 23:34
  along with RFKS like gold to to ban artificial food dyes.
• 23:39
  So there, there are, there are snippets of like populism, right
• 23:47
  wing populism in some of the efforts that the Trump
• 23:50
  administration has done within the 1st 100 days.
• 23:54
  It just hasn't been, I mean, 100 days is not very long, let's be
• 23:59
  honest. It just, you know, 100 days is
• 24:02
  honestly not enough time to actually even really do
• 24:06
  anything. But you, you start to see,
• 24:08
  you're starting to see some of the snippets of right wing
• 24:12
  populism come out of what some of the agencies are doing, like
• 24:16
  banning food dyes. Like that's, that's a, that's a
• 24:20
  anti anti, you know, big business food corporation cuz
• 24:26
  there's like 4 food corporations in this country that own a bunch
• 24:29
  of other subsidiaries. Like they control 90% of the
• 24:32
  food market. It's not a benefit to them to
• 24:35
  take away artificial food dyes cuz they have to change their
• 24:37
  entire logistics chain and come up with new ways to color food.
• 24:45
  You also see it like with the Trump's, with Trump's plan or
• 24:48
  the administration's plan to, to renegotiate drug prices through
• 24:55
  Medicaid. They, they're, they're, they're
• 24:58
  negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies to have
• 25:01
  like the generics of weight loss drugs be on, be, have a set rate
• 25:07
  through Medicaid. That's not a benefit to
• 25:10
  pharmaceutical companies. So I think you're somewhat
• 25:13
  seeing that right wing populism come out where it is going after
• 25:19
  specific companies that I would argue deliberately like price
• 25:24
  gouge who have monopolies and it it actually does create
• 25:29
  distortions in the free market. So from from some perspectives,
• 25:32
  you could be like, this is actually a conservative using
• 25:35
  the power of the government to actually regulate the market and
• 25:39
  make it more free. And those are all things that I
• 25:42
  actually personally support. Like, I think it's perfectly
• 25:45
  fine to ban food dyes and food companies should deal with it
• 25:49
  like they have the ability to do it.
• 25:51
  They've had the ability to do it for 20 years.
• 25:53
  Like they just, they don't want to do it.
• 25:55
  The same with pharmaceutical companies.
• 25:57
  Like they've had the ability, they've had the GLP one drugs
• 26:01
  for like 20 years. They've never made generics on
• 26:05
  it because they don't make as much money on generics.
• 26:07
  So like if they want to get in on the Medicaid market, which is
• 26:11
  a huge market, there's a lot of people on that program, then
• 26:16
  absolutely the government should kind of be able to dictate to
• 26:19
  you what it's going to pay you. You'll still make money, you
• 26:23
  just don't get to make $1000 a month on an overpriced non
• 26:28
  generic drug like so. And I.
• 26:31
  Mean those are things that those are things that actually I'm a
• 26:35
  fan of and I honestly would not describe myself as a populist.
• 26:40
  Yeah, well then I mean, I wouldn't necessarily describe
• 26:43
  myself as a as like a pure populist either.
• 26:48
  I, I, I would definitely say that like, I, I am more of like
• 26:51
  a baga conservative. I've, I've always, I've always
• 26:56
  identified myself as more like a conservative, as more of like a
• 26:59
  conservative libertarian, which which is essentially take
• 27:04
  Trump's name out of the, out of the MAGA movement.
• 27:08
  That's kind of what like that's kind of what this current wave
• 27:11
  of conservatism is by and large is it's, you know, it's more
• 27:17
  like a conservative libertarian hybrid that we, you know, we
• 27:20
  had, you know, like 10 years ago.
• 27:26
  I mean, and I would also say like, it's interesting that you
• 27:29
  bring up like, you know, monopolies in the food and, you
• 27:33
  know, drug. But like 1 area where I'm
• 27:36
  focused on, particularly because my background is, you know, in
• 27:40
  text specifically, you're starting to see too like, you
• 27:44
  know, the, the FCC share whose name I can't remember right now.
• 27:48
  Like they're, you know, they're talking out, you know, getting
• 27:54
  Google, you know, to, to like split, you know, to like divest
• 28:00
  YouTube and make it, you know, a separate, you know, thing.
• 28:08
  Do I think that will do? I think it'll solve like
• 28:11
  YouTube, you know, censorship or anything like that, like some
• 28:15
  considers were saying, I'm not holding my breath on that, but I
• 28:22
  definitely do think, you know, like making YouTube play on more
• 28:28
  of like a even level playing field is a good thing.
• 28:31
  And same thing with like with AI and you know, like open AI,
• 28:36
  which isn't really open at all. It's, you know, it's open AI and
• 28:41
  name only. And you know, like that's the
• 28:43
  other thing too, that I think Trump is, you know, where I will
• 28:47
  give him credit for is, you know, like concerning AI and
• 28:53
  artificial intelligence. Like he is the first, he is kind
• 28:57
  of the 1st president that, you know, was actually looking at
• 29:01
  this as like, oh, we're in, you know, we're in direct
• 29:03
  competition with the Chinese. And you know, we need to look,
• 29:09
  we need to learn how to harness this for ourselves.
• 29:11
  Otherwise, the Chinese are gonna dominate us and it's not gonna
• 29:16
  be good if they control AI. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:20
  I mean, I think that the focus on tech is a good thing.
• 29:25
  I don't, I don't know if they'll follow through or not.
• 29:29
  I don't even, I don't think Google, I don't think the
• 29:32
  government would try to break up Google.
• 29:34
  But what I, what I could see them doing, and this is like
• 29:38
  critique of Google is that it, it's, it's how search engines
• 29:42
  operate. Like when you type in another
• 29:45
  search engine, it's not how it populates on your screen is not
• 29:49
  going to populate the same way as if you type in Google in the
• 29:52
  Google search bar. Like it just they have ways to
• 29:55
  manipulate it. So that you that you use their
• 29:59
  service. And so by by default, they are,
• 30:04
  they are essentially cornering, cornering the market.
• 30:07
  And so it's, it's above my pay grade to really figure out
• 30:11
  exactly how you would avoid that.
• 30:13
  But stuff like that is, is, is easy antitrust stuff or anti
• 30:19
  monopoly stuff that you can, you can, you can focus on.
• 30:23
  And you know, if you make Google be honest about it, you actually
• 30:27
  enforce it, then they will they'll, they'll follow it.
• 30:32
  Yeah, why I think. Well, I think that I think
• 30:35
  that's the real thing is like is making these companies actually
• 30:39
  be accountable because then they will kind of, you know, I, I
• 30:46
  don't necessarily want, I don't necessarily want the government
• 30:49
  to regulate these tech companies because I don't think that's
• 30:52
  good either. Because then like with with
• 30:55
  Facebook and other social media, you know, use you're you're
• 31:02
  already starting to see some of this where like some of these
• 31:06
  social networks are wanting like, you know, ID verification,
• 31:10
  which like as kind of like a privacy, you know, person like,
• 31:16
  yeah, I understand that. Like the idea of doing that to
• 31:20
  protect your kids. It might have good, it might
• 31:23
  have good intentions, but it could.
• 31:26
  It could. You know, as with all things,
• 31:30
  the the road to hell is paved with good.
• 31:34
  Intentions with good intentions. Yeah, yeah.
• 31:37
  And. Yeah, pretty soon.
• 31:40
  And pretty soon we could have something like the UK where, you
• 31:43
  know, people are getting arrested for, you know, posting
• 31:47
  like, you know, a quote, UN quote, edgy meme or, you know.
• 31:51
  Yeah, I, I mean, I think, yeah, I, I, but the thing with, I
• 31:59
  mean, I've, I've seen what you're referencing.
• 32:01
  Like the, the thing with those countries is though, that they
• 32:04
  don't have the 1st Amendment and they don't, they're like, they
• 32:07
  don't have the legal, the legal precedent that we, that we have
• 32:11
  in this country for freedom of speech.
• 32:13
  I agree with you. We don't want the government
• 32:16
  regulating for a speech. And that gets, that gets really
• 32:20
  tricky when you're talking about things like the Internet or
• 32:25
  YouTube or Facebook, because I think there, there was just a
• 32:30
  Supreme Court case where supposedly on Facebook or
• 32:36
  YouTube, somebody made a comment about, about violence being
• 32:40
  perpetrated and there was a violent act and the family sued
• 32:44
  the YouTube company. And there's a there's a clause
• 32:47
  that like that social media companies or content generation
• 32:53
  companies that they, they are not responsible for what is
• 32:57
  posted on their site if. They yeah, that.
• 33:01
  Posted like. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:02
  That's section 2:30 that. Yes, thank you.
• 33:05
  Yeah, Section 2:30, so, yeah. So we have Section 2:30 which
• 33:11
  which can protect social media and content generation
• 33:15
  companies. I mean, what we, what I don't
• 33:19
  think we want is where the government mandates that you
• 33:23
  have to give everybody equal air time.
• 33:27
  And we've, we've seen how that works that.
• 33:29
  Right, right. Yeah.
• 33:31
  So, and that was kind of the Obama era way that they
• 33:35
  regulated these companies and, and it didn't, it didn't do
• 33:39
  anything like it. The companies were just like,
• 33:41
  sure, we'll give a liberal 50% of time and a conservative 50%
• 33:46
  of time. But hey, we'll market our stuff
• 33:48
  to the particular audience that gravitates towards this, this,
• 33:54
  this channel's content. So if 80% are conservatives,
• 33:58
  we're going to create a algorithm which sends out
• 34:03
  content to that 80%. So they they found an easy way
• 34:08
  to get around around those rules.
• 34:10
  Yeah, I, I just, you know, and, and yeah, we're, we're not,
• 34:14
  we're not exactly like Europe. You're absolutely right.
• 34:17
  I just, I really don't like, I really don't like the idea of,
• 34:22
  you know, us like even having the, you know, the conversation
• 34:26
  of, you know, us regulating like platforms like, you know, like
• 34:32
  Facebook or not. Because even even if it's not
• 34:35
  exactly like, you know, the Europeans, I, I don't like, I
• 34:40
  don't even necessarily like the idea of us having the
• 34:43
  conversation of, you know, of entering down that slippery
• 34:48
  slope. I mean, it is, it is, it is a
• 34:51
  slippery slope. But these companies also put
• 34:55
  their thumbs on the scale. So whether whether yeah and, or,
• 35:00
  or them putting their thumbs on the scale, I mean, it's, it's
• 35:04
  gonna, it's gonna happen one way or the other.
• 35:08
  And I mean, I think if you're trying to, I think if you're
• 35:11
  trying to avoid having to go down the route that, that you
• 35:15
  are afraid of, that you don't want to be heavily involved in
• 35:20
  this and regulating them, then the best option would be to
• 35:23
  actually break them up. Because we've seen this a, a
• 35:27
  diversified, A diversified media marketplace means that you can
• 35:33
  get many different perspectives and have many different ideas.
• 35:38
  And that's, that's kind of and and they actually do is credit
• 35:41
  like that. Trump and his team, this is one
• 35:43
  of the big stories of 2024. They understood that diversified
• 35:49
  media ecosystem and they went after specific pockets in that
• 35:54
  ecosystem, like the Joe Rogan podcast, JD Vance doing like all
• 35:59
  these, all these YouTube interviews with right wing
• 36:03
  podcasters, like they, they understood that the that the
• 36:07
  media ecosystem now is so is so fractured that you can go after
• 36:14
  specific pockets and you can get, you can use the, the way
• 36:19
  the the marketplace is structured now to to the, to
• 36:24
  your benefit. Well, and even platforms like
• 36:28
  Rumble, which we're, you know what we're streaming on.
• 36:31
  I mean, I know, I know that the media likes to label Rumble as
• 36:35
  like being, you know, far right or right wing.
• 36:39
  But if if you actually look at the if you look at the content
• 36:44
  of, you know, Rumble is just on the front page.
• 36:46
  Like, yeah, you'll have your you'll have your Steven
• 36:49
  Crowder's and you'll have your, you know, your, your obvious,
• 36:54
  you know, but like there it, there is a section for like
• 36:57
  liberal politics. And then like a lot of the
• 37:00
  content isn't even necessarily like political content.
