Jamie Miller - Russia, Ukraine, China, MAGA, and Tariffs

0:01 You are listening to a Fonds Media Network production, today's episode of World Plays. I welcome Jamie Miller. Jamie Miller is a political consultant, author and host of the podcast Reasonable Arguments. Jamie and I have a very vast conversation about what's going on in America and around the world. We discussed MAGA and what it means. We also discussed importations as well as immigration policies, and we also take on some geopolitical relationships as we talk about Russia, Ukraine, China, Iran, the EU and not much as left off the table in this conversation. So pour your favorite beverage, sit back and enjoy this episode. Jamie, thanks for being on and making the time trying to Yeah, we're trying to connect to your back and forth, and you're busy with your show and what you do for living, and then I've just been buried myself trying to keep the schedule. But as we're discussing earlier, a little bit of a background.

1:07 You are a political consultant, believe that's your day job. You're the host of Reasonable Arguments. Actually, how long has Reasonable Argument's been on? I just heard your latest episode. By the way, I've had a blog or substack for over two years, and the podcast I do with my wife. She's not political at all, so we kind of have this take of breaking it down for the common man or people who are interested in in depth political commentary because sometimes I go off on tangents. So we've been doing that since the beginning of December. So we're about twenty five or thirty episodes in. We do two a week, so.

1:49 Yeah, that's a pretty good amount of time to try to even get one episode a week these days. I mean, if you don't have that big Spotify contract anyway. Right, Yeah, no, I do not, you know, from your mouth to God's ears, just like everybody else, right. Yeah, we got to work for it, working harder. Yeah. So uh And then briefly before we get moving, because I know that you wanted to touch on one of the episodes I did, and which was about what does maga meine, right, or what does it mean to you and how does it make you feel versus what the basically what the media is telling you it's supposed to mean, and what the leftist part of your Democrat party is trying to make you believe maga actually means like getting away from the meaning of itself. And I remember you brought that up and it made me think more about it too, because like, yeah, you know, I have my opinion on it, and a lot of people don't understand.

2:42 I think it just got away from the word, right, like make America Great Again is really what it stood for. Yet it just turned into this bad name right that that you just there's a bad name that you just wear like a badge on your chest if you're considered a conservative or Republican. And I'm not really sure where you stand. I know, I know you hadn't a pinage. Yeah, to be honest with you, I've kind of it's been a little like you said, it's been a little while, but you know, I do think that there's, you know, in the Republican Party since Goldwater, which was nineteen sixty four, you know, before I was even born, we've you know, the Republican Party has gone through I don't want to say a reform or a growth period, like about every ten to fifteen years. You had kind of a growth period with Reagan or influx of new people, and then you had it again in nineteen ninety four with Newt Gingrich again in twenty ten with the Tea Party, a little bit of a shorter period twenty sixteen with Trump, and then again I think in twenty twenty four with Trump.

3:47 So and I think the twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four movements were slightly different. And you know, I don't know if they're MAGA or America First or Republican. I think, you know, we're in this moment where everybody's trying to figure that out. You know, I don't think that. To me personally, I don't think maggot is a negative term. I think there are people who use it as a slang term, like people use rhino as a slang term. So it's you know, and I don't. I don't like that term either, you know. Or people will say, oh, your establishment or you know, and I just look at people and say, hey, listen, I've got thirty years of my life that I've dedicated to the Republican Party. I believe in what we've done, you know, in the conservative movement.

4:38 You know, I've made it my job so much so that I believe in this so much that I've staked my ability to put my kids through college, you know, based upon my political beliefs, and to those who are new to the party or movement, whatever you want to call it, I always say welcome, just welcome, you know. And I kind of really got involved in nineteen ninety four, and I was the same way. I kind of came in. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here to fix it. Now it's my way or the highway. And you learn very quickly then in politics, very few things are my way or the highway. And if you want to, if you really want to be a part of the change, you figure out how to change those things from within. And I feel like I've had a pretty good career of doing just that. One example is just Florida elections law.

5:31 Election law we have probably, and I think this is a good use of the word liberal, we probably have the most liberal ballot access in the world in Florida. It's the easiest state in the nation to get on the ballot, it's the easiest place to vote, but it's also the most secure voting that happens in the world. And you know, I've had a like I've had a small part in that transformation over the last twenty five years, especially you know, after the recount. So I'll be up front. I have a long history not in politics like you. You know, it was never public facing or in a position where I had to be in politics like you were as a consultant or whatnot, are working directly for example, the Republican Party or whatnot like you did in Florida. But I will say that being in California, you're kind of indoctrinated or pushed into being a Democrat from your youth. And I remember going to school and it was like every teacher automatically it's like, well, you got to vote Democrat. It's it's just a better way to go. They care about the people, et cetera.

6:39 And I'll say, back back in that time, it kind of rang true at one point, and I think the Democrat Party got so far away from what they are that it just pushed people towards that sentiment or statement of MAGA, because I what happened is people wanted to get America back, period. But just because it's Trump in charge or it's not the Conservative Party Republican Party that's in charge of Congress for the most part, right now, everybody now hates that word magan. They're trying to make it stand for something else than what it really was, which was really getting the country back to what to its roots and what it really is supposed to be. And if that is considered ultra conservative these days, then so be it. I think it just wasn't making sense for a long time, and the Democratic Party just lost lost everything. And all they have now is just slinging names and insults at the at their the opposing party, to try to make themselves, you know, relevant, not saying that they lost all power. In general, they still have connections, but you know, I think this was the whole thing was a big gut check to America, especially to the Democratic Party. And the fact that a statement like make America Great Again would insult you just never made sense to me. I remember talking to one of my friends who was a hardcore leftist and good person too. It's just, you know, that's just where they lean, not a problem, but they were a fin by hat I was wearing one day, I could have had an American flag on it. It was really wine bottles that it was from winery, so it was all wine bottles, but it was she was a fend body that, by the heck, cause it just had the flag and right away. She called me trumpy,

8:11 and I'm like, how does the American flag in your mind mean just Trump and not standing for the country in which you live in? Like why why would that? I had a. Similar experience right here in Ruby Red, Sarasota, Florida, you know, at breakfast where you know, a waiter took offense to I was about to you know, I went to breakfast with my parents and the family and a good number my wife's family lives here, so and you know, I was wearing gonna go out on the boat afterwards, and had an American flag baseball cap on, and the waiter, you know, mouthed off to me about you know, well you have no you have no right to wear that in here. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

8:53 Like what and who? Who are you to speak to anybody that way much, you know, much less a customer of your business to of what they're what they're wearing. Like it wasn't It wasn't like I was wearing curse words. It was a simple red, white and blue truckers at with an American flag on it. And it was bizarre. I get it. It's crazy. So anyway, here we are now and what people feel to understand is Trump has always been historically a Democrat until he ran for the presidency in twenty sixteen. Suddenly all the Democrats hated him, and then he leaned more conservative. And you know, you can see in his cabinet alone, like it's a mixture.

