Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Republicans Confront the Epstein Files (ft. Rep. Don Bacon)

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

What happens to a Republican who publicly clashes with President Trump? Jessica sits down with Rep. Don Bacon, a five-term Congressman in a blue-leaning district, who announced that he won’t be seeking reelection next year. They discuss his positions on the Epstein files release, the war in Ukraine, Trump’s tariffs, and the growing crisis for Midwestern soybean farmers. Plus — a lot of people thought that Rep. Bacon’s opposition to cutting Medicaid meant that he’d vote “no” on budget reconciliation. So why, in the end, did he cave? Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Warp understands your machine, stack, and codebase. It's built for the entire software lifecycle from prompt to production. With the powers of a terminal and the interactivity of an IDE, Warp gives you a tight feedback loop with agents so you can prompt, review, edit, and ship production-ready code. Trusted by over 600,000 developers, including 56% of the Fortune 500. Try Warp free, or unlock Pro for just $5 at warp.dev slash top code. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov, and my guest today is Congressman Don Bacon.

He's a 30-year Air Force veteran, currently in his fifth term representing Nebraska's second district, a swing district. And this past June, he announced that he isn't going to be running for re-election next year. Sad to lose a sane Republican, I got to say that. But we got into it a little bit about the reconciliation bill. The math wasn't necessarily mathing for me. We talked about support for Ukraine, what's going on with China, Russia, and India. The Epstein files. Everyone loves that.

And much more. Here's my conversation with Congressman Don Bacon. Congressman Bacon, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. This raging, pragmatic, conservative likes being on the show. Oh, great. I'm thrilled to hear it. Scott was saying, like, oh, you're going to try to have another Republican. You've seen how this has been going. And I was like, no, no, this is a little bit different. We've got a Reagan conservative with an interesting story to tell about the evolution of the party. But I want to start more in the present. On Wednesday, there was a big press conference on Capitol Hill. led by Congressman Rokana and Thomas Massey with 10 of the Epstein survivors. And they were speaking out about what had happened to them, and they're interest in getting all of the DOJ files on Epstein released.

You had gone on record a couple months ago saying that you thought that there should be more transparency. Are you going to be signing on to the discharge petition to get those files released? We voted on a Rules Bill today that I think we'll do more. more than what the discharge petition will do. So basically, we've directed the judiciary committee to do a full investigation and release everything but the victim's names, so we should protect the victim's names. And it's going to be broader than what materials at DOJ is going to go to other parts of government.

So I'm going to take the speaker's word at this. So bottom line is we're going to empower our Judiciary Committee to release everything they can find more than just DOJ, and that's what the discharge petition. has on there. And it's going to release everything but the victim's names. Okay. What would you say in terms of pushback that Mike Johnson talks a big game and said, like, Galeen Maxwell should actually have had a life sentence that I think 20 years was even too light. But Mike Johnson is also the same person that recessed Congress a day early because he didn't want to have to release the Epstein files. And Republican-led committees haven't

necessarily been the most forthcoming in doing things that President Trump is not. interested in, and it is very clear that the president does not want these files out there. He even today called it a hoax again. Well, what I've heard behind closed doors is the president's worried about the victim's names. And so that's our commitment to release everything but the victim's names. I think that's appropriate. And the bill that we vote on today at Center Rules Bill goes beyond what the bill that Matthew wants to do and Rokana.

By the way, both my friends, but what we vote on today is going to go beyond. that. And I tend to want us to support the speaker when he's given me a good option. I think it's a good option here. We're going to have a more broader, I think a more transparent end product. There's other things I would like to do, you know, discharge petitions on, like Ukraine, tariffs, and things like that. I've been very sparing on my use of discharge petitions, I think for good reason. I'm going to save my silver bullets for things that fire me up more. And that's tariffs and lack of secondary sanctions and support of Ukraine. Okay.

Well, that's a good opportunity to segue to something that you are more interested or more passionate about. Obviously, a couple weeks ago, we had the summit in Alaska with President Trump, Vladimir Putin, and then this week we have been seeing a kind of show of force with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi of India together. Were you watching the military parade that they put on on Wednesday? I read about it, but I didn't watch it. That's what I meant. Like, were you absorbing it? I was absorbing it.

