Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/9/25: LA Fires, Biden's Big Admission, Laken Riley Bill, Trump Retreating On Tariffs & MORE!

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss LA devastated by fires, Biden admits he wouldn't have made it four years, Dems support Laken Riley Act, is Trump retreating on universal tariffs, Fox News accused of colluding with Trump, Elon/Vivek full anti-American on H1b.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Nice to be back in the studio. Nice to have you back.

Thank you, thank you. Yes, happy New Year to everybody. We're back. We've survived the great snowpocalypse of 2025. So far, anyway. We are actually supposed to get a little more snow this weekend. But anyway, we are here and it feels nice to be here. And there's a lot to talk about.

Obviously, we continue to have our eye on those horrific fires out west in L.A. Already, two of the fires are the worst and the second worst, most devastating fires in the history of L.A., some of the worst fires in all of California's history. So we're taking a look at that. We've got new horrific images from the ground, new political fallout. We'll cover all of it. Biden actually decided to give, I guess, a bit of an exit interview to USA Today. This is the only time, this is crazy, during his four years in office, the only time he sat down with a major newspaper

and it was pretty interesting what he had to say. So I'll break that down for you. We've got Democrats joining with Republicans on an immigration crackdown. What is in that bill and what does it say about where our politics are right now? Jeff Stein is going to join. He had what turned out to be kind of a controversial scoop with regard to tariffs. People were mad at him. The Trump people pushed back on him. But, you know, we have a lot of trust in Jeff and his reporting. So we'll tell him we'll find out from him what his latest view is on how Trump is

planning to implement this massive terrorist regime. Fox News is being accused of slipping Trump. The town hall questions in advance for this Fox News town hall, you guys might remember, with Brett Baier and Martha McCallum. So we'll take a look at that. And Sagar has a big old monologue on the whole H-1B situation, which I personally am very much looking forward to. It was one of the stories that we really missed your voice on. Yes, thank you. I was desperate to weigh in,

but you know how it is when you're on vacation and your wife doesn't want you to, so so be it. That's true pain for anybody who's ever had to suffer it. I've done my best here to try and weigh in later on with as much as I can add, but let's get to Los Angeles, in particular, just heartbreaking, one of the best cities in the United States, and just horrible, horrible images coming out.

Yeah, absolute insane, apocalyptic images coming out of LA right now. Before we jump into them, just to give you the overview, I know Ryan and Emily did a great job covering this yesterday, but a number of fires have broken out around L.A. The largest one is the Palisades Fire. The second largest one is the Eaton Fire. There was another one that broke out yesterday in the famed Hollywood Hills area, causing further evacuations. So far, the numbers in The New York Times this morning say that they have burned more than 27,000 acres. That's equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields. They have destroyed at least 2,000 structures. And as I said before, the two largest fires here, the Palisades, which is the

worst, and the Eaton Fire, which is the second worst, they are the first and second worst fires in the history of LA. Both of them are in the top 20 most destructive fires in the history of California, fed by massive drought situation, the worst drought that the southwestern United States has faced in some 1,200 years. So fuel that, and then you add to that the Santa Ana winds, and you have an absolute catastrophe on your hands. Let's go ahead and take a look at some of the latest horrific images that are coming out here. This is an aerial view that you can see of the Palisades area. This is, you know, a very beautiful, very affluent area, which has now been burnt to an absolute crisp. You can see this is driving around that neighborhood and, you know, sections

of it, there's just nothing left. Everything charred, homes, businesses, schools, churches, you name it, charred to the ground. This was a horrifying video that came out. There was a lot of concern for the person who recorded this video, but we've since learned that the individual recorded that is thankfully safe and sound, but you could see the fire lapping at their home. This is another view. This is, I believe, a former Starbucks that we saw there, a relatively famous Starbucks in LA. This is a school that is ablaze in the same area. And I think the last image we have is of this blood red sunrise, again, dystopian and apocalyptic. I mean, you can hardly, that looks fake, right? It doesn't even look real. So these are just some of the scenes of devastations that are coming out.

And there's the larger picture, which is this climate-fueled disaster, climate change-fueled disaster. And then there's also basically everything that could go wrong seems to be going wrong. The city led by Mayor Karen Bass, who we're going to talk more about in a moment, has just recently cut the budget by millions of dollars for the firefighting department. Which, you know, when you're talking about a city where there's always been a risk of wildfires and that risk has only escalated in this time of extreme climate events. Seems like the wrong direction to go in. And sure enough, it turns out they are saying, officials are saying, we don't have enough firefighters to fight this blaze. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what they had to say. Thank you for the question. So I'll start at the end and work back. No,

L.A. County and all 29 fire departments in our county are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster. There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude. We were prepared. We did get state pre-positioned resources that came from Northern California that were up in the Santa Clarita Valley. We did hire additional firefighters from the L.A. County Fire Department and pre-positioned them in the Santa Monica Mountains. The L.A. County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given these sustained winds and low humidities. Like our director of emergency management said, this is not a normal red flag alert.

And Sagar, you know, one of the things that people have been focused on is, as I mentioned before, that fire department funding was just cut by $23 million in an era when obviously, you know, the risks continue to escalate. And in addition to this, Mayor Karen Bass has been out of the country, was in Ghana, which, you know, I mean, airs travel, you could say, okay, this came out of nowhere. No one could have predicted the extent of the fires here and just how destructive and damaging they would be. However, the Santa Ana winds are predictable. The drought was known. The, you know, tinderbox conditions were certainly known. And as we're about to get to, but I'll get your reaction first, she did herself no favors in terms of her lack of response to some very basic questions

about her own leadership failures. Yeah, then this is one of those where people look to the person in charge and they need to have confidence that their government is looking out for them. If you live in Los Angeles and if you think about these areas, Pacific Palisades, we're talking about an area where I believe the average home price is like several million dollars, which means that the residents there are paying astronomical property taxes. They're probably taxed, if they're making over a million or so, 14% state income tax. It's like, listen, if you're going to pay that much, you pay the sunshine tax, but part of it is

sunshine tax. Part of it is, hey, you're probably going to, if there's a horrible fire, someone's going to come out and look out for me. So this is a real abdication of leadership and just systematic basic failure. And so that's, as you said, you've got to separate out historic temperatures and all of the other problems. But there are realistic things that should have been done. It's not me just saying this. There have been a lot of critiques in Los Angeles around this, around the fire hydrants, the draining of reservoirs, the fact that there is no water, which we're going to get to, the cutting of the fire department, forest management, all of this, of course, is going to have to be scrutinized heavily afterwards. But for the mayor, having approximately five days notice, from what I understand of the Santa Ana winds and of the tinderbox conditions, it is just unforgivable

to stay in Ghana because really we're talking about vanity trips here. Like we're not talking about visiting Tokyo or somewhere else where you do a significant amount of business, you know, as the mayor or somebody of Los Angeles. I believe the purpose of the trip was just one of these like cultural exchanges just from what I saw in my initial research. They can know how the state was being swarmed. Yeah, exactly. And look, fine. All right. But let the U.S. ambassador handle it.

The mayor of Los Angeles does not need to handle it. And so for her not to come back is a problem. And then the thing is, is that she delayed it up until like a very, very last moment that we saw for coming back and since has now basically refused to answer any questions when she was confronted at the airport. So we have here a clip.

It appears to be a British journalist. We're not exactly sure where it was taken. It was Sky News, right? It's from Sky News. It was taken from somewhere. I believe it was in the UK. She's possibly transiting through that airport on her way back to L.A. But she's basically catatonic in questions about why she's out of the country and why she cut the fire department budget. Let's take a listen. Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions

of dollars, Madam Mayor? Have you nothing to say today? Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today? Have you anything to say to the citizens today as you return? No, no, no, no. anything to say to the citizens today as you return? Madam Mayor, just a few words for the citizens today as you return to deal with the catastrophe. I mean, literally, I just don't understand why anybody would act like that. I mean, it's one thing if you're a member of Congress and someone's asking you about a question about like a Trump tweet, it's like you're the mayor of Los Angeles. Your city is burning to the ground. On top of that, I mean, you need to answer a question here about these fire hydrants, about reservoirs, and the stuff which is in your immediate purview.

And so there's multiple layers of crisis here that are happening from the fire department level, the managerial level of basic city function. We're talking about water reservoir management. Then the governor, the gubernatorial level, who right now, Gavin was asked about it yesterday. He goes, oh, that's a local matter. It's like, okay, well, even if we think about L.A. County and we have all these little different municipalities, as I understand it. It's like Santa Monica, et cetera. They're all self-governing institutions. Somebody needs to look out for them. And it just turned into a major culture, of course, it's a cultural capital of the United States. It's one of the largest cities in the US.

I think it's number two. And it is one of the beating hearts of America's entertainment industry, of arts, of a lot of our culture. And it's really sad. It's not a personal level. I know people who have been affected by the fires, but this is a great American city. And look, it's had a lot of problems in recent years, but to have it just watch it get burned to the ground, and we're about to talk about insurance, who knows if it will ever be the same? A lot of these people, I mean, let me tell you something. If I had the amount of money that I was living in Pacific Palisades and my home burned to the ground, I'm not going back. I'm leaving. I'll be like, listen, you guys failed me in the biggest moment, in know, that in the moment that we paid

all these millions of dollars in property taxes, I'm out. And I think a lot of people are going to feel that way, especially if they can't even buy fire insurance again, which it seems likely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And for the wealthy, like it's still no matter who you are and your income level, it's devastating to lose your home. It's devastating to lose, you know, something that's cherished and where you've built lots of memories and the possessions that you have attachment to, et cetera. So I don't want to minimize their loss, but they're going to be okay. They're going to be able to rebuild wherever they want. They can leave. They can go somewhere else.

They can, if they want to stay, they can rebuild. They can take the risk of not having fire insurance and, you know, have the wealth to be able to just rebuild on their own. But obviously, when a natural disaster like this strikes, it doesn't distinguish by class. So you have every socioeconomic class in L.A. that has been devastated by this. And, you know, in a city that does have these sort of like, you know, it's very local, partly because the traffic is so bad that you just want to like stay in your neighborhood and not have to drive around that much. This has really been kind of a unifying event because everyone is affected, even the areas that haven't been burnt to the ground, which by the way, let's put A2 up on the screen just so you guys can see this image that is making the rounds of, this is the overview of, this is specific. This is palisades. Like that is insane.

There is nothing left. But yeah, for the wealthy, they're going to be able to put it back together. They're going to be able to rebuild. If you're someone who was already struggling, who was already on the edge, and you've lost everything, and you may not have a choice to go somewhere else, you may not have the funds to go somewhere else, your job, you know, your only lifeline to being able to have a prayer of paying the rent and being able to rebuild may be there.

So you may not have an option. Just to go back to Karen Bass, and I mean, that clip is one of the most politically catastrophic clips I have ever seen. And to just freeze up, very obvious basic questions here. How hard would it be to say, as soon as I saw the fires break out, I did everything I could to get back as soon as I could. And, you know, here's what we're doing and here's our action plan. And we're going to make sure everybody's okay. And LA's now's the time to come to like whatever

political, but like say something to have no answers in that moment is truly astonishing. And what I would say is for Karen Bass and every mayor, every elected official around the country, you better get really good at mitigation. You better get really good at thinking about how your budget can be leveraged to try to protect people from these extreme climate events. Because, you know, these are the worst fires in LA history. We just saw, and again, fueled by a worst in 1,200-year drought. The temperature, the average temperature in California has risen by a full degree Celsius, which is about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit, just since 1980, we saw the devastating hurricanes that ravaged Western North Carolina and other areas with, you know, flooding. These are areas that never really thought, I mean, people had moved to those areas because they thought they were escaping the worst of extreme climate events. Like, this is the

era that we live in now. And I think there was, you know, a time when it was open to question whether we and the rest of the world would get our act together and use the technology available to us and curb some of the lifestyle and the bottom line of the ultra wealthy in order to get climate change under control and try to limit the damage. And, you know, I look at this and we're effectively beyond that. The wealthy and especially the actors that, you know, that led fossil fuel companies, that led a political cover-up for years and years, who knew for 50 years the impact they were causing on the climate. You know, they're sort of the worst villains here. But there's all kinds of characters that are complicit.

But this is the era we're in now. So if you're the mayor of LA and you know you've got a city that is fire prone and only becoming more so every single year that these patterns persist and the climate gets hotter and hotter and the swings get more and more extreme, you've got to be insane to be cutting the firefighting budget. And then at the same time, you know, one of the subplots here is also that there are these private firefighters effectively for hire that exist in these areas that are effectively hired by the insurance companies to protect the properties that they've insured. So, you know, it's just as dystopian as it can possibly be. And effectively, you know, the ultra wealthy effectively run this country and by and large run the world.

They've decided rather than trying to deal with the core of the issue, they're going to try to mitigate for themselves and limit the catastrophic damage for themselves and let her rip. And that's effectively where we are. To get back to the micro level here, as Sagar was mentioning, in addition to the fact that Karen Bass was gone, in addition to the fact that the fire chief is saying we just literally do not have enough firefighters to fight this blaze. Also, as was alluded to, some of the fire hydrants are running dry because of the, obviously, strain on the system. Let's go ahead and take a listen to some of the details that have been announced on that. We're losing water pressure up here. We have a lack of resources.