• 37:03
  And it's a lot of is gamers and like, you know, live streamers
• 37:08
  who do re who do react content, But because of YouTube's, you
• 37:14
  know, like corporatization, you know, like a lot of these
• 37:19
  channels aren't even getting like monetized on YouTube
• 37:23
  anymore. Are are now moving over to
• 37:25
  rumble. And so it's more like, you know,
• 37:28
  again, it's like it's that thing where like free market
• 37:31
  definitely did solve for that. So.
• 37:36
  Yeah, I, I generally think that when liberals complain that
• 37:39
  they're like, oh, this This site is full of like right wing nut
• 37:43
  jobs, it just means that they know that they lost.
• 37:46
  Like they, they know that they have lost the battle.
• 37:49
  It's like the Joe Rogan podcast. It's like Joe Rogan is actually,
• 37:53
  if you listen to him, and I haven't listened to him a ton,
• 37:56
  but I've listened to some of his stuff.
• 37:58
  He's kind of a middle of the road guy, like, but he's
• 38:01
  portrayed as like this nut job right winger and it's like,
• 38:04
  that's not who Joe Rogan is. So if you're going to, if you're
• 38:07
  a, if you're a liberal and you're complaining that like Joe
• 38:10
  Rogan is a right winger, to me that just means that you know
• 38:13
  that you've lost that particular audience and you know that you
• 38:17
  can't recreate what he created. Well, the well, The funny thing,
• 38:21
  the funny. So The funny thing of it is
• 38:24
  like, I wouldn't honestly say I've been listening to Joe Rogan
• 38:27
  since the since the very beginning of his show, but like
• 38:32
  I've been listening since like 2010, 2011, which is closer to
• 38:37
  the beginning of the show. And he he used to be like very,
• 38:42
  he used to be like very like, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say like
• 38:46
  left left wing, but like he definitely was more liberal back
• 38:51
  in the day. And then but like he's always
• 38:55
  been a guy who has wanted to talk to everyone.
• 39:00
  And so like, you know, famously like he you know, like he's been
• 39:06
  friends with that with like Alex Jones since the 90s.
• 39:10
  And he's always said, yeah, like Alex is a crazy out there guy.
• 39:16
  But you know, I I love him. But then when they but then when
• 39:20
  the but then when the left was like trying to say, oh, you
• 39:23
  know, you can't have, you know, you Joe Rogan can't be friends
• 39:28
  with Alex because of Sandhook. Like that was kind of like 1 of
• 39:35
  Rogan's like, well, I've known the guy for 20 years and yeah,
• 39:39
  like, I don't think he's an actual, you know, what, like
• 39:42
  just stuff like that, like them, like I think them, you know,
• 39:47
  telling Joe that he can't talk to XYZ.
• 39:49
  It's like it's like what, what what?
• 39:52
  So I think, I think it was kind of again and again, you see this
• 39:57
  with a lot over and over again. They they push.
• 40:00
  It's not so much about that the right took over, it's that the
• 40:03
  left pushed so many people, the left went so far left that I
• 40:11
  mean, I guess the over to window thing, right, the left went so
• 40:16
  far far to the left that anything to anything more to the
• 40:20
  center is now considered like right wing.
• 40:24
  Yeah, yeah. It's they have, they have become
• 40:28
  the, they have become the mob mentality.
• 40:32
  They're just a mob mentality that shrouds themselves in
• 40:36
  righteousness. Yeah.
• 40:38
  But anybody outside the mob is like, you're just a bunch of
• 40:41
  crazy people who pretend that you're enlightened and your
• 40:44
  cause is just. And you know, you complain about
• 40:48
  that the ends justify the means for anybody else.
• 40:51
  But you can't see that you do the exact same thing that
• 40:53
  you're, you know, that you're, you're raising your pitchforks
• 40:57
  and throwing the, throwing the, the, the fire into the castle to
• 41:01
  burn it down. You're doing the exact same
• 41:03
  thing to people that you claim that the people that you oppose
• 41:06
  are doing. So it just, to the outside
• 41:09
  observer, it just looks like they're hypocrites and that
• 41:13
  they're just, it's just a mob mentality.
• 41:16
  Yeah. Well, so getting back to the
• 41:19
  Trump administration and you know, one thing I know, So I
• 41:25
  know that specifically like you're more of an economics guy.
• 41:31
  So I'm curious to know. And and I I kind of I don't want
• 41:35
  to assume anything, but would you rating with Trump have
• 41:41
  anything to do with the tariffs by by chance?
• 41:44
  What's your whole opinion on that since like I, I see, you
• 41:49
  know, tweets on that almost every day.
• 41:52
  It's. I mean, I think, I think
• 41:54
  there's. I think there's, there's my, my,
• 41:58
  I think there's two schools of thought and then I'll kind of
• 42:01
  give you my actual, my actual opinion.
• 42:04
  I mean, the, the first school of thought is that it is, it is to,
• 42:08
  to bring jobs back to America. It is to like undo unfair trade,
• 42:15
  trade deals that we have. The other one is actually that
• 42:19
  it that it can bring in additional revenue for the
• 42:22
  government, which kind of, you know, it's kind of like a
• 42:25
  backdoor VAT tax. Yeah.
• 42:27
  How you added tax like Europe has.
• 42:32
  I mean, I think I'm not opposed to the idea of tariffs because
• 42:37
  let's be honest, we've, we've had tariffs in this country for,
• 42:41
  oh gosh, since World War 2. Like the, the chicken tax.
• 42:45
  Like so this, this country, like for all the free market that,
• 42:51
  that we, that we portray. Like the reason why GM and, and
• 42:55
  Ford and, and Chrysler, like the reason why they have a corner or
• 42:59
  Ford in particular has a corner on the pickup truck market is
• 43:02
  because we have, we have the chicken tax, which made it
• 43:06
  prohibitively expensive for companies to actually sell
• 43:10
  pickups in this country. In fact, it's it's still in
• 43:12
  effect, like it's a 2.5% tax on if you sell a pickup truck in
• 43:17
  the this country, but you're not a domestic automaker, you have
• 43:21
  to pay more. So those companies have found
• 43:24
  ways around that to keep their trucks competitive in price with
• 43:27
  the domestics. But you know, George, George W
• 43:32
  Bush, he had tariffs on aluminum and steel, but that was a very
• 43:36
  targeted. Obama carried that through,
• 43:39
  Biden carried it through, Trump carried it through.
• 43:43
  So I think tariffs that are targeted can be effective.
• 43:47
  I'm not a huge fan of this kind of like blanket, we're going to
• 43:51
  tariff everything and then we realize the economic impact of
• 43:56
  it. So we're going to walk it back.
• 43:58
  But then we're going to do more tariffs and then we're going to
• 44:01
  walk them back. So I think, I think the
• 44:04
  administration is, is looking for, for wins with the tariffs
• 44:12
  and then they'll start to walk it back.
• 44:14
  I just think it, I just think it was very rocky to start.
• 44:18
  I think, I think now the things have calmed down a little bit.
• 44:23
  Yes, I, I mean, tariffs are going to make things more
• 44:26
  expensive. There's no denying that.
• 44:28
  But I, I don't think the administration is going to
• 44:32
  handle tariffs the way they did at the beginning.
• 44:36
  But again, that goes back to my whole thing about like they
• 44:38
  should have had it. My opinion is they should have
• 44:41
  had a plan for this at the very beginning.
• 44:43
  And they should have been like we're going to do a 25% tariff
• 44:46
  on auto imports and we are going and that includes Canada and
• 44:52
  Mexico and it includes well just everybody.
• 44:56
  And then have everybody come to the table, put it off for three
• 45:00
  months so negotiations can occur.
• 45:02
  And then after those three months, once the deals are made,
• 45:06
  then you drop the tariffs on the countries that you have
• 45:10
  agreements with and then you keep the tariffs on countries
• 45:13
  that you're either still negotiating with or that didn't
• 45:16
  come to the table. But and they kind of have done
• 45:21
  that like they've done the 90 day pause on those tariffs for
• 45:24
  most countries. I just think it was, I just
• 45:28
  think the rollout was rocky. So I'm not opposed to tariffs if
• 45:33
  they're, if they're implemented and utilized effectively.
• 45:37
  I just don't think that they have been implemented and
• 45:41
  utilized effectively until recently.
• 45:45
  That fair enough. I mean my whole thing and again,
• 45:49
  like I don't, I'm not as much of an E as much of A, you know, of
• 45:54
  an E con guy as you are. But I, I look at the, I look at
• 45:59
  the tariffs and people say, God, things are so expensive.
• 46:04
  And honestly, like, I, I have to wonder how much of that is
• 46:12
  actually due to the tariffs themselves or, or if we're still
• 46:17
  dealing with like leftover by dynamics.
• 46:21
  Because the, the thing that I find kind of hilarious is all
• 46:31
  feeds. I mean, it's almost become a
• 46:33
  meme now at this point, but it's like, you know, during by during
• 46:39
  Biden's administration that, you know, everyone was complaining
• 46:44
  about the price of eggs. And yet like the the last was
• 46:49
  like was like, duh, you know, shit about your shit about shit
• 46:53
  about your egg prizes. We need, you know, to send more
• 46:56
  money over to Ukraine. And then all of the sudden, you
• 47:00
  know, Trump gets into office and, you know, then they'll have
• 47:04
  just like, Hey, you know about them a because they're really
• 47:08
  expensive. And now with tariffs, Oh my God,
• 47:10
  they're becoming much more expensive.
• 47:12
  And I'm like, well, how much that it was actually because of
• 47:17
  because of tariffs. And oh by the way, now you guys
• 47:21
  are noticing the price. Food is getting expensive.
• 47:24
  Come on, It's it's kind of. So here's here's the here's The
• 47:29
  funny thing. It's, it is amusing to me to see
• 47:34
  like wealthy liberals, you know, on social media turning around
• 47:40
  and be like, look, look, look at what you voted for.
• 47:43
  MAGA, like things are super expensive.
• 47:46
  I don't recall them two or three years ago also criticizing
• 47:50
  themselves for voting for Joe Biden and inflation being 9%.
• 47:55
  And it's it's kind of ironic that the people that can afford
• 47:59
  in can afford like the inflation that tariffs could bring are the
• 48:03
  ones then criticizing the people who just went through prior
• 48:07
  inflation and being like, well, you could have voted for the
• 48:10
  party of that that raised your prices 9% prior like.
• 48:16
  Yeah, I know. And that's, and that's why I've
• 48:19
  literally like replied to some of them because they're like,
• 48:22
  they're like, Oh well, Matt, well, Sam, you voted for this.
• 48:26
  And I'm like actually. I mean, didn't you, didn't you
• 48:30
  guys vote for the guy who jacked up prices 9% and it like dad
• 48:34
  inflation 9%. I mean, it's like we can
• 48:38
  quibble. We we can quibble over whether
• 48:40
  an apple is an apple or not, whether it's the color green or
• 48:44
  the color red. But the the other thing too is,
• 48:49
  and this is a sign that they don't really understand tariffs,
• 48:52
  is it will take tariffs like 90 days to filter through the
• 48:58
  economy before you actually see a price increase from a tariff.
• 49:03
  So just take, just take cars as an example.
• 49:06
  Like for certain brands of cars, they have a, they have like a
• 49:11
  day supply of 100 days. So that means that a dealer, the
• 49:17
  cars on their lot, they estimate it will take 100 days to sell
• 49:21
  every car on their lot they bought.
• 49:24
  They bought those cars at a specific price point before
• 49:27
  tariffs. So unless they're just shady
• 49:30
  dealers, which do exist, but in unless they're going to be
• 49:33
  shady, the price on those cars is not going to be impacted by
• 49:39
  tariffs. It's only going to the tariffs
• 49:41
  are only going to impact the future price of cars.
• 49:44
  And it's the same thing throughout the entire supply
• 49:47
  chain where unless somebody bought a doll, what you know
• 49:53
  from X country, you know, a week after tariffs were announced,
• 50:01
  you are not going to see that price increase on that doll
• 50:05
  until it's actually on a store shelf.
• 50:07
  And considering they have to come across and like giant
• 50:10
  shifts, it's going to take 60 or 90 days for that thing to get on
• 50:14
  a store shelf. So any price increases that
• 50:17
  we're seeing now are not due to tariffs.
