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The Rick Smith Show 9-24-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_05]: That's so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Here we go again.
0:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Donnie went to New York and gave some BS at the UN.
0:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Are ego maniac and chief?
0:33
[SPEAKER_05]: did what he did.
0:34
[SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't what he did.
0:36
[SPEAKER_05]: It is who he is that I don't know why anybody would be surprised.
0:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not.
0:40
[SPEAKER_05]: He stood before the United Nations yesterday.
0:42
[SPEAKER_05]: The place where world leaders come, you know, to discuss war and peace and security and hunger and climate nuclear issues and the future of humanity.
0:52
[SPEAKER_05]: You know little things and yeah, it was him.
0:56
[SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't himself.
0:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess he's comfortable in his own skin, but he lied, and again, and again, and again, not just little kind of political exaggerations where someone says, oh, you know, we created a lot of jobs when they meant, you know, we saw him a few, but we want credit for more.
1:15
[SPEAKER_05]: No, Trump does not merely exaggerate.
1:18
[SPEAKER_05]: He finds that little tiny bit of the kernel of truth straps it to a rocket ship and fires it through the atmosphere and then stands underneath waving the flag going, I do that!
1:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, take his claims about the US and Venezuela together having more than 60% of the world's oil reserves.
1:40
[SPEAKER_05]: 60% that would mean the US and Venezuela control about two thirds of all the oil reserves on the earth.
1:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It would mean that basically the rest of the planet's basically running on windshield whiper fluid and optimism.
1:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, the real numbers, 22% that's a big number, still enormous, legitimate number.
2:00
[SPEAKER_05]: One that you go ahead, your energy powers.
2:03
[SPEAKER_05]: You could say that, you could say probably, but, you know, that's not enough for Trump, it's got to be, it's got to be tremendous.
2:13
[SPEAKER_05]: 22% doesn't sound like a superhero movie.
2:17
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not going to get you the Kairan on Fox that's a Trump owns the Earth's gas tank.
2:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Not going to get that.
2:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So he turns what is a good fact or a good thing into some ridiculous fantasy and then there's everyone to clean it up.
2:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Now you look at the other claim that caught my attention.
2:40
[SPEAKER_05]: of all of the drug cartel boats, you know, coming out of Venezuela, I guess.
2:45
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess they've done that, 97%.
2:48
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm wondering which orifice he pulled that out of, because there is no credible evidence for that.
2:55
[SPEAKER_05]: What's so ever?
2:56
[SPEAKER_05]: There is nothing credible in that statement.
2:59
[SPEAKER_05]: None yet, you know, 97%.
3:03
[SPEAKER_05]: We've erased the problem.
3:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And you go really, yeah, I'm still still here in stories.
3:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And then my other one, the other one that got my attention is evidently Trump's ended eight wars to credit for stuffy, but the, the, the big one ended the war in Gaza.
3:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, let's be clear, did do some bit to broker a ceasefire, deserve credit for that.
3:31
[SPEAKER_05]: But didn't end the war, I'm sorry, that that's not peace.
3:37
[SPEAKER_05]: That's a ceasefire, because people are still dying.
3:40
[SPEAKER_05]: There are major pieces of that agreement that are unsolved.
3:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And the conflict is very, very much alive for the people who are trapped in it.
3:51
[SPEAKER_05]: But again, it doesn't matter what reality is.
3:55
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the pitch, it's the salesmanship, it's the sale.
4:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Gotta get you that, that used lemon, gotta get you that car, that used car lemon.
4:07
[SPEAKER_05]: because some Trump simply cannot accept an accomplishment.
4:11
[SPEAKER_05]: He needs a miracle.
4:12
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got to be the biggest, the most tremendous.
4:15
[SPEAKER_05]: He said that the UN gave him the biggest resolution victory in the history of the organization can no condemning Iran.
4:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And like really in the history of the organization, I don't think a buying it.
4:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And the tragedy of all this is,
4:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The truth would have been bulletproof.
4:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Look, I've done some good things.
4:45
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, you know, I've done some good things.
4:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And this organization has helped along the way.
4:49
[SPEAKER_05]: And we can do more.
4:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And we can move this in the writer.
4:51
[SPEAKER_05]: He could have done a lot of things.
4:55
[SPEAKER_05]: But he chose not to, because the truth doesn't satisfy a guy who's spent his entire political career confusing applause and truth social re-truths with actual evidence.
5:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's like a lot of the stuff that comes out of his mouth.
5:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm wondering which other orifice he's pulled it out of.
5:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, and I almost forgot.
5:19
[SPEAKER_05]: He's decided that he's going to rebrand artificial intelligence because maybe the base won't notice.
5:27
[SPEAKER_05]: But artificial intelligence is out.
5:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's now super, super intelligence.
5:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Super intelligence.
5:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I had to say it about 10 times during his speech.
5:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Isn't that super?
5:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't you feel better now knowing that we don't have artificial intelligence?
5:47
[SPEAKER_05]: It's now super.
5:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Isn't that super?
5:51
[SPEAKER_05]: One of your thoughts, Rick at theRexMithshow.com.
5:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Quick break, right back.
5:59
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
6:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1906.
6:07
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day that Dr. Harriet Louise Hardy was born in Arlington, Massachusetts.
6:12
[SPEAKER_05]: She pursued a career in medicine, driven by personal family tragedy.
6:17
[SPEAKER_05]: She lost her father to pneumonia when she was only four years old.
6:21
[SPEAKER_05]: She also lost a baby brother to the 1918 influenza outbreak.
6:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Hardy became an early leader in the field of occupational medicine.
6:30
[SPEAKER_05]: She was also the first woman to become a full professor at Harvard Medical School.
6:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Hardy began her career in occupational medicine when she began to investigate the causes of illness among workers making fluorescent lights in factories north of Boston.
6:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Many of these workers were women.
6:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Hardy researched the cases of burrilliosis in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts.
6:54
[SPEAKER_05]: The metal perilium is used in the making of the lights, inhaling dust or fumes of the metal can be deadly, but symptoms often do not begin to show up until years after exposure.
7:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Symptoms include shortness of breath, coughing and scarred lungs.
7:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Hardy developed the national berillium registry.
7:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It was one of the first registries of its kind to track the impact of a chronic health disorder.
7:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Her research helped lead to safety measures in the handling of this dangerous metal.
7:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Hardy also worked with unions, including the oil, chemical and atomic workers union and the united mine workers to identify and address workplace health hazards.
7:40
[SPEAKER_05]: She wrote a textbook on the subject of industrial toxicology with another pioneer in the field of occupational health, Dr. Alice Hamilton.
7:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Dr. Hardy helped to forge new ground in making job sites more safe and healthy for workers.
7:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Now here is Rick Smith.
8:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So Trump TV is live and kicking stream in 24, 7.
8:20
[SPEAKER_05]: All Trump all day.
8:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Basically, just a, I guess in around the clock, presidential highlight real.
8:30
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, yeah, and I got to imagine that I saw a great cartoon of Trump sitting watching Trump TV and just Gleeful on Natalie Harp is is printing off things.
8:39
[SPEAKER_05]: They're saying you're awesome.
8:40
[SPEAKER_05]: You're great.
8:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, welcome to state media
8:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And I gotta tell you, I'm not surprised that the the pool cameras went away a little bit surprised with Fox, but everybody else, maybe this is a moment of pushing back and here to share some thoughts on the on the Trump TV and the what's going on with the with with banning Politico and MS now and CNN
9:07
[SPEAKER_05]: But also what what the midterms might look like.
9:09
[SPEAKER_05]: I've asked our good friend Bill Scheer to come share some thoughts with us.
9:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Bill is the politics editor over at the Washington Monthly Bill.
9:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for the time for us.
9:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Always a pleasure.
9:19
[SPEAKER_05]: So what do you think of Trump TV?
9:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Have you have you have you seen?
9:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Have you watched if you if you take it in some of the highlight reels?
9:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, losing his pool coverage, you know, microphone might be the best way to hurt him because he creves the cameras and the spotlight still much, but all these doing is making it harder for Republicans to stay off a blue wave, you know, the Republicans are in a pickle for the midterm
9:57
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... has an ability to get out of uh... his own way as part of his own way the economy's way
10:03
[SPEAKER_03]: public is angry at him, they're angry at his terrorist, they're angry at his war, that's just kind of power gas prices.
10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's not letting his party put a distance between himself and then he's saying, I'm on the ballot.
10:17
[SPEAKER_03]: So, and doing more and more things to put himself at the center of the news instead of letting candidates run their own campaigns.
10:25
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
10:29
[SPEAKER_05]: him at the center is always the thing there's never a world that I got to tell you I'm with you if I were a Republican running I don't know how you get away from him when every day he's stopping all over your throat.
10:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean they should have been recognizing the need for distancing a long time ago there are plenty of canaries in the coal mine.
10:47
[SPEAKER_03]: There was Democrats who were running the table and off your elections, which has a correlation with midterms, the Iran war itself wins south quickly was never popular for the beginning and only got worse.
11:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And the tariffs were a clear urge in terms of the affordability concerns that Trump won in 2024 on and it should have known better what tariffs were going to do to fulfill that promise.
11:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So in a normal midterm.
11:23
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, people in office in the president's party would know that you admit you're always always a challenge for the president's party, and you normally try to put a certain degree of distance.
11:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And the, and the need for that was going to be more acute this time around, but Trump tries to exact the punishment of people on his party when they try to distance.
11:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And can succeed in primaries.
11:51
[SPEAKER_03]: That has happened.
11:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So he makes it even harder for Republicans to do what is normally done in midterms to try to lesson the normal pendulum swing.
12:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And now you're seeing a handful of folks scramble really in the game to do that and not even that many quite frankly.
12:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So it only
12:19
[SPEAKER_03]: all the data combined with the way the president is behaving.
12:24
[SPEAKER_03]: would suggest a blue wave has come.
12:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
12:27
[SPEAKER_05]: No, you're yesterday at the UN.
12:29
[SPEAKER_05]: He did say that he's not on the ballot.
12:31
[SPEAKER_05]: This was one of those things.
12:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you know, it's not me.
12:34
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not me on the ballot.
12:35
[SPEAKER_05]: So you're not, you're not affecting me by holding out.
12:39
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's one of those things that I just go.
12:40
[SPEAKER_05]: That was a sea change because I thought it was all about him, except in that in that place.
12:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, we're all getting five grand bills.
12:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So that should, that should smooth some stuff over.
12:51
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to get our Trump bucks.
12:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I met and some early pulling a show that even that's going over like let below it's not known believes it.
12:58
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he lacks the credibility to make such promises.
13:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, if he thought it was important.
13:07
[SPEAKER_03]: for the government that give you a $5,000 check right now, you have a Republican majority in Congress right now.
13:15
[SPEAKER_03]: You wouldn't wait to laugh to the bit to have the Republican lose to put that legislation on the table.
13:20
[SPEAKER_03]: You would do it now, and sort of dangle it as a parent.
13:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an insult.
13:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an insult to voters who are demanding help now.
13:30
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, oh, I'll only give it to you if you vote the way that I tell you to.
13:35
[SPEAKER_05]: So now this blue wave of which you speak and I know a lot of people who are saying this is the same thing I am always skeptical of that kind of talk.
13:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm always I'm always yeah, let's not because I don't want people to stay home.
13:48
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a whole bunch of reasons, but is this is this really about how bad the Trump policies have been or is it the Democrats might is a message that Democrats are running on resonating or is it just we're just tired of Trump and Vance and the Republican policies at this moment.
14:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, much more of the latter.
14:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, we, we needed to be careful.
14:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And the votes are not counted.
14:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Poles can be wrong.
14:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And Democrats are competing on a lot of very red turk.
14:19
[SPEAKER_03]: So even if you have a decent margin in the House popular vote, it doesn't automatically trans into a huge number of seats.
14:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Especially at the Senate level, whether the Senate map is very tilted against Democrats.
14:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And at the beginning of the year,
14:36
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you believe you said, Texas would be competitive?
14:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Iowa would be competitive, Alaska would be competitive, Ohio would be competitive.