The wind, as you see, is pushing it very violently. And the lack of water is a huge, huge hurdle that we're trying to overcome. So we can save as much as we can. So lack of water, like no, no pressure in the neighborhood. All the hydrants have run dry. Oh no. So what do you do now? So we send our water tenders or our engines down to shuttle water from further away, different, uh, different hydrants that still have water. This is bad. It makes it challenging to do our job, but we're just up here trying to do the best we can for the citizens and the community. Hydrants running dry. Unbelievable. We have a tear sheet to this effect, too, from the LA Times that did some reporting on this. Crews battling the Palisades blaze face an additional burden. Scores of fire hydrants in that

area had little to no water flowing out. The hydrants are down, said one firefighter in internal radio communications. Water supply just dropped. By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all water storage tanks in the Palisades area went dry, diminishing the flow of water from hydrants in higher elevations, according to the chief executive and chief engineer of the L.A. Department of Water and Power. That is the city's utility. So you've got hydrants running dry at the same time. I'm sure you guys have seen, you know, at times when they're battling these blazes, they'll use helicopters. But because these winds are so extreme, we're talking gusts of at times 100 miles per hour. That is hurricane force gusts, which is part of what fueled this horrific blaze with embers blowing everywhere

and blowing in, you know, in ways that are not actually typical, even with the Santa Ana winds, you can't fly a helicopter in a hundred mile per hour gust situation. So my understanding, Sagar, is that they are able to use aircraft to help to battle the flames. Today, the winds have subsided somewhat. The forecast calls for them to pick back up into tomorrow and into the weekend. But, you know, to have imagine being out there trying to battle this blaze and you just literally there's no water to use. There's no water. In fact, the L.A. council member, Tracy Park, for Pacific Palisades, revealed that all three of the major reservoirs ran dry.

So she said that the three large water tanks in the Pacific Palisades area, with a million gallons each, the first ran dry at 4.45 p.m. Tuesday, the second 8.30 p.m., and the third was dry as of 3 a.m. on Wednesday. And by that time, the entire place had burned. As you said, there was extraordinary demand. But that's actually not an excuse, as I understand it, because there had been previous – there's been previous just major fights in the L.A. area about reservoirs and about water management. This goes back, again, to some, like, very basic city stuff. And I think, again, this is going to have to take a lot of scrutiny in terms of the basics of this. But the truth is, is that, and I'm listening to the local reporters here on all of this, who are genuinely trying to

stay out of the politics. They're like, this, and I listened to one who was like, look, this is basic stuff, water management, city infrastructure, cutting the budget, lack of investment, and it's been a failure. And it is tragic, as you said. I talked about the Pacific Palisades people. That's only one of four fires that is currently burning. You don't have to be ultra wealthy to live in some of these places, especially if you moved there 30, 40 years ago. You can just be like a normal middle-class person. Maybe you were retiring, you got lucky, you owned a house kind of near the beach, you bought it for a couple hundred thousand dollars, now it's worth like two or three million. But this gets us now to the insurance question.

And that is one where I really do think we are going to see a total like rewrite of insurance law in the state of California. By the way, if you think the feds aren't going to bail them out, there's just no chance. They have to, basically, at this point. And the insurance companies themselves were very much ahead of this one. Let's put A7, please, on the screen. You can see that these upscale, quote, Westside LA neighborhoods were hit hard by State Farm home insurance cancellations. This was just a few months ago. Thousands of Californians won't see their home insurance renewed by State Farm. This summer, homeowners in Los Angeles County with these west side neighborhoods hit especially hard.

A majority were, listen to this, neighborhoods in West Los Angeles, in the Santa Monica Mountains, including Bel Air, Pacific Palisades, and Woodland Hills are going to lose their coverage. The State Farm move obviously affects some of the richest neighborhoods, but the reason for it was specifically fire, is that these insurance companies picked up on the fact that there was a significant problem with fire coverage in that

area. Listen to this in Pacific Palisades. So just in April of 2024, 69% of the policyholders in the area will lose coverage. 70% as of a few months ago, lost all of their coverage. I also believe that there are caps in the number of insurance for the payout that does not even come close to the actual value of the homes. This is complicated in terms of policy and all these others. Some people can self-insure or have different. But on average, it does seem like there will be. Think about this as well. We have a national home crisis right now. I mean, do you know how much wood, timber, and materials it will cost? So you can just see a total disaster. It's not as bad as the Maui situation, obviously, because it's on the mainland US. But even rebuilding this rebuilding this will take tens of billions of

dollars. Federal infrastructure is going to rewrite home insurance. If you live in Florida and or California, I mean, good luck, because that's another thing with these insurance companies. There has been previous propositions and laws in California. They tried to cap insurance companies from raising premiums to make it basically unaffordable to have home insurance. And so they capped the number that they were allowed to have. You can change that if you want to, but then most people will probably just not buy it. Or, you know, you're going to have to have the state and the federal government step in here. This is a huge mess.

It's a disaster. Effectively, extreme weather events have broken the home insurance market. Like State Farm is not going to insure and no company is going to insure. Oh, after this, nobody's going to insure. When they see this, I mean, they looked and they saw this risk. They're like 1200 year drought, you know, unbelievable conditions. It's only a matter of time we're cutting this off. And, you know, if you're going to let the free market determine, then we're going to see more and more areas of the country, which this is already, we've covered this previously with regards to Florida and other parts of the country. This is already in effect. I mean, Florida has a total mess on their hands because of their susceptibility to hurricanes, the entire Gulf Coast. Colorado is another area where the home

insurance, homeowners insurance market is really struggling. Oftentimes, you can't get a mortgage if you can't get that homeowners insurance. Not to mention, even if you can, then premiums are absolutely skyrocketing. So that is the reality we live in now. And so you're going to have increasing swaths of the country that are just uninsurable. And then there's a question as a society, do we want effectively, you know, the federal government, because the state governments won't really have the funds to be able to handle it, do we want as a public to subsidize this market and, you know, insurance for people who are living in these areas. This is one of the sort of societal questions we have to ask at this point. Because otherwise, places like, and I think

Ryan said a version of this on the show with Emily yesterday, places like the Pacific Palisades, you're going to have either people who can afford to just roll the dice, and if their property is burned to the ground and they have to rebuild, they've got the funds to be able to comfortably do that. And they're willing to live at that risk. Or people who can't afford to go anywhere else and are forced into the position of effectively having to roll the dice. So, you know, that is the era we live in. And that is where we are right now. The last piece of this, just to give the backstory here, why Karen Bass was in Africa while all of this was breaking out, we could put this tear sheet up on the screen. This is what I was referencing before would meet with the country's first female vice president as well during a press conference. Her deputy chief of staff said she would be on the ground shortly and, you know, was never going to be great for her being out of the country for this, especially when there was some ability to predict that there could be a problem. Again, no one could have known the extent that this would be the worst fire in the history of LA, including loss of life, including thousands

of structures that are completely destroyed. But there was a high risk. Maybe that was overcomable just from a political perspective. That clip of her stone-faced, no answers, I think is, like I said before, one of the most devastating political clips that I've ever seen. And every elected official around the country needs to be taking notes of what not to do. And they all need to get really smart about thinking about the risks to their area and what they can possibly do to mitigate it. Because I think it's pretty clear at this point, we're not getting our shit together to be able to actually deal with the underlying issue. And the challenge, like the impacts are already here. So even if we got serious tomorrow, the impacts have already arrived. I think that this should be a wake-up call to the governor

or the mayor of every major city in America, especially in these places. You know, this is an existential actually event, I think, for California. That may seem crazy to say, but look, California, New York in particular, have a system which is heavily reliant on the ultra wealthy, where they pay almost 50% of the tax and a lot of the property tax, right? Well, when you have that model, it only works if they don't leave. Now, 130,000 people or so left the state of California, I think, just last year. It's one of those places with net loss migration. But if the disproportionate number of those people are, let's say, ultra wealthy, it's a huge dent to the tax

base. So like I said, if the Pacific Palisades, I just looked it up, $4.5 million median home list price, that's a lot of property tax. And if, let's say, 20% of them don't come back, that's boom, wiped out. So now you have way less money. I mean, a lot of these folks are already seeing billionaires on my timeline. They're like, that's it, I'm moving to Nevada. Like, I done. And you know, they can afford that. But the point is, is that they are so heavily relied on by the state to pay for all of this other stuff for the entire California, Los Angeles. I mean, this is like the bedrock of how the entire city functions. So if they do not get their act together and they've decided to tax their system that way, that's fine. But you better make sure that those people want to stay. Because if you don't, then all of the poorer people of the,

what are there, 8 million people who live in LA County, all of their social services and tax base and all of that is going to be wiped out. So they've got the pyramid basically way that they use their taxation system that they've decide on. And if they start to lose all of the intrinsic value of what makes the city of L.A. what it is, you could really see it get wiped out. So I really do feel for them. Like I said, I love – I'm not one of those people who are like, screw Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles. I think it's amazing. I love the state of California.

Yeah, it's got a lot of problems. But natural beauty-wise and more. And, yeah, it's just painful to watch. It's like any great American city. I would say the same thing about Chicago, New York, any of these places. They're special for a reason, and to see them suffer like this is horrible. Let's also remember, like you said, our producer

Griffin used to live in one of the areas, which is burning. Many of his friends had to flee, apparently, overnight. As he knows, they all got out safely, but he knows somebody who personally lost their house. This is devastating for people, not just billionaires, even multimillionaires, just normal people working in the industry or whatever. And then just imagine if you lost your house. Now, it's not the most important thing, but, you know, especially when you have to deal with these insurance companies and others, it's just,

it's just, it's probably one of the most taxing events that is up there for stress, for your family. What do you do now? I can't imagine having to go through it. When you're in L.A., you're very, like, it just, there's an aura that settles on you of just the sense of all these people who are chasing their dreams. That's true. It's kind of fun. It's a very unique vibe when you get there, when you go to the restaurant and the waiter is the aspiring actor, actress.

Like that is the heart of this, you know, iconic cultural phenomenon. And, yeah, those are the people who are going to suffer the most because they're, you know, they're scraping to get by and trying to make it, trying to chase their dreams. And, you know, this could be extinguishing a lot of dreams here. And I do think the series of climate catastrophes that we've had, they do represent an existential crisis, certainly for California. And, you know, the irony here, both with California and with Florida, is these are places people move to because of the weather, right? This beautiful, natural beauty, sunshiny days. I mean, there's probably nowhere in the country that has better weather than Southern California. Like San Diego is ridiculous, right? It's just like, how is this just not even fair? Like, why do you get this weather all the time? This isn't

right. And now that weather is really a double-edged sword. And same thing with Florida. I mean, people move to Florida because they love the beaches and the sunshine and it's warm year round and all that stuff. And now the weather comes with this also tremendous downside. So a lot of questions about where people will go in LA from here, about where the country will go from here, how local officials will handle these events. But Karen Bass is so far a model of what not to do. And I have to say, I think Gavin Newsom is kind of lucky that she screwed the pooch so badly because it's taking some of the focus off of him.

I was going to say, he's got his own problems. Like just today, we didn't have time to put it into the show, but he was asked about this fire hydrant thing. He goes, oh, that's a local matter. I'm like, that ain't going to cut it here, my friend. That's not going to cut it. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. country begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist,

disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive.

I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl, T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice.

My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X?

Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome.

I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. All right. Well, and speaking of political failures, let's get to our current and incredible president and his great leadership. So he's at a press conference with Gavin Newsom, supposedly responding to the storm. He did cancel a trip to Italy to be on the ground to make sure that he can marshal the federal resources. Not that it really has the capability to, you know, with his brain to do much of anything.

But anyway, he is here in the States for what it's worth. So take a listen to him at this press conference. Again, supposedly laser focused on these devastating fires where five people have lost their lives, 20,000 football fields burned. And it'll be a little bit difficult to hear, but after the clip plays, I'll fill you in if you weren't able to catch the way he changes the subject suddenly. He's like, but the good news is I'm a great grandpa. And then in classic Biden fashion, doesn't seem to know whether the baby is a girl or a boy.

Still unclear. Oh, it's a boy. It is a boy. What did he say? He said girl. And then he said anyway, whatever. He, you know, is in such an addled state. And then combined with like the narcissism of making this moment about you and forcing everyone in the room to be like, congratulations, way to go.

Like people are dying in iconic American cities getting burnt to the ground, but happy for your personal, you know, joy in this moment. It's just, it's just too perfect. Yeah. Hey dude, it's not about you. Yeah, it's nice. Congratulations on being the very first president ever to be a great grandfather. Not a milestone I would personally- Oh, is that right? Yeah. He's literally the only president in American history to be at the age where you could have great grandchildren. That's especially crazy because if you think about some of the founders and others who were probably what their 60s or 70s and when people were getting married and having children and they're like 16 and 17 years old, you would have thought that someone would have been old enough even in the 1800s or so.

So, you know, congratulations, Joseph Robinette Biden for passing. Making history. He is making history in a lot of ways. I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny. Just because, like I said, I mean, this is going, I think I said this on election night and before too. I was like, he will go down as one of the most selfish, narcissistic individuals in the history of the American presidency. And I like to judge him by the things that he set out to do. Joe Biden never set out to be FDR or maybe in his head he thought so. But in reality, it was what? I need to stop Donald Trump.