• 50:20
  That could change, but not currently.
• 50:23
  Well, the, the other thing, and again, this is specifically
• 50:26
  going back kind of my field of expertise with, with technology,
• 50:31
  a lot of like, you know, tech manufacturers, like with
• 50:36
  computers and tablets, you know, there was the whole, there was
• 50:42
  the whole chip shortage, you know, during COVID.
• 50:47
  And in some countries, you're still seeing the effects that
• 50:53
  because like or not, you know, some of the, some of the, those,
• 50:58
  some of those countries, even parts of China, you know, where
• 51:02
  the ships are manufactured, they're still dealing with the
• 51:06
  effects of COVID, you know, to this day because they don't have
• 51:12
  the, they don't have the infrastructure or not in the
• 51:15
  infrastructure, but just, you know, system to deal with, you
• 51:20
  know, they're still recovering from, from COVID in ways that
• 51:23
  like the Western world isn't, they're still, you know, they're
• 51:29
  still catching up to us. So there there's that too that
• 51:35
  we're still dealing with like, you know, some COVID after
• 51:39
  effects, some industries. Yeah.
• 51:43
  Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, COVID is still
• 51:46
  the, the impacts of COVID are still rippling through the
• 51:49
  economy, they're still rippling through society as a whole.
• 51:55
  But I mean, I, I think the the thing with the the thing with
• 52:01
  tariffs is it's just being used as as an excuse.
• 52:05
  What what we what we as Americans will acknowledge, but
• 52:09
  we'll never actually, but we never willing to actually absorb
• 52:13
  any cost to change is all the shit that we buy isn't made in
• 52:17
  this country anymore. Now, I don't think tariffs by
• 52:21
  themselves are going to solve that problem.
• 52:23
  It's far more complex than that. But if you really believe that
• 52:27
  shit should be made in America and you should buy it, then
• 52:30
  yeah, it's going to cost more and you need to pay more.
• 52:34
  The The thing is, though, that and why I think tariffs are
• 52:39
  hurting Trump's approval and why most people don't like them, is
• 52:43
  because the majority of things, the majority of the US economy
• 52:48
  is now propped up by rich people buying stuff.
• 52:52
  I don't. Yeah, No, I sorry, sorry.
• 52:56
  Go ahead. No, no, no, I was, I mean that
• 52:59
  the the majority of the economy is propped up by the wealthy
• 53:03
  buying things. And so, yeah, it's a very
• 53:07
  different story for like somebody who makes 30 grand a
• 53:09
  year in Ohio when the price of their groceries goes up versus,
• 53:14
  you know, somebody's somebody is an absurd example.
• 53:18
  But like if you're wealthy, like somebody's Ferrari went up 5%,
• 53:23
  so. Yeah.
• 53:25
  I think a lot of, I think a lot of people just don't don't
• 53:29
  understand what what tariffs are and what the goal is.
• 53:33
  And I and I do agree with some of the analysis I've heard,
• 53:35
  which is I think if the Trump administration had done a better
• 53:39
  job getting ahead of it and trying to sell it a little bit
• 53:44
  more and having a cohesive plan, I don't think they would be
• 53:48
  suffering as much from it. Which is why say like they need
• 53:53
  some high, which is why now they need some high, high visibility
• 53:58
  winds that they can go to or that they can publicize and say
• 54:03
  like this is what our plan did. So is that so getting back to
• 54:09
  your original point and for those who are just, you know,
• 54:13
  tuning in, you, you know, you gave Trump like AB minus and AC.
• 54:20
  So is that, is that like what I'm kind of picking up on There
• 54:25
  is and I, I would agree with you at like on certain issues,
• 54:29
  there's been a lack of communication it what it would,
• 54:36
  what would you say is that like part of your rating or what
• 54:39
  would you say overall is like is, you know, a major thing that
• 54:45
  you're rating? I mean for for that.
• 54:48
  Well, I mean, I think, I think that he has, I, I think that
• 54:54
  the, the, the main, I mean the main thing that I'm rating is
• 54:57
  like tariffs and the rollout. Yeah.
• 55:01
  I mean, I don't, I don't necessarily oppose them.
• 55:04
  I just think that it could have and should have been better.
• 55:09
  And so that, I mean, it's economics like that's, that's
• 55:12
  the biggest thing. I mean, it has bottom line, it
• 55:15
  has an impact on everybody, everybody's bottom line.
• 55:17
  And I mean, that's going to the, that's going to define Trump's
• 55:22
  presidency. I mean, and he, he has said it
• 55:24
  himself in different ways. Like he, his, his efforts with
• 55:29
  these tariffs is honestly to reset the, the, the global, the
• 55:35
  global world order on economics, which for your listeners, like
• 55:41
  there's, there's been two or three different eras of, of or
• 55:45
  two or three different acknowledged eras of, of global
• 55:48
  economics. Post World War 2, when we had
• 55:52
  the Marshall Plan, when the goal was to open markets up, we
• 55:58
  allowed developing countries like Korea to subsidize their
• 56:02
  industry because they were willing to work with the western
• 56:05
  world. They were anti communist.
• 56:07
  And then Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher came in and
• 56:10
  they really supercharged like free markets.
• 56:14
  NAFTA was carried through from Reagan.
• 56:18
  And that is kind of the world order that we're operating in
• 56:21
  now. And Trump wants to kind of have
• 56:23
  his own world order where it's not opposed to to free markets,
• 56:29
  Like it's not a closed system where you have tariffs on
• 56:33
  everybody, but it's much more selective in who you have open
• 56:38
  markets and trade agreements with.
• 56:40
  And his, he's basically said like his presidency will be
• 56:45
  defined by how successful he is in this, in this effort.
• 56:51
  And if he has JD Vance after him, then it probably will be
• 56:54
  successful because JD Vance probably has a more cohesive
• 56:59
  ideology behind this, this, this kind of new economic world
• 57:06
  order. So I mean, that's why I, that,
• 57:10
  that is probably my biggest grade.
• 57:13
  It's not terrible. Could have been a lot worse, but
• 57:16
  it could have been better. Yeah.
• 57:19
  So overall, I would say that my grade is like AB Plus, which I
• 57:26
  know you know, is probably more favourable than than yours, but
• 57:32
  it's also going to it's also going to upset the, I guess the,
• 57:36
  you know, the the mag grifters. Plus plus crowd.
• 57:41
  Yeah, I mean, overall, I, I I would definitely grade him more
• 57:48
  on like I think where he really where he has really excel that
• 57:53
  we talked about this. We we talked about this before
• 57:57
  the show. I feel like he's a lot more
• 58:01
  business like in many ways on communications.
• 58:07
  He's not, you know, he still makes the snide, you know,
• 58:12
  comments somewhat because that's just that's just Trump, but he's
• 58:16
  a lot less he appears, he appears at least like a lot less
• 58:23
  petty on some things and more business.
• 58:27
  Like he, he has followed through on on like a lot more in his
• 58:36
  first 90 days than I think then even like a lot of people,
• 58:40
  myself included, thought he would, including, by the way,
• 58:46
  like the Russia and Ukraine stuff and trying to trying to
• 58:54
  like settle down. Now.
• 58:55
  I think where a lot of people get lost is, and this is kind of
• 59:01
  where my expertise kind of as more like a foreign policy guy
• 59:05
  comes in. Like I think Trump, for his
• 59:08
  part, has done a lot of good of good kind on the foreign policy
• 59:12
  front. However, there's only so much he
• 59:16
  can do without, like others having to come to the table as
• 59:25
  well. Most notably, like I think him
• 59:30
  putting his foot down with the with Zelensky and saying, no,
• 59:35
  you, you guys are going to give us something, you know, in
• 59:40
  exchange, we're not just going to keep, you know, giving you
• 59:45
  billions for nothing. You know, I think that I think
• 59:51
  that was a smart move. I think also his, you know, move
• 59:56
  with just, you know, this past week telling Mexico no, you
• 1:00:03
  guys, you guys are going to deal with the drug cartels or we're
• 1:00:07
  going to do it for you. Basically, I think is you know,
• 1:00:12
  you know is basically a smart move to.
• 1:00:16
  So I think like where I would grade him higher is definitely
• 1:00:19
  on the foreign policy perspective.
• 1:00:23
  I think though, like you said, I think some of his economic stuff
• 1:00:27
  is still. To be determined.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah, and that's the thing. It's not so that he that he can
• 1:00:34
  that he can do better or worse. It's just at this stage in the
• 1:00:37
  game, there's a lot more that's to be determined.
• 1:00:43
  And the other thing too, where I where I would where I would
• 1:00:46
  grade him more harshly is my big thing is, yeah, I know he likes
• 1:00:52
  to eat a lot of stuff, but he he needs but more stuff before
• 1:00:56
  Congress too, especially while we still have the majority,
• 1:01:01
  because as you know, midterms, you know, midterms could go
• 1:01:09
  could go either way. I will say that with with the
• 1:01:13
  with the with the left being, as, shall we say, doubling down
• 1:01:19
  on some of these, like far left niche topics.
• 1:01:21
  I'm not I'm not as concerned with midterms as I as I am.
• 1:01:27
  However, you know, TDs could still be enough to win them the
• 1:01:32
  day on, you know, midterm. So again, you never know.
• 1:01:39
  Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, for the
• 1:01:41
  midterms, I mean, I think that the Democrats will win the House
• 1:01:45
  just because it's such, it's such a narrow majority.
• 1:01:48
  So you don't have to have many seats flip.
• 1:01:51
  And I think the map is favorable to Republicans.
• 1:01:54
  So they'll at least keep the Senate.
• 1:01:56
  It'll be closer, but I think they'll keep the Senate.
• 1:02:01
  I will say I am actually, I am actually pleasantly surprised
• 1:02:04
  with Trump on foreign policy. Probably the only things I
• 1:02:08
  disagree with Trump on are on foreign policy.
• 1:02:11
  And I understand it's kind of his political coalition.
• 1:02:14
  So it's not easy for him to do it, if he actually even believed
• 1:02:18
  it. I mean, I think that how he's
• 1:02:23
  handled Ukraine and Russia is actually pretty fair.
• 1:02:26
  Like I, I know Josh is pretty favorable to Russia and he's
• 1:02:29
  pretty anti Ukraine and I am more in the middle.
• 1:02:32
  But my, my being more in the middle on Ukraine means that we
• 1:02:37
  should represent our interests as a country.
• 1:02:40
  We shouldn't just represent Ukraine's.
• 1:02:42
  And so from the perspective of going to Russia and Ukraine and
• 1:02:47
  saying make a damn deal, get this done, it impacts us because
• 1:02:52
  all the instability in Ukraine has ripple effects through the
• 1:02:56
  global supply chain, which, you know, the price of oil, it jacks
• 1:03:00
  up the price of agricultural products.
• 1:03:02
  So I'm actually happy with how Trump has handled Ukraine.
• 1:03:08
  And like, you know, under Biden, it was straight up, we're going
• 1:03:11
  to give you a trillion dollars to fight Russia until the end of
• 1:03:14
  time and Europe doesn't have to meet their their financial and
• 1:03:17
  military obligations. And I actually do think like
• 1:03:21
  Trump had a plan with Ukraine and and Russia in that by
• 1:03:25
  backing away from Ukraine, he got Europe to actually honor
• 1:03:30
  their financial obligations to NATO.
• 1:03:33
  Actually I don't believe in foreign chess, but he actually
• 1:03:37
  did do a certain amount of like something D chess on Ukraine and
• 1:03:42
  Russia. Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  And so. I'm pleased with that.
• 1:03:47
  The the only things that probably on foreign policy I'm
• 1:03:50
  not happy on are I'm not as bullish on Israel as he is, but
• 1:03:56
  I understand that that's the way modern politics are.
• 1:04:00
  And I also I'm not a huge fan of just giving the Pentagon more
• 1:04:06
  and more endless money. And that's that's that's how you
• 1:04:10
  like confront China. I mean, if, if we need to give
• 1:04:14
  the Pentagon more money, how much more money do we have to
• 1:04:16
  give them, like a trillion dollars?
• 1:04:20
  Two. Trillion dollars.