14:46
[SPEAKER_03]: They would see ludicrous just so it doesn't matter if they're close at all is an indication of where the wind is blowing, but Democrats can have a really great
14:59
[SPEAKER_03]: house election and still come up short in a whole bunch of Senate seats and not take control.
15:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And you might say, okay, you know, a forever, you've got close, you've got a place in the thought you would, but it made, I mean, Senate controls.
15:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So just so you know, recent democrats to stay home and say, there's whole things in the bag because they're because they're running up ill.
15:19
[SPEAKER_03]: But in terms of the message question, I mean, let's be frank, Democrats are not running
15:27
[SPEAKER_03]: ten point plan here, and I'm not saying that they should have.
15:32
[SPEAKER_03]: It makes, you know, there's often an argument that you have to, you'll be for something and not just against something.
15:38
[SPEAKER_03]: That really is in true in a midterm.
15:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You'll be against something is usually just fine for any midterm.
15:43
[SPEAKER_03]: What you have to do after that point gets more challenging.
15:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Especially when it comes, especially all the stuff that's been going on, especially with a
15:54
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, my red hat friends, some of them are just as angry about, but that decision on how they've kind of going, well, you know, we need to feel safe.
16:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And yet I found none of them who were up late at night worrying that Iran was going to drop a new condos.
16:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
16:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, that's why I mean, again, we're all, we'll only know at the end of the day, what actually happens.
16:17
[SPEAKER_03]: But it would appear.
16:20
[SPEAKER_03]: based on all the poll data we have and all the anecdotal data that we have and what the candidates themselves see as the priority issues to run on is that affordability is the primary concern and it's very evident why things are not as affordable
16:42
[SPEAKER_03]: as people expected them to be after two years of the Trump presidency, the tariffs, and the Iran war, and it's if I've done gas prices, that's what's in your face every day when you go to the gas pump, go to the grocery store.
16:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I would be, I can be charitable and say, you know what, the bigger for a billiard concerns that we all have, many of us have, are bigger ticket items.
17:09
[SPEAKER_03]: elder care, surprise medical bill, college buying a house, Panama, or rent, I think those probably weigh most people more.
17:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, gases, gas prices and groceries are an irritant.
17:26
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're paycheck to paycheck, much bigger deal.
17:29
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot will aren't paycheck to paycheck, but they still go to the store every day.
17:33
[SPEAKER_03]: and feel it.
17:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's a reminder of your larger concerns about affordability.
17:39
[SPEAKER_05]: No, you spot on.
17:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, most of the people I talked were just angry about the cross the gas and groceries, but housing health care, education, you spot on.
17:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, those are the big ticket items that there doesn't seem to be any policy ideas for other than, you know, let the invisible hand do what it does.
17:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, exactly, Trump never was laser focused on affordability.
18:03
[SPEAKER_03]: He's laser focused on whatever makes him feel good, whatever allows him to exert unilateral power.
18:10
[SPEAKER_03]: He enjoys tariffs because he gets to do it, although the Supreme Court has restricted him and that makes him angry.
18:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think he rifted into being more of a militarist, when he spent so much of his time saying they wouldn't be for forever wars.
18:27
[SPEAKER_03]: because that was a way to exert your lateral power.
18:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if that's what the public is mad about.
18:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And the Republican response to that is, hey, this Democrat once said something about transgender rights, or they once said something that sounds kind of woke 1.0, or in the case of your LCE, and talk about he hangs with a son,
18:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I look, and I've been very critical of a songpiker, and I haven't, and I haven't given it, I'll say the past on everything, but just as a clinical electoral analysis, if you're primarily mad about prices,
19:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Talking about night 11 is the last war and then so.
19:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's not what you're mad about right now.
19:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And so maybe that's enough to make El Said do worse than Joyce Benson in the in the governor's base of Michigan.
19:27
[SPEAKER_03]: just based on the polling today and again in that saying this is the end of the story it would seem that that's not enough to get Mike Rogers over the finish line fifty percent because he's not finding a way to get to the corporate shop he was Mike to the portability.
19:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I got to get some of your thoughts on yesterday's UN speech.
19:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Because, you know, in front of the U.N., he's talking about how he, he singularly, you know, cut poverty rates here, the economy's better than it's ever bad.
19:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Basically, the kind of chest thumping that the rest of the world thinks we do anyway.
20:01
[SPEAKER_05]: He didn't front of world leaders.
20:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And he, and he thoughts about, uh, about his speech.
20:08
[SPEAKER_03]: It just shows he hasn't learned anything.
20:16
[SPEAKER_03]: a brace of the UN, of NATO, of international law and rules and norms, of diplomacy.
20:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's always wanted to be a my way or the highway guy.
20:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're Steven Miller, talk very bluntly about, you know, the strong determine who is a control of the world.
20:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And they were feeling pretty high on their own supply after the Venezuela operation, which led them to go diving into the empty pool with the Iran war.
20:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But that has exposed the weakness of the strong argument because you could still be kneecapped the race symmetrical warfare.
21:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You can drop a whole bunch of missiles,
21:13
[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't stop a tenacious country to find your soft underbelly, your pinch point, which in the case was straight of removes and render all of your supposed military superiority to be to be meaningless.
21:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And so after that's been exposed to the world now you're going to go to the U.N. and claim that this bite as a matter that aligns is don't matter
21:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I just think that's going to get laughed out of the building.
21:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the entire philosophy is being discredited in front of her eyes.
21:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's going to be opening for the next Democrat president to say, you know, there's something to this whole diplomacy business.
21:59
[SPEAKER_05]: now he did say that you know he got a resolution through condemning iron it was the greatest ever got the most support ever it was it was just it was tremendous it was he did say that I mean so he got I guess he now believes in the institution that it gave him the greatest victory ever
22:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, he talks on both sides of his mouth all the time.
22:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Just literally you said before, he says to one group, I'm on the ballot and then to another group I'm not on the ballot because he wants to be able to juices turn out.
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: He's trying to get the hardcore trumpers to show up.
22:32
[SPEAKER_03]: But he wants to hedge it.
22:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So in case he loses the midterm, if you don't blame him and say he's the reservoir of public is lost, you know, he wants to be able to say that America's military might is what should dictate policies around the world, but he's also Mr. Arnold of the Deal, too, and he's really someone who gets along with all these nations and all these nations to give him a great respect.
22:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, so, but it's all exposed as hot air when you see what happens on the ground in a ran, how that translates into your gas prices at home and how that saps the public will at home.
23:15
[SPEAKER_03]: to continue with the military strategy.
23:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And now with the backdrop of starting today, you've got Xi Jinping coming to town.
23:24
[SPEAKER_05]: There's the big summit going to happen over the next couple of years.
23:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And it looks like Trump is picked to fight with a bully that they have, we've got very little leverage over.
23:34
[SPEAKER_05]: That we've still got some levers, but they control the pharmaceuticals, the rare earth minerals, and we're tied up again.
23:42
[SPEAKER_05]: So are any thoughts on what this this China summit's going to look like or any anything that you're you're looking towards or four as this this whole thing rolls out well this Trump cave more I mean he continually overstates the leverage that he has.
24:01
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, doesn't get deals that are nearly as good as he claims they are, but goes to the microphone and says that they're fantastic and those are the best ever, you know, he's not somebody that cares about policy outcomes.
24:17
[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't care how this actually impacts people.
24:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Next week, next month, next year, he doesn't care how it makes his party look, it doesn't care how it's gonna help with the midterms, he doesn't care how it's gonna help his potential successor who runs a president in 2028.
24:33
[SPEAKER_03]: He cares about looking good today.
24:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He cares about claiming
24:39
[SPEAKER_03]: That he did something today that makes him seem awesome.
24:44
[SPEAKER_03]: He's there at the ribbon cutting.
24:46
[SPEAKER_03]: He's there to issue the press release and worrying about the specifics.
24:52
[SPEAKER_03]: is not going to get in the way of the ceremonial moment that he craves so much.
24:58
[SPEAKER_05]: And now he's got Trump TV that can, you know, could just stoke the ego, 24, 7.
25:02
[SPEAKER_05]: So last question I've got for you, you know, as a journalist as someone who writes critical things about people, maybe even Trump.
25:11
[SPEAKER_05]: How concerned are you by by what's going on with him you know going after journalist and treating people the way that they are and this at this beginning of what I see potentially escalating every thoughts.
25:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean it's disturbing what he's trying to do.
25:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But.
25:29
[SPEAKER_03]: He is not able to come and dear all the aspects of open liberal civil society that you would need to do to actually achieve full-blown authoritarianism.
25:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you forgive me, a counterintuitive thought that people often find very irritating.
25:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, it's relevant that the Supreme Court said to Donald Trump, you can't take over mail ballad.
26:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You cannot say by executive order that the Department of Homeland Security and the United Coast Postal Service can determine which mail ballots in individual states are counted in which ones are not.
26:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And as awful as the Supreme Court is, I'm not a fan of the Robert Scores.
26:19
[SPEAKER_03]: This is one of the worst courts of all time.
26:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Worst probably since the Roger T.C.
26:24
[SPEAKER_03]: court that did address that decision.
26:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not going to the individual Supreme Court just as to be personal heroes.
26:32
[SPEAKER_03]: but you have, thanks to our founders, a structure which allows an independent judiciary to exercise its own independent thought.
26:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Just because Trump appoints you to the court, doesn't mean you have to do his bidding and his appointees did not do bidding in that very critical case.
26:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, that's part of the reason why we're going to have a free election.
26:56
[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna, we still have a free press.
26:59
[SPEAKER_03]: People still know the score.
27:02
[SPEAKER_03]: They know who's fault.
27:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Pie prices are right now, they have not been brainwashed because Trump has manipulated the media, manipulated the whole judicial system, which is something that you didn't happen to stay a place like Hungary for 15 years.
27:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they didn't have to depend on judiciary and authoritarian can win one election and then take all the levers of power and steal one of the really for 15 years.
27:26
[SPEAKER_03]: So be thankful that we have the structures that we do.
27:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Not I'm right there with you.
27:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Bill, I appreciate the time of the thoughts as always great talking with you.
27:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope you'll come back and talk.
27:35
[SPEAKER_05]: It goes again soon.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Always.
27:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
27:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Good friend Bill.
27:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure.
27:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear your thoughts.
27:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Any comfort in that?
27:42
[SPEAKER_05]: That you know, the midterms may go the Democrats way, there may be some balance.
27:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear your thoughts.
27:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
27:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Quick break.
27:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1932.
28:06
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day the progressive miners of America wrapped up their founding convention in Gillespie, Illinois, fed up with concessions, and what they viewed as heavy-handed anti-democratic rule by United Mine worker President John L. Lewis, Illinois miners met to break decisively.
28:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Area Miners were active in radical politics and many supported currents within the socialist and communist movements.
28:31
[SPEAKER_05]: That July, Louis opened the contract and agreed to a 20% pay cut.
28:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Tens of thousands of miners were furious and threw up picket lines at mines throughout Central and Southern Illinois in Franklin County.
28:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Striking minors were assaulted, shot, and beaten by special deputies, and strike-breaking thugs.
28:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Many minors thought Louis had had a hand in the violence against them.
28:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Two minors were killed, and hundreds more injured.
28:57
[SPEAKER_05]: By September 1st, 273 delegates representing 40,000 minors resolved to break from the U.M.
29:04
[SPEAKER_05]: WA, former New Union, and planned immediate negotiations with coal operators.
29:15
[SPEAKER_05]: a women's auxiliary was established with Agnes Bernas Wick as it's had.
29:19
[SPEAKER_05]: It imbued Union Solidarity and leadership qualities among non-mining women and enraged Louis charged dual unionism, but the new PMA alleged they represented 90% of Illinois miners.
29:33
[SPEAKER_05]: The split gave rise to the Illinois minewords.
29:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Years of shootings, bombings, and assaults became almost commonplace.
29:40
[SPEAKER_05]: As both unions struggled for power, the PMA soon faced internal fighting as conservatives attempted to rest leadership from many of the founders.
29:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Though the union never dominated the industry, it continued to represent thousands of Illinois miners throughout the 20th century.
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's another thing when the party is self-confirms its collective delirium for two whole days in a made-for-TV political talkathon.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Their theme was, bring back Joe McCarthy.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not forget what a horror McCarthyism was, a 1950s dissent into totalitarian repression.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Fominated by Joe, a brutish and slimy Republican senator who terrorized America for a decade with a vicious red-baiting crusade to crush liberals, unions, minorities, government employees, homosexuals, professors, and others he and his rich backers hated.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, given Joe's direct parallels to today's White House, you'd think GOP strategists would not want to resurface that disgraceful chapter of their heritage.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But there they were this month proudly pushing McCarthyism 2026.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just the party's friends, but his top leaders were squalking from the podium like chicken littles that Democrats or anti-American communists.
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump himself, bellied maniacally, that, Demems even intended to destroy Mount Rushmore, quote, they want to blow it up, he squealed.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: A parade of top Republican officials literally shouted at the audience's maga faithful to fear of Democrats.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Scott, chair of the party's senatorial fundraising arm, exclaim that Democrats are fiends, who quote, hate what it means to be American.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are coming to quote, rip that heart out of our chest.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, Tim, it's evil for Democrats to fight for social security, health care for all, affordable housing, voting rights, and, you know, communist stuff like that.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, you do you, keep running your mouth, and let the people decide who's crazy.
32:12
[SPEAKER_05]: So, Republican are Senate Armed Services Chairman, Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
32:22
[SPEAKER_05]: He criticized Donald Trump for actually hosting Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and I got to be honest.
32:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, if communism is the greatest threat to America, if you're buying that, if communism is so bad, maybe it is bad optics to be rolling out the red carpet for the red leader, just kind of throwing that out there.
32:43
[SPEAKER_05]: But a lot of things that play, I mean the UN speech yesterday was all about making Where the greatest in the world doing a little chest thumping and also it's no longer artificial no longer artificial intelligence Super super intelligence.
32:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Why because Donald Trump says so
33:02
[SPEAKER_05]: and here to share some thoughts on well what this what this visit today through the rest of the week is really going to be about i've asked our good friend Emily Deliberia to come share some thoughts with us she's a co-founder of her rising advisory you can check out their website at her rising advisory dot org Emily thanks for the time for us
33:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
33:22
[SPEAKER_05]: So, do you get Ricker Wicker's point?
33:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I'm kind of like if communism is the worst thing ever, you know, maybe not, you know, promote the guy, maybe just to thought.
33:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't really think, well, there are two points.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: There's like an optics point.
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Should we be throwing a party and a banquet for the leader of the communist party?
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: the Chinese Communist Party and of China when that's our number one adversary in the world.
33:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And the second is...
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: why do we keep thinking that we can negotiate with China?
33:55
[SPEAKER_02]: There isn't a deal to be made.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We want different things that's not going to change.
34:00
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no compromise.
34:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are just fooling ourselves into thinking that there can be an agreement that will be mutually beneficial.
34:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well, he's Mr. Art of the Deal.
34:09
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, Donald Trump believes he can get a good deal.
34:11
[SPEAKER_05]: In fact, I don't know if you saw, but they bought some soybeans.
34:15
[SPEAKER_05]: not as much as they did before, but they bought some soybeans which is a huge victory for the Trump administration because we're making the farmers a little bit of business, but I'm sure you've heard greatest deal ever.
34:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like when you're behind on turning in something you have to turn in, but the day before the deadline, you write a page of it.
34:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're like, oh, no, we're like, there's a page, it's there.
34:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, even that, we shouldn't be dependent on China as a market.
34:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We shouldn't be dependent on China as a supplier.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: We also should not be dependent on them as a market.
34:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that that's what we key to, that also to me, is a problem.
34:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here's my biggest problem with what Trump's done.
34:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And I've talked about this extensively over the last 10 years, because Trump has left a void in the international community.
34:59
[SPEAKER_05]: His first term was all about isolation and left a lot of openings for China to fill the void.
35:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, it's about beating up on our allies.
35:09
[SPEAKER_05]: When you've got Canada making agreements with China, I don't know that that's great for global security.
35:15
[SPEAKER_05]: When we should be, I think we should be co-seeing up to our allies,
35:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like he's doing.
35:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I just think I don't think it's good for us.
35:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I have like some hot takes on this in general, but I think on the one hand, we have been to loose hand it or whatever you want to say with our allies for some time, like
35:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Canada, Mexico, have served as conduits for China to access the U.S. market, so has Europe.
35:52
[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't pushed our allies to have the same standards on trade, on investment review, on technology sharing with China with our adversary that we ourselves have had.
36:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I actually think that there was demand for being an aluminum tougher on our allies.
36:11
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is,
36:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That toughness would have to be paired with a corresponding message that said here's why we're doing this and a proactive solution that said if you can get on board with our trade restrictions or trade restrictions to match hours on China tech restrictions.
36:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Like with larger.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: investor restrictions larger barriers to China, then here's something positive and here's a partnership that we can advance to that end and we didn't do that.
36:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no, I mean, look, there's got to be, there has to be a carrot with the stick.
36:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, it just seems like it's all sticks and not just sticks.
36:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, if you watched as UN speech yesterday, there was a lot of chest thumping going on.
36:57
[SPEAKER_05]: There are a lot of, you know, we're the best ever now when you all suck and, you know, the rest of the world's terrible and we're great.
37:04
[SPEAKER_05]: It's the caricature of what my friends who live overseas believe every American is.
37:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So he's just kind of perpetuated that stereotype that a lot of my friends in Europe believe all of us are, and I think that's problematic.
37:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and like one of the biggest obstacles I think to having real international partnership to compete with China was that your quote unquote third power countries or third party countries would say, well, what's the difference?
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Either of these actors is going to be a hedgehog on is going to be a great power.
37:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't want to get caught in this rivalry.
37:41
[SPEAKER_02]: If we could argue, here's a better scenario.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Working with the US and the US being the global leader is better for X, Y, or Z reasons, whether that is international security or international prosperity or international norms, then that gave us a like to stand on.
37:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, I go back to the Obama administration when they were pushing the TPP, which I was opposed to, I know a lot of my national security friends were like, no, no, this isn't as much about trade, as it is, you know, bringing all of our allies together to push back against China and I'm like, well, if that was the message, maybe you should have led with that, in retrospect, looking back with that have been beneficial in this moment, or as this is another thing Trump would have walked away from.
38:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't have changed anything.
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That's part of the problem.
38:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like up to this point, everything that really was done has been so tactical, so on the margins.
38:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, so assuming that if you do the right technocratic things or make the right for a conversation, you're going to change the trend of trying to take over the world, and that's just not how it works.
38:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think any of those fail attempts are walked away from attempts would have changed anything.
38:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The issue is that we need something positive now.
38:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are getting it best nothing.
38:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
38:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, obviously AI and all the the build out of all of this will be on the agenda as Trump meets with she.
39:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, this, this seems to me to be that next Cold War.
39:06
[SPEAKER_05]: This seems to me to be the, the A.I.
39:08
[SPEAKER_05]: race.
39:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Like a strump mid and reference to it a couple of times in his speech that whoever wins the A.I.
39:13
[SPEAKER_05]: war is going to win the future on.
39:16
[SPEAKER_05]: He sees it in those kind of simplistic black and white terms.
39:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you see it in the same way?
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, okay, when you, when I say A.I.
39:28
[SPEAKER_02]: what do you think?
39:30
[SPEAKER_05]: I think of the what Chatchee PT and all of those those those things have come into the information that is gathered there which I fear people who who program that stuff and feed into it feeds garbage and all kinds of stuff and I also fear that my kids are going to lose their critical thinking skills because every one of their friends uses it for for their thinking.
39:53
[SPEAKER_05]: So that concerns me but then I also think about what I'm hearing about the sandbox stuff.
39:57
[SPEAKER_05]: that these are now going to become bots of hackers who are going to break into the FBI and steal everybody's information like just happened or hack into her water supply and cut everything off.
40:09
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm concerned about the fact that right now over half of the social media and internet traffic is now non-human.
40:18
[SPEAKER_05]: That's kind of what I'm worried about when I think of AI.
40:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And I know it's so much more and it's more than I can possibly understand because I'm not
40:26
[SPEAKER_05]: but I'm fearful of it.
40:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, but I think I wanted to use there an on one part there.
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when we in America talk and think about AI, we overwhelmingly are talking about like the intelligent agents, the chat bots, or the chatGBT, the things that are physical, right, that are virtual and crawling on the internet.
40:49
[SPEAKER_02]: When China talks about AI, they're talking about that, but they're talking about so much more than that.
40:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Robotics are maybe the biggest part of China's AI sector.
41:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And robotics that are used in industry to make things in war to fight and in society to change how we live our lives, whether that's intelligent vehicles or like in home robots.
41:13
[SPEAKER_02]: collecting, aggregating, using data.
41:16
[SPEAKER_02]: That's another huge part of China's AI program from the government down.
41:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And shaping how that information gets moved, gets exchanged, what the rules are around that.
41:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the physical value chain of AI, we don't really think about any of those things.
41:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is a long way of saying, yes, I think AI is huge for the current competition.
41:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And whoever wins AI is likely to win the world, but not necessarily like the chat bots or the LLLMs.
41:45
[SPEAKER_02]: whoever can shape how AI and control how AI is going to change industry and then capture all the returns that come of that when they get like the intelligent vehicle market not just autos or how you make things in the AI world all of that is huge and it's the American economy and it's American security and China risks winning that.
42:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I got two thoughts when that when as you were going through this one I'm thinking about Elon Musk and wondering if you think he's right that you know in 20 years we're not going to need money We're just going to the robots are going to do everything.
42:16
[SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be great.
42:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Everyone's going to get universal high income.
42:19
[SPEAKER_05]: We can just paint and you know lay around any grapes.
42:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess
42:23
[SPEAKER_05]: others that and then there's also the scary part of it.
42:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm is just as fearful of government as anybody else.
42:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm more fearful of private corporations being in bed with government and you know during the 2024 election most of my red hat friends were going we can never crash walk social credit scores.
42:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm worried that that that AI
42:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Does a masterful job of monitoring our every thought, heartbeat, and everything that we do think in breathe and the control part of it.
42:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I have a lot of concerns.
42:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, let's talk about the first one first.
43:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The biggest case scenario is that AI is like a new industrial revolution and there have been past industrial revolutions.
43:08
[SPEAKER_02]: China defines them as a creation of new factors of production.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: whether that's land or labor or capital.
43:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And no point when the economy or industry has been disrupted and there's a new model for how we make an exchange and buy and sell things.
43:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And no point has that created a world where
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: some other entity does the things and there are enormous riches and we all get to sit around me grapes.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we as humans or in a capitalist system or whatever we want to call it, but I'd argue as humans, have always found a way to make sure that we still work and they're still a hierarchy and most people are still bound to that.
43:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's basically impossible that that's going to change so let me ask you now.
43:55
[SPEAKER_05]: What are you paying attention to as Trump and she are meeting a lot of what we're going to see if the pool cameras are there unless we have to go over to Trump TV and watch without sound
44:06
[SPEAKER_05]: what are you paying attention to or are there obviously everything is going to be well scripted and well played out for the cameras.
44:11
[SPEAKER_05]: But what are you looking for as my expert on anything China might go to person.
44:17
[SPEAKER_05]: What are you looking for to see whether this is going to be successful or whether this is just you know just you know for show.
44:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So first of all odds are I think you probably will be nothing better.
44:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there will be commitments but they'll be
44:33
[SPEAKER_02]: surface level and China won't fall through.
44:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It'll basically be a continuation of the last summit in China.
44:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Things to pay attention to.
44:40
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like very high-risk ones.
44:43
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, loosening of restrictions on China in the American auto-sector.
44:48
[SPEAKER_02]: If that happens, basically the American economy is toughest.
44:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's high-risk, it will happen at some point we really have to hope it doesn't happen now.
44:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're like definitely high-risk things
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: In general, another bucket how we United States use our tariff levers and whether or not this meeting opens the door for us actually to use those the way it's seen like might be the case at the beginning of this administration.
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: because that's one of the few modes of leverage we have over China and if message right it could be very effective.
45:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So does this provide us with the opening to actually tariff Chinese goods so that we ideally become less dependent as an economy on China?
45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course they will be conversations about chips, about AI, about
45:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Iran, those are likely to rest on Chinese commitments regarding regulations or norms or international governance.
45:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And generally, I assume that those conversations are hogwash or those commitments are hogwash.
45:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm disinclined to really take any of that seriously.
46:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, what do you think of, you know, I was watching Bill Mar the other day.
46:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Kevin McCarthy and another woman.
46:07
[SPEAKER_05]: I forget her name.
46:09
[SPEAKER_05]: We were talking and the one person said that, you know, Trump has picked a fight with with a bully, a bigger bully and has no leverage and he's talking about China, that.
46:20
[SPEAKER_05]: in this scenario.
46:21
[SPEAKER_05]: China's the bigger bully.
46:22
[SPEAKER_05]: We're tied up in Iran.
46:26
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got some economic issues at home.
46:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Everyone's here in this, in this cycle, inflation matters, gas prices matter whereas in China, they're concerned for the comfort or discomfort of their people as a lot less.
46:42
[SPEAKER_05]: We're a little more responsive when the middle class gets a little angry and costs go up, a head start to roll.
46:51
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not a problem in China.
46:53
[SPEAKER_05]: So I guess the argument was, they're just going to kind of wait this out.
46:56
[SPEAKER_05]: So the idea of this being a nothing burger kind of fits for me.
47:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's entirely fair.
47:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, they know us so well, partly because we are very transparent and partly because they're just a lot better.
47:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's starting us and we tend to be at studying them.
47:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that adds a lot of risk to the equation too.
47:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But they know how to stall and how to make sure that they're waiting it out.
47:20
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had friends like that where you make an agreement and they were going to do what they want anyway and and this is kind of where we are and at some point you have to make one of two decisions you take it As we have been or you got to you got to do something about it kind of off you know find other friends.
47:36
[SPEAKER_05]: It seems like we're in one of those moments and I don't know that we've got the appetite I know.
47:40
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, communism is having a new moment in the U.S. where we're all afraid of it, we're all being force-fed it, even though nobody can find it.
47:49
[SPEAKER_05]: And yet, when it comes to real communists, we don't seem to, I don't know.
47:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess we're missing the assignment.
47:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very difficult to say no right now to try not with the resources and the leverage or that black thereof that we have.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we've put a lot of issues on top of that one.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: even though I would argue it should be the number one.
48:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a real risk.
48:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So now if I remember right Kevin McCarthy was saying the things we should be doing and I want to ask you what you think we should be doing.
48:19
[SPEAKER_05]: His his and I'm not promoting Kevin McCarthy, but it didn't seem like a bad idea to start cozying up to some of our allies.
48:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe bring India in do something with them to kind of
48:31
[SPEAKER_05]: try and do some things, but also invest in our own country, rebuild our manufacturing capacity, start going after our own minerals and not be incredibly dependent as we are with the majority of our vast majority of our pharmaceuticals and what 95% of the rare earth minerals that we need, seems like a bit over-dependent at this moment.
49:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The great power competition or today's competition is a competition over supply chains.
49:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's can we make things on our own?
49:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And the answer right now is no.
49:09
[SPEAKER_02]: The number one thing we should be doing is making is, as you said, investing in American manufacturing, making it possible to have industry to produce at home and I don't think that that should be the government is putting money into fabs for X, Y, or Z tactical thing here and there it should be that we're actually like changing the environment such that there are incentives to produce and there is a regulatory environment that permits production.
49:35
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the number one things that has to happen for that to be possible is for there to be stronger barriers against influx of Chinese made cheap goods because as long as we can be dependent on those.
49:48
[SPEAKER_02]: American capital, American markets are not going to support alternatives.
49:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but look, you know, to Trump's credit on a small part.
49:56
[SPEAKER_05]: He did try and use some tariffs, although in the worst way possible.
50:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we gave an idiot a tool, a decent tool that could have been used right.
50:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And he screwed it up.
50:05
[SPEAKER_05]: And my fear is we're never going to talk about tariffs after he leaves office.
50:08
[SPEAKER_05]: But I do think that's part of what has to happen with China, mostly China.
50:15
[SPEAKER_05]: If we're going to reclaim some of our manufacturing, and maybe we start, you know, maybe willing to think about, I don't know, buy in more stuff at home and maybe pay in a little bit higher costs and as a national security kind of patriotism kind of thing.
50:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but there, there have to be like the big picture changes like tariffs that create the incentives for that.
50:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, well we'll see any hope whatsoever that something positive comes out of this outside of more photo ops and maybe the occasional, you know, Trump goofed over something or called China, I don't know, Vietnam.
50:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what's going on between his ears.
50:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything more than that you think?
50:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the biggest hope is that there has been something of a law in, like, there are people in this administration right now who do want to be, to take a
51:08
[SPEAKER_02]: and there has been something of a low to that end because of the upcoming now tomorrow summit.
51:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So does the summit happening mean that there's more of an open door and things that have been on hold can go into play.
51:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that would be the positive.
51:25
[SPEAKER_05]: But if history shows us anything, we're getting nothing.
51:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Emily, I appreciate the time.
51:31
[SPEAKER_05]: As always, Horizon Advisory.org, the website if you want to check out the work that I'm laying in her group does on this trying to issue.
51:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I appreciate the time Emily.
51:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much.
51:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
51:42
[SPEAKER_05]: When I hear your thoughts, you've got any hope, and he thoughts that anything positive is going to come out of.
51:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Mr. R to the deals meeting with Xi Jinping.
51:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear it.
51:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
51:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
52:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1969.
52:07
[SPEAKER_05]: President Richard Millhouse Nixon issued the Philadelphia plan.
52:11
[SPEAKER_05]: The goal of the plan was to require building trade unions to admit black members into their ranks.
52:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Nixon believed this would show him as a civil rights supporter without having to give in to the more radical demands of the civil rights movement.
52:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Affirmative action opponents sued to kill the plan, but they were unsuccessful.
52:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Prior to the introduction of the Philadelphia plan, construction union nationwide were almost exclusively white.
52:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Throughout the 1960s black workers organized to demand access in construction trades in many northern cities.
52:44
[SPEAKER_05]: In Philadelphia, 1967, Black workers protested to integrate construction work.
52:50
[SPEAKER_05]: This led to federal attention and Nixon's plan.
52:53
[SPEAKER_05]: The plan required six Philadelphia building trades to create numerical goals for integrating their locals.
53:00
[SPEAKER_05]: They had to meet those goals to get federal contracts.
53:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Many white construction workers nationwide oppose the plan.
53:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Construction workers in Pittsburgh and Chicago held protest rallies.
53:10
[SPEAKER_05]: In practice, Nixon had very little interest in strong enforcement of his plan.
53:15
[SPEAKER_05]: He wanted to use it to defend himself when critics attacked his administration civil rights record.
53:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Civil rights leaders saw through Nixon's charade.
53:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Real progress in desegregating construction work was very slow, and the Nixon administration did little to change that.
53:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Still, Nixon's plan was a step, however small at integrating the building trades.
53:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Another important step was the founding of the coalition of black trade unionists in September of 1972 in Chicago.
53:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Today, the organization has members in more than 1200 locals, and works to increase and support black members of trade unions.
53:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Today, integration of the trades, remains, and incomplete projects.
53:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
54:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So again, I'm trying to figure out, you know, how is it we got here?
54:14
[SPEAKER_05]: When you stop and think about it, how, as a country, did we allow ourselves to get in this position?
54:19
[SPEAKER_05]: How, how is it possible that this is where we've ended up?
54:24
[SPEAKER_05]: How did we become this dependent on China?
54:27
[SPEAKER_05]: How did we allow that to happen?
54:29
[SPEAKER_05]: How did, how did we allow corporate America to abandon our shores?
54:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And then us pay for it.
54:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, because that's what happened.
54:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think we have to go back and look at the reality of our policies that did this.
54:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And look, it's over.
54:46
[SPEAKER_05]: It's done with both parties sucked on this issue.
54:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's enough finger pointing to go around.
54:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to get bogged down in the finger pointing at this point.
54:57
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a real problem.
54:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Houston, we have a problem.
55:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And it is, we are extraordinarily dependent.
55:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And I look at the last, what now?
55:06
[SPEAKER_05]: It is 10 years since Trump has been on the scene.
55:09
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all been about Trump, all about Trump, all about his grievances, all, and look, I give him credit for, at least having some political instinct to know what people are angry about.
55:25
[SPEAKER_05]: But he's done nothing on it.
55:27
[SPEAKER_05]: We need a Manhattan Project style initiative to shore up our supply line.
55:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And we didn't learn the lessons from the pandemic.
55:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we talked about it a lot.
55:37
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to, we need manufacturing.
55:39
[SPEAKER_05]: We talked a lot about it.
55:43
[SPEAKER_05]: How did China, how did China become the dominant manufacturer on this planet?
55:48
[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of people in our, in this country got rich.
55:53
[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of people.
55:55
[SPEAKER_05]: It was roaring times, it was happy days or here again.
56:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's interesting that Emily went to the place that, you know, even I had gone to.
56:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, when I think of China and AI, when I think of China dominating AI, I think of the control mechanisms of of, you know, just collecting enormous amounts of data, knowing everything about you before you know yourself and look, fear my government or any corporation has that that information.
56:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And I go back to my friends in the 2024 election, who Democrats, well, the social credit score.
56:32
[SPEAKER_05]: No, they didn't.
56:34
[SPEAKER_05]: nowhere where that was being talked about except on right wing outlets who are this is a reason to divide.
56:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, when she said it, I'm going, you know, you're not wrong.
56:47
[SPEAKER_05]: They're trying to figure out how to overproduce.
56:49
[SPEAKER_05]: They're trying to go and do what Musk believes it might happen, which is just make human workers
57:01
[SPEAKER_05]: And then the question for me becomes, okay, let's say we end work as we know it.
57:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's say AI and automation and robotics and all this stuff is the, it's the future.
57:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Trump's super AI or super eye or SI super intelligence is what he's calling it.
57:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not.
57:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe there's the future.
57:30
[SPEAKER_04]: But who controls it?
57:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, who benefits from it?
57:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, follow the money.
57:40
[SPEAKER_05]: To who?
57:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Quay Bono, to who's benefit?
57:45
[SPEAKER_05]: A handful, the musks of the world, the communist Chinese government, a handful of oligarchs across this globe controlling these, these wonder machines, democracy, communism, those will be obsolete terms.
58:05
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to figure out something new and that's what scares me.
58:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Especially when Trump is saying, nope, we're not putting anything.
58:12
[SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be the wild west.
58:18
[SPEAKER_05]: But we hit better quickly, figure out how we're going to rebuild our own supply chains, how we're going to be able to manufacture the things that we want to need.
58:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And my problem with Trump has always been, I think he is someone who's easily, easily let us try.
58:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I think he's someone who's some kind words in a pat on the head, goes a long way.
58:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And the Chinese are very serious about global domination.
58:54
[SPEAKER_05]: They're very serious that they're going to be the leaders of the 21st century and beyond.
59:00
[SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be us, subservient to them.
59:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know if you remember during the pandemic.
59:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Shelders were empty.
59:10
[SPEAKER_05]: We couldn't ramp up production because we didn't have it.
59:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Wanna hear your thoughts?
59:16
[SPEAKER_05]: This week you think something positive comes out of the meeting with Xi and Trump.
59:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you think other than some photo ops and maybe a goof up, you know, some kind of goof is move.
59:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything?
59:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I wanna hear it, RickardTheRixMith show.com.
59:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Miss any portion of the program grab the podcast.
59:30
[SPEAKER_05]: As always, thanks so much for being here.
59:33
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Email, Rick, and Rick at TheRickSmithShow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show, where working people come to talk.