I was looking at it. And, you know, it's an interesting time in our history where you got Russia, China, and India aligning. And they're not natural allies. India and Russia have been. But Russia and China are not. And neither is China in India. So I think it's a temporary friendship based on opposition to us. What do you think that we did wrong to drive?

drive them into each other's arms at this level. And do you think that having the summit a couple weeks ago played any role in that? I don't think that the summit with Putin fed into it. However, I don't mind Russia and China working together because they're both our adversaries, right? They both opposes. And what bothers me about this administration, they've had a very blind spot towards Putin. And I would want a president. I would like President Trump to be more forceful against President Putin. Here's a guy that's murdered all of his rivals. He's invaded Ukraine. He's invaded also Georgia. He's threatening his neighbors. And the invasion of Ukraine, there's no other way to frame it. It's a international crime. It's against the rule of law.

They're committing war crimes every day. I'd like to have our president talking more like that, right? I don't mind the president being firm against China. I mean, what they're doing is the Uyghurs, Tibetans are wrong. They're the pacing long-term threat of our country. Neither one of our democracies, neither one are free markets. They're police states. Now, it does concern me about India. That's the largest democracy in the world.

They should be on our side. However, I think it's all right to speak up and say, why are you, Prime Minister Modi, helping prop up Russia's economy while they're invading Ukraine? I would like to think that a democracy would see the morality of this and be against the Russians or at least find ways to oppose their behavior with Ukraine. So my concern is that President Trump has done very little to stand up, at least against Russia. But China may be a little better with what he has said. And so that's probably my biggest concern right now.

We have a situation that looks like 1938, and we need a president that sees the more. right and wrong here of what's going on with Russia versus Ukraine instead we got a president that treats them both like equals and he's trying to referee but no one's a victim and one's the invader why would Ukraine start a war with a country 10 times in size that really angers me because it's like a very ignorant statement with Russia invading Ukraine so that's really more my my anger there I guess if I was in charge I would anticipate Russia and China would be said, hey, Don Bacon don't like neither one of us. Let's work together. But they're both our adversaries, the way I look at it. Well, you mentioned this, and it's explored every time

there is a meeting, there was Zelensky, or with Putin, that we should have steeper sanctions against Russia. And, you know, a few people in the Republican caucus, yourself included, the Lindsay Graham's of the world stand up and say, yes, yes, let's do that. And then it always gets punted down the road. Do you think that this show of unity in China, you know, Donald Trump has posted saying they're all conspiring against him, which is his favorite thing to say. But it's very clear that he understands that these are not teammates and all of this. Do you think that that might spur us being closer to actually implementing some of those harsher sanctions?

You know, we're so tired. Many of us are the two more weeks thing. Unfortunately, it sort of defines President Trump's policy when it comes to Russia. And I support the secondary sanctions, and I'm on that legislation. And frankly, I'm going to support that for a discharge petition. I've been talking about it. Who wants to submit it? Maybe I should do it. But we're talking about it.

And somebody says, well, why do it? Because the president is going to veto it right now. Well, that's all right. I want to put pressure on the president to stand up against Putin and be a more vocal ally of Ukraine. Ukraine is on the side of freedom, free markets, the rule of law. And we should be on that side. So I'm a big supporter of the secondary sanctions. I'm not sure why the president has drugged his feet on it.

It doesn't make sense. Frankly, his entire policy on Russia does not make sense to me. Well, don't you think that he just believes that he's going to the one who magically is able to get a deal at some point? Maybe, but I think he, there's three or four different possible motives, and it's hard for me to know which one it may be. I think he has more of a worldview, and I know the people around him have this. I get sort of mixed signals from President Trump himself. But I see ourselves as leader of the free world and that we need allies and we should be on the site of freedom, democracy, free markets, rule of law. And we have the biggest economy, biggest military on the free world.

So we've got to be leaders and we should be building close to relationships. That's my worldview. It has a mix of idealism and realism in it. I see the president's worldview is more just total realism and that you have three superpowers, Russia, China, United States. and that he sees real relationships between superpowers, right? And that's how it comes across. If it's not him, you surely get that from the vice president and some of the guys around there.

So I'm not sure what really motivates them. I think you're right. You'd like to be the big dealmaker here. But we don't want a bad deal. A bad deal is worse than no deal for Ukraine. We don't want a Sudetenland of 1938, where we force a friendly country to give up territory for so-called peace with Germany, in this case, Russia. And then Germany goes in, it takes Czechoslovakia within the year

and then starts World War II by invading Poland. I see that we're at in 1938 right now. And when the president says, yeah, you've got to swap land, but it's really saying Ukraine's got to give up land. Give up land. You don't like that. It's not right. Why reward an invasion?