• 1:04:21
  Yeah. Well, yeah.
• 1:04:23
  Well, and then so on those. So First off on the whole
• 1:04:28
  Ukraine thing, so my position on mild position on Russia in
• 1:04:34
  Ukraine from the beginning is I don't like, I don't necessarily
• 1:04:41
  like Putin, but I don't necessarily like Zelensky
• 1:04:45
  either. It's kind of like, it's kind of
• 1:04:49
  like to put it in, in this, in kind of like a sports analogy
• 1:04:53
  it, it's like, it's like how a lot of people, people felt about
• 1:04:56
  the Chiefs versus the Eagles. No one, no one real, like no one
• 1:05:02
  real like either team. So like no one.
• 1:05:05
  So like, you know, so like, I feel like the best thing for us
• 1:05:10
  was just to kind of stay out of, you know, which is what I feel
• 1:05:16
  like we should have done. And I still feel that way.
• 1:05:19
  However, like, yeah, you are right that like, Ukraine and
• 1:05:23
  Russia do affect the global economy to some extent.
• 1:05:28
  But like, you know, I don't think we should be sending
• 1:05:31
  troops. And so I definitely do think
• 1:05:34
  it's good that we haven't gotten that far regarding, I mean,
• 1:05:39
  Israel, I mean, that that's a tough one because I mean, I
• 1:05:43
  don't think, I definitely do think that there's like a sect
• 1:05:47
  of, you know, radical Islam that is controlling, you know,
• 1:05:52
  Palestine and they're very fundamentalist.
• 1:05:55
  But at the same time, like, I'm not like, I'm not a big fan of
• 1:06:00
  BB either. And I, I actually know like a
• 1:06:04
  lot of, you know, even Jews like, you know, friend of show,
• 1:06:10
  you know, Doctor Craig Mansell, like he is Jewish, but like he
• 1:06:14
  is also, you know, critical of the way Israel has handled
• 1:06:19
  things as well, so. It's Bibian, is it?
• 1:06:27
  Oh, Bibi and Zelensky, they're kind of they're kind of similar
• 1:06:31
  in that they're using, they're using these external events to
• 1:06:36
  their own political benefit. So like, yeah, Bibi can be like,
• 1:06:41
  my country's under existential threat.
• 1:06:43
  So, you know, I you need to elect me or I need to stay in
• 1:06:47
  power because you can't have these radical Islamists do what
• 1:06:51
  they did on October 7th. And Zelensky is using like the
• 1:06:57
  Russian invasion is like, I have executive, I have unlimited
• 1:07:00
  authority. I'm going to stay in office Like
• 1:07:03
  they're, they're, they're using these, these crises to further
• 1:07:09
  their own, their own agenda. And that that is just and, and
• 1:07:14
  by us supporting them, less so in Ukraine, more Israel, by us
• 1:07:20
  supporting Israel as an example, it benefits Bibi or Bibi in
• 1:07:25
  doing this. Yeah.
• 1:07:27
  Well, and then and then they've they've both also done the thing
• 1:07:31
  of of, you know, saying, well, you know, if America doesn't
• 1:07:38
  support us, then then they'll be attacked as well.
• 1:07:42
  Which, yeah, to be to be fair, to be fair for Israel, I, I will
• 1:07:48
  say this, that like when it comes to Israel and in the US
• 1:07:52
  supporting Israel, that actually does.
• 1:07:55
  I will say that that's like a lot more valid of a point with
• 1:07:59
  Israel because like, you know, a lot of a lot of the terrorist
• 1:08:03
  groups do say death to America, like they, they, they have
• 1:08:06
  literally said that. So that is much more of a valid
• 1:08:10
  warning where I, I don't think, I don't think Putin is
• 1:08:15
  necessarily it. I, I will say that this word,
• 1:08:17
  this is where Josh is correct about Putin.
• 1:08:20
  I don't think Putin is necessarily all that game to
• 1:08:25
  start a war with the US, because as much as we might like to
• 1:08:33
  paint him as some maniacal James Bond villain, I do think he is
• 1:08:38
  smart enough to realize that going up against the US isn't
• 1:08:44
  necessarily in Russia's best interest.
• 1:08:49
  For sure. The The thing is that the thing
• 1:08:53
  that I think people don't understand is that the people in
• 1:08:57
  charge of these countries are, are actually rational actors.
• 1:09:01
  They're just, they're just making action.
• 1:09:04
  They're just taking actions that people can't understand.
• 1:09:07
  So like, you know, with, with Putin in Ukraine, Putin has, I
• 1:09:12
  mean, Putin has nuclear weapons. He could have launched them at
• 1:09:15
  any time. Ukraine has launched actual
• 1:09:18
  missiles into Russia, but Putin has kept it a conventional war
• 1:09:22
  because he knows what the consequences of launching a new
• 1:09:25
  car. He's going to, there's going to
• 1:09:27
  be retaliation. So, you know, and, and by the
• 1:09:30
  same token, Iran, I mean Middle East politics, Israel, Iran,
• 1:09:39
  believe it or not, like the Iranian leadership is actually
• 1:09:42
  fairly rational in that whether they do have a nuclear bomb or
• 1:09:48
  not, they're not Willy nilly putting in the briefcase and
• 1:09:52
  bringing it into Israel. Like they there, there would be
• 1:09:56
  a plan there for their behavior. Like, can you even see it with
• 1:10:00
  their behavior around like funding the terrorist groups
• 1:10:04
  around Israel? But again, those are just
• 1:10:07
  conventional munitions. So I, I mean, I, I think that
• 1:10:12
  they're, they're rational actors behaving in, behaving rationally
• 1:10:19
  in the environment that that they're operating in.
• 1:10:24
  Yeah, well, yeah. Well, that all that all goes
• 1:10:27
  back to, you know, again, the whole thing of, you know, oh,
• 1:10:34
  Iran is just days away from getting nukes.
• 1:10:38
  And well, they've been saying that since, you know, before
• 1:10:42
  either of us were, you know, live even, you know, like when
• 1:10:48
  even, like, even, like when our parents were kids, they were
• 1:10:52
  saying that. Yeah, I mean like if a ran look,
• 1:10:56
  if a ran gets get you can you can bookmark this.
• 1:11:00
  So like in 10 years if a nuke goes off somewhere, God forbid I
• 1:11:04
  can be wrong and be told I'm wrong and I'm actually on social
• 1:11:09
  media being wrong. But if a ring, if a ran gets a
• 1:11:12
  nuke, they will use it like North Korea has used their
• 1:11:17
  nukes. They will test them.
• 1:11:20
  They will announce to the world that they will have them, and
• 1:11:24
  then they will maybe threaten to use them, but then they'll make
• 1:11:28
  a deal with the West and the West will subsidized them in the
• 1:11:32
  same way that the West subsidizes North Korea.
• 1:11:35
  And it'll just be used as like you, almost like a blackmail
• 1:11:39
  thing. But they're not.
• 1:11:40
  They're not going to jeopardize that by then smuggling A nuke
• 1:11:43
  into Israel or the West. Or at least leadership won't.
• 1:11:49
  Yeah, yeah, they're, yeah. They're not they're, they're not
• 1:11:51
  actually going to call to carry out the the Call of Duty.
• 1:11:56
  You know, yeah. The yeah, So yeah, I mean, like,
• 1:12:04
  you know, and again, like that it's interesting that they bring
• 1:12:07
  up like North Korea too, because like I remember during the Bush
• 1:12:11
  administration, like that was the that.
• 1:12:14
  Was their thing. That was their thing was like,
• 1:12:17
  Oh my God, North Korean is more North Korea is going to launch a
• 1:12:21
  nuke at like, you know, at like Texas or you know, so.
• 1:12:26
  Like despite the fact that their missiles can barely hit Japan.
• 1:12:31
  Right, right. Yeah, Well, I mean, like, yeah,
• 1:12:34
  they don't even have like, you know, they don't even have like
• 1:12:38
  a functioning, you know, they barely have a functioning
• 1:12:44
  infrastructure for their, for their, for their elite, you
• 1:12:48
  know, like, like, you know, they, they have, they have
• 1:12:53
  brownouts, you know, and blackouts of power across the
• 1:12:57
  entire country. And the majority and the
• 1:13:00
  majority of their country lives in poverty and is starving.
• 1:13:02
  I mean, like people join the North Korean military to
• 1:13:05
  actually get food so they're not starving.
• 1:13:07
  Like, you don't join the military to avoid starving
• 1:13:10
  unless it's a really bad place to live.
• 1:13:12
  So, but I, I think that, I mean, if, if we're talking like Asia,
• 1:13:19
  sticking with the theme of North Korea, then the big thing in
• 1:13:22
  Asia is China. Yeah.
• 1:13:26
  And I mean, I think it's, I think it's a, a bipartisan issue
• 1:13:30
  here in the US that China is a threat to our country.
• 1:13:37
  But I, I, you know it, I don't think China would ever actually
• 1:13:41
  start a war either with us or actually even with.
• 1:13:45
  Well, China is also it's it's a let you break up China because
• 1:13:50
  the thing that no one thing no one is talking with China or I
• 1:13:54
  shouldn't say nobody, but that I think needs to be brought more
• 1:13:59
  attention. You know, people want to talk
• 1:14:01
  about the you know, all the quote, UN quote trad life.
• 1:14:05
  People here want to talk about, Oh, the US is declining birth
• 1:14:10
  where birth rates and you know, how much of A concern that is
• 1:14:15
  China's declining birth rate is even more of a problem then then
• 1:14:19
  here even and that's partially because of their one.
• 1:14:23
  That's because they're one, you know, child policy as Roy bit
• 1:14:28
  them in, you know, and also because they're so they're so
• 1:14:35
  favorable towards, you know, males in China that there aren't
• 1:14:40
  enough, you know, there are problems with them having enough
• 1:14:43
  females to, you know, continue, you know, to populate too.
• 1:14:49
  So that's a problem. Well, the other thing is too
• 1:14:54
  like that they're middle class because they they have a middle
• 1:14:57
  class now they're middle class doesn't want to have kids.
• 1:15:00
  So they're the population in China that actually has the
• 1:15:03
  ability to raise kids, doesn't want to have kids.
• 1:15:07
  And that's, that's also kind of a cultural thing.
• 1:15:09
  That's like actually an Asian cultural thing.
• 1:15:12
  So they are, they're facing a demographic crisis that's kind
• 1:15:18
  of covered up now because they have a generation that's that's
• 1:15:21
  filtering through that is fairly large and it's economically
• 1:15:25
  successful. But I mean, the, the tariffs,
• 1:15:29
  the tariffs on China are devastating for their economy
• 1:15:33
  because so much of their stuff is, is shipped, shipped to the
• 1:15:36
  US. Now, I'm not saying that that we
• 1:15:39
  just talked like the tariffs are going to have impacts here at
• 1:15:42
  home, but they're also, they're also going to have impacts for
• 1:15:46
  China. And like it's not sustainable
• 1:15:48
  for China to be like we're going to have a trade war and 145%
• 1:15:52
  tariffs on all the crap that we ship over to you.
• 1:15:54
  So it's it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt them as well.
• 1:15:58
  But under, under Trump the first term and Biden and now back to
• 1:16:04
  Trump, like there's no love lost for China.
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, well, one you, you've mentioned too, you know, with,
• 1:16:11
  with, with JD Vance potentially, you know, being Trump's
• 1:16:16
  successor, which like for the record, I, I would be in favor
• 1:16:22
  of that completely. Like Vance, of all of the vice
• 1:16:26
  presidents in my lifetime, going from Gore to, you know, going,
• 1:16:32
  going from Gore in the 90s to JD Vance now.
• 1:16:36
  JD Vance, I would have to say, of all of the VPS in my
• 1:16:40
  lifetime, has been the only one I can think of who has actually
• 1:16:45
  been like on the front lines alongside the president and in
• 1:16:52
  some cases like even more active in some.
• 1:16:55
  Yeah. Some ways so so I think I think
• 1:17:00
  for I think for Vance, that's good.
• 1:17:02
  The other thing is with Vance being a a tech guy and this is
• 1:17:08
  something that he's spoken at, you know, in depth for years.