9:36 It's not all just it's not all just hardcore conservatives for example. I mean Tulca Gabbert came over because she was disappointed in the party at the time. You got RFK. Now they're in charge. I mean, so there's a mixture of personalities and beliefs, which I think is a good way to balance everything out. So there's a method to my madness here. And how I'm asking you questions, by the way, because I want to try to push things a bit and I just want I want to get opinions from somebody who's who's been part of the Conservative Party for a very long time that can probably answer some questions and says some things straight. One of the things, one of the things that that I don't like, okay, firstly, is is everybody now asking, first off, making America great again is a bad thing, which is ridiculous. Put in America first is a bad thing. Whatever. We can get to the geopolitical ramifications of some of these decisions all we want, and there are those, and we can we can tackle those down the road. But the reality is, yeah, we should have been put in our country first a long time ago. So here's the question that everybody keeps asking, and I keep thinking about this, and I'm I'm fine with it. But you know, you always see on social media, hey did you get what you voted for? Are you happy with with what you got? And I got to ask you, I mean, what what do you think so far? Personally?

10:52 You know, there's some things that scratch you scratch your head about and then and there's other things that are happening that we've been fighting thirty or forty or more years for, and so you know, so, yes, this is what I voted for. You know, I voted for, you know, stopping the lush fund at USAID. That has been a political I call it the Political Consultants Foreign Travel Act. I mean, that's everybody has known, but from both sides of the party, both parties that if you're a mid level congressional staffer and your congressman dies gets voted out of office, retires whatever, you can go over to USAID and get a job, you know, to land for twelve eighteen months, travel the world and then come back and you know, find another congressman, you know, or you know, you go over there and you stay ten years. You know.

11:48 I encourage people to just go to their own LinkedIn and type in USAID and start looking at the at the backgrounds of the people who pop up, who you may know, who somehow are involved with you as a us ID. I did that in the first ten popped up. One was a lifelong person twenty five years, committed to whatever. But the other, you know, there was there was one Republican and then there were about eight people from the Obama administration who are just planted over there for over a decade. And so you know, we've been paying for these folks to travel the world, first class travel. You know, they do, travel to the hinterlands, take pictures with school children and say they're carrying democracy to the world. And in a way that is possibly good. But we also have to look at our We have to take a long look in the mirror and say we're going two trillion in debt per year and one trillion of that is just to manage the debt, and so that is unsustainable.

12:47 We are the most debt ridden country in the world. The only other country that comes close per capita or per you know, budget to debt is Germany, and you know which is you know, the second largest economy in the world. But there's no other no other country comes close to the amount of debt they're carrying with compared to their budget. You know, our we go twenty we go. Our budget is one hundred and twenty seven percent over budget. So we collect one hundred coins and we spend one hundred and twenty seven every year, year in and year out, we're twenty seven percent over budget. Yeah, any business would be out of business by now, a long time ago.

13:29 I mean, you know. And the argument is, oh, you can carry some debt, just like you know, your home mortgage is debt, and yeah, for sure, but you can't continue to not pay off the debt. You have to pay off your house. You have to you have to continue to make payments on it. You don't make you don't make zero payments on your debt and and or or put your debt on your credit card. You don't put your mortgage payment on your credit card. So and that's what we're doing. And everybody's like, oh, we're fine with it. It's fine, and it's not fine. It's not going to be fine, and it's going to be it's going to you know, at what point do we tell the Chinese okay you can you can drill for oil in the Everglades, or drill for oil in you know, Yosemite National Park or whatever, Yellowstone? You know what, how do we pay them off? I don't know, Like it's it's baffling because people will say, you know, I look at our assets. Our assets are over you know, six trillion dollars if you look at the interstates and bridges and all these other things. I'm like, yeah, great, are you going to sell off those assets to pay the Chinese when the bill comes due? And the answer is no, you're not.

14:36 Well they shouldn't anyway. I don't know how you do it. I guess you put a toll road everywhere. But yeah, you know, but you know, but who's going to want to do? You know, listen, we became a country over tax on tea. I can't imagine them. You know, Americans say okay, we're going to allow a bunch of toll roads to pay off the Chinese. So this doesn't make any sense. In California is there's a toll on every freaking road. It seems like every bridge lane, you name it. Ridiculous out here. Okay, maybe on over, maybe on over exaggeray, but but not necessarily. I mean, if you're out in the Bay Area, there's it's literally about that bad. Now. I agree with you. And people are shocked about the whole USA i D thing or USAID because for the most part, people have been woefully ignorant, Like this information has not necessarily been secret, it's been public. People just never looked. No one cares.

15:26 Nobody, well nobody as long as things are going well, nobody cares exactly, so you know, we're But the truth of the matter is, you know that's USA I D is an easy target because everybody knows that that's kind of a slush fund of the political class, and you know, they that's just what it is. I mean, everybody kind of not that they're not doing jobs, not that their jobs aren't good things, but it's just everybody knows that they're not jobs that have to happen, you know, or or if they had to happen, they would be under a secretary level position, and which is what is going to happen, is they're going to go under the secretary of State and a US Senate confirmed position. And you know, they're like, oh, well, we need to take So what what Democrats would argue is USA I D is you know, kind of step shot of the of the secretary of State, right, but it's governed by politicians, not by a US Senate confirmed, you know, cabinet level position, and so so you know who's actually who's actually running it.

16:33 And where's the oversight, where's the oversight, and. So it's a way for its lower sights, not in the executive branch for sure. So I think that people are freaking out because say what you will about Trump, he's unorthodox, he does he does do things. He beats to his own drum for sure. Now what you got to realize, well you do, but most people don't, is he's got four years. He's intent on getting things done. He's not going to be president again. This is it for him. So he's not holding back this time. First time around, I think he was getting his foot and he trusted people, maybe got steered a little wrong, and what you said earlier when we started talking, I agree with Like, there's some things where I shake my head and I'm like, I get it. I understand where you're coming from, what you're trying to do, but maybe this isn't the right approach. But I also understand overall what he wants to do, and that's trying to turn things around. So his decisions are very sudden. It gave people no time. They thought, you know, oh, it's going to be this way forever, and if they do make a change, it's not going to be that easy.

17:30 Well bullshit. Trump said, yeah, it will be. I'm making it that easy. He's right away just going we're doing this and people don't know what to do. And you know, when it comes to when it comes to things like you know, USAID, people were living off of that, I mean the money that they were getting for funding for some bullshit operation that they were conducting in some foreign land which never really existed. I mean, they're getting called out on it, and they don't like it because their income has just been taken from them for doing what exactly absolute nothing. You know, any other company, if you're top heavy, you've got too many people doing the same thing. What do you start doing? You start cutting them. It's like you said, somebody positions should be like secretary level, right, or there should be under positions. There's no reasons some of.

18:12 These functions will come back, you know. Yes, aways functions are are things, you know, because if we don't fill the void, the Chinese will, and we can't have that either. But it should be more strategic. It should be part of our overall foreign policy, not just a separate organization that has to be throwing money around. When it comes to global relationships, when we're talking about geopolitical relationships. Yes, we can't let the Chinese step in as a superpower, but we still can't deny that we need to trim the fat on USID. There was a lot of things going on that absolutely we're not being accounted for, and we're absolutely being used, as you said, a slush fund for just nobody even knows what, to be honest, nobody even knows what. So it's shocking everybody right now, but it had to happen. It had to happen, and we're on a downward spiral for the last twelve thirteen years minimum, you know, I know, it goes back from further. I'm sure we can recall more than I can.