And instead, he ushered in Donald Trump's popular vote electoral mandate. And if you look at him, his narcissism still somehow is able to fight through the Alzheimer's or dementia or whatever and rear its ugly head. This sit down with Biden is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen from an American president. Let's put this up there on the screen. Because the very first line that they quote is they ask him, do you have the vigor to complete four more years in office? And he says, so far, so good. But who knows what I'm going to be when I'm 86 years old? Well, that might have been an

interesting question and proposition to undertake when you were running for president as of one year ago and lying to the American people about your capacity. You guys did a good job of covering that Wall Street Journal expose. I mean, but do you remember, you know, prior to Biden dropping out, the journal wrote a much more tepid piece just being like, hey, the president's old and people are worried about it. And they were savage, you know, ruthlessly by the American press. If anything, they massively understated it. So I just, I don't know, reading this, I just, it fills me with like fury and rage. Look, I'm happy Biden is not going to be president anymore and that they lost and all of that, but it doesn't matter because he was our leader on the global stage. And if you just

think about, you know, the damage that his presidency has wrought, both to the reputation of the United States, but also just domestically in the strife that it invited, we effectively had a vacuum of leadership for over four years. I just, I just think it's criminal, honestly, what he did. And not just him. Oh, all the people around him. Yeah, absolutely. And the journalists who either were so dumb that they bought the cheap fakes line or were actively complicit in a cover-up.

And I think that there was certainly some of both in the press score. I mean, it truly is astonishing. And this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I don't know if you saw like Matt Iglesias, his end of the year. Did you? I didn't. Okay. All right. I didn't know if you caught this, but Semaphore did like, oh, they talked to journalists about what did I get wrong this year? Oh, I did see this, the text or whatever.

Yeah. He's like, well, you know, I genuinely believed the Biden administration. Like, you know, maybe that's even more embarrassing than being part of a cover-up, but I just was that naive that I thought, I'm paraphrasing, these aren't his exact words, that I genuinely thought, like, oh, he seems fine, you know, and he's going to prove the haters wrong at the debate and blah, blah, blah. And here you have Matt Iglesias, who I think he went to Harvard, you know, is like, I'm sure has a very high IQ. He's probably somebody who's been told his whole life how like super smart he is, whatever. And he could not see what some 80% of the American public saw. And this is fundamentally why I'm a populist because like, and that's not just him. This is so many members of this elite media class who were Ivy League educated and have all these sources in Washington and, you know, think of themselves and have been told their whole lives how smart they are.

And something that was so obvious and so basic, if you just were watching the clips that were coming out of Joe Biden really starting in that 2019 primary when you and I were like, hey, this guy has lost like eight steps already. Imagine what this is going to look like four years later. But they were willing or able or, you know, they were willing to engage in a cover up, worst case scenario, or they were so easily manipulated and able to trick themselves and talk themselves into thinking, no, no, he's fine. There's no problem here. It really is an astonishing, scandalous event. And in the sit-down interview, so there's a number of things that are interesting. So Sagar mentioned the one where he's like, yeah, I was basically willing to roll the dice on whether or not I would be cogent enough to function for another four years or even alive for another four years. I was willing to roll the dice on that, which is crazy admission in and of itself. Then he gets asked, could you have won?

Could you have beaten Donald Trump? And he says, it's presumptuous to say that, but I think yes. Really? Really? Because one of the things that we have learned post-election is that his own polling showed him losing 400 electoral college votes to Donald Trump. And he still thinks, and I think he genuinely believes this. Oh, he absolutely, absolutely. He still thinks that he could have won. Then when he's asked about if he would have had the vigor to serve another four years in office, he said, I don't know. And then he talked a little bit about his decision to run again. And he was saying that, you know, after Beau died, he didn't really, wasn't really planning on running. And then he talked to Barack and he kind of decided that he better. And he says,

when Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn't looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton to the next generation of Democratic leaders, a phrase many in his party took to mean he was not likely to seek a second term. In terms of how he wants his legacy to be viewed, He says, I hope history says I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America's leadership in the world. That was my hope. I mean, you know, who knows?

And I hope it records that I did it with honesty and integrity that I said what was on my mind. Okay. Delusional. That you think that your legacy is two things. Overseeing a genocide in Gaza and losing to Donald Trump. That's your legacy. I would actually add Ukraine to that as well because that's very important. That was a pivotal thing as well. I think you're right about

that. And, you know, there were good things that I praised him for that he did economically, right? Early in the administration, he did some positive things. The National Labor Relations Board, Lena Kahn at the FTC, like there were some things that if he had, first of all, had gotten billed back better through, so you had a stronger social safety net that people actually felt and experienced in real time, domestically, economically, I think that was a pivotal mistake. But then in terms of foreign affairs, I mean, it's just outside of withdrawing from Afghanistan, which I hope history will record was the right decision rather than staying there for our agreement. He took on a lot of water politically for the fallout from that. But

Ukraine and Gaza, utter and complete disaster. And then as you said, Sagar, the one thing that he was really sent there to do by the voters was to defeat Donald Trump. And you have now ushered in a sort of consolidated Trump era, which will be reflected in the next block when we talk about Democrats now joining with Republicans on these immigration crackdown measures. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to, it's difficult. I think I did a Lex Friedman thing on this. I was like, look, it's hard to assess presidents in real time. But if you have a good, if you have a 50,000-foot view,

you can generally tell what are the things that, you know, I have some of these books behind me that are, like, long-ago retrospectives. And if you read a history book, it's like, well, what are the major events that happened? You had Israel and Gaza. You had Ukraine. Yes, Afghanistan will be a footnote. We'll be like, yeah, it was decent. In the long run, everyone can kind of admit that that was a good enough thing. It needed to happen. It needed to happen. Long overdue. We'll all have criticisms of how it was done, et cetera. Glad that that happened. But they will talk about the American people's radicalization, about the role of government. They will talk about inflation. And they will talk about the American people's radicalization, about the role of government.

They will talk about inflation. And they will talk about the legacy of Donald Trump. I mean, people do not—if you think about Grover Cleveland, one of the only things people note about Grover Cleveland is that he was elected to non-consecutive terms. Every kid probably learns that in grade school when they look at the placemat or whatever. And they're like, oh, what happened there? Biden will be the guy in between Trump. That's it. I mean, that's all anybody will really remember 100 years or so from now about him. And that he's one of the oldest men to ever occupy the Oval Office and how much, honestly, of a tragedy it is. If anything, the historian writing

The Age will just be like, how did the media, you know, even go along with this grotesque farce for three years? It was so obvious, as they will write and cite editorials and criticisms from 2019. I remember getting so many angry emails and others at the time talking about Joe Biden's fake stutter and about how the fact that he was just old and his brain was melted back then. I'm like, you know, it doesn't feel good, I guess, to be right, but it is somewhat vindicating in that when you can say the truth out loud, it's actually powerful, you know, in the long run. So yeah, reading this, I just, I think he's so horrible, the way that he foisted himself on America, the way that the cover-up and all of that happened. My only consolation is that all of the people on America, the way that the cover-up and all of that happened. My only consolation is that all of the people around him,

like Jake Sullivan and Anthony Blinken and all of the other folks, have become such a laughingstock in the globe. They won't be like the Obama folks who all got cushy jobs at Uber and elsewhere. I think they'll just sail off into the sunset. No, because even they know. These are evil people.

Truly evil people. Think about it. With Trump in 2016, he was the aberration, right? And people could have some false narrative about why Obama and all the people around him were heroes. I mean, if anything, you've seen Meta and all these other companies be like, oh, wait, we actually live in Trump's America. He won the popular vote. hire all of these fake ex-Biden folks who not only perpetrated the crime of his foreign policy and others, but really just like domestically covered up his age, you know, for so long. I just don't think they have any credibility in the same way. I could be wrong. I hope you're right. There's

still so much commitment among bipartisan elites to the, you know, to we stand strong with Israel and all that stuff. And I mean, that's what Tony Blinken is most associated with, I think, at this point. I don't know. I don't know. But I hope you're right about that, because I genuinely think like I watched his whole his whole exit interview, Tony Blinken's with The New York Times. And I just, you know, he I truly think and I don't say this a lot about a lot of people. This is an evil individual. Like the things that he perpetrated, the things that he still, you know, will cover up and lie about, it's just absolutely astonishing. But to get back here to Biden, let's go ahead and put B3 up on the screen, this New York Times tear sheet that just had some of the details about how little he talked to the press. Their headline is, this is based on the USA Today interview,

but Biden acknowledges he might not have been able to serve four more years, which is crazy. But anyway, they write in this, the interview with USA Today just demonstrated how the White House tried to shield him from encounters that might throw him off.

After four years in office, it was the first time he's ever given an interview to any reporter from any major mainstream newspaper, unlike any president in generations. He has never given one while in office to reporters from newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Financial Times, or the New York Times. Overall, Mr. Biden has given fewer interviews of any kind and conducted fewer news conferences than any president in decades. So in the modern era, fewer news conferences, fewer interviews of any kind. He is at the bottom of the list for all presidents in

the modern era. And again, these are all things like the New York Times would have been keenly aware of the fact that they had no access to this man, that they had never gotten an interview with this man. Remember when we covered his decision not to do the interview at the Super Bowl, you know, which if you think that this is a person who is remotely coherent, reliably coherent, then that decision makes absolutely no sense. And, you know, people who were raising red flags about this were just dismissed. Like, that was such a tell. The fact that he would not get in front of the press, would not do a single interview with a single major mainstream newspaper, and you thought this guy was fine. Like, it really is astonishing. It really is astonishing.

Yeah. I still don't know how it took that much of a genius to point out, be like, hey, it's pretty weird not to do these interviews. It's pretty weird how, you know, you have all these incidents. What was it? Whenever you like went wandering off into the, wandering off the parachute guy. I mean, it was so, when he tripped and fell. That was a cheap fake saga.

Yeah, that's right. It was a cheap fake. It just never ends with them. So look, I hope that their credibility is erased. America certainly seems to think so. Biden is a joke and will be remembered as such. But, you know, in terms of the media scandal and all that, I think that's probably the real story. And I honestly don't know how they're going to recover from it because there are so many people who just think that they'll never believe any of this stuff again.

Again, I could be totally wrong, but, you know, seeing the way that Mark Zuckerberg and all these other people like legacy media and others, even the people they relied on to pressure are like, no, the emperor has no clothes now at this point. So I think their power is significantly diminished, although with Trump, because he himself also loves legacy media in his own way, he certainly could empower them again. I think their power is diminished because there has been a liberal reckoning with their failures as well. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Because that's what was causing them to remain with the level of power that they had is that they had so much control in the Democratic Party. And I think that has been significantly undercut. You know, if anything, I think historians will record an even more scathing indictment of Joe Biden than even people like you and I have in our assessment. Because partly, I mean, we'll see what trajectory the country goes on. But it's very possible that we look

back at the Biden era and really see it as this like, you know, pathetic gasp of a dying empire that you would put this old feeble man man in charge, and that he would think that he was up to the job of running for re-election again, and that the entire press corps would either delude themselves or actively participate in a cover-up. And, you know, the decisions with regard to Ukraine and the decisions with regard to, you know, being complicit in this Gaza genocide, it really has ended. I mean, that was the ending of the international rules-based era. The order that was set up post-World War II to govern international relations and create some sort of stability and some sort of framework outside of if I can, I will, and might makes right. Done, gone, over.

And it's Joe Biden, who supposedly's primary political commitment was to like restoring that order and rebuilding that order and giving that order more strength. Instead, he put the final nail in the coffin. So, you know, history will be able to look back and record what the fallout is from the end of ultimately that order. Yeah, that's right. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband. It's a cold case. received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her, and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions

that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color

from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist.

Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just gonna show all my exes.

Ex marks the spot. No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020 working the drive-thru, and here we are now.

We turned side-eye into sermons. Pain into punchline. And grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This five months, we are not just celebrating.

We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words,

we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This is coming down on us.

And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George! And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

At the same time, in signs of the vibe shift that is currently happening here, some major Democrats are joining with Republicans to pass the Lakin-Riley Act, largely led by some of the new Democrats in the United States Senate and in Congress, people like Ruben Gallego and others. But Senator John Fetterman, who represents the state of Pennsylvania, which Donald Trump, of course, won, took to Fox News to actually push for the bill. Let's take a listen. Like, it's really common sense. And I'd like to remind everybody that we have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of migrants here illegally that have convicted of crimes. And I don't know why, you know, who wants to defend to allow them to remain in our nation after that. And now if

you're here illegally and you're committing crimes and those things, I don't know why anybody thinks that it's controversial that they all need to go. Do you think that this was one of, if not the biggest issue for this election? Well, I think if we can't, you know, there's 47 of us in the Senate. And if we can't pull up with with seven votes, if we can't get at least seven out of 47, if we can't, then that's the reason why we lost. That's one of them. That's one of why we lost, in part. Vibes are shifting. That was Senator John Fetterman. Well, I guess not with him, but with the other ones. I mean, over the longer trajectory, certainly. His own wife came to this country as an undocumented immigrant. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Something that he used in order to enhance

his supposed progressive bona fides. So yes, he has, I mean, he's done a total 180, but in the near term, this is par for the course. That is par for the course for him in the near term. You're right in terms of the long term. But I think really where it indicates the most to me are people like Alyssa Slotkin, Ruben Gallego. Ruben Gallego, the newly elected senator from Arizona, is actually co-sponsoring the bill. Let's put the

bill up there on the screen. So obviously the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republicans, was able to pass the bill and send it to the United States Senate. Can we put this C2, please? Now from this, actually, what's interesting is that a couple of Democrats from the House of Representatives did join them in passing. You had 48 Democrats who voted for it this time. Last time, because they tried to pass it last session as well, that was 37 Democrats. So there's been, you know, a number of new Democrats. There's been an increase. Now, the question was always going to be in the Senate. So remember in the Senate that you need to cross the 60 vote threshold to be able to be even even able to debate the bill

on the floor. That was the big question as to whether that was even going to be allowed. It does appear now that they do have the votes to actually advance this further. Now, keep in mind, this doesn't mean that the bill itself as written is going to pass. Let's put this up there on the screen. Senator Katie Britt, who's one of the sponsors of the bill, told Senate Republicans that she has the necessary eight votes to advance it over filibuster. Again, this is going to be for consideration. Democrats are saying that they would like to amend certain parts of it. But the bill itself is actually, I mean, in my opinion, it's sensible. I guess we could debate it. Basically requires ICE, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to take custody of illegal immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission who people who should be most prioritized for deportation are those convicted of a felony but not necessarily of minor crime.