• 1:17:13
  The one thing that he has said is look like China's ripping off
• 1:17:18
  our into what, you know, our, you know, our intellectual
• 1:17:22
  property with, you know, a bunch of tech that you know, they're
• 1:17:25
  ripping, they're ripping off our pens and then, you know, selling
• 1:17:29
  them cheaper. You know, you're going to be
• 1:17:31
  seeing that. You're going to be seeing a lot
• 1:17:33
  less that if JD, you know, comes into office, so.
• 1:17:39
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would love it if JD,
• 1:17:43
  you know, became president, even if, even if JD was not as, as
• 1:17:47
  harsh on China, I, I think JD would have a more coherent
• 1:17:53
  ideology and and policy set then then Trump does.
• 1:17:57
  So I mean, I think, but I do think that JD would continue
• 1:18:02
  the, the, the I won't call it anti China, but I would say he'd
• 1:18:08
  continue the more skeptical of China, support our allies over
• 1:18:12
  there. Because like I said, I think, I
• 1:18:16
  think being skeptical of China is a bipartisan issue here in
• 1:18:21
  the USI think it kind of got into shape by the TikTok thing.
• 1:18:26
  But you know, I'm, I mean, that's a national security
• 1:18:31
  issue. And so I, I, I don't think it
• 1:18:35
  really plays that much in kind of the, the overall there is a
• 1:18:39
  skepticism of China here. And well, I, I think overall
• 1:18:45
  America's sceptical of China in the same way we're sceptical of
• 1:18:50
  Russia, right? Because I mean, you have, and
• 1:18:55
  this is the other, this is the other thing too, is the one
• 1:18:59
  thing I do find hilarious is you have a lot of, you have a lot of
• 1:19:03
  mega, you know, grifters who are like, Oh my God, China.
• 1:19:07
  You know, China is bad and China is evil, but Putin and Putin is
• 1:19:13
  based and it's like, no, no, no. It's like, it's like, it's like,
• 1:19:21
  it's like no Putin and Putin and, you know, Xi Jinping, like,
• 1:19:28
  like they both said openly like they will ally.
• 1:19:32
  They will ally with each other. Stop, you know, to stop the
• 1:19:36
  Americans if it comes, if it comes down to.
• 1:19:40
  So, yeah, like those are both leaders that we need to be weary
• 1:19:44
  of. But like we also should we
• 1:19:47
  extend an olive branch to them at the table?
• 1:19:49
  Absolutely. If they ever wanted to.
• 1:19:52
  Yeah, you know, have have a first talk.
• 1:19:55
  I mean, I think, I think there's more.
• 1:19:57
  I mean, I think there's more room to do it with China because
• 1:20:00
  China has things that Russia doesn't have, like an actual
• 1:20:05
  significant middle class. We have more trade, much, much
• 1:20:09
  more trade relations with China than we do with Russia.
• 1:20:15
  I mean, Russia is basically a failing petrochemical state.
• 1:20:18
  It's been that for 20 years that that has that hasn't changed.
• 1:20:21
  China actually is a fairly diverse economy.
• 1:20:25
  But by the same token, I don't think that we should create
• 1:20:31
  incentives for companies to go over there and open up factories
• 1:20:37
  as opposed to having their factories here here in this
• 1:20:42
  country especially. Is this, this is kind of the
• 1:20:45
  thing like with Trump and China. And he's he's absolutely right
• 1:20:48
  about it. Why is China allowed to
• 1:20:53
  basically commits A copyright piracy from West developers and
• 1:21:01
  Western companies that go over there.
• 1:21:04
  The government can just seize their stuff when they want.
• 1:21:07
  Why is China allowed to subsidize their domestic auto
• 1:21:11
  industry and we and they're allowed to come over here and
• 1:21:14
  sell their crap or just sell that same product that they
• 1:21:18
  pirated from an American company sell that stuff over here.
• 1:21:21
  Why is that OK? That shouldn't be OK.
• 1:21:25
  And it's, it's perfectly valid to me for Trump or whoever to go
• 1:21:31
  to China and say this shit is, has got to stop.
• 1:21:34
  Like we're not going to let you sell your crap here and we're
• 1:21:38
  not going to let our companies go over there if you're going to
• 1:21:41
  violate all these international rules and laws.
• 1:21:45
  So I think the skepticism, I mean, I think the skepticism is
• 1:21:49
  warranted to be honest. Yeah, well, that well, that and
• 1:21:52
  that's exact, that's exact what I was mentioning earlier with
• 1:21:55
  like JD Vans being at being like an actual tech guy and again,
• 1:21:59
  knowing no and also an attorney too, and knowing the insurance
• 1:22:03
  and outs of all these, you know, different copyright, copyright
• 1:22:07
  laws and basically being able to like say specifically, Oh no,
• 1:22:11
  China's not going to be able to, you know, to do to do this.
• 1:22:17
  I mean, the other thing too is, you know, this, this is another
• 1:22:23
  thing in regards to immigration and H1B visas.
• 1:22:27
  Like that's another thing why I think like, you know, people
• 1:22:31
  thought Trump was crazy for this.
• 1:22:33
  But like, you know, Trump proposed that lot.
• 1:22:37
  Trump proposed that policy where it was like, you know, a company
• 1:22:42
  needs to pay like, I think it was like $5,000,000 to get like
• 1:22:47
  A, to get like a, you know, a gold.
• 1:22:51
  I think it's. Like the the the coin.
• 1:22:55
  Well, or like, or yeah, or like a gold card visa pretty much
• 1:22:58
  that would allow for like that would allow for like student
• 1:23:02
  because like that was that would allow for students or basically
• 1:23:05
  like, you know, foreign employees to go over.
• 1:23:08
  Because like that was another thing too that he mentioned too,
• 1:23:11
  was like, you know, we have all these, we have all these
• 1:23:15
  students who, you know, they come here to our, you know, our
• 1:23:20
  universities and they get like, you know, they get American
• 1:23:24
  education. And then where do they go?
• 1:23:27
  They go back to their, they go back to their own countries,
• 1:23:30
  mostly in China. And they bring these, you know,
• 1:23:34
  these skills, you know, they've learned in America to their, you
• 1:23:39
  know, countries. And it's like, well, OK, maybe
• 1:23:42
  we need to, you know, work for these American companies or
• 1:23:47
  discourage, you know, these countries, countries from just
• 1:23:52
  sending, you know, all these, all these potential foreign
• 1:23:59
  assets into our country. Yeah.
• 1:24:04
  I mean that's kind of the that's kind of the merit based.
• 1:24:07
  I mean, that's kind of like the merit based immigration system,
• 1:24:11
  which I mean, I'm a, I'm a fan of, I don't have a problem with
• 1:24:14
  a merit based immigration system.
• 1:24:17
  And I, I know that like the, the Trump administration, they're
• 1:24:22
  going to, although this will probably be determined just
• 1:24:24
  whether there is an injunction on it or not, or whether like a
• 1:24:28
  permanent injunction lasts while it goes through the courts.
• 1:24:31
  I think it's either this month or next month that the Supreme
• 1:24:34
  Court had agreed to hear the the case on birthright citizenship.
• 1:24:44
  So, you know, I think I that's. Part.
• 1:24:46
  That's part of the that's part of the immigration.
• 1:24:49
  Issue. I mean, generally, I think the
• 1:24:52
  Supreme Court's just going to be like it's going to punt on it
• 1:24:55
  and they're going to say like you can have your injunction.
• 1:24:58
  We just, we're agreeing on technical grounds that it just
• 1:25:01
  needs to work its way through the court system before it gets
• 1:25:04
  to us. We've seen them do that a lot.
• 1:25:06
  So I think they'll do it again, but you know, it's going to
• 1:25:11
  start that, that there's going to now start being litigation
• 1:25:14
  around like birthright citizenship and revamping our
• 1:25:18
  our immigration system. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:22
  Which I you know, I think. Like, yeah, when it comes to
• 1:25:25
  like, you know, revamping immigration, like people like to
• 1:25:29
  focus on, you know, the border and whatnot because that, you
• 1:25:33
  know, that's like the that's like the hot button topic.
• 1:25:37
  But as we've mentioned, like there's a lot, you know,
• 1:25:40
  immigration is a lot broader than than just, you know, then
• 1:25:47
  South of the border and what not.
• 1:25:49
  Oh, for for sure. I mean, I, I, you know, yeah.
• 1:25:53
  Immigration touches, you know, legal immigration is part of
• 1:25:57
  part of that discussion too. And it it's kind of funny, I've
• 1:26:03
  seen on social media like liberals be like, oh, well,
• 1:26:07
  actually illegal immigrants in this country are cash cow
• 1:26:10
  because they pay into Social Security and Medicare and they
• 1:26:15
  pay income taxes. And it's like, yeah, except
• 1:26:18
  their money goes out of country and they also get free
• 1:26:22
  healthcare. So they basically bankrupt all
• 1:26:25
  the local municipalities that they're that they're using more.
• 1:26:29
  There are programs for like it's not free for a town in Texas to
• 1:26:32
  provide public education to illegal immigrant kids.
• 1:26:35
  Like it's not free when you walk into an emergency room.
• 1:26:38
  So really, is it? Is it, are they really a net
• 1:26:41
  benefit? Like, and even if they are a net
• 1:26:44
  benefit, let's be fair, let's let's use the hypothetical.
• 1:26:48
  Even if they are a net benefit, does the net benefit outweigh
• 1:26:53
  the fact that a country can't actually have its own borders
• 1:26:56
  like that a country can't actually have its own national
• 1:26:58
  sovereignty? I know my favorite.
• 1:27:05
  My favorite argument from. The left is it.
• 1:27:08
  I mean it. It's so reductive, it's almost
• 1:27:12
  comedic, but it's a well, who will pick our crops?
• 1:27:17
  If if, if you know, if if they're illegal, they're you
• 1:27:22
  know who will do our you know, nobody wants to do construction
• 1:27:27
  or or and it's like, OK, so you guys, you.
• 1:27:32
  Guys think that like Trump is a racist.
• 1:27:34
  Slave, you know, yeah, it's like yeah, but it's like you guys are
• 1:27:39
  doing it a meme again, you know, it's it's kind of it's it's like
• 1:27:44
  it's like the the memes. Around like, oh, Trump wants to
• 1:27:47
  bring all these factory jobs back.
• 1:27:49
  I guess Americans now want to work in factories.
• 1:27:52
  If the expectation economically and socially is reset that
• 1:27:59
  picking crops is not a like is is not like a look down upon
• 1:28:04
  job, Americans will do it. By the same token, if it's not
• 1:28:10
  looked down upon that you work in a factory doing something,
• 1:28:13
  Americans will do it. It's just the the the the social
• 1:28:18
  and economic zeitgeist has become that like these jobs are
• 1:28:23
  below Americans and they're for Americans won't do it.
• 1:28:27
  And if you reset the expectations that this job
• 1:28:30
  actually has value and we're not going to look down on you for
• 1:28:34
  doing it, like Americans will fill those, right.
• 1:28:37
  Yeah. Americans actually have to
• 1:28:38
  analyze their own bias and be like.
• 1:28:41
  Oh, actually, maybe I'm. Actually perpetrating the system
• 1:28:43
  that I'm I'm I'm, I'm, you know, complaining about.
• 1:28:47
  Well, and that's one thing that like what as I mentioned, friend
• 1:28:51
  of the. Show Craig, you know, man's feel
• 1:28:55
  like he's mentioned this too. So just a bit of background and
• 1:28:59
  Craig Craig's a Craig's a an engineer and he's actually a
• 1:29:05
  doctor. He's so he's very well
• 1:29:07
  accomplished, but on on the podcast that he and his friends
• 1:29:12
  do like he has said that if there was, if there was an
• 1:29:18
  economic, you know, if there was like an, if there was like an
• 1:29:24
  economic incentive for him to work in a factory or something,
• 1:29:31
  that would, that would be competitive with him being a
• 1:29:35
  chemical engineer. He would absolutely go and do
• 1:29:41
  and like work in a factory if it were if we're competitive.
• 1:29:46
  The problem is, is that like a lot of these, you know, factory
• 1:29:52
  positions, even at like an upper mandate level are not that
• 1:29:58
  appealing economically for Americans and they're not worth,
• 1:30:03
  you know, the risk. So, you know, it's not, I mean,
• 1:30:07
  I think, oh, go ahead, sorry. It's not in that Americans.