19:08 Well, for those who you know, to kind of revisit one of the things that you said, you know, for those who you know who have that head scratching moment with Donald Trump, I like to say that in twenty twenty Trump lost the election. We can argue whether it was real or not, but he lost the election there the because he two things. One is, he practiced the politics of subtraction. And number two, people voters did not like the fires that he set. And you fast forward to twenty twenty four and Donald Trump started practicing the politics of addition. And you mentioned Tulca Gabrick, Robert F. Kennedy, Elon Mosk, Marco Rubio. You can go down the list.

19:49 All those are politics of addition. And they The second thing is they elected Donald Trump in twenty twenty four because he leads us through fire and they and they now realize they are willing to accept the fires he sets. And this is what Democrats, I don't think understand is that they're like, Donald Trump set another fire, and Americans are like, good, good, right, because you know what, we know he can lead us through and so you know, he'll either put out the fire or will march or we'll march our asses right through it, and so so. And that's I think the fundamental difference between Donald Trump and his first term and his second term are those two things that the American public has accepted the fires he sets for, But he's also practicing the politics of addition.

20:35 I think, I think what this is what I've been saying about Trump for a while, and what I think people miss is he's not stupid. A lot of what he does is intentional. And what I think he does, he says outlandis stuff on purpose. He knows he's going to get a reaction. But I feel this is what he does. He's stressed, testing the situation. He's like pecking at that glass with with with a pick to see where where it starts to fracture. And once he sees where that fracture is, that's when he just goes all in on it. He's he's challenging the narrative and he's challenging the way people think. I don't think that everything he says he actually believes. I mean, do you really think he wants to take on Greenland? Really? No? He's being a troll. Does he really want to take Canada?

21:17 Harry S. Truman tried to buy Greenland. I know that this is not a new it's not a new piece of political dirt that we've decided as in our best interest to own. Truman did make an offer and it was rejected, and Greenland did not want to become part of the US, and you know, as I know, they still don't. That's fine, but the reality is Trump is stress test in the situation. He wants to see what a catch. My only point by bringing up Truman is that it's it's not some bizarre out of left field. That's not It's been around. You know, We've had presidents talk about it or you know, if they could have done it, they would have, you know, because it's it's been in our best interest for a long time. And you know, like one of our joint chiefs of staff said, you know, we have to make sure that these guys don't try to fight a war with dog sleds, and that's you know, we have to. We have we have shipping lanes that are opening up in that part of the world, and there's a lot of American interests that need to be protected, and you know, having some level of strategic defense with Greenland would be beneficial to the United States.

22:27 Absolutely, it's militarily strategic, militarily strategic, and also strategic in his resources. But I think in modern times, look to me, the lines have been set, borders drawn, whatever, and even Greenland's not entirely independent and they want to be. But the reality is I think just creating a relationship with them, a close knit relationship, is probably the better way to move forward. My opinion, I may be wrong, but that's just why I see it, But still stand by what I said. I think Trump is just literally stress testing situation to see how people react before he moves forward on something. But you know, that's gonna take me to two other things, because you know, first off, just because you did talk about this recently on one of your shows, and I've I've talked about it also, and we both had lawyers, you know, to go over it is the immigration debacle, I call it, you know, the deportations. Also, we're learning how immigrants have been taken advantage of the system knowingly, how companies have been taken advantage of the system knowingly. What do you what do you have to say to people who are up in arms over the fact that he even mentioned deporting people.

23:31 I don't even understand how you when you have going back to Carter, going back to JFK, have all deported people, especially people who are criminals. So so there's a there's a baseline, you know, Barack Obama, you know, deport you know, like, it's just ridiculous. It's it's a ridiculous comment of people who are who are either don't care or unknowledgeable about the past, or they're just so partisan that they're going to be against anything President Trump wants to do, you know, Joe, But it's all a bunch of horseshit really, I agree with you, and so you know, it's not a it's just, you know what, not to deport people at all is ridiculous, Like that's just every president has deported people. So it's not you know, the question is and I had somebody on, you know, on my Twitter feed just I was like, how many is too many to let them? We still let in. We legally allow one point one million people in a year. Legally that's the legal process. And most people who are experts in immigration would say that number probably needs to be cut in half to five to six hundred thousand per year, and yet people on the left will not even give you a number of what it should be. It's like, should we allow a billion

25:03 people in a year? Should like if we could open up our doors and allow a billion people move here, a billion people would move here. But that's obviously not sustainable. Or you know, we've you know, just in this last influx under Bien with the ten to twenty million, whatever the number ends up being, that he let in, we started having, you know, a housing crisis in every corner of this country, an affordable housing crisis. And it's because we let too many people in too fast, and Democrats quite frankly don't care. And for them to stand and say they care for you know, working class Americans or poor Americans is just flies in the face of anything that is reasonable when they know that they have caused this problem, They've caused this affordable housing problem, they've caused the problem where Americans can't get work if they're trying, they're at the if they're especially if they're at the you know, starting level in their career, their high school graduate or high school dropout or god, forbid somebody's been to prison. You know, we you know, we kind of look at felons as gosh, you know, they just can't they just can't work anywhere. Well, fifty percent of felons never go back to prison, so you know, they they they committed their crime, they did their time, and now they're back out working. And so we have and so one guest on our podcast said, you know, it's kind of like, you know, how many people are in the waiting room to accept the job. If a single mother is like, I need to get off work at three and you know, to pick up my kids from school.

26:37 If the employer is looking at six other people in the waiting room for that same job and that person's willing to work till five, any one of them is willing to work till five and they're qualified, the employer is going to choose the person work till five. But if there's nobody in the waiting room, the employers more likely to say, you give power to the employee, and Democrats have taken that power away from from workers. Yeah, the thing that boggles me is that it's it's okay for every other major country to protect their borders except for the United States somehow. I mean, you can't just walk across the borders to China. Obviously not in North Korea either, but you know you can't do that in Russia either. They're all gonna protect their borders. Every country does this open border policy that seems to be like a virus that's spreading across the world, for example, because if we look at what we consider the free world or the Western nations, you know it starts here and it all came from this. I don't know, this bullshit argument of pulling on your moral heartstrings because hey, you know what about the children. Oh you're gonna deport You're gonna deport the parents, but leave the child here, or are you gonna take the child from from from the parents. It's like, we can have a moral argument all you want, but these parents willingly made the decision to put their child in that position.

27:57 And that's not even true. The children can be deported with their parents. It's just a it's just a p argument to say, oh I shouldn't deport the parent. No, that's not true that the child can can go with. We're America is not responsible for keeping the family together. Think about it this way, you know, when single mom goes to prison, we don't send our children with her. No, absolutely not think about that. So when when you know, dad goes and robs a bank, we don't send his children to prison with him. So these criminals, why why would why would we? It just doesn't make any sense.