So the name of the bill is related to Lakin Riley, who was, of course, killed earlier in 2024 by a gentleman who was actually – who had been arrested previously in a nearby apartment building, it appears, after the commission of this horrible crime. So the point is that this is a vibe shift, quote-unquote, because this was a bill, as you said, Crystal, that previously had not achieved as much Democratic support, but now actually does look like it is going to pass the United States Senate in some form. We're not exactly sure what form that is. I'm sure there'll be amendments and fights there. But the fact that it's even getting to the floor, I mean,

this would be one of the most significant changes to ICE enforcement policy. And I don't think policy on this has changed since the Obama era, just to give people an idea. And Donald Trump is not even the president of the United States yet and will be in some 11 days. So it's extraordinary the fact that he's even going to go to the Senate floor. So there's a political part of this bill, which is probably, probably the most significant part. And then there's the actual impact of the legislation. As far as my reading of the bill, the most significant impact is that it shifts the balance of power in terms of immigration enforcement towards the states. So it provides the states with a mechanism to sue the federal government if they feel that they're not enforcing immigration law as it exists. Now, of course,

as with any law, there's a lot of sort of prosecutorial discretion. This is what Obama famously made use of in DACA in terms of which immigrants you're going to, undocumented immigrants, you're going to prioritize for detention and for deportation. So it hands states like Texas, for example, a weapon to use against the federal government. And I have a feeling that that will probably be the most significant lasting impact, ultimately, of this legislation. And, you know, the way that I look at this from a political perspective, obviously, the name is very evocative, you know, very intentionally chosen, Lake and Riley Act. This is part of the Trump and Republican narrative about what is ailing the country, right? In the Trumpian frame, one of the biggest problems is immigrants who are stealing your jobs,

committing crimes, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously, this is not a frame I agree with. This is their frame. And so what I find most significant about this is this is effectively Democrats validating that frame. Now, they had already done this before the election. You know, they did their whole bipartisan border bill, which, you know, Sager wanted to see it go further. But I don't think you would disagree that it was a break from the traditional in the, you know, past couple of decades democratic approach, which tied more border enforcement with legal pathways to citizenship. That bill said, we're ditching the, you know, pathways to citizenship part, and we're just doing the hawkish border enforcement. So in some ways, they had already validated the Republican view and frame of the world. But this is another step in that direction, you know, and another indication

that that will be a primary Democratic reaction to the Trump era. And this is effectively what I expected. You know, I think that we are most likely to see from the Democratic Party a replay of kind of what Bill Clinton was able to successfully, from his perspective, accomplish when he came into office, which is rather than trying to rekindle the New Deal or rekindle, you know, an oppositional framework to the Reagan era or the neoliberal era, instead, I'm going to embrace the core tenets of that. I'm going to, you know, do a democratic version of that. And in some ways, his version was even more far reaching because he had this democratic brand

behind him. And, you know, for him personally, more far reaching because he had this Democratic brand behind him. And, you know, for him personally, it was electorally successful. It ultimately led to devastating Democratic losses in rural areas and, you know, the situation that they find themselves in today. But it was for him electorally successful. And I think, you know, this is an indication that that is effectively the direction the Democrats are going to go. And they're going to embrace more or less the Trumpian frame of the world. They do their own sort of like, you know, potentially kinder, gentler version of it. And the era of, you know, total Trump resistance, the era of trying to articulate a competing view of the world, that era likely is past. Now, this will all shake out in terms of

the Democratic primary and, you know, the next presidential election. I'm sure there will be a fight amongst the factions and how they want to respond to the rise of Trumpism. But, you know, so far, this is where the bulk of the momentum is within the Democratic Party and with their aligned media class, which is almost as important and as significant here. And that's why the Zuckerberg news and, you know, Elon controlling Twitter and the LA Times doing what they're doing and the Bezos owned Washington Post doing what they're doing and all the social media giants effectively lining up to kiss the ring with Donald Trump. That means that, you know, the media ecosystem is also aligned very much with what you describe as a vibe shift.

That's part of what, but I just can't get away from what else are you supposed to do? Trump won the election. What argument are you going to make? People who shoplift, who are here illegally, should be in the country? That's crazy. I just don't think anybody can agree with that. In the past, they always fake it. They're like, oh, well, we just, it's cruel or whatever.

And then they'll focus on child separations if it has anything to do with a guy who murdered Lake and Riley, who previously had been arrested for theft in the state of New York, and some other thing eventually was released goes on to murder her. I just think this is an indefensible policy. If anything, this has just revealed the veneer of how the architecture of all this language that people basically use to justify tens of millions of people coming here illegally. And when people vote for a popular mandate for somebody who has now won the popular vote, who explicitly ran on mass deportation, like I just have no idea what counter argument you're supposed to make if you're a democratic politician. I mean, Ruben Gallego was literally elected with the counter argumentument to Kerry Lake by saying,

I'm the serious person who will help Donald Trump. I mean, in a certain sense, there is a democratic argument here to be made of like, this is genuinely what people want. And look, people have made the immigrant argument, the illegal immigrant argument now for 25 years. And I think people have rejected it correctly, in my opinion. I'm going to talk a lot about this in my monologue. But if you really understand understand the way, I mean, look at California, what it is right now. Because anyone say this is a well-run state? Part of it is that they focus on bullshit like passing sanctuary city laws, which say that they're not going to cooperate with ICE. I mean, this was like an in vogue policy for, what, 2012, probably 2019 or so. And I think it's have devastating consequences. A lot of these people came to bite them in the ass because Republicans smartly just

shipped a bunch of them to these cities and like, OK, you deal with it. And then, of course, what happened? The population was like, oh, my God, we can't deal with this. This is crazy. You know, in a sense, you kind of reap what you sow. So, I mean, I just don't think it's an argument. I think it's a reality problem. Biden changed the status quo more than any president in modern American history, let 10 million people illegally into the country. Of course, the argument is going to change and the reaction of the people. It's just so extraordinary when you look at the data. So I just, when I see this, the Democrats have no choice. Otherwise, what are they going to say? Yes, people who are here illegally,

shoplifts shouldn't be deported. Good luck. I mean, I just have no idea how you can make that argument. I think this bill, there's no doubt, this bill would be very difficult for them to oppose for exactly the rhetorical reasons you're laying out. But why I'm saying that it validates the Republican frame is because Republicans like to seize on crimes like the horrific murder of Lakin Riley, who's truly a whore, and try to paint all immigrants, all undocumented immigrants. I don't think that that's true, though. Of course it's true. Like, they're disproportionately criminal. You know, this is the same thing that, like, Elon Musk is doing in the context of the UK

with the quote-unquote grooming gangs, when, of course, you know the statistics, I know the statistics. Undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants are more law-abiding than U.S. born citizens. So I don't deny that this would be a tough bill for Democrats to oppose given the election results, given where the public is on this issue, etc. But I also don't think it's quite as one dimensional as you portray it because on this issue, like on many issues, but I think this one may be in particular, what you get from the public really depends on how you ask the question. So still, if you ask the public, are immigrants a net benefit to society?

They say yes. Still, if you ask the public, you know, should there be a pathway to citizenship for people who are here who are undocumented? The answer is yes. So there is, in fact, a broader, zooming out from this bill, a broader case to be made that is, yeah, of course we should know who's coming into the country. Of course there should be, you know, a border secure that we can make sure that people who are criminals are not coming in willy-nilly, et cetera, et cetera. But immigrants are a net benefit to the country. And the problems that we have are not about immigrants. The problems we have are massive income inequality fueled by a billionaire class who has rigged the rules to their benefit. And, you know, we see that playing out right now in L.A. with this climate-fueled catastrophe. Musk taking control of the government and like ushering in an era of just brazen oligarchy and using the government as his tool so that he can make as much money as he possibly can in China

and get the AI rules and whatever written to benefit him, etc. That, to me, that's my view of what are the biggest challenges in the country. And yeah, of course, when you have a lot of new people coming here, especially when you have, you know, a system that is truly archaic, that means that, you know, you can exploit it by saying, I have an asylum case, and then it's going to be years before it's adjudicated. And in the meantime, you can just be here in the country. Like, yes, those are all problems that need to be dealt with. Is it the central issue that is causing people to struggle with housing costs, with low wages, with low union density, with so little power in terms of their democracy and in terms of in their work lives. No, I don't think it's a central problem.

See, that's where I just totally disagree. I think it's a massive impact. I mean, again, it's basic supply and demand. You let 30 million people in the country illegally over a 40-year period, and then you're shocked whenever prices go up and wages go down. This is, I mean, again, like the argument is, well, they consume and through the black market economy and through their fake GDP consumption that they were all supposedly better off. That is the same neoliberal argument about lowering prices. There's just not evidence for what you're arguing.

You know, even after the Mariel Boatlift, when you had a huge influx of Cuban immigrants into the state of Florida, that's as close to a natural experiment as you could possibly have. And the impacts were minimal, if any, according to like the entire body of research that was done on that particular event. So no, I do think immigrants overall are a net benefit to the country. I think they are a huge part of what has made this country great. And, you know, I just reject the idea that the finger should be pointed at them rather than pointed up at, you know, the people who have created the laws, created the system, run the country, who run our politics, who are screwing workers and lowering wages. Like the corporate bosses are the ones who keep wages low and bust unions. The corporate bosses are the people who love illegal immigration. My entire monologue is about how Elon Musk and all these other people explicitly like low-wage labor of which has no legal recourse, specifically because they can chain them in order to create more profit.

And I agree with you on that. When you talk about a guest worker program where people's labor, like their immigration status is directly tied to their employer, like that is an inherently exploitive situation. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a way to do immigration that eliminates those sort of exploitative, abusive behaviors and makes sure that wages aren't being undercut for the people who are here. You can try. Which has been the history of immigration in the country. Yes, but the history of immigration policy in the country has been legalization and then maybe we'll get to wages later. Oops, forgot to get to that one, Ronald Reagan. That's the reality. People have no trust and they shouldn't. I think that if you look at it right now, there's been a mass movement basically against, at the very least, current

illegal immigration. And, you know, a lot of these questions are outdated too. Should you have a pathway to citizenship? For who? For the 10 million who came in four years ago? For the 20 million who preceded them? From Mexico? From Haiti? Which ones? You know, Cuba, et cetera. I mean, there's a, each one, and that's another problem. Immigrant. That means nothing. I have nothing in common with somebody who came here illegally two years ago, or my parents have nothing in common with somebody who came here illegally two years ago who doesn't even have a basic high school diploma and can barely speak Spanish, let alone English. This term is meaningless, which is why you need skills-based, high-points immigration system like they have in the entire Western world. But move away from that. When you actually look at the basics of this demographic

change, strain on the American character, on the American welfare system. American character. Yes, absolutely. I mean, look, I don't know why these terms are such like taboos when Donald Trump just got reelected president. The American character is being a nation of immigrants. Okay. That is the American character. To what end? That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. You go back even further. That is what built the American character. To what end? That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. You go back even further. That is what built the American character. That's what makes America so interesting. But that's not a racial question.

That's one of the things that is most like, when I feel pride in this country, it's when I watch things like the Olympics. And you see this incredible rainbow of people from all over the world who have come together in this country and have made it what it is. That's part of what makes it so different from Europe where you do have more of this like, you know, ethnic based blood and soil type of ingrained nationality. That's never been what we are about. And that's what has made this country so innovative, so dynamic, and given it its best character and quality. So I don't know why at a time when, you know, a lot of the parts of this country are sort of like crumbling and lacking in dynamism, why you want to close the door to the thing that has made us such a dynamic, great power. Because the people who are coming here are coming – the people who are majority coming here are low-skilled. Now, I mean, look, you talk

about the American character. Do you think part of the American character should be speaking English? Yeah, I think so. Should be, you'd be like educated and not a net loss on the economy? Yes, I think so. These are all like basic questions that have nothing to do with race, nothing to do with blood and soil or any of this other stuff. And again, I would say, you know, America has not always been just vast open door to everybody. We've had several periods in our history, correctly in my opinion, where we did shut the door for a long time. There's a reason they shut the door in the 1900s, because we were basically— Because eugenics was popular, and it was a bill crafted by literal eugenics.