• 1:30:13
  Aren't what aren't willing to do tough jobs, it's that.
• 1:30:16
  You know, a lot of these jobs are not economically worth it
• 1:30:20
  for Americans to pursue. At this point I just.
• 1:30:25
  For some people, yes. I mean, it's not easy to become
• 1:30:29
  a chemical engineer. So it's not no, no.
• 1:30:33
  I mean, you know, being there aren't many well there.
• 1:30:36
  Aren't a ton of. Chemical engineers, but you
• 1:30:39
  know, for for for somebody who hasn't gone to college, you
• 1:30:45
  know, lives in small town America doesn't have like it
• 1:30:52
  doesn't have the dream of going to college or just can't can't
• 1:30:56
  go to college like a factory job is is is perfectly fine.
• 1:31:00
  Now, will you make as much as a doctor, a nurse, a chemical
• 1:31:05
  engineer? No, but that that doesn't mean
• 1:31:08
  that like a factory job at, you know, sixty 7080 thousand a year
• 1:31:13
  with benefits should should be looked down upon.
• 1:31:16
  And so that I think they're I think not at all.
• 1:31:19
  I think there would be people who would fill those jobs.
• 1:31:23
  Is it going? With it, would it be a major
• 1:31:27
  employer? Probably not.
• 1:31:29
  I mean, you know, depending on the factory, but I mean, there,
• 1:31:33
  you know, we have factories across this country that do
• 1:31:36
  things like like the food companies, like they're Tyson
• 1:31:41
  chicken runs through a factory and, and stuff like that.
• 1:31:44
  So I think, I think it could be a source of, of, of employments
• 1:31:50
  and, and that those jobs that immigrants leave that they might
• 1:31:55
  have filled can be filled by, you know, the average Joe and
• 1:31:59
  will it make you a six figure income?
• 1:32:03
  Maybe, maybe not, but you know, it is a it's a steady income.
• 1:32:08
  I mean, you know, 607080 K ain't shabby for somebody who doesn't
• 1:32:13
  have a college degree. No, no, that that's that's
• 1:32:16
  nothing to sneeze. That's nothing to.
• 1:32:19
  Sneeze at at all. And in fact, like the other
• 1:32:22
  thing too is like, you know, you're mentioning not having a,
• 1:32:26
  a college degree, but like, I know so many, I know so many
• 1:32:30
  people even just from my high school who they never went to
• 1:32:34
  call, they never went to college per SE, but they went to trade
• 1:32:37
  school and, and some of them are making like, you know, 150 to
• 1:32:43
  200 grand a year. And then they've been, they've
• 1:32:47
  invested a lot of their money into like, you know, either
• 1:32:52
  stocks or, you know, so some of them they have 6 figures, maybe
• 1:32:57
  not as far as seller goes. They have, you know, a decent
• 1:33:02
  selling and then they have 6 figures based on what they own.
• 1:33:05
  And as far as like assets and and yeah, yeah, I mean trades,
• 1:33:10
  trades are, I mean trades are a great, great.
• 1:33:12
  Source of trades are a great job if you if you can do it and
• 1:33:16
  you're so inclined and you want to, I mean, and it doesn't
• 1:33:20
  require a college degree. So, you know, I think, I think a
• 1:33:24
  lot of this stuff around, you know, what happens if all the
• 1:33:30
  illegals leave, Who's going to pick the crops?
• 1:33:32
  Like who's going to fill all our factories is a very, it's a very
• 1:33:36
  elitist mentality because they are the people who could never
• 1:33:40
  see themselves doing it. Like the yeah, I generally don't
• 1:33:45
  see this among my conservative friends who are like, oh, you
• 1:33:49
  can't, it's terrible to pick crops like how you're, you're so
• 1:33:53
  you're so useless. And, and, and like, it's, it's
• 1:33:56
  beneath us. Like, I generally see that from,
• 1:34:00
  you know, the, the very liberals who preach about equality and,
• 1:34:05
  and, and fairness. And like, so again, it's just
• 1:34:09
  kind of that it's just that hypocrisy.
• 1:34:12
  Yeah. The the other thing too is like
• 1:34:14
  with, you know, with automation. And with artificial
• 1:34:17
  intelligence, I mean, you're starting to see robots that can
• 1:34:22
  do a lot of this stuff too. So it's almost like that
• 1:34:26
  argument. I wouldn't say it's null and
• 1:34:29
  void at this point, but it could be within our life, within our
• 1:34:34
  lifetime. And I, and I mean that that's,
• 1:34:37
  that's the other thing is I'm not one of these, I'm not one of
• 1:34:43
  these people who thinks that like AI is going to be like some
• 1:34:48
  miraculous thing that is going to like, you know, be the, you
• 1:34:53
  know, the hope for all mankind. But at the same time, I'm not
• 1:34:57
  like, I'm not an AI scaremonger either way.
• 1:35:00
  I think it's going to take everyone's jobs.
• 1:35:03
  I think it's going to be like the Internet in the sense that
• 1:35:07
  are they going to, are they going to be economic
• 1:35:10
  opportunities that didn't exist, you know, before because of AI?
• 1:35:16
  Absolutely. But do I think there will also
• 1:35:18
  be, you know, places for manual labor and for humans to be in
• 1:35:24
  the workforce as well? Absolutely.
• 1:35:30
  You know, like, like I mentioned to you in chat, like before the
• 1:35:36
  show, like, you know, in my field with, like social media,
• 1:35:41
  like a lot of a lot of these, you know, social media companies
• 1:35:45
  are getting rid of, like their, you know, full time departments
• 1:35:50
  and now there are lots of freelancers.
• 1:35:52
  Is that necessarily a bad thing? No, It just means that I and
• 1:35:56
  others have had to adapt to that as most of the way things were
• 1:36:01
  20 years ago. Yeah.
• 1:36:04
  Yeah, Yeah. I mean technology changes.
• 1:36:07
  The, the, the, the economy changes, but I don't, I don't
• 1:36:13
  necessarily see anything, anything wrong with, with, you
• 1:36:18
  know, the concept of, of bringing, bringing manufacturing
• 1:36:22
  back to the US and, and having this conversation over
• 1:36:26
  immigration. I mean, it was a big, it was a
• 1:36:29
  big theme of Trump's campaign. And so I think he actually, I
• 1:36:35
  mean, I think he actually has fulfilled that, that those
• 1:36:38
  promises that he's made and he's actually still trying to fulfill
• 1:36:42
  them. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:36:45
  So. Kind of fingers, but So what
• 1:36:49
  would Trump need to do in the future to I guess gain a higher
• 1:36:56
  rating? So you've, you've given Trump,
• 1:37:00
  you know, AB minus C plus. What is what does Trump need to
• 1:37:05
  do to, you know, to get an A or even like ABAB minus or AB plus?
• 1:37:14
  I mean I, I would probably say. I mean I would probably say.
• 1:37:19
  We'll, we'll be fair. We'll give him, I'll give him AB
• 1:37:22
  minus as we're discussing it. So I'll give him AB minus.
• 1:37:25
  So higher than AC plus I think for him to move up in my mind is
• 1:37:31
  that there has to be some sort of end game with tariffs and it
• 1:37:35
  has to start, it has to start being seen or at least
• 1:37:38
  discussed. And so, I mean, for me, it's
• 1:37:43
  kind of it's kind of the economics like it, it starts at
• 1:37:47
  it starts at economics and ends at economics because I mean, on
• 1:37:51
  the other stuff, he's fulfilling his on the other stuff, he's
• 1:37:54
  fulfilling his promises. I don't think he, I don't think
• 1:37:58
  he'd walk back on Ukraine or Russia.
• 1:38:00
  So I fully expect him to continue to, to fulfill what
• 1:38:04
  he's what he's been doing there. So really for me, it's kind of
• 1:38:09
  just the economy and, and tariffs and seeing if there's,
• 1:38:13
  there is an end game for, for the, the administration's plan.
• 1:38:22
  Yeah, fair, fair enough. I I.
• 1:38:24
  Think that's yeah, I, I think for me too, that that's going to
• 1:38:30
  be, you know, a major thing. I for one, would certainly like
• 1:38:36
  to see a price decrease, you know, in certain areas, like
• 1:38:44
  for, you know, food and just general cost of cost of living,
• 1:38:49
  just just because if you, if you remember, I mean, Trump did get,
• 1:38:58
  you know, prices down pretty pretty significantly during his
• 1:39:03
  first term. And had and had COVID not
• 1:39:07
  happened, you know, we would continue to see that, you know,
• 1:39:13
  economic boom. And I honestly, I, I think had
• 1:39:18
  it not been for COVID, we would have seen, you know, Trump
• 1:39:25
  having a, you know, a second consecutive term.
• 1:39:31
  Yeah, I think so too. I mean, you know you, you, never
• 1:39:35
  you. Never know.
• 1:39:36
  So it's you. Know, it's really tough to say
• 1:39:38
  with certainty, but, you know, based on almost 20 years of
• 1:39:45
  doing, you know, commentary, I definitely think it's, I
• 1:39:50
  definitely think, you know, from my perspective, you know, I
• 1:39:54
  think a second term would have been, you know, better or would
• 1:40:03
  have been more likely back then. So yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:07
  Well, I mean, I don't think we would have seen 9.
• 1:40:09
  Percent inflation if Trump, if Trump had a had a second term.
• 1:40:14
  No, no. But yeah, I mean, and I know
• 1:40:18
  that. Trump is that that Congress.
• 1:40:20
  Is debating extending the tax cuts or making them permanent.
• 1:40:25
  So I, I mean, I, if, if it were my, if it were my dream, like I
• 1:40:31
  would actually have Trump address the deficit and there,
• 1:40:34
  there are ways to do it, but they all touch entitlements like
• 1:40:38
  we discussed earlier and I don't think that's politically
• 1:40:41
  feasible. So that's kind of my dream if it
• 1:40:43
  came up with a plan for for the debt and deficit.
• 1:40:48
  I mean, because I think like the the tax cuts are just going to
• 1:40:51
  supercharge the deficit now, whether it balances out with
• 1:40:55
  economic growth or not. You know that there's a
• 1:40:58
  conversation to be had on that. But well, well, you know, now
• 1:41:05
  that you think. About it though, when you say
• 1:41:07
  that Trump, you know there is a way that Trump could touch
• 1:41:11
  entitlements and not and not like, you know alienate the the
• 1:41:20
  base and that is doge has found like a lot of fraud you know in
• 1:41:29
  regards to Social Security in particular people getting
• 1:41:34
  payments who well are dead. So, you know, like so so I mean
• 1:41:44
  like. I don't think a.
• 1:41:47
  Lot of people realize that just like just that reforming Social
• 1:41:50
  Security in and of itself could be a major, you know, start to,
• 1:41:59
  you know, fixing things because there is a lot of there is a lot
• 1:42:04
  of fraud and abuse that like, yeah, I mean, Doge might have
• 1:42:11
  exposed some of it. But as far as I know, until
• 1:42:14
  Congress actually does something, something with the
• 1:42:17
  recommendations of Doge, it's not going to actually, you know,
• 1:42:22
  fix anything. So I would so I would be curious
• 1:42:26
  to know like how much of those recommendations to fix Social
• 1:42:31
  Security actually affect things? I think, I think if those
• 1:42:36
  changes do go into effect, I think, I think you and I even
• 1:42:41
  might be surprised at how much better things get addressed with
• 1:42:47
  entitlements. So I mean, I mean I think, I
• 1:42:50
  mean I think like eliminating. Waste, fraud and abuse is is
• 1:42:55
  fine. I mean, we all know it's there.
• 1:42:58
  It's not the majority of, of entitlement spending.
• 1:43:02
  And so that's, that's the problem.
• 1:43:05
  Like entitlements are a promise. There are legal obligations.
• 1:43:09
  So how do you, how do you break that?
• 1:43:11
  I mean, there, there, there are ways to, to strengthen the
• 1:43:16
  entitlement system. Whether you consider it a tax
• 1:43:20
  increase or not is, is kind of up to you.