28:37 I know, I'm on your side here, I'm just you know, just pointing out that argument they always trying to make to make everybody feel bad about that decision of upholding our law, and it's just propaganda's bullshit. But you know, like recently the story that just happened about the kid that needed the surgery for her brain cancer, and it's like, oh wait, the US is kicking them out when they need this care and they deport them back over to Mexico where there's get in the care. And in that situation, you know, it's a little tricky. To me, it's a matter of timing. I personally would have said, okay, well let's give the child the care, but when that child's care is done, they're going back, right. It's the way I see it as some kind of a compromise. But if we're always going to be upheld to some to some insane moral argument that they just reach back out into this large cave of well, okay, let me grab this one and throw it at the conservatives right now and say, look, you can't do this because little Johnny over here just scraped his knee and he's bleeding and we can't move him right now because he doesn't feel good about himself with that. That's a bunch of crap.

29:39 Well, and the you know, birthright citizenship is bullshit, you know, you know, the jurisdiction whereas clause of the fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to in the long case of I think it was eighteen ninety eight, maybe eighteen ninety six that the US Supreme Court case was interpreted to be birthright and citizenship. And so, you know, an any as we know, any US Supreme any constitutional or amendment the Constitution, anytime there's an interpretation through a US Supreme Court case, that interpretation can then be changed. And so I hope the US Supreme Court looks at birthright citizenship because we have been invaded, and we have been invaded, and everyone's like, oh, it's not an occupying army. The hell it's not. These Venezuelan gangs are an army. They may not be at war with our government, but they are at war with America.

30:37 They're at war with our way of life. And the fact that they came they didn't they came here to do harm, to occupy our land, and to say then that if their children are born here that they're citizens. Nobody would say that if if in World War Two, if Germany had had stormed our land and gotten to the United States and had children, that those children somehow would be US citizens. There's not a reasonable person who thinks that's correct. And yet somehow people have bought into this belief that just you know, Chinese citizens are flying here to have babies. You have this problem in California big time. You know, are flying to especially California, having babies so their babies have dual citizenship, and flying them back to have them raised as Communists so they can then infiltrate our country as citizens twenty thirty years from now.

31:39 And how that makes no sense. It makes no sense that we would allow that. Yeah, but that's a that's egregiously taken advantage of a law, a law which has been grossly misinterpreted interpreted. So on know why I said dated by interpreted because if you're a diplomt met for example, for another country, or if you're visiting, you know, as a representative of a large company and you're traveling around. If you have let's say you, for example, if you went to France on vacation, you had a kid. As your kid now a French citizen. Would you're absolutely be a Russian citizen, Would it be a Greek citizen? No, it doesn't work that way. If you happen to have the child in whatever land, it does not automatically make you a citizen. Now there are there's a caveat to that you're supposed to be able to live in this country for X amount of years.

32:26 I think it was changed to fourteen years or something like that is what it was supposed to be, and you have to live here for a certain amount of time. You have to prove that you have an allegiance to the United States. I mean, it's not just as simple as saying I had a kid here, thank you very much. Have to be allegiant to the United States. Absolutely. Now we can have a debate, because I don't, but I think the debate that is legitimate is around the word allegiant. You know what does it mean to be allegiant to the United States, Well, it means that you are not allegiant to another country. We have members of Congress who who brad that they are more allegiant to other countries than to the Unity.

33:06 That should not be that, that should not be at all. They should be allowed to vote. That's that's someone who should not be a citizen, should not be a voter. They damn sure should be allowed to serve in the US House of Representation. And just call it out like illin Omar should not be in Congress. She needs to be removed. Absolutely not. She is working on behalf of she's not. She's not. If you're not allegiant to the United States, you're not qualified to be a member of Congress. You're not qualified to be a voter. You're not qualified to be a voter if you are not allegiant to the United States. I still can't understand how someone like that was able to even get on the ticket and be considered for public office. Well that's how much. That's how much immigration, legal and illegal we've had that have that have formed in one place, that that you know that those voters are not allegiant to the United States. Quite frankly, they're electing someone who is not allegiant, and I don't even understand it, Like it's it's bizarre that we are in that we even have this discussion.

34:06 I'm not I'm not gonna stick on on on illhound for too long, but I'm just gonna say that I did do a deep dive on her in one of my episodes, and I know who her father was and who he who he was serving at the time, who was a known terrorist, authoritarian terrorist to their own people, and she came here and she has since been here, has always gone out of her way to demean the United States, to demean our way of life for culture people, and has even been caught on camera multiple times, even on her X feed, stating how she's working on behalf of the Somali people and how is that nobody else in Congress is taking action against this and holding her.

34:50 I mean, it is just ridiculous. It's ridiculous that she's still allowed to serve. And you know, I'm just gonna leave it there. I can go a lot deeper, but I just wanted to since since her name came up up, well, I brought it up. I just wanted to make that point. I just so there you go. Yeah, it's it's ridiculous. So before we move off this immigration thing, though, you mentioned something about, you know, how we're losing jobs to immigration. And one of the lawyers I had on she was very savvy on basically the work visas programs like the H one B, H two A, et cetera. And she explained a lot of that and how that worked and how companies are using that. Now. She was really going out of her way to explain it to me. And we're trying to keep it objective and non non political, because I just wanted to get the information. And you had a little bit of the similar experience with one of your recent episodes too. I just listened to that one, by the way, and that particular lawyer with Mark, I believe it was Mark. It was the one you just released that Mark yet Mark, and he made some similar points. He didn't dive too deep on the H two b's and how those work were the H two A. But from your understanding, how do you view that these immigrants under these statuses are taking jobs from American citizens?

36:12 So, and I'm just trying to look at my notes because I wanted to say it correctly because it is, you know. But let's just say the one program that Mark Grekorian mark is the he's the founder of the Center of Immigration Studies. And if you're looking for immigration information, the Center of Immigration Studies website is a wealth. There's so much you can lose yourself for days in there. But the way he described it was that, and it's like, you can't blame work, you can't blame employers. But what we do is we bring people on student pieces and then we incentivize the worker the work the employer to hire someone who, let's say in the tech industry. So when they graduate from college, the employer will seek out someone who's on a student visa because they don't have to pay Social Security. Neither the employee nor the employer pays Social Security tax on that employee for a period of three years. And so we are putting all of our students at an immediate disadvantage in every field, engineering, every stem field when they're going up against students from other countries, because you know, they immediately have an advantage because of the employers who hire them get a tax advantage.

37:45 So we're saying to our own American and we you know, we're subsidizing not only that student visa, but we're subsidizing the American kids who are in the university. Then we're saying, oh, not only we're going to subsidize your education, but we're going to make it put you in as advantage to getting a job to compared to the foreign worker or the foreign students. So, I mean, it's ridiculous some of these tax incentives that we have in place. And and like Mark said, you really can't blame the employer because that's the system. You know, an employer is based on making money. And so if I can hire, if they're both equal, I'm gonna hire the one who's gonna save me ten percent in taxes or whatever that percentage is in taxes and call it a day. And the reasoning behind it the you know, if you want to do Devil's Advocate, the reason behind it is, well, you know, this foreign student is going to do their three years and leave, and so they're never gonna they're never going to collect Social Security, so you don't they shouldn't have to pay into it. And which is all about of a horseshit.