I mean, Crystal, the reason that you're considered white, quote-unquote, is because of that. If we had continued to allow that, I don't know what your heritage is. You would have been Scottish-American or whatever. I don't want to your heritage is. You would have been Scottish American or whatever. I don't want to live in hyphenated America, in the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote, which was the case, by the way, at the time. The idea that Irish people were white is a very modern concept that only happened because we allowed a period of zero immigration. My goal isn't to increase the number of people in the country who are deemed white so i'm not sure what point the goal is to make sure that people don't identify with being venezuelan american indian american pakistani american and just say i call myself but that and america that just happens naturally no but no but it's not it's a literal government policy of shutting things down no you

can actually look like you can check the statistics it It's very simple. Look at the number of Latinos who migrated here a generation or two generations ago. They just consider themselves like Texans, right? Yes, I agree. And it took a long time. They're voting for Donald Trump and associating with the Republican Party. It didn't take a long time. It takes usually like one generation. I mean, 40 years is a long time.

And this happens naturally. And no, it wasn't an official government policy. This is just what happens when you live in a country and you live in a place and you go to the local schools and you assimilate into the nation. That's been the story of our entire history, whether it was Irish immigrants or Italian immigrants or Germans or Polish immigrants or now Mexican immigrants, that is just, or Indian American immigrants, right? Like that is just the natural flow of how things happen when you come and you live in the country and you imbibe. I think you're calling it natural when it was an intentional government choice to immediately shut down immigration for a 40 year period to encourage incivilation.

The period, the point you're making about Latinos is exactly what I mean. Quote unquote, white, Hispanic, fake term that they created for themselves. I don't care. That's fine. But it took 40, 50 years of the Chicano, Texican, whatever identity to be created. And the fact that those people also voted for Donald Trump to shut down immigration is pretty important. But how did that happen as a result of intentional government policy when the government policy you're talking about ended, what, in the 80s? No, what I'm talking about specifically—well, first, I'm using the 1900s example. That was an intentional government policy to specifically encourage assimilation, which I think is good.

Second, around the Texicano or whatever, the Chicano to Texican, whatever, white Hispanic identity was, yeah, it's a long one. But it's also not just recent arrivals. A lot of those people have been there for hundreds of years. But beyond that comes to this question of the people who are coming here, don't speak English, don't have any education, in a service-based economy that is not industrialized anymore. We do not need Irish and Scotsman and Slovenians to shovel coal into a fire anymore. We need people who have language skills, are highly educated, people who are not net loss on the economy. If anything, our low-wage work work if you look at the

wages and all that has been depressed significantly because of illegal immigration there's no evidence of that okay well again if i will as you can see in my natural h1b experiment yes it is true that goldman sachs and others people who have been quote-unquote unable to find that however harvard university's george boras who again i've cited many times from 2017, has significant evidence on that. So we can debate the studies or whatever if you want. All of the reliance on immigration is good for America. It says that it increases GDP because they buy stuff. That is just completely ridiculous.

And America, as I said, has seen through it. They have voted for a person who had a sign behind him that said one thing, mass deportation. I just don't see at this point how the argument cannot be – I mean in a sense you're almost saying it in a way. You're like, yeah, we have to control the border. We need this. We need that. And we can have debates over the levels of immigration. But if you see right now, the vast preference and the median of where things are is significantly away from where the Democratic policy was, which was a wide open door,

let anybody in, have no enforcement. No, it is true. It's not true. And how did 10 million people arrive here? How many people got deported under Joe Biden? How many people got deported under Barack Obama? Joe Biden actually deported more people than Donald Trump did when he was in office. Now you're right that the percentage is different. But it's not like any of these people have ever been open borders. There is not a single member of Congress who supports an open border policy. So don't caricature it. That's all I'm asking.

Okay, so if 8 to 10 million people come here illegally and, what, 2% or whatever get deported, what do you think that means? 98% of the people who arrive here. But Sagar, my point is we should know, but I think the question isn't should we control the border? Of course we should. The question is how many people can the country accept? What is beneficial for the nation? And I just don't agree with your arguments that that number is zero. I don't agree. I don't fetishize this like everyone must assimilate immediately. It is a process that happens naturally over time. I do think that immigrants, even people who come here not speaking the language and not having an Ivy League education, that they're beneficial to

the country. And that is what the overwhelming bulk of the research shows. So should they come in here in these like exploitative H-1B processes that ties them to employer? No, of course not. And that is exploitative to them and does undercut the workers that they're competing with in that industry as we've seen with these tech layoffs. But if you look more broadly at the immigration system, yes, they've been a net benefit. I think you and your family have been a net benefit to the country. I'm glad you're here, Sagar. I appreciate that. But the point is, and this is why I personally find it offensive. I don't want to be looped in with somebody who

doesn't have a, not a, no high, because I have nothing in common with them. Sure. That's the only thing we have in common. We're both humans. We should be evaluated as individuals. They'll be able to more fully realize their capability and in this great nation. They can do that in Guatemala or Venezuela or Haiti or where else. And oftentimes the reason they can't is because of the way that we've sanctioned and screwed those countries over too. Again, if we're going to argue that policies from the 1980s are now self-cascading. No, not the 1980s. When did we stop intervening in Haiti? We're doing it right now.

When did we stop sanctions in Venezuela? We're doing it right now. When do we stop sanctions in Venezuela? We're doing it right now. I'm not talking about back in Ronald Reagan or under Dwight Eisenhower or whatever. I'm talking about literally right now. But even putting that aside, we should be glad that people want to come to this country. Yeah, it's nice. That doesn't mean they get to come. And the same people who are out here obsessing about the birth rate declining and, oh my God, this is going to be the end of the civilization civilization are the same ones who want to close the door to people who want to come here. Who, you know, it is a problem if a country has a low birth rate and, you know, you don't have a productive workforce. So we're lucky that we have people who want to come here. And, you know, I

think that the Democratic Party should be making that argument. I think there should be an oppositional view. And, you know, yes, immigration was an important part of this of this election. I don't think anyone could possibly deny that. But there was no one making the counter case. The Democrats have been making that counter case for years at this point. They have not made that counter case for years at this point. And, you know, that's I think that that has been already a political disaster for them. It certainly did not help them in the context of this election. And I just also happen to think it's wrong. So, no, when I have principles and something I view as correct, even if it is on the wrong side of public opinion, that doesn't mean I'm just going

to like abandon those principles and stop making that case. But that is what you're asking people to do. What I'm saying is that electorally, if you want to an election, I wouldn't run on that. And I think that's important. I think the will of the people here actually matters. But Joe Biden did run on that in 2020. He did run on that alternative view and he was successful. I mean, are we really going to say he won because of immigration? Well, it didn't cause him to lose. And Trump was certainly making the opposite case. And it didn't cause him to lose. And in fact, the last time Trump was in office was when we had some of the highest supports in history for increasing the amount of legal immigration. So, you know, yeah, maybe people feel a certain way right now.

People's views are complex. They're not ideological in the way that we are. And even on this issue at this moment in time, polls show their views continue to be complex. They're not ideological in the way that we are. And even on this issue at this moment in time, polls show their views continue to be complex. They continue to value immigrants as a part of the country. They continue to believe that they bring more positive than negative to this country. So yeah, I think there is an opportunity to make an alternative case about the benefits of net positive migration done the right way. I just think Democrats have decided that they are not going to make that argument can only be made when there's

actually secure law enforcement at the border. When people who are illegally who, for example, who murder a girl named Lakin Riley get, you know, maybe deported when they're arrested here before they can commit a crime like that. And look, I mean, just to return to the core of illegal immigrant crime, the reason why it gets a focus is they're not supposed to be here. The point is, is that it's a crime that was never supposed to happen, an actual preventative crime, as opposed to a natural born U.S. citizen, when the way that we adjudicate and look at that. So even this whole talking point about, oh, they commit less crime.

First of all, no one even knows that's true. I can't even tell you the number of people who are here illegally. So how are you supposed to compute like proper crime statistics? If you look at states, many of them don't even say the immigration status, et cetera. All of this is anecdotal. So the true stat basically doesn't exist. But again, at a philosophical level, whenever something happens that was supposed to be prevented and then it does happen, you can't say, well, oh, it's fine because even though it was supposed to be preventable, that there's all these other reasons why it's okay. People naturally understand that.

That's why they look at like the fire hydrant thing that we talked about today or with illegal immigration crime. That's a reason it's in a special and a different class than people who are here naturally or legal U.S. citizen. There was an actual process. So that's where I would say on that one. But if you want to propose the views that you're proposing, it only works, as it has in the past, when there is order and a sense that this is something that is being used to the benefit of the country. The H-1B process, which I'm talking about today, it passed in 1993. What was happening in 1993? Not a bunch of mass illegal immigration. There was a big question about the dot-com boom. They had all

this optimism about America. That's the nature of the country that you need to be able to pass something like that. Or even if you want, you know, one million people, I think that's crazy, but look, if you want to make that argument, fine. You can do that if there's an orderly process, if you talk about the caps, if you feel as—and people may even support it if they feel as if it can also be circumvented by big corporate interests and people coming here illegally under asylum law. It only works in one way. And the point is, is that where we are right now with the complete chaos at the border, with lack of ICE enforcement, with sanctuary cities and all this, it's impossible. And so in the balance of all of that, I think that's why people ultimately just pull the red lever for Trump, is they just felt like there was no choice with this completely uncontrolled system. And so look, I mean, this is step one, I think. We'll see if they go along

with some of the other stuff. My prediction is no, they're going to start screeching any minute now. But, you know, the point is, is that when you don't have any of that, and already it's a titanic task to impose order and all of that at the border, you can't have any even of the discussion that we're having here. I just don't think it's possible, democratically especially, because for them, the chaos and the feel as if there is no controlled system of no, of no even democratic will or say over who or say gets to come here, that is lost in the vacuum of what we've had in the last 10 years. One of the ways to have more control at the border is to have more legal pathways for people to come. Okay, but that presumes— But it's true.

The more that you try to just totally close the border, the more illegal. I mean, it's just like with drug legalization. That's like saying that criminals get to determine U.S. law. It's exactly what happened with prohibition. The more that you crack down and try to ban alcohol, the more criminal gang activity you ended up with. And it's the same thing with the border. The more that you have it completely shut and absolutely impossible to come here if you have- So we're going to let foreigners determine our immigration levels? No, because it's positive for the country. So I do think that one of the things that people react strong to is this sense of chaos and like we don't have control. And one of the ways to obtain,

to have actual control and be able to do this is to have more legal pathways for people to be able to come through here through an orderly process. No one wants to go with some like, you know, coyote and risk their lives, et cetera, et cetera. So if you have a legal pathway to do that, people will avail themselves of that. And then guess what? You will know who's coming and be able to evaluate them and their criminal record. But I think the bad news is that if we do have a legal process, none of these people are going to be allowed in. Like, you know, under any reasonable- What do you mean, none of these people? Under any reasonable points-based immigration system, people who are coming here with no English, with no high school diploma, are not being let in.

For what job? Who said it has to be a points-based system? I didn't say that. Well, every Western country in the world uses a points-based immigration system, except for the United States. So, and even if you were to look under chain migration, the current existing ridiculous system that we have right now, a lot of these folks don't even qualify under the chain-based status. So, look, I mean, that's the – the truth is, is that most of the people coming here are not going to qualify under any real legal system. Part of the reason why I think, you know, to say, oh, if we have more legal pathways, like they may not like the results because the people who are the least skilled with the least connection to the country, they're not coming.

There's no way for them to be able to qualify and they'll probably still try to get here illegally. That's why I just don't think we can use that argument of like, oh, they're going to come anyway. It's like, well, their willingness to come does not determine our law. We get to decide. Sure, but the fact that we have it so narrowly structured where people have to come does not determine our law. We get to decide. Sure, but the fact that we have it so narrowly structured.

But it's not narrow. Where people have to come here illegally because there's no other possibility. A million people come here a year legally. That's just not true. I mean, under chain-based immigration, we have 100,000 per year. It very much depends on where you're immigrating from. Yes, that's true. And so, yeah, if you are from a certain country, you know, it's going to be nearly impossible to come through any sort of legal pathway. So in any case, just last piece on this, on the Democratic vibe shift and the way that they're approaching the Trump administration so different than they did last time around.

If we can put this last piece, C5, up on the screen from Chuck Schumer. He says he's going to work with Trump on renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America if he will work with Democrats on lowering costs. Okay, yeah, I won't hold my breath on that. But, you know, it just does show the elites in the party have decided that capitulation to Trump and doing the Joe and Mika trip to Mar-a-Lago, the Mark Zuckerberg hostage video, the Tim Cook million dollars to the inauguration fund. Like that's basically how the heads of the Democratic Party have decided to approach the Trump administration as well. So, you know, I think we'll this is what I expected after this election. I will say I did predict this direction, even though a lot of people found it far-fetched at the time. But here we are, and that's exactly what is currently happening.

I welcome the Gulf of Mexico, or Gulf of America. I will say it's not that I don't think that this could potentially be electorally successful. Because Bill Clinton, right, for himself was electorally successful, even though he then went and presided over like massive midterm losses, just like Barack Obama, electorally successful for himself, massive devastation in terms of the wider Democratic Party. So do I think they could pick up seats in the midterms? And do I think that they could potentially win back the presidency next time around? It's possible with this strategy. I just think it's, you know, effectively what you're doing is ideologically ushering in just as Bill Clinton ushered in the neoliberal era, ideologically locking in the Trump era. And I think that's basically what many people in the party have decided to do.