• 1:43:23
  Like, you know, you could, you could do small stuff for Social
• 1:43:27
  Security like you could, you could in the cap on the, on your
• 1:43:33
  income, that's, that's Social Security that's eligible for
• 1:43:37
  Social Security tax. Like I think it's capped at 102
• 1:43:41
  or 100 or five or something. Like it's, it's subject to
• 1:43:44
  inflation. But so if you make more than if
• 1:43:47
  you make like $150,000 in income, you don't pay Social
• 1:43:51
  Security tax and all that. If you did that would strengthen
• 1:43:54
  Social Security. You could pare down Medicare
• 1:43:59
  benefits that you get, But really the really the only way
• 1:44:05
  sustainably that entitlements are going to be sustainable long
• 1:44:10
  term for the debt and deficit, because you can't, you can't in
• 1:44:14
  one year eliminate a $36 trillion national debt is you're
• 1:44:19
  going to have to pare down benefits.
• 1:44:21
  And long term, you're going to have to stick to a sustained
• 1:44:26
  budget that doesn't, you know, run multi trillion dollar
• 1:44:30
  deficits. And unfortunately, or maybe not,
• 1:44:34
  unfortunately, maybe fortunately, we have presidents
• 1:44:37
  only every four or eight years. So you know, the agenda changes.
• 1:44:42
  So it's kind of, it's kind of like we, we operate on this
• 1:44:45
  mindset of we're going to outrun our deficit, like we're going to
• 1:44:50
  grow our GDP so much that like it, it out weighs the, the, the
• 1:44:55
  deficit or how much our deficit is.
• 1:44:58
  So even if we did something like that where, you know, we only
• 1:45:02
  ran a couple $100 billion deficits every year and our GDP
• 1:45:07
  grew every year, that would actually be economically
• 1:45:11
  sustainable. Yeah, and I I would.
• 1:45:17
  And I would also say the same, you know, like you're saying you
• 1:45:20
  want to cut entitlements, which by the way, I, you know, I, I, I
• 1:45:25
  agree with you to a certain extent that, yeah, we definitely
• 1:45:27
  need to look at areas to, you know, to cut entitlements, not
• 1:45:32
  get, not getting rid of them completely, because I don't
• 1:45:34
  think we can, I don't think that's ever going to happen.
• 1:45:38
  But the, you know, the other thing too is like, you know,
• 1:45:42
  national security and the defense budget, that's for sure.
• 1:45:47
  That's massively. Bloated.
• 1:45:51
  And you know, as we've, as we've discovered from DOGE and you
• 1:45:57
  know the USAID thing like that, like there are like there are,
• 1:46:04
  there are products labeled under national security that have
• 1:46:07
  nothing to do with national security whatsoever, namely like
• 1:46:12
  maintaining 2 wells in like Iraq that don't even like don't do
• 1:46:18
  anything that, that don't even function.
• 1:46:20
  And we're pouring like. You know 2.
• 1:46:23
  Billion 2 billion a year now, now like if you can just buy
• 1:46:30
  like you know why we're doing that and it's it's it's
• 1:46:34
  reasonable well been OK, I might be willing to you know, say OK,
• 1:46:38
  that's OK. But if a lot of this stuff,
• 1:46:41
  whether it be entitled into or national or national security,
• 1:46:49
  the government can't just buy to the taxpayer.
• 1:46:53
  And if you can, and if you can't do that, well, then it deserves
• 1:46:59
  a cut. I I think yeah.
• 1:47:03
  Oh, for sure. I'm not opposed to cutting the
• 1:47:05
  defense budget. Don't.
• 1:47:07
  Don't get me wrong. I mean, I think that thing is
• 1:47:09
  bloated up the hill and it's the biggest.
• 1:47:11
  It's the biggest discretionary spending item that our country
• 1:47:17
  has by far. So you know that that would be
• 1:47:21
  part of the creating sustainable budgets and spending that would
• 1:47:26
  allow us to start to pare down, to start to pare down our
• 1:47:29
  deficit. So I, I would love to, I would
• 1:47:33
  love to see that because. 900 trillion.
• 1:47:36
  Dollar budgets for the Defense Department and they fail and
• 1:47:39
  audit every year. I mean, to be honest, listening
• 1:47:43
  to the defense Hawks in the GOP be like or like Mitch McConnell
• 1:47:48
  be like, oh, we, we need more money for the military.
• 1:47:51
  Like, you know, China's up and coming.
• 1:47:53
  It's like, dude, we give them $900 billion.
• 1:47:57
  Like giving them more money, dude is literally not the
• 1:48:00
  problem. Like, how can you be like, and,
• 1:48:04
  and Mitch McConnell is like a he's he's like pro school
• 1:48:08
  choice. So it would be the equivalent of
• 1:48:11
  giving a public school more money thinking it's going to
• 1:48:15
  solve the problem that you're complaining about, despite the
• 1:48:18
  fact that we give them a ton of money.
• 1:48:20
  So like, it's the same concept. Yeah.
• 1:48:24
  And maybe they'll innovate, actually come up with cheaper
• 1:48:27
  solutions. Yeah.
• 1:48:29
  Well, again, that's that's the same thing going back to kind
• 1:48:32
  of, you know what? I was saying earlier with the
• 1:48:35
  oh, I Iran's are going to get going to get a bomb any day now.
• 1:48:39
  We we better, we better pour in five where we better pour in 500
• 1:48:45
  billion to the Pentagon. Well, well, well.
• 1:48:49
  How well, how well? How is that going to?
• 1:48:51
  Stop Iran from. Getting a nuke, right?
• 1:48:54
  Well, we can't, we can't say because that's classified, but
• 1:49:00
  trust us, it'll, it'll somehow stop Iran from.
• 1:49:03
  Yeah, yeah, you know, Well, so like, you know, this is, this is
• 1:49:07
  what I love about. The the defense spending or like
• 1:49:11
  the defense Hawks who claim that that they that they need more
• 1:49:15
  money is we've given them more money year over year over year
• 1:49:19
  over year, regardless of whether there's a Democrat or Republican
• 1:49:23
  in office. They build fewer ships, they
• 1:49:26
  build fewer planes and they have fewer soldiers than they used to
• 1:49:31
  have. So what, what are we spending
• 1:49:35
  this money on? Because I understand that, that
• 1:49:40
  new things like new technology maybe cost a little bit more
• 1:49:43
  money than than older technology.
• 1:49:46
  But it's not like you develop a new jet and, and you just make
• 1:49:52
  new jets or like you just get rid of all the ones that you
• 1:49:55
  have. Like you phase it in.
• 1:49:58
  Just like when you build an aircraft carrier as as like an
• 1:50:03
  example, because those things are like $12 billion or
• 1:50:06
  whatever. You don't replace an aircraft
• 1:50:08
  carrier for every aircraft carrier that you build.
• 1:50:12
  Like that's not, that's not how that works.
• 1:50:15
  So somehow the Defense Department is getting less
• 1:50:20
  efficient as we're giving them more and more money every single
• 1:50:25
  year. So maybe like it's like I said,
• 1:50:28
  or like we said, if we give them less money, maybe they'll
• 1:50:32
  actually get more efficient and actually do a better job.
• 1:50:38
  Well, and and I'm not like and I'm not like super.
• 1:50:41
  Familiar with the like the the exact model.
• 1:50:44
  So don't like, you know, so don't hold my feet to the fire
• 1:50:48
  too much folks. But like, I believe that, I
• 1:50:51
  believe that like for one of our, our fighter jets that, like
• 1:50:55
  the, that, like the Navy and the Air Force use like I, I don't
• 1:50:59
  know if it's the F16 or the F18, but one of those models has like
• 1:51:04
  been in production since like not even since the 80s, but
• 1:51:08
  since like since the Vietnam War and in like the 60s.
• 1:51:13
  And so like, I'm not, I'm not saying that like every single
• 1:51:17
  modeling needs to be brand new. But when you're spending
• 1:51:22
  billions and billions of dollars on the same like model that's
• 1:51:26
  like almost 60 years old, maybe it is time to like, say, OK,
• 1:51:32
  maybe we need to scrap that And like, you know, build and build
• 1:51:38
  like a new model for if we're going to be spending that much
• 1:51:41
  money on something like that, at least like keeping antiquated
• 1:51:46
  technology. Yeah.
• 1:51:48
  But yeah, because like. Because that's like what?
• 1:51:51
  That's like what? A lot of our because like for
• 1:51:54
  the military, that's where a lot of our budget is going, is like
• 1:51:58
  keeping all this antiquated technology like functioning.
• 1:52:03
  When would actually worth it to like, you know, to like get to
• 1:52:07
  like decommission the old stuff and, you know, bring in some of
• 1:52:11
  the newer, you know, stuff. So, yeah.
• 1:52:14
  And I mean, I think, I think that's fair.
• 1:52:19
  A lot of the, I mean military wise, a lot of the older, older
• 1:52:24
  architecture, you know, fighters, tanks, vehicles,
• 1:52:29
  they're very, they're very monotask, you know, like you
• 1:52:33
  have a fighter, it's a dedicated fighter platform.
• 1:52:36
  You have a bomber, you know, like the A10 Warthog, it's a,
• 1:52:39
  it's a dedicated bomber. Like it it, it does not fight
• 1:52:43
  jets, Let's just put it that way.
• 1:52:45
  Like, and the the Warthog still hasn't been replaced like so
• 1:52:50
  there's there's been a big focus within all branches of the
• 1:52:54
  military to the platforms that they develop, that they be more
• 1:52:59
  multitask. Like the the F35 is is a
• 1:53:05
  fighter, it's a bomber. It can be.
• 1:53:09
  It works for the Marines, it works for the Navy, it works for
• 1:53:12
  the Army, which means it has to be adaptable, has to be able to
• 1:53:16
  like land on an aircraft carrier.
• 1:53:19
  So like there are variants of these newer platforms that are,
• 1:53:24
  that are, these platforms are designed not to be as monotask
• 1:53:29
  as, as prior platforms, but the, the military's procurement
• 1:53:33
  process, the contracting process is just so, so bureaucratic.
• 1:53:40
  And then defense contractors, like they have an they have an
• 1:53:44
  incentive to actually to, to, not to not actually be be
• 1:53:54
  efficient in their process. Which which jacks up the price.
• 1:53:57
  So I mean, I would love it if that that process was was
• 1:54:04
  revamped and all those defense contractors in Northern Virginia
• 1:54:09
  didn't get billions and billions and billions of dollars.
• 1:54:13
  I would that that would make me happy, right?
• 1:54:17
  Well, actually you just brought up something that I was going
• 1:54:20
  to. Suggest to which is to actually
• 1:54:23
  like allow the contractors to like compete with each other for
• 1:54:29
  for like lowest, you know, bid like that would actually that
• 1:54:35
  would actually be, you know, interesting and could actually
• 1:54:40
  like, you know, potentially create like more innovation.
• 1:54:45
  Yeah, you know, rather rather than like, you know.
• 1:54:48
  Lockheed for. Example saying, oh, what, you
• 1:54:51
  know, we're going to we're going to keep, you know, producing the
• 1:54:56
  same amount of, you know, jets that we've produced for the last
• 1:55:00
  40 years. But, you know, but we're going
• 1:55:02
  to, we're going to Jack up the price, you know, exponentially
• 1:55:06
  each, you know, Yeah, yeah, we're, we're going to, we're
• 1:55:11
  going to milk the cow. For as much as as much as we
• 1:55:14
  can, Yeah. And I mean, and I mean, I know,
• 1:55:18
  I know. I'm paraphrasing a bit.
• 1:55:19
  I don't. Know the exact, you know,
• 1:55:21
  numbers, but like, you know, from what I understand, that
• 1:55:25
  kind of is how it goes. So, yeah, yeah, well, there
• 1:55:29
  there's no, I mean there's no benefit.
• 1:55:31
  For efficiency, so you know there if if you have a car and
• 1:55:37
  also if you have a cost overrun, usually it still gets paid.
• 1:55:41
  So there is no, there, there is like very little incentive to
• 1:55:47
  actually stay on budget to hit your targets because the
• 1:55:51
  military has already gone through their procurement
• 1:55:53
  process and you're the, you're the, the company that they've
• 1:55:56
  chosen and you're come and you're the company.