38:49 And that's that's how the student visa works. And then as and how's that contrast to the H two BE visa, Well. You have to I'm not that you lose me in the acronyms, to be honest with you. My wife is well, no worries, no worries. Yeah, it's so the thing with H two B visa is it relates more to professional positions, so these are no longer necessarily students. And what I found fascinating about this one is for one in the marketplace, by the way, in the market the company has to has to prove that there was no reasonably available candidates for the position who are already in the United States or who are they citizens.

39:30 They have to make that case somehow. They're always able to make that case because apparently there's not enough professionals here. But anyway, so yeah, so this goes back. So this goes back to World War two and when you know, we brought all the nuclear scientists over and so the thought was we would bring the best and brightest from other countries and we would have them here and give them some level of status, whether it's screen card or citizenship. If they filled certain mostly scientific or whatever, let's just call it stem degrees that would would fill you know, those needs. And so the problem one problem with that is and is that it's it's almost inhumane because if you take the top you know, people out of an emerging country, they're no longer there to help their emerging country, and so we cannot and the truth of the matter is we cannot bring enough people here, you know. So so it's there's an incredible you know, part of part of the thought process is, you know, we bring people here because they're in poverty, and so they can come to America and not be in poverty. But we bring one point one million people here and they're all not impoverished.

40:48 But let's even pretend that they all are. So every year there's a net of twenty million people in the country born or born into poverty. So we would have to bring in twenty million a year just to keep our head above water if we were if we were, if we're using our immigration system to be humane to other countries in the world, and what ends up happening is are we end up being inhumane because we're taking the best and brightest from the people who can fix the problems in these emerging economies, and we're taking them out of their out of their problem solving area where and so there's an argument that we should leave them there but give them the tools to be successful in their own countries.

41:35 I understand that argument, and I understand that take, but it's not going to it's not going to happen or change because the reality is these companies are able to take advantage of these people. They are saving money, even if in this case where they have to pay the taxes because they have to sponsor that individual for three years, they get a three year minimum basically, but they can't extend it up to six and then after that it's supposed to be over. The thing with the h t B, though, is you know, the argument is always has they have to be offered the same salary at market value rate whatever, which I know is complete bullshit because I've known many people in different companies and what I'll just say that I know for a fact that a lot of these people are not getting paid what the actual market rate is.

42:19 You can go buy market statistics based on you know, prevailing wage for example, for a certain position that is put out there by the government, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the market that they are in particular is exactly what that same prevailing rage is supposed to be. Prevailing wage could say fifty thousand, but that market's supposed to pay one hundred and sixty grand because of living conditions. So a company can easily go, yeah, well, you know we're meeting the minimum. Here you go, sixty grand. We're gonna bring this guy in, save money. We don't have to pay this other qualified engineer one hundred and twenty one hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And then there you go. And that happens all the time. So yeah, it's it's it's good if it's not being taken advantage of it, and unfortunately it's been taking advance. And so it seems like you and I agree on immigration, and I think most of the United States agrees on immigration, aside from well obviously the Democrat Party for whatever reason. But let's let's move on to the really heated contested thing going on right now in the world, and that's been the Ukraine Russia War. And I'm not sure how far you've you've you've dived into this particular situation, but you know, just as of today before before we recorded. You know, the Trump phone call with Putin just happened, right, and they're supposed to be uh temporary cease fire now. But the problem is is it's only that the conditions are.

43:40 It's a ceasefire just basically on energy and infrastructure, like you can't destroy those things, which does nothing to stop Russia, for example, from going ahead and just bombing and shooting up the rest of Ukraine. And I guess and vice versa, if Zelenski want to do the same to Russia, he could, I guess, how do you feel about this? We're we're all in a predicament because the world, the world has drawn I think a line in the sand saying we don't want Russia to advance. You know, we prefer Russia leave. But the truth of the matter is there's not enough men in Ukraine to root out the Russians and push them back. There's just not And so so the question, and this was part of the blow up in the Oval office was and I actually was on BBC International when the news broke when Michael Waltz, the National Security Advisor, was speaking at Seapac and said that Zelensky had agreed to a minerals deal. And so even in that interview, which is on YouTube, on reasonable arguments, But even in that interview, you you know, the reporter kept asking about this word strength. You know, you know, Donald Trump's gonna have to agree to you know, uh, security, don't not strength, security, you know, provide Zelensky in Ukrainian Ukraine with security. And you know, and at the time,

45:12 you know, I didn't really realize, but certainly by the time the blowof of the Oval Office, Zelensky had used this word security, and Trump was offended by it called said, you know, bretoned Zelensky that he was starting with World War III. And the truth of the matter is what Zelensky meant was American boots on the ground, and that's what he wanted. Yeah, and that's true. And I actually did a breakdown of that same situation. I came to the same conclusion. It's exactly what he wanted. That's what he's implied the whole time, and he got it. He got it from the EU, and he gets it on day thirty one after a cease fire, he gets EU boots on the ground. So he was trying to put Americans in the EU in a position where, you know, on day thirty one, if the Russian shoot, now they're shooting at the world, and the whole damn thing gets escalated, which is why Trump called them out.

46:02 Yeah, but even even before this, so America is being being billed as the big bad you know, like we're the bad personnel, right, we hate democracy, we don't want to get involved, we don't want to protect freedom. It's a bunch of bullshit because Europe could have stopped US a long time ago. This is in their backyard. Now. What is crazy is you know, the first invasion twenty fourteen, the annexed Crimea, Russia took it over. But if you go back further twenty twelve, people make the argument, yeah, well but the Ukraine was also shooting missiles at you know, at the borders on Russians and et cetera. But you know that wasn't Zelinsky. So this whole, this whole thing is is ridiculous because the UK is trying to criticize America, for example, and so is France. France I always had a bone to pick with because they're the biggest talkers that do nothing. Same thing with Germany. They're all just barely starting to get off the ras and do something which they should have done a long time ago, instead of trying to rely on the strength of the United States of America and continuing to get money from US.

47:01 I mean, we fund over two hundred something countries, but no one sends anything our way, like literally, well. And every American, every American should be offended by what Selenski said. Zelensky said, I'm not going to put my grandchildren in debt, and yet if we are supposed to fund his war with our grandchildren's money, and that's exactly what we've been doing, and it's wrong and it needs to stop, you know. And you look at someplace like France, which has carries no debt, you know, the UK. You know, when we go back to we're doing one hundred and twenty seven percent. Germany's at like one hundred and seventeen percent of their budget. You know, UK's only deficit, spends about ten percent of their budget over their budget. You know, France is like at three percent. They don't deficit spend at all. They have the least amount of debt of all of these countries. And then they have the gall to sit there and say that somebody else needs to step up to the plate. And I'm like, listen, you want my grandchildren ding to finance your ward today, why don't you do some of that? Why don't you put your money where your mouth is?

48:06 They don't. And you know, when it comes to contributing to NATO, like everybody wants to compare Europe or EU to the United States, you can't take a conglomerate of countries and compare to one singular nation. We still pay over seventy percent of the entire funding for NATO, regardless of how you want to look at it. Now, getting back to this what you mentioned about the mineral rights deal that you know when you heard all that break that argument when you were doing that BBC interview. The reality is a lot of people didn't talk about. It wasn't in the news or it wasn't reported, But the UK already signed a freaking mineral rights deal with Ukraine. On January twenty six of this year, they signed a one hundred year deal to bolster up Ukraine's economy using surprisingly British banking system also helped them in commerce by using of course, British trade partners, and they also signed a deal to help them in mining and processing all the minerals for Ukraine. And that was only a small snippet.

49:04 I was like, only a small section of that large deal that they made signed January twenty six. So when they were trying to criticize Trump for even mentioning the mineral rights deal, which actually went in Ukraine's favor, it was a fifty to fifty split of profits that would have put Americans on Ukraine soil, which in and of itself would have been a deterrent. But no, everybody didn't mention that. While the UK was trying to say we're there to rape the Ukraine and take advantage of them, no one mentioned this one hundred year deal that the UK signed that you can actually find on their government website. Well, at the end of the day, Zelenski was trying to take a deal that was made, an economic deal that was made, and make it a military deal. And that's I mean, he tried to blur the lines and he got caught.

49:46 No, we know this, and I agree with that statement is actually very accurate because that's all he has. All he has is the mineral rights to negotiate with everybody his resources. That is very true. But I'm not going to sit here and take the criticism of the UK or France or Europe for things that that they themselves are going out of their way to make their own nations rich by creating this relationship with Ukraine. And they want us. Here's the worst part is they want us to finance it. Well, yeah, and so we're financing. We're financing the world's lifestyle, whether it's we can jump into terrafts. Like everyone's like, oh, let's not have tariffs. Well, somehow we are somehow financing the lifestyle of all these countries by paying taxes on the goods that you know, by not having manufacturing here and not buying American and letting their goods flood our markets for free and so and so we're we in one way or another. You know, we've talked about USAID, we talked about the you know, the minerals deal, you start talking about terraffs. What has happened over the last forty fifty years is that we've started financing all of these other countries their lifestyle and you know, quite frankly, we're going broke doing it. And you know, at some level somebody needs to explain to me or to some body that you know, how we're going to repay nearly forty trillion dollars worth of debt.

51:06 We can't. We can't. And and again, as I said earlier, you know we were funding over two hundred countries every year. I mean, just just Israel alone. Let's just take them out here. We've been paying them three I think it's three or three point two billion minimum every single year for a long time. That's the minimum. That's not all we pay them, but that's our minimum commitment. That's just one example. Uh, we we send money to two I think was I keep saying over too hund because I think it's like two twenty two something, And let me let me clarify. I mean, yeah, there's a there's like one hundred and ninety three hundred and ninety four recognized nations. But then you know, you have this large number of what they call dependencies, like you know, I think it's like fifty five dependencies, plus there's other, uh independent, let's just call them that, nations that are not necessarily recognized.

51:55 So yeah, that's where I'm getting this over two hundred number. But we do absolutely fun over two high under it. I'll just say nations in set of countries whatever every year, and it's ridiculous that that gets overlooked by the rest of the world. And they know this. That's why they're scared that Trump is saying no, no, we're not doing this anymore. We're pulling things back because they don't want to admit that they've been relying on wet no China. Money and yet we gave them money towards the death, Like, how does that make sense? It doesn't. So when it comes to Ukraine, you know, Europe's being very hypocritical because they themselves, Look, they're scared of Russia, period. They are. They want to admit up, but they are the only reason other countries started encroaching on their borders, as Putin tries to say with NATAL membership, is because they were in fear of Russia. If Russia wasn't who they are, and they didn't fear Russia as a nation, then they wouldn't have all these other countries trying to become NATO members That's the reality. That's the one point that everyone glosses over. They try to use the whole well, you know, Putin warned, if you if you have another NATO nation coming closer to my border, then things are going to happen. Yeah, but ask yourself why they want to become NATO members, Like, what's the real reason they want to become a native member? They're not gaining financially, It's because they want to be protected, protected from whom Russia? So at what point should have Trump's trying to be diplomatic and state of a large war because we know that this will lead to World War three if it's not handled correctly. But should Trump have have been much more stern with Putin from the get go on this one? You think should should we have put her foot down and try to step in

53:26 earlier about this? Well, even if you go and you can, we can talk about optics, because you know this is the over office blow up. Maybe was a one of those fires that Trump said, But if you look at that whole twenty nine minutes or whatever it was of video footage, you have to go twelve minutes thirteen minutes in before the brew haha started, and during that first ten or twelve minutes, you know Donald Trump is like, listen, I've got to be tough on both of these guys. I've got to be tough, and he's looking at Zelenskia. I got to be tough on him, but I got to be tough on Putin too, and you know, and he's you know, he's like, I'm the one who has to be I have to be the bad guy. And so it's for people to say that he was choosing a side there is they just didn't watch the whole thing. Now, can you know? The The question is, you know, could Trump be tougher on Putin? And I'm like, yeah, I guess he could, you know, at the end of the day.

54:21 But the one thing that we cannot and I think you and I agreed on this from a from a maybe a higher level. You know, what the world cannot have is Russia, China and North Korea ally themselves. And I ran I ran ally themselves in a thought process of global expansion. And so you know, we already know that North Korea has sent more than ten thousand troops at least last October to the Russia Ukrainian border or to battle with Russia. And you know, we don't we don't really know whether they've sent more or not, but we know they said at least ten thousand and so you know, there's a fine balance here of what do you what's a win? How do you define a win?

55:10 Is a win pushing Russia all all the way out of Ukraine? Or is a win not having World War three? It is a win having. Long term making long term you know, quote kind of friendships so that we don't allow Russia, China and North Korea to ally themselves. So I mean, that's a huge problem should that happen. And so, you know what, so I'm not sure that anyone in certainly the corporate national media really discusses what is a win. They don't and so I don't know that I have the answer. I'm not sure I'm going to sit here and say, oh, this is the win and this is how we define it, because I think that depending on what the strategy is, any of those things could be seen as a win. But if you're if you're talking about taking Russia and rooting them out of what the land that they've taken in Ukraine and pushing them back across the border, that's going to cost a lot of lives, and it's going to cost American lives, and I don't think America is up for it. And I don't think we should.