Why reward war crimes? So I see this as a right and wrong, and I don't know that the president sees it versus the right versus right. wrong. Is there any end then? Because it's clear Zelensky is willing to make some compromises, but not to go as far as Putin wants. He's never changed any of his demands. Right. And, you know, our NATO allies are going to back up Ukraine as long as that takes. But how do you see there being any resolution? Well, if Ukraine's want to make an agreement and there is some land transfer, I would support Ukraine. I mean, this is ultimately, they're the victim. They're willing to make an

agreement, I wouldn't stand in away with that. I wouldn't tell them no. That doesn't make sense. However, I don't anticipate Ukraine given up any land unless there's security guarantees involving NATO or United States in particular. And I would support that. I opposed Ukraine entering NATO prior to the invasion. I thought, why are we trying to antagonize Russia? But Russia invaded anyway. And then they try to blame NATO for it. But really, Ukraine always wanted to be a NATO because they know the threat of Russia, just like the Baltics, Poland, Romania, before that. So I would support Ukraine's decision for peace

if they need to make compromises, but they're going to need security guarantees if that happens. How does this end? We give Ukraine the weapons they need and the quantity and quality that they need, and we do secondary sanctions, and we play hardball against Putin. He's got to realize he cannot win.

The day that he realizes he cannot win, he'll change his calculus. But right now, I think, thinks he can wait us out. He sees weakness in President Trump. He saw weakness in President Biden. And he thinks he can wear Zelensky down. We've got to get Zelensky the wherewithal so that Putin knows you can't wear him down. Listening to you, it seems quite clear that you are a different kind of Republican with what the modern GOP looks like. Can you talk about your decision to retire, which was surprising to a lot of people. Your district has been

trending blue, went for Biden in 2020. Harris in 2024, you're like that blue dot in the midst of the sea of red. But what made you decide that this was the time to leave? Well, before I answer that, I'm the old school Republican. I've never changed. I'm the Ronald Reagan Republican. I believe in peace through strength. I believe in free markets. I believe in alliances. I believe in free trade. These are all things that the Republican Party has believed in since World War II. The current trend in our party is to be the 1930s Republicans. They believed protectionism, isolationism, they believed in price controls, they were nativists, they

didn't like legal immigration. And a lot of our parties, going back to the 1930s, that failed the Republican Party and it failed America. And so we learned from that. We became the post-World War II Republicans, and that's what I am, and I have not changed. Now, why did I decide to not run again? Well, I did five terms, and so 10 years, and they were all tough races, even though I, you know, elections were I was the number one target for the Democrats. You know, we came out on top. 2018, when we lost 41 seats, we ended up winning by two. And we outperform the average Republican by eight points, by the way, that cycle.

The reason I wanted to retire was, I thought 10 years was enough. I did 30 years in the Air Force, not 10 years here. I'd like to come home at night. I do four nights a week in D.C., three nights in Omaha. You know, I've been married 41 years. Got four kids, three of them live within 15 minutes of my house. house, eight grandkids. So I'd like to do a little more of that. And frankly, I'm just tired of the every two-year election cycle. You know, between family and just tired of the two-year election

grind is primarily what drove me. But also, maybe a tertiary reason is the dysfunction in the house on both sides. I don't know. It's just some of the lack of teamwork, the lack of courtesy, the lack of decency. It's like I lost my appetite for wanting to be a part of it. And I speak, I think the role of Speaker Johnson, that man never loses his temper. He's decent to everybody. But when you look around in what goes on, I just, I wasn't really excited about doing it for two more years, you know. But in the end, I want to get home hopefully every night when I'm in Omaha. You're only 62 years old.

So is there a third political act in another way on deck for you? Or you think you'll really be picking grandkids up from school? Well, if I have my way, I'd love to be part of an administration down the road. whether it's on the defense side or intelligence side or state department side. I like national security. You know, I served in NATO. I served in the Far East. I've been in the Middle East four times when I was in the Air Force.

My favorite thing to talk about is national security. So I'd hope to have a spot somewhere down the road of God. Open up that door. I would love to do that. I don't know that my wife agrees with that part, though. Let's be candid about it. So I hope over the next two to four years or three years, that I can support national candidates that I like.

You know, I was a Nikki Haley fan last cycle. Yeah. I like Governor Yonkin from Virginia. There's candidates that I think fit the more Reagan mold, and I would like to help them out and be part of their teams. In the meanwhile, I would also like to make some money back home and come home at night. But I'd like to continue to serve in our country. It's going to have to be outside of Congress for me to serve.

Would you serve in a Democratic administration if it was the right kind of president? If it was the right kind of president, felt like I could not compromise my values. Yes. All right. Don Bacon and a president Shapiro administration down the line. We're going to take a quick break. Stay with us. They say a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. That's definitely true of saving and investing