I think so. I also think the people had something to do with that. But, yeah, there is a theory. I think it's Julius Krein said this, that there's a theory of one-party rule. Is that America's always under one-party rule, they just don't know it. And those two parties operate within that. So under FDR and the New Deal, even if you look at Eisenhower, yeah, he was a Republican, but he was a pro-New Deal Republican. Yeah, he was a New Deal Republican. So we lived in a New Deal era for a long time. Then we lived in a Reagan era for a long time.

I think Obama was like kind of a bridge-ish. No. I don't mean. He was pure neoliberal. Yes, but he also ushered something in, which I still don't have the correct term yet to really think about. But he was, he had that and Biden was like a continuation of that. Trump 1.0 was a signal, but it was not one that was really ready to take power, obviously, as what happened during those four years, mostly because the elites saw him as completely illegitimate. But I do think that his actual election here with the popular vote is part of what changed everything. And now I do. I mean, we will retroactively look at the Trump era as 2011 onward.

But I think now is when it really became locked in. I think so, too. And I think I see Biden as like a Carter figure with a foot in both. Yeah, exactly. He straddles. Yeah, he's a transitional figure, which is part of why his presidency was such a catastrophe. But, you know, he kept the tariffs with China, right? So there was a new direction. There was industrial policy. And then there was also, you know, but it's still a lot of the neoliberal elements, et cetera.

So he really was kind of, you know, buffeted by these forces. And I mean, that's not to deny him his own agency for his catastrophic presidency ultimately. But I do think he kind of ends up being this transitional figure. And then when things will really be solidified is when you have, if you end up having a Democratic president who fills that role of Bill Clinton of basically solidifying that both parties are now operating under the same ideological framework. Now, what exactly that ideological framework is, is a significant question at this point, given that Elon Musk is oppositional to some elements of the way that Trumpism has been sold to the public, which is part of what makes that fight so central and so ultimately interesting. But nonetheless, I basically think that's where we are in history. As I said, I think there'll be a big fight in the 2028 Democratic primary about whether or not the party does just sort of like embrace the Trumpian vision of the world, including this, you know, anti-immigrant antipathy towards any net migration effectively direction.

But all of that remains to be seen. Well, the good news, I think, for you is that Donald Trump mostly at this point agrees with you. And if only if Stephen Miller or a few others get their way, will my view ever be represented here? But anyway, it is interesting nonetheless. Let's get is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is

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no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us, and I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross. We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight.

And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison and I'm coming to you loud, loud and in color from the Outlaws Podcast.

Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. 22 inches. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job. My podcast? The one they never saw coming.

Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating us. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? I'm just gonna show all my exes. X marks the spot. No, here it is.

My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief, we turn those into galaxies.

Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now, and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. We are fortunate to be joined this morning by Jeff Stein, White House economics reporter for The Washington Post with a hot scoop on tariffs. Jeff, great to see you. Good to see you, man. Thanks for having me on, guys. Yeah, of course. So let's put your reporting here up on the screen. This caused a little bit of controversy that we can get into as well. But your headline here is Trump aids ready universal. And you put that in quotes, tariff plans with one key change. And effectively what you outline is outline is Trump, of course, when he was running, said universal tariffs on every country, on every good across the board. What they're looking at, according to your reporting, is universal in the sense of applies

to all countries, but a more limited amount of goods that this would be subject to. And this would still be a massive economic shift, but not quite as, one might say, revolutionary as what was proposed on the campaign trail. Go ahead and break down for us what you've learned. Yeah, this is, as you alluded to, this is the first time I've ever been called fake news directly by the president. Congratulations. Congrats. My friends have been trying to figure out what nickname he'll come up with for me.

Little Jeff or I don't know what else to say. The reporting that the president was objecting to, and we can get into what his objections were, what we were, as you outlined, during the campaign, Trump said universal tariffs, meaning import duties taxes, essentially, on everything that comes into the United States. We import $4 trillion or so worth of goods every year, which is a lot. And what Trump was talking about was on the campaign, a 10-20% tax on all of that. So that was looking like potentially, you know, the numbers vary, but maybe a $200, $400, $500 billion tax increase unilaterally by a Republican president. Shocking idea. And what I've been told by Trump officials and people close to the transition is that they're looking at saying, well, OK, some of these goods that we import, we can't even really make here. Like Mexican avocados do not grow in sufficient quantities in the United States to like onshore production of avocados. cheap consumer electronics from China. Like, do we want to put taxes on those imports

to stand up domestic production of super cheap consumer electronics? Or would that just drive up prices for consumers and make them unhappy? So we reported provisionally, conditionally, that the Trump people were looking at potentially changing that universal tariff plan, not to throw out the universal component of it. Because, as we can discuss, Trump really wants to prevent circumvention where China can send its imports via Vietnam and then it gets in through that back door. So they really want to go universal in that sense. But what they're looking at is saying maybe those agricultural products, maybe the cheap consumer goods, maybe those don't have to be part of the overall tariff program. So we wrote that that was paring back.

That was the language I use, Trump's initial plan, because frankly, that is what it is. It is paring back what they proposed. Trump in his social media post calling me fake news did not say, I am going to put tariffs on every import. He didn't say that. He said, I am not backing down. And if the president-elect wants to go out there and say, hey, this is still a huge policy that no other president has done. I mean, that's true. Like this is still a huge policy that no other president has done. I mean, that's true. Like, this is still a massive, as Crystal said, a massive, massive, massive expansion of any tariffs that we've ever done,

depending on what they actually settle on. But almost certainly, what is still the case is that it's a step back from what he said he was going to do. And therefore, we stand by reporting that said that it was a paring back of what he initially proposed. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. And I mean, I will say, I'm pretty sure this is what we called here in terms of like what this stuff looks like in practice. As you said, of course, avocado is the perfect example. I think they come from Michoacan. They can't grow here in a sufficient quantity that too many millennials eat them right, and that's why they can't buy a house. But as you said, it would still be a massive expansion. Can you lay out for us how this

would work? Would you do a little bit in the piece? Would it involve USTR, the United States Trade Representative, the Treasury Department? Would Congress be able to have any input? What would this look like? It's a great question that they're trying to sort through right now. We reported sort of during the campaign, they were looking at a few different legal authorities. The president has unilateral tariff authority, but this would be stretching it, I think, is pretty clear. The thing is, from the Trump administration's perspective, the courts have been enormously deferential to the executive branch when they invoke any sort of national security justification. And the Trump people could say, I think somewhat legitimately, that the inability of the U.S.

to domestically produce goods necessary for our military, industrial supply chain, goods necessary for our medical supply chain and pharmaceuticals, goods necessary for our medical supply chain and pharmaceuticals, goods necessary for our energy production, that these are matters of national security, and use the IEPA law from 1977 to say that is the basis for these universal massive terror plans. The challenge, this is not exactly what you were asking, but I think the big challenge from a congressional perspective is that Trump and the Republicans on the Hill are trying to pay for a tax bill that could be all. But they're going to say, you know, hey, if Trump is doing it anyway, and it's going to hurt, you know, businesses that rely on imports anyway, we may as well say that

that money is being used for, you know, that our tax bill is less expensive because it's paid for in part by these tariff duties. That said, that could really delay the trump agenda because if trump says i'm gonna wait but whatever four or five months until congress passes that bill that might mean that he has to wait to do the tariffs and he already blew up at me for saying that he was paring back his agenda and if he waits until congress passes a bill to um tariffs. That would be a huge potential missed opportunity from their perspective about, you know, on raising tariffs. Gotcha. Just since we referenced the Trump True Social post,

I just wanted to read it so people know the specific language that he used. He says, The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don't exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong. The Washington Post quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don't exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it's

wrong. It's just another example of fake news. I mean, my read of this, Jeff, is Trump loves to stake out a maximalist position and then use that as negotiating leverage to arrive at whatever the ultimate position is. And so, you know, he's probably angry that you're sort of exposing the game of where he wants to ultimately end up and, you know, eliminating the ability for him to pretend like he's actually committed to putting tariffs on avocados and bananas and all sorts of things that it would just be completely idiotic to put a tariff on. And there's also this like key tension here that a lot of people have picked up on i think accurately that you know trump is busy like with a million things you know he's got like heads of state coming to kiss the

ring in mar-a-lago like bezos and zuckerberg are like calling him and like he's buying greenland panama whatever and so like i don't know for sure but my impression is that Trump is not like studying the like USTR codes under which like tariffs will be applied. Right. So there's this opportunity for his staff to maybe do not exactly what he would do if he were like able to really focus and do it. And so there's that gap that I think is super interesting where, you know, his aides are saying, sir, these are universal tariffs, they're going to be on everything. And Trump is like, well, they're not on every good. And the Washington Post is calling them a step back, then are we really doing universal? And I don't have this like fully confirmed but there's been some i would say rumor scuttlebutt that the response to my story and his tweets you know his social media posts about it may actually sort of affect the process itself where now the aides who had sort of hoped

to get right right get these tariff these universal tariffs tariffs in and convince him that they were the universal tariffs are now having to convince him that these more moderate plans actually are that. Why do you think they wanted to talk to you, Jeff? Like, why do you think that they wanted this story to come out? Because it does seem like kind of from their perspective, if they wanted to try to sell them like, see, sir, these are universal tariffs. This is what you ran on, that that really sort of backfired if that was ultimately their goal. Yeah. It's hard to know with sources why they talk to you. I assume that it's because I'm charming and persuasive, but I know that that's probably not. That makes sense. Every journalist thinks that and it's not true ever, right? So what was the incentive here to leak this? And I think, trying to think how to phrase this,

I mean, I think there are people in the Trump orbit who are worried that these will be pared back too far and want stories to create the effect that we were just talking about. From the perspective of people who are worried that these will be sort of winnowed down by the free trade Reaganites in the Trump orbit, this story has worked out brilliantly for them because now Trump is like aware that people might be trying to weaken them. So they wanted this reaction from Trump and for him to be pissed off. It's hard to know, right? Yeah, but that's one possibility.

Man, it's been a while since we've done some Kremlinology here on the show. I don't miss it, but I guess that's four more years of what we're in store for. Jeff, one last question for you. Obviously, Elon Musk has tremendous power within this administration. Trump completely sided with him on H-1B visas. What is his view of tariffs? Is this something that he could potentially take a personal interest in as well? Because he, in a lot of ways, is a much more ideological figure than Donald Trump himself is. Actually, it's a great question. I'm not sure where Musk is specifically on the tariffs. But as a businessman with the amount of interest he has,

clearly he's going to be at least somewhat dependent on imports for all his companies. And we've seen now like a few times this fracture point emerge over the H-1B visas and over, I think we're going to see it over tariffs potentially as well. it for sort of over-terrorist potential as well. There are sort of tech executives, Musk and al-Swami, but also Andreessen Horowitz and many of them, Thiel, and their incentives are just not necessarily aligned with the MAGA base or the protectionists.

And, yeah, no, it's a great reporting target that I should probably figure out because Musk has a huge amount of power right now. And is he going to try to get, you know, you know, the tariffs not placed on things that would affect his private business? Those requests being submitted by other will be, you know, we'll be watching that very closely. Yeah, absolutely. I know he said he praised Javier Millay for rolling back tariffs in that context. And if you did have a different definition of universal here, it would certainly open up the door to Musk and others being able to say, well, that component that I need for my rockets, surely you're not going to tariff that or that I need for my Tesla assembly. Sure, you're not going to tariff that. So it

would certainly open up a door for him to be able to influence that process. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Jeff, we appreciate you, man. We'll see you later. Congrats, Jeff, on the presidential call out. Keep it coming. See you guys. Bye. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone,

I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions

that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl, T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weed.

My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite?'t exist get a job my podcast the one they never saw coming each week i sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers tina knows luna's ex will we ever see a dating show for the love of luna's ex this is gonna show all my exes x marks the spot no here it is my next x My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love.

And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020 working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons, pain into punchline, and grief,

we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, honey. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating.

We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out. You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do this regime is coming

down on us and I don't want to just survive I want to thrive you'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen to freedom! Angelica Ross I'm ready to fight and Gabrielle Union and storytellers with wisdom to spare

listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At the same time, in terms of media scandals out there, there certainly are no true heroes in the big three. Fox News finding itself in a major controversy. Let's put this up there on the screen. A new book by reporter Alex Eisenstadt, who, look, he's a major controversy. Let's put this up there on the screen. A new book by reporter Alex Eisenstadt, who, look, he's a great reporter. He's a solid campaign finance person, followed him for many years, claims that a Fox News insider actually fed questions to the Trump

team in advance to somebody there, specifically questions about, quote unquote, retribution that were obviously dogging Trump at the time. We all watched this live. I think we even covered this answer here whenever we did the show. So, you know, we would think that makes sense. We thought that this was off the cuff. There's always allegations about insider questions and all that. But here's what Eisenstadt writes. 30 minutes before the town hall was set, a senior aide started getting text messages from a person on the inside at Fox. Holy shit, the team thought.

They were images of all the questions Trump would be asked and the planned follow-ups down to the exact wording, jackpot. This was like a student getting a peek at the test before the exam started. Bayer and McCallum planned to ask Trump if he would divest from his businesses if he won, whether the party was making a risk nominating him, giving his indictments. They planned to press Trump to disavow political violence

and ask if his White House would be focused on retribution. But with the questions in hand, the team, quote, workshopped the answers. Eisenstadt told CNN that the anecdote was based on, quote, multiple people with direct knowledge of the event. Fox says, while we do not have any evidence of this occurring, Alex Eisenstadt has conveniently refused to release the images for fact-checking. We take these matters very seriously

and plan to investigate should there prove to be a breach within the network. I mean, it would be extraordinary. Look, also, why would he release the images? Obviously, the images would then give away the person who did it. He shouldn't do that. I mean, I don't think he's lying. That's what a lot of people have said. Like, oh, this is obviously a fake plant. I'm telling you guys, I followed Alex. It's possible. I followed him for many years. Solid campaign finance reporter. I don't think this one is fake news.

I don't know why people would think that it's so far-fetched that you would have some strong Trump supporters working at Fox News as producers who would feed the team this info. I mean, there's massive ties between Trump and Fox News. He's calling Sean Hannity all the time. You know, he's, Kayleigh McEnany works there now and worked for Trump previously. Like, obviously there's huge interconnections there. And so to think that it's so far-fetched that they would feed him the questions, I don't, I, that's just silly to me. Now, the interesting thing is that according to Eisenstadt's reporting, the Trump team was actually kind of nervous about this town hall because it's Brett Baer and Martha McCallum who are supposed to be more of the like hard news folks over at Fox, even though Brett Baer is kind of like buddy-buddy with Trump too, like plays golf with him at times, whatever.

Obviously, they are more right-leaning as well, but they like to preserve an image as we're like the real news folks here. And so they were concerned that they might ask him some questions that were difficult for him to handle or that he might have whatever kind of reaction to. So for them to have the chance in advance to be able to workshop some of these more challenging answers was important. This was also during the time that there was an ongoing Republican primary and Ron DeSantis was maybe potentially theoretically some sort of a threat to him. So there were a lot of DeSantis questions that were mixed into this town hall as well. But, you know, obviously, if CNN was feeding Kamala Harris questions or feeding Joe Biden questions. Well, didn't Donna Brazile do that? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So,

yeah, it was a big scandal. It's bad. Scandals. Yeah. Because, you know, these news organizations try to preserve some level of credibility. But yeah, it's embarrassing for Fox and was clearly beneficial to Trump. And, you know, you just shouldn't take any of the Fox is an ideological organ of the Republican Party. It was effectively set up to be that. I mean, that's what does set Fox sort of apart is that the conception from the beginning was we are going to be an ideological weapon for use by the Republican Party so that we can compete with, you know, the quote unquote liberal news media ecosystem. So, you know, this is not a particularly surprising turn of events, but still noteworthy. The other part of the book that was

interesting is, again, speaking of the connectivity with the Fox News universe, apparently Trump really considered Maria Bartiromo as being his running mate. Yeah. Instead of J.D. Vance, apparently really liked her. He said that she, you know, the donors love her. And of course he loves that she's,

you know, very fluent on TV and really combative on TV. She did any number of just like embarrassingly softball interviews with Trump as well. So I'm sure he enjoyed that too. So, and I think he, you know, I do think he had somewhat of a preference potentially for a female in that role as well. But that's kind of funny to imagine that she could have gotten that pick and had to be talked down of by what Susie Wiles. Apparently it was by Susie Wiles.

Swooped in to try to talk him out of that particular idea. Yeah. I mean, who knows how serious it all was? It genuinely would have been hilarious if Trump had gone in that direction. In some ways, quite fitting. You know, she backed him up on everything from voter fraud to she's always been one of the most like slavish defenders of him. Yeah. That's where it is with Donald Trump. I mean, look, it's humiliating that it's humiliating if this did happen. Any news organization, the White House and campaigns, they always press you for questions. And you can maybe give a topic, you know, if I think that's reasonable. But the direct questions themselves is outrageous.

And then, you know, to use that to prepare, like if a member on the staff was able to do that, another big question for Fox as well is, you know, they probably were alerted by this a long time ago. So nobody's been fired. No action has been taken. I would assume that there's not a ton of people who have access to this for a very good reason. So there's a narrow, you know,

window of the number of people who this would even apply to. There's probably like 10 people. I was going to say like 10, 15. Who would have the specific questions in advance. There's probably like a 10 person producer group that would be privy to that level of information. So yeah, if they want to figure out who it is, they can figure out who it is. The question is like, do they really want to know the answer? Do they really care at this point? That's a good question. Probably not because they probably like having people who are friendly to Trump, just like the rest of the media organizations

who want to suck up to Trump at this point. Fox at one point was kind of on the ounce with him, and they want to make sure that they stay in his good graces. So I don't think any sort of retribution will likely be coming for this individual. You're probably correct. Although I still think at a very basic level, they should be fired. Oh, of course. Anyway. All right. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never got any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is your girl T.S. Madison, and I'm coming to you loud, live, and in color

from the Outlaws podcast. Let me tell you something. I broke the internet with a 22-inch weave. My superpower? I've got the voice. My kryptonite? It don't exist. Get a job.

My podcast? The one they never saw coming. Each week, I sit down with the culture creators and scroll stoppers. Tina knows. Lil Nas X. Will we ever see a dating show for the love of Lil Nas X? Let's do a show with all my exes. X marks the spot.

No, here it is. My next ex. That's actually cute, though. Laverne Cox. I have a core group of girlfriends that, like, they taught me how to love. And Chapel Rome. I was dropped in 2020, working the drive-thru, and here we are now. We turn side-eye into sermons.

Pain into punchline. And grief, we turn those into galaxies. Listen, make sure you tell Beyonce, I'm going right on the phone right now and call her. Listen to Outlaws with T.S. Madison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,

honey. This Pride Month, we are not just celebrating. We're fighting back. I'm George M. Johnson, and my book, All Boys Aren't Blue, was just named the most banned book in America. If the culture wars have taught me anything, it's that pride is protest. And on my podcast, Fighting Words, we talk to people who use their voices to resist, disrupt, and make our community stronger. This year, we are showing up and showing out.

You need people being like, no, you're not going to tell us what to do. This regime is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. You'll hear from trailblazers like Bob the Drag Queen. To freedom! Angelica Ross.

We ready to fight? I'm ready to fight. And Gabrielle Yoon. Hi, George. And storytellers with wisdom to spare. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Winning an election is easy. Actually, governing is a much more difficult thing. It's a trite but universal lesson of all presidencies where in our two-party system,

disparate coalitions come together to dream before an election. And inevitably, then somebody is disappointed when actual decisions have to happen. As usual with administrations, especially with one as loosely defined as Donald Trump's, the knife fights start early, and sometimes even on Christmas. I'm referring, of course, to the massive MAGA civil war that has taken place over the Christmas holidays that began with a critique over H-1B visas, then a tech-right versus MAGA-right fight about who really is in power, and then a racist versus globalist fight over who's really an American. And it ended with one of the most extraordinary posts I've ever seen from Vivek Ramaswamy. It basically said, white people are lazy.

So let's start with a roadmap, and let's go from the beginning. Things got kicked off when, full disclosure, a personal friend of mine, Sriram Krishnan, he was appointed by Donald Trump to be an advisor to the incoming administration on AI. Sriram is a former venture capitalist of A16Z, who in the past had vocally supported an increased number of H-1B visas and uncapped country quotas for green cards. Now, this set off an immediate firestorm of criticism from the MAGA universe, who saw the Sriram appointment as a betrayal of Trump's promises to reset U.S. immigration policy and as a corporate giveaway.

Some of the discussion was just genuine racism against Indians to the U.S., but what was really interesting was to actually see the conflict begin from grassroots day one supporters versus many newly arrived technology sector Trump supporters who were at direct odds. Many of these people of Trump, supported Trump from the tech sector, were shocked that the movement they aligned themselves with, including other venture capitalists and others, engaged in these big fights online were trying to justify the H-1B visa. But the ultimate tech-aligned right-wing figure that weighed in with Elon Musk tweets this quote, the reason I am

in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H-1B. Take a big step back and fuck yourself in the face. I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possess. So why the emotion there from Elon Musk and others? Obviously, for tech entrepreneurs who supported Donald Trump. The truth, beyond any personal interest, is that H-1B visa is what the entire US technology industry runs on. And the dirty truth is that it exploits both the workers themselves and the US workers who they are competingits both the workers themselves and the U.S. workers who they are competing against. So let's define some terms. What the hell is the H-1B visa?

H-1B visa is basically a supposedly high-skilled guest worker program, otherwise known as a specialty occupation visa created by the United States Congress in 1990. The justification for the visa, which has an annual cap of $85,000 per year, is that high-skilled industries like technology and engineering, that there's not enough available talent in the United States. Thus, the H-1B allows the so-called best in the brightest of the world to come to the United States to work for a specific company in a specific role for three to six years before they become eligible for a green card. In theory, it's very easy to see how this visa category was created, but in practice, it has become very controversial, for the major

reliance that the U.S. technology industry has on it. H-1B visa holders are not allowed to easily switch jobs without risking their immigration status, effectively chaining them to the original sponsor for the visa, and systematic study has now shown us that the H-1B visa holders depress wages for U.S. citizens because they are willing to work for less for the benefit of being able to emigrate to the United States. Now, those who defend the program say, we're only talking about 100,000 or so visas a year here. These people fill jobs that Americans, according to them, are not qualified to do. So let's actually dig into the numbers and just take a look at this.

Norman Matloff, who has weighed in with the definitive piece here, and so I will quote him from length from Compact Magazine. H-1B advocates like to point out that 85,000-year visas is only a small fraction of overall STEM employment. But that is misleading. Assuming a six-year stay, the nominal time limit, at any given time, there would be 500,000 visa holders in the country. More importantly, the impact is cumulative.

The H-1B worker who transitions to green cards becomes a permanent fixture in the labor market, especially tech-heavy regions. In 1990, 30% of Silicon Valley engineers were foreign-born. By 2014, that figure had jumped to 74%. So let's think about that. We're talking here about a sector of our economy, which is roughly 20% of U.S. GDP and almost entirely responsible for the growth of all of our stock indices. And the vast majority of these engineers are not from here. That's not bad per se, but it does raise a question.

Why? Who's benefiting from this? Here again, basic labor law, supply and demand come into play. If you run a business like we do here, what's the number one pain in the ass? Staff turnover. So what do you do when you want to prevent staff turnover? How do you prevent that person, if you employ a US citizen, from leaving? You pay them more and you try to have good working conditions. How does that work with an H-1B? Actually, you can pay them less and they can't leave. That's a good trade. Easy way to juiceB? Actually, you can pay them less, and they can't leave.

That's a good trade. Easy way to juice the stock price. You reduce employee compensation. You get more riches for yourself. And you don't have to deal with one of the biggest threats to any business, talent leaving. Now, the H-1B visa holder themselves might be miserable in the job, but he or she has other things on their mind, like, listen, I've only got a few more years where I have to take this, then I can get a green card. Once that happens, I'm free. I can do whatever I want. So you sit

there and you take it. The person who loses out here is the applicant who is a native-born US citizen because of their rights can leave whenever they want. Furthermore, there is no implied compensation like there is for the H-1B visa holder. The citizen already lives in America. The H-1B visa holder can accept less because lives in America. The H-1B visa holder can accept less because a big part of the benefit is getting to stay. Now, here again, Matloff weighs in by noting a University of California Berkeley study that shows that high-tech engineers and managers have experienced less wage growth than all of their counterparts nationally. How is that possible? We are talking, again, about the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy. Wages should be booming, and yet they're actually growing less than average.

Again, it's very simple to see why. With the vast majority of jobs at these tech companies now held by H-1B visa holders, technology companies can depress industry-stranded wages and keep out these troublesome U.S. citizens. Worse, in many cases, U.S. citizens themselves can be fired to be replaced by H-1Bs. They take a look, for example, at this recent report from 60 Minutes, where a former IT administrator for a hospital in the state of California describes the anguish of being fired and then forced to train his replacement. What did they say to you? We are sorry to inform you that as of February 28th, you'll no longer have a job. We're going to outsource your position to this company in India. To a company in India?

Yes, sir. Harrison was told he could stay on the job, get paid for four more months, and get a bonus if he trained his replacement. Now I'm being told that I am not only going to lose my job, but I also have to train these people to take my job. Are you angry? Pissed. That exceeds angry. I'm really not a violent guy. I love people. But I've envisioned myself just backhanding the guy as he's sitting next to me, trying to learn what I know.

And I was like, God, please don't let them send anybody to sit next to me to shout on me. I don't want to do this. I really don't. Harrison and his colleagues staged a protest outside the medical center. His fellow worker, Senior Systems Administrator Kurt Ho, is losing his job too. He had just trained his replacement from India. I think for once we're going to stand up as Americans and say enough is enough. We're not going to take it anymore. So with all that in mind, is it really such a surprise that Elon Musk is willing to go to war for H-1Bs?

A basic perusal of the data shows us that Tesla is the 16th largest H-1B employer in the United States. Yes, far behind Amazon and Cognizant, a company that does IT systems or Infosys or IBM or Microsoft or Meta. Do you get the picture here? Technology giants. So let's make clear that this is about money for them. But to obfuscate that is where Vivek Ramaswamy comes in. During much of the debate around H-1Bs, what many tech leaders basically came to admit is that they prefer predominantly H-1B workers from India because they work harder than Americans. Implicit in that is they say Americans are lazy. It was

implicit until Vivek just said that out loud, which I know you've heard some of this, but it's really worth ruminating on. The crux of Vivek's post is that Americans are fat, lazy, and that our culture venerates the, quote, jock instead of the math Olympian like him. Per Vivek's formulation, the reason that top tech companies hire foreign workers over Native Americans is because Americans, and particularly white Americans, are lazy. He blames this on cultural degradation and obviously personal feuds that he had growing up, where he watched Corey from Boy Meets World and Zack and Slater from Saved by the Bell get venerated instead of math Olympian nerds like himself. Now, Vivek's

prescription is that Americans instead should adopt a parenting culture like the one he was raised in, the immigrant striver model, best known to Americans from the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. And in the meantime, of course, you need more H-1Bs. Now, this might be a surprise to the Vivek Ramaswamy of 2023 who called course, you need more H-1Bs. Now, this might be a surprise to the Vivek Ramaswamy of 2023 who called for the end of the H-1B visa system, but nonetheless, let's take it seriously. As I laid out in my own lengthy response to Vivek, Vivek is not wrong that many companies hire foreign-born workers or children of immigrants because they work hard, but he is wrong in thinking it is somehow implicit to these groups and not one that Americans have not always had in their own culture. It's certainly true much of our

culture today revolves around hedonism, gambling, drinking, getting stoned, but the fact is is that as a solution is as American as apple pie. You just have to return to what we all once valued. In fact, in the period before World War II, many Ivy League schools and other so-called prep schools for the American elite explicitly emphasized athletics, social skills, and leadership over rote memorization and academics that is characteristic of much of Asian parenting today. The reason they did that is because if you lay a foundation for discipline through sport and you create well-rounded leaders, you can combine that with academic inquiry to create the entrepreneurial culture that gave birth to the American culture that beat the Axis powers in World War II and put a man on the moon. If Vivek's model of parenting was a solution for greatness, then you would see the greatest

companies in the world being built in China, India, Singapore, Korea, and Japan. And look, as much as you all know I love Japan, let's be honest, India, Singapore, Korea, and Japan. And look, as much as you all know I love Japan, let's be honest, it's not the case. The reason so many people want to immigrate to the United States and are willing to do so, even undercut US wages, is because this is the place where you have, or at least had, the best shot of being whoever you want to be. As I lay out, and the very reason that Indians succeed in the US is precisely the dynamism, frontier spirit, and foundation laid by the American founding fathers. It is by combining their cultural rejection of hedonism and now current focus of the family unit with hard work

that they are able to achieve such stupendous success in such a short period of time. And absolutely none of this is intrinsic to being Indian. It is the same story of small, high-achieving immigrant groups. The lesson for us all is a universal one. Pure consumerism, individualism, hedonism in an atomized America as a way that we have today will lead to ruin. The way that you get out of it is not to bring in guest workers who have yet to be tainted by this, but instead to reinvigorate the spirit of the United States and refocus all U.S. government policy on the prosperity of the American family over the prosperity of shareholder capitalism. Vivek and Elon's proscription is actually the one that is truly anti-American. It effectively

believes America is so deracinated and lazy it can no longer accomplish what it once did without foreign guest workers. This only makes sense if your civic ideal is to increase a company's shareholder value. But as I said in my response to Vivek, if you prioritize a reinvigorated civic nationalism, that will inevitably clash with capitalist interests. In my opinion, we should have no more widespread immigration to the U.S. for the foreseeable future. Our power and population is just far too high, and at any time in U.S. history. We have nearly flooded this country with 20 million illegal immigrants in a short span of a few decades,

and all of the signs of ethnic strife that we saw 100 years ago have returned. At that time, when the similar levels of high foreign-born population reached a crescendo, the United States effectively shut down the vast majority of immigration. In that 40-year or so period, something happened. Interesting happened. People went from Irish-American or Slovenian-American or German-American to just American. Racist nativism, which was fueling the KKK, actually disappeared for a generation. And the country that put a man on the moon was born.

Now, this was directly at odds with the oligarchs of their day, who also relied on cheap labor from Europe's poor to flood their factories. But nonetheless, the population understood at that time it was near a breaking point. It is my opinion that is what we need again. And with the popular vote for Donald Trump,

I think some of you feel the same. But even if you do not, what I at least hope to convince you of this in this monologue is of what the U.S. immigration system today has become, a vehicle for corporate interests to protect their profit and have your interests secondary. You do not even have to agree with me on immigration levels to get that. I will prove it to you by ending with some words from a U.S. senator. I'll tell you his name at the end. Quote, the primary purpose of H-1B and other guest worker programs is not to employ the best and the brightest, but instead to replace American workers with lower-paid workers from abroad who often live as indentured servants. The cheaper it is to hire guest workers, the more money the multi-billionaire owners of large corporations make. Multi-billionaire oligarchs in big tech should

not be allowed to hire guest workers to fill entry-level and mid-level IT jobs. Those jobs should be going to American workers who have the constitutional right to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. It must never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker. Mr. Musk, Mr. Ramaswamy, and others have argued we need a highly skilled and well-educated workforce. They are right. But the answer, however, is not to bring in cheap labor from abroad. That was Senator Bernie Sanders writing for Fox News. So perhaps there is a bipartisan future on this issue at least ahead of us.

I mean, it's been interesting to watch the ideological breakdown. Well, it's a bipartisan issue on both sides since Trump is on Team Elon. Yeah, that's right. Trump is on Team Elon, which is amazing. And so is Nancy Pelosi. We'll say we did a monologue about it at the time, or sorry, a segment about it, which people can watch. Remember during the all-in interview where he was like, we need to staple all of that. I accurately called it as a betrayal. But the Vivek thing is actually more shocking to me because, I mean, you and I were talking a bit about this. His parenting model has already been tried.

It is the model. The tiger mother model is the model of the American elite and has been for 20 years. How's the American elite doing? I don't think they're that great. They're the people who covered up Joe Biden. They're the people who went to Ivy League schools and went to go work at McKinsey to help Purdue Pharma juice their profits. Are we putting men on the moon? No. Are we doing anything great? No. The way that you

really make a ton of money in America today is to go work for a health insurance company and use AI to deny claims. Or it's like, what are we educating people for? It's for such great purpose. Like, I don't see anything all that good happening in the US society right now. And that's just where the breakdown in his whole theory is incorrect. It's like, you know, study and be good at violin. I just reread Tiger Mother. It's an insane book. It's actually crazy. Just where she sits there and like whips her child rhetorically for not being good enough at the piano. And it's like to what end? So you could go to Harvard Law?

For what? The for what question was never answered by these people. And that's the problem I have with this whole thing. It's just bullshit. Yeah. Well, I already fought with you about immigration, so we'll put that part to the tide and talk about the Vivek thing because I do find it really fascinating. Also, it's just like such a, I mean, Trump just won this election on the backs of non-college educated workers who explicitly rejected this view of the world that has essentially been embraced both by elite liberals

and by who, you know, look at the white working class and are like, it's your fucking fault. Yeah, they hate them. Yeah, you're right. That's that's that is the view that was rejected in, you know, Trumpism 2016. And so for Vivek to be like, no, actually, I do think it's your fucking fault that you and your kids are lazy, which is I actually am, too, because it's a mask off moment and now we can talk about it. So there's that. There's also this part. Really, I don't know why this sticks in my craw, but the culture he's describing doesn't even exist anymore. Like the mall culture and the universal sitcom culture, things were so much better when we actually had that culture. You're right. Not that that was perfect and obviously mall culture is all wrapped up in consumerism or whatever, but we're trying to have Derek Thompson on next week.

I just talked to him. Who's tracking the way that these social trends, like teenagers don't even hang out with each other anymore. It'd be better if they were hanging out together at the mall. He goes after like, he's like, you shouldn't have your kids go to sleepovers. They should instead be studying for the math Olympics or whatever. It's like, that's the exact wrong direction

because these teens are miserable, depressed. And of course they're not gonna live up to whatever the best version of themselves is when they're struggling with these mental health issues. And the lack of social engagement is a big part of that. So that's number one. Number two, like Vivek is a political leader in a position of political power. No, we didn't vote for him, but that's who he is now.

I don't need our political leaders lecturing to us about what our culture is and how we should be raising our kids. Focus on policy because, you know, I think you and I have a different view of how much culture drives these trends. I think policy drives much of these outcomes, much more so than these different individual cultural dynamics. But whether you think that, agree with me on that or not, the thing you have control over, the thing that you've been put in charge of is policy. So stop lecturing people about what sitcoms they watched when they were 12 years old and start focusing on how to make life better for people. And then the number three thing, and this is really the core of it. Neoliberalism effectively says the only thing that matters is GDP growth

and shareholder value. You as a person, if you don't make it in the market, not only is it your own fault and you have failed as a human being, there is nothing redeeming about you. If you aren't going to Harvard, if you aren't providing shareholder value for one of Elon Musk's many companies, you have failed as a human being. I fundamentally reject that view of humanity. There are so many more ways to be valuable to society than just to go work at McKinsey or go get your Harvard Law degree or go come up with the latest exotic financial instrument on Wall Street. There are so many actually better ways to be a useful, valuable, honorable, decent family member, community member, member of society, et cetera. And so I find this whole way

of viewing human beings to be totally disgusting. And where I saw it up close and personal was more so less in the immigrant families that I'm close with, but more actually with the elite Manhattanites that I saw when I was working at MSNBC who had adopted this model for themselves, their families, and their kids. This is the type of mentality that leads to like the Varsity Blue scandal, where you think that the only thing that matters is this specific mode of achievementism. And you will do anything, including schedule your child down to the minute and force them into all these, you know, Latin tutoring and the math Olympics and the fencing because that's the best way to get a scholarship, etc.

That you will schedule them down to the minute and never let them just be and discover who they are intrinsically and what they might want and enjoy to contribute to the world. So I actually completely reject this model of parenting as a parent myself and find it really dystopian. Most Americans do. And that's why reading the Vivek, look, you can't call me racist for saying this. It literally sounds like a foreigner trying to tell people what to do. Like, it's crazy. You're like, dude, this is the mentality of all of the Indian elite in India. If it worked, then why isn't it working there? It's obviously something intrinsic here in the US that makes it possible for people like Vivek

become fantastically wealthy in a single generation. And yet he's basically prescribing it for people while, and I mean, just in general, like telling them what to value and whatnot. Now, listen, I agree with some of his critiques. I do think it's true. A lot of people don't work very hard and all of that, et cetera.

And we have a culture of hedonism, et cetera. But I agree with you completely that a lot of that is policy. The H-1B thing is perfect example. It's like you – it's not in your control how much you get paid. It's a macro system based on Visa. You know the – I didn't put this in. The actual person who wrote the H-1B law, he said at the time that he was duped by the technology companies.

And he is outraged at the way that it is now used. The congressman who passed H-1B and wrote the law said he is outraged at the way the technology companies have circumvented it to use and discriminate against U.S. workers. And look at that video of that guy. Again, didn't have time to play it. He worked at a children's hospital.

And he's like, you know, I took my work really seriously, keeping these systems up because I would walk around and see parents with children who are fighting cancer. He's like, somebody who's not here in the building has no idea, you know, what the responsibility and all that. And that describes what you're saying. It's not just about the bottom line. Yeah. And you know the craziest part, too. That was a state institution.

So those were government dollars that they were being paid. Yeah. That were outsourced. I mean, here's the thing. It's like you don't want to deny people agency, like the choices they make in their lives, like, yes, personal responsibility, blah, blah, blah. But is the primary reason that the working class in America

keeps going backwards because of their own moral, personal failings? Yeah, no. Or is it because their jobs were shipped overseas by a combination of NAFTA and PNTR and the busting up of unions and all of these elite-driven policies that were meant, that were meant to crush the working class and make them desperate. Make it so that they can't bargain for better wages, that they have no other options. And they will be effectively like those indentured servants that they're now just bringing in for H-1Bs, et cetera, who are literally, their job status is tied to their employment. That is the real crux of the problem. So yes, of course, your own personal choices and the way you raise your kid, blah, blah, blah. Of course,

these things have an impact. But when you look at a trend that has infected an entire society, you have to say these were because of policy choices, not because you liked a certain character in Boy Meets World when you were 13 years old, or because you let your kids have sleepovers, okay? So that's what is so revealing about the whole Vivek monologue. And listen, he said it out loud, but trust and believe, many Republicans, many Democrats think the same thing, especially about the white working class. Because Democrats have a story

about if you're a group that's in their view, officially oppressed, they have a story about why you may have been held back and not made it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you're a group that's, in their view, officially oppressed, they have a story about why you may have been held back and not made it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you are a white man living in America, they do not have a story for why you aren't making it. So it must be something you did. It must be some failure. It must be your fault. And so, yeah, Vivek saying it out loud. And by the way, using rhetoric that many black Americans will recognize as the type of rhetoric that many elites, but especially Republicans, have used about their culture and why they've struggled to succeed as well is also really quite something. That's the problem,

is it's either all individual agency or all systems. I am a big believer in both, but in- But when you're talking, I am more of a believer in the systems. But when you're talking about politicians, like. Yes. Who are you to tell us. Exactly. How we should raise our kids and what sort of like, you know, cultural enjoyments we should partake in when we're in our rare leisure time. Exactly right. All right.

I enjoyed writing that one. I hope you guys liked it. We will see you all later. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always

be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The OGs of uncensored motherhood are back and badder than ever. I'm Erica. And I'm Mila.

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