56:13 Be Yeah, and I don't think this is kind of a macro view situation, you know, that's my opinion. This is a big picture solution in terms of how we got to look at this because we the world is hating that little Ukraine is getting invaded by big bad Russia, right, and nobody wants to see this little sovereign nation get taken over. But look, Putin has been saying for I can't even I don't remember how many years that he wanted to reunite the old USSR. And even if we even if we compromise, let's say there's a compromise in this deal and he takes a little piece he already took Crimea. Everyone kind of turned their backs on that one. It's like, yeah, well you know that happened, whatever, And what's going to stop him from pushing a little bit more and more and more. You got to realize that Putin's getting older, this is his legas so he's not going to stop. But you were correct because I've always said this. It's funny how China has been kind of quiet about this whole thing until recently they're speaking up a little bit. But they're speaking up about what Russia and China coming together to bolster Iran and saying, hold on, we can't let we can't let the United States go in there and try to tell them how to handle their nuclear capabilities and et cetera. So now all of a sudden they're united and they're speaking together as they're on the same front, right, And it's exactly what you just said earlier. We don't need Iran, Russia, and China to suddenly come together and decide that they're going to become the superpower and start to take over territories. Well, Russia's already doing it. They're not going to stop. China

57:44 has been very very active in the Asia Pacific over there, and there they've been. They've been going ahead and trolling Taiwan to no end, and even the Philippines. They're not going to stop. They're making it very clear that look, we know the US is distracted here and oh guess what, now they're over here helping Israel again. They're back over in that situation, and they're going to continue these maneuvers and continue to test the waters on how far they can get with things. It's already been assessed. And analyzed by many different analysts, and someone that I know personally that has been in the intelligence community and still is by the way in officcy services that we are on a collision course. There's no way around it that by twenty twenty seven we will be fighting China in some way.

58:27 China has never denied this, and China has been has been becoming more and more emboldened in their actions in what they do. And the thing is China has taken American tactics. They've gone to countries, They've dumped tons of money into say hey, you know, we're gonna help you. We're gonna build up your infrastructure ahead much water. And that's why they're gaining trust with some of these African nations and etc. South America. Yeah, exactly. But but the thing that's going on is China has been quiet with the Russia Ukraine situation until now, well they're kind of speaking up and coming together with Russia to start to say, wait a minute, we're still allies and now we've got to stand up for Iran.

59:09 China still hasn't said much about the actual situation between Russia and Ukraine, but they but they're popping up their head and saying, yeah, we're still an ally. They're letting the world know, they're letting them know that, hey, we never backed off being an ally whatsoever. We're still here. And I think when it comes to Ukraine, I think China is just trying to see how this plays out. They want to see how far Russia can get with this, because that'll set the precedent for how far they can get with Taiwan. You're probably dead on correct, probably. Right today, wrong tomorrow. You know how it goes. There's no question you listen to China is you know. I always say that, you know, the way China acts, the next big war could be thought over fish. I mean, they have gotten so good at fishing with satellites and people don't realize that they are pilfering. The world sees on a daily basis for fish, you know, so much so that you know, people go out into the South China Sea and don't come back. Yeah, everybody, And because they run across a Russian fishing ship, which also happens to be Russian military. So so it's a very dangerous shift.

1:00:18 The ship fishing over in And I wish we would call it the East Agency for the same reason we changed the Gulf of America to its name, because we don't we shouldn't give China ownership over it. No, we shouldn't. But but that's but that's something I've been arguing for for a decade. But that's, uh, you know, probably probably not going to happen. So it's a crazy world we live in right now. You know. I never thought that all this would be happening in my time. Almost I'm not going to say it is biblical, but it almost kind of feels like those these things you read and you read in Revelations, we already had. We already had what we had, the pandemic, you know, and now we have these crazy wars going on. We it just feels like we're there. I'm not necessarily a religious person, but it just seems like it's kind of crazy that these things are happening. And I never thought i'd see this because it's just so much. It's not like, you know, one situation that we can handle and the world gets behind it. It's like this is happening, here's this fire, and then, by the way, while that's happening, here's another one. And then it's just nuts. And I don't.

1:01:20 I'm not really sure how we're going to get out of this. I just know that the US has to be stronger and be able to navigate this correctly. It's like what's going on right now. You know, our ships were attacked by the Hoho thiast period and out there, and we're we're striking back, and we should do that. But then you know, it also begs a question, well, what happens if Russia happens to attack Ukraine or happens to kill an American accidentally, or whatever the case is. I think you're exactly right. None of this happens in a vacuum. Which is why Donald Trump had been so careful about this word, you know, security and agreed and so because you know, that's if we if he had agreed to that one single word, it would have shown North Korea and China or given them a reason to escalate and and so you know, so that's that's the reason why there is a big blow up in the Oval Office over that one single word, is that you this none of this happens in a vacuum. And so you know, people think, oh, we can just open our border.

1:02:27 That's that doesn't happen in a vacuum. I mean, you know, look at it. If we weren't have to go to war, how are we going to browt these folks who are in our country, these Venezuelan gangs out of our country when all of our men go to young men go to war. I mean, it's it's ridiculous to even think about. And and so it's all it's all bizarro, like you said, it's just. It really is. I've got to give you a ten minute warning. Oh that's fine, Yeah, I know you got you got other things going on, but before before we get out of here. Though. You know, the thing is that people don't give Trump credit for when we keep talking about that word security. People don't understand that Trump knew exactly what ze Linzky meant.

1:03:10 I knew what he meant. Listen, that whole discussion was actually over fifty minutes. It's like fifty two minutes or whatever. I watched the entire thing from the beginning because when I saw that clip, I'm like, there has to always be more of the story. And I saw what happened. I saw how many times the Linsky mentioned security and push back on Trump, and then he offended JD. Vance by saying, basically, well, what good is your diplomacy is exactly what he said, Your diplomacy needs nothing. He didn't say in those same words, but that's exactly what he said. That was his intent, that's what he meant. And Vance got mad about that, and then Trump had to stand up for his face. And Band's got upset about the pictures of the dead children that he pulled them out, and nobody talked about it.

1:03:50 The corporate meeting never talked about him bringing out these pictures of dead children, showing the President of the United States and then trying to show the cameras and all this other crap that he was trying to pull inside the Oval offhas. I mean, it was, it was a stunt. It was it was bad, but you know, it was bad advice. It was bad advice. But this also goes to show that the reality is the world the world knows, and Trump knows, I mean the world does know. Because this is why Europe is in such a tizzy right now. Right They're in such a fit because they're not getting the immediate response I used to get from our old presidents, like oh right away, here we go a raw raw team whatever, because Trump really understands the power of US involvement and what that means to all the other conflicts going on in the world right now. He knows it's a powder keg right, and he and and no matter what anyone says, he does have good advisors around him, and he does have to be careful how he handles this situation. The US still stands for something, and the military mind of the US is still the military might of the United States of America. And as you alluded to earlier, or actually what you said earlier when we were talking is very true. If he decides to say, yeah, we're gonna go get engage here, we're just what's gonna stop from China going, hey, look they're you know, they're they're distracted fight in this war. Let us go ahead and move forward on what we want to do here on Taiwan, for example, or Philippines or whatever. And we're not gonna be able to react. We can't be split between two great, big, powerful military nations. We just can't.

1:05:22 So I think the UK you know. Bad thing I've told people is that let's I don't I don't like these facts. But the fact is Russia was our ally during two World Wars. Yeah, and if we're. If we're going to if these things are going to escalate, quite frankly, it's more likely that Russia is on our side than China or North Korea and so, and history would say we're more likely to have Russia on our side than Germany, and so you know what you know, So what's a win? I come back to what what's what is a win today? What is a win that will be seen as a win twenty years from today?

1:06:06 And I think the only win that is seen when we look back twenty years from today is were we able to keep Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea from allying themselves in this global expansion? And it may be too far, like you suggested, you didn't suggest this, but like you said, China is already out there building infrastructure, providing water, providing food you know, to give in countries, learning countries, so you know, and yes, we've been there too, but China is no longer sitting on their hands doing nothing. And these things don't happen in a vacuum.

1:06:47 Yeah, no, I agree. Look, making America great again is gonna hurt. I'm going to bring back MAGA as we talked about the beginning, because that's what Trump is trying to do, and it's not a negative connotation or statement. It shouldn't be goood is something that's negative for the great United States of America. I know you got to go. Do you have like five more minutes to touch on the tariff thing or do you have to head out? Yeah? I can do five, Yeah, I can do five. Okay, I'll let you go on the on the on the tariff thing, because you were about to say something, uh, you want to expand on on maybe what was on your mind? What about tariffs? Yeah, yeah, I forget where I was headed with it. You know, the it's it's another it's another thing where you know, it's important for people to know.

1:07:30 I know that you know this, but it's important for people to know that that's reciprocal tariffs. And if you want to have your tariffs of goods coming into the United States zero, then lower your tariffs of the United States products coming into your country to zero. And so what we're what's being exposed here is international hypocrisy. And everyone's now jumping up and down because they know that they've had unfair trade practices towards the United States on you know, it hasn't been broad good. Most of these things are one or two items per country, you know, you know, milk and Canada steel, whatever it is. And so so it's a couple, it's not it's not the you know, it's not everything. But it's oranges from Brazil, it's agriculture products from South Africa, you know, or agriculture products we get tariffed if we ship them to South Africa.

1:08:22 They have zero tariffs coming our way. And so you know, what the President said is like, you know, this is easy. We're going to have. We're going to have a true free trade. That's that's what's happening. Is if you were going to te if us at twenty five percent, we're going to te if you at twenty five percent. And you know, if you want to bring it to zero, lower it to zero. And it's all even. And so it's not it's I don't want to say it's not complicated, but the ball is in these other countries courts and you know it's up to them to take action. Yeah, I kind of feel like I'm in a high school drama yard situation, right like, are we adults or are we really leaders of the free world?

1:09:07 Not us. I'm just saying the countries in general, right that what they were doing. And you know, China there's still a dictatorship or whatever, but or authoritarian government. But the reality is, yeah, there reciprocal tariffs. I think makes sense on paper, they absolutely do. What's what I don't agree with is the speed at which these tariffs are being being proposed or and active because our markets can't adjust that quickly. We don't have the manufacturing here in America yet like we used to, so if we're gonna lose out on a certain product or a certain commodity, we're not in a position to make that adjustment quite yet. And I understand why Trump is using it. He's like, Hey, if we're gonna do this to me, we're gonna do it to you, and hopefully, like you said, we'll create that free market to where, you know, what's working for either of us.

1:09:54 We've got to bring him back down. Makes sense. He's also using it because what he wants to do is create industry in the United States and wre he's been tired of and has spoken about it for many many years that we should not be offshoring all of our products. We shouldn't be relying on other countries. And this was very prevalent during the COVID pandemic when we found out, Hey, all of our PPEs made by China, and guess what, we can't get any Our medications are made overseas and we can't get any and crazy. That's the reason that he was putting these tariffs into places, not just because he's like. I only think is you and I agree with you in a very in the very short term. But I have had and this is not my business, but you know, I've had conversations with a company from Vietnam that wants to relocate to Sarasota, and I don't know where they heard from you. I get this call from a site developer, economic development person, and hey, I now, I was like, Okay, what does it take. It takes this amount of land or this building. If the building exists, we can be operational in four months. If the building does not exist, we can be operational in eight months. So it is working.

1:11:04 Like you said, it's you have to turn the ship. And but any of these things can be I think you underestimate the power of American ingenuity and these other countries' willingness to avoid tariffs, so they're willing to, you know, pull up and start to have, you know, manufacturing in little old Sarasota, Florida within eight months, employing about sixty people at about seventy thousand dollars per year average. And you know, that's not a huge, huge manufacturing facility, not even for Arisota. But I think it's indicative of probably what is happening with site developers and people all over the country and all over the world. People are you know, these companies are thinking, Okay, how do I hedge my bet with the United States? What if? You know, because they have to think long term. They're like, okay, Trump's here for four years, we have to we have to suck it up for that. But then what if what if Jade Vans or Ronda Santis or another person who wants to continue these Trump policies wins the next auction.

1:12:09 So now they have to think eight twelve years in advance. And so of course they would want to avoid any any terrorists, and they want to avoid the political conflict and all those things. So I believe it can happen faster than what than what you predict. But you are correct when you say it can't happen immediately. Yeah, I well, we're gonna have to define fast because you know, I buy products that from manufacturers for my business that are made in Chinese plants and other you know areas overseas, and I've already gotten I couldn't tell you how many priceless increase just within this month alone, to be honest. So it's going to affect the markets.

1:12:51 I got to say that. I have to tip my hat to Apple because once it start started getting announced, they already they already said, Hey, we're investing five hundred bllion, we're gonna build a plant here, We're going to bring it back to the United States. So I agree it will shift. You know, America is very very handy, We're very ingenious in what we do, and we can make it work. But it's going to be painful. And I'm not faulting Trump what he's doing. By the way, I don't want it. I don't want anybody to hear me say it, because I don't think his intent is wrong. I'm just saying that maybe there should have been a progressive plan to go. Look, I'm giving you guys fair warning here, like I'm going to raise it this much now, six months later, it's going to be even more, and then it'll be a little bit more later on. I think the markets, I think, you know, our stock markets are reacting to so much happening so fast. Yeah, I think you're right about that. But there's also an argument that, like, hey, rip the band aid off and let it adjust, and by summer there is that, you know, maybe maybe we're back on track, maybe we're not. Certainly, the midterm elections will determine, you know, I believe that Trump will Republicans will either win or lose thirty to fifty seats in the US House. They'll you know, I think the US Senate's a little bit more stable both ways.

1:13:58 It's one or two seats one way or the other. You know, recent report that just came out recently, as in I think a day or two ago, that the favor towards the Democratic Party is as low as twenty seven percent right now. But sure, and so either party is going to win or lose by thirty you know, the Republican Party would win or lose thirty seats. So I want to believe that we'll win thirty and there will be a mandate for Donald Trump's last two years, but history would suggest that that's not the case, and so we'll see. Yeah. Well, there's nothing wrong with having a balance from there, a balanced Congress anyway. To be quite honest, I'd love to come. I'd love to come back sometime.

1:14:40 Yeah, man, I know you got to get going. Well, thanks for your time and you will be back. I appreciate it. Thank you definitely well appreciate it, and tell everybody where they can find you. People. People can find me reasonable arguments dot com. You can find all my socials, the book, the schedule, speaking all of that at reasonable arguments dot well. And beyond that, we're going to have your profile on my website and we'll have all your links and they'll be able to find you there as well. So as soon as this is out, uh, they can find everything you need to find out about you right there and they'll be able to click on it and go. George so much. I've enjoyed it all. Right, buddy, Thank you, James. We'll see it as always. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to like, subscribe, share the show, turn on notifications and leave us a five star review. Also, don't forget to go to www. Dot Rolderblade podcast dot com for all of our links and where you can also donate to support the podcast.

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