• 1:56:00
  And you know that. And you know, the military
• 1:56:02
  doesn't want to go through the entire process over again.
• 1:56:05
  So you can, just like I said, you can milk that cow for, for
• 1:56:09
  all it's worth. And that's, that's a big issue
• 1:56:12
  with our, with the military's procurement process.
• 1:56:15
  And it and it, I mean, it ends up costing a boatload of money.
• 1:56:23
  Yeah, I mean. I mean, you know, trillions of
• 1:56:28
  of dollars a year just on just on defense.
• 1:56:34
  And that that is that is one thing that I, I don't know how
• 1:56:40
  sound his math is on this, but I remember like early on in RF KS,
• 1:56:48
  like presidential campaign, one of the things that was
• 1:56:53
  intriguing was he said that there's so much blow in, you
• 1:57:02
  know, in the in the defense budget that if we cut the bloat
• 1:57:07
  from the National Defense budget, his claim was that we
• 1:57:13
  could fully fund like Social Security and Medicaid, Karen,
• 1:57:19
  and Medicaid fully. I don't know if that's like, if
• 1:57:23
  how true that is. And really like I'm surprised
• 1:57:30
  out of the out of all the things you said that like nobody fact
• 1:57:33
  checked him on that specifically, but like, but that
• 1:57:40
  is. An interesting that is an.
• 1:57:42
  Interesting claim for sure. I mean it would fund it.
• 1:57:47
  It would be a big chunk of those programs.
• 1:57:50
  Budgets either way so you know yeah quibble over quibble over
• 1:57:57
  the details, but I mean he's. Right.
• 1:57:59
  That if the military was actually efficient, we could we
• 1:58:03
  could do a lot more with a lot less.
• 1:58:06
  I I still think we would certainly have to let yeah.
• 1:58:10
  And I and my only argument would be, well, that might be true,
• 1:58:15
  but I don't, I don't think we could fully fund like social,
• 1:58:18
  social for sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:58:21
  Not fully funded, no. No, but like I said, it'd be a,
• 1:58:26
  you know, it'd be a nice chunk of change.
• 1:58:29
  Yeah. I think we, I think we would
• 1:58:30
  still have to, you know, make. Some cuts across the board.
• 1:58:37
  Yeah. And to be fair, maybe Pete
• 1:58:40
  Eggseth will. Actually, you know, it try and
• 1:58:44
  accomplish that, but the but you know, the Pentagon and the
• 1:58:48
  Defense Department are such bureaucratic nightmares that I
• 1:58:51
  don't even know if he could succeed at that.
• 1:58:55
  Yeah, well, it was. So again, that's where the whole
• 1:58:58
  thing with. Doge is like I I love the fact
• 1:59:01
  that Doge has found this stuff will will the government
• 1:59:05
  actually enact their findings? That's we have, that's we have
• 1:59:10
  to find out because if they, if they do, OK, great.
• 1:59:17
  We might actually get some, you know, Trump's Gabe's rating of
• 1:59:22
  Trump's, you know, job might, might actually go up and so,
• 1:59:26
  well, mine. But if the government doesn't
• 1:59:31
  actually do anything, well, then my approval rating might
• 1:59:34
  actually, might actually go down.
• 1:59:38
  Yeah, down a bit. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:59:41
  Well, we'll. Have to.
• 1:59:42
  We'll have to. We'll have to see.
• 1:59:44
  What? What?
• 1:59:45
  What comes of it? Yeah.
• 1:59:48
  But I mean, either way, it's, you know, it's been an
• 1:59:50
  interesting. 1st 100. Days and I think I think a lot
• 1:59:55
  of the stuff that the administration wants to do we're
• 1:59:58
  starting to see the beginnings of so you know it's 100 days
• 2:00:03
  it's not a lot of time and and you know in a four year
• 2:00:06
  administration so. And things take time.
• 2:00:10
  So yeah, I definitely think that we should kind of, you know, we.
• 2:00:15
  We came together, I know you and I did at the very beginning of
• 2:00:18
  the, you know, at the very beginning of the administration.
• 2:00:21
  And I will link to that episode in the show notes so that people
• 2:00:25
  can take a listen to that. But I also think it would be
• 2:00:30
  interesting to kind of do like an end of the year, you know,
• 2:00:33
  review too, to kind of see, OK, well, how did this first year
• 2:00:39
  go? So I always think it, I always
• 2:00:43
  think in general, just for any presidency in general, I always
• 2:00:48
  think the first 100 days rule is, is always interesting
• 2:00:52
  because yeah, you're right. It's not that much to go off of
• 2:00:58
  in in the grand scheme things. And yet we always tend to like
• 2:01:03
  measure that specific, specific marker.
• 2:01:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like setting.
• 2:01:15
  It's kind of like setting the. Expectations.
• 2:01:18
  I think. People, I think people look at
• 2:01:21
  the 1st 100. Days to like set their.
• 2:01:23
  Expectations, they see what the administration's goals are.
• 2:01:28
  And like I said, I think, I think we are starting to, we're
• 2:01:32
  starting to see that coming to focus for some things and we've
• 2:01:35
  seen it coming to focus for others.
• 2:01:38
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it'll be.
• 2:01:41
  Interesting to see, you know, where things go from there.
• 2:01:46
  So yeah, for sure. Well, I was.
• 2:01:51
  Hoping that Josh would. You know, probably, yeah.
• 2:01:56
  I was going to say like I wanted to hear Josh's grade, but he.
• 2:02:00
  Yeah, he must have forgotten us. I I did.
• 2:02:05
  I did. Text him in the in the group
• 2:02:07
  chat. Just like a minute ago to see if
• 2:02:09
  he if he was maybe, maybe, maybe went to bed or something.
• 2:02:13
  I know it's a little bit late on his end.
• 2:02:18
  Yeah. Although.
• 2:02:19
  Although he's. Always.
• 2:02:23
  He's close, he's close to Euro time zone, isn't he?
• 2:02:28
  No. Well, you're Eastern Time, he's
• 2:02:30
  Central time, so actually he's only.
• 2:02:32
  One hour behind you. Yeah.
• 2:02:36
  And then I am. I'm 3.
• 2:02:38
  Hours ahead of you and then I'm. Two hours ahead of Josh.
• 2:02:43
  Wait. So why is it?
• 2:02:45
  Why? Why?
• 2:02:46
  Why is the light out? Where Where is that your green
• 2:02:50
  screen or where your your office?
• 2:02:56
  It looks like. It looks like.
• 2:02:58
  It looks like it's daylight where where you're at.
• 2:03:01
  Yeah, it is. It's like 750 over on the West
• 2:03:04
  Coast. Oh, OK.
• 2:03:07
  Yeah, I. I'm Pacific Time.
• 2:03:12
  Oh, yeah. Oh.
• 2:03:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I'm.
• 2:03:17
  I'm like, here it is. It's almost like it's almost
• 2:03:19
  midnight here and or not quite, but it's like it's all it's
• 2:03:24
  almost close to like 11:00 PM here and like, and meanwhile,
• 2:03:29
  like I'm looking at Gabe's background and it's like it's
• 2:03:33
  almost I know it's it's all sunny and it is sunny, but.
• 2:03:37
  It's not as bright. As that window.
• 2:03:40
  Makes it appear it's starting to get, it's starting to, the sun's
• 2:03:43
  starting to go down. But yeah, so it's there's still,
• 2:03:48
  there's still a little bit of daylight out, but it's starting
• 2:03:51
  to fade. Fair, fair enough, Fair enough.
• 2:03:56
  And. Yeah, I mean, Idaho's great.
• 2:04:00
  We we actually have a few people from Idaho in chat, so that's
• 2:04:06
  was cool. But anyway, any final, any final
• 2:04:12
  thoughts, Gabe? No, not not really.
• 2:04:17
  I mean the the first a. 100 days have been interesting.
• 2:04:21
  So I mean it, it has set the stage for what will be an
• 2:04:26
  interesting year and in in interesting administration.
• 2:04:30
  So I'm optimistic on some things.
• 2:04:34
  Well, I should say I'm optimistic on a lot of things
• 2:04:37
  and I hope that the administration actually follows
• 2:04:39
  through on a lot of the things that they've started and that
• 2:04:43
  they that they said that they they want to focus on.
• 2:04:46
  So cautiously optimistic for the future.
• 2:04:51
  There. There we go.
• 2:04:53
  Yeah. And I would definitely say that.
• 2:04:55
  You know, in summary, that's kind of my viewpoint on things
• 2:04:58
  too. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm very
• 2:05:02
  optimistic for the, for the future as well.
• 2:05:06
  I I always, you know, I always like to say costly, optimistic.
• 2:05:12
  I wouldn't even say that. I would just say generally
• 2:05:14
  optimistic. So no, that's fair.
• 2:05:19
  Yeah. Where?
• 2:05:19
  Where can people find? You if they'd like to, you know,
• 2:05:24
  I don't know if you still blog all that much.
• 2:05:27
  You you mentioned that you have been doing some stuff, so I
• 2:05:32
  don't blog as I don't blog as much as I'd like to.
• 2:05:36
  Life has just gotten busier. But you know, you can find me.
• 2:05:40
  You can find me on Twitter. I forgot, I actually forgot what
• 2:05:45
  my my Twitter handle is. I have to look it up real quick.
• 2:05:48
  You got a, you got a new one if I'm not mistaken right?
• 2:05:53
  Yeah, I did. It's tied.
• 2:05:55
  It's tied to my my new. My new e-mail so they can they
• 2:06:00
  can find me on Twitter, Gabriel Ikebone, and then I will
• 2:06:07
  eventually focus more on my blog.
• 2:06:09
  I just haven't had time lately. Yeah, that that's cool.
• 2:06:13
  I yeah, I actually, I actually did.
• 2:06:15
  Link you in in the tweet. So nice.
• 2:06:20
  So I did, yes. So.
• 2:06:25
  Yeah, but you can. So, yeah, be sure to follow.
• 2:06:30
  So be yeah, be sure to follow. Gabe.
• 2:06:33
  I I did see that a few people followed the American Watchmen
• 2:06:38
  page on Facebook again, even though that's not really active
• 2:06:42
  these these days, but hey, we. We appreciate it and we.
• 2:06:48
  We might actually have to do something.
• 2:06:51
  Yeah, you know, again, with that in the future.
• 2:06:55
  But yeah. Well, anyway, Gabe, really
• 2:07:00
  appreciate you coming on. And folks, we really appreciate
• 2:07:03
  you tuning in. So I will be back on Wednesday
• 2:07:08
  with Max and Morpheus to do Part 2 of Trump's first 100 days.
• 2:07:15
  And then tomorrow I'll be doing something for the Rumble
• 2:07:20
  exclusive crowd. Not sure what that is yet, but
• 2:07:25
  stay tuned and thanks everyone who's tuned in and we'll talk to
• 2:07:32
  you down the road. Thanks, everyone.
• 2:07:37
  The right to offend is not. Some pesky.
• 2:07:40
  Little part of freedom of. Speech that we have to put up
• 2:07:42
  with. It is the heart and soul and
• 2:07:45
  lungs of freedom of speech. It is the coursing lifeblood of
• 2:07:49
  human progress. It is the instigator of liberty
• 2:07:53
  and modernity and science and understanding.
• 2:07:56
  What a laughing stock today's student leaders are that they
• 2:08:00
  can so casually dismiss the right to be offensive without
• 2:08:04
  realising that their lovely, enlightened lives are the gifts
• 2:08:09
  of individuals who gave offence. Offensiveness is not just
• 2:08:13
  something we have to begrudgingly accept.
• 2:08:16
  Offensiveness is the motor of human progress.
• 2:08:21
  Thank you for watching the Whitfield Report live on the
• 2:08:24
  right to. Offend Media Network.
• 2:08:26
  Make sure to check out Sam's books on Amazon, Audible, and
• 2:08:30
  Kindle. You can follow Sam on X at Sam W
• 2:08:35
  under Score NGC and the Right to Offend Media Network at RTO
• 2:08:41
  Media. Like, comment, subscribe and
• 2:08:45
  share with your friends. And until next time, God bless
• 2:08:50
  God save this great nation. God, freedom, legacy, in that
• 2:08:56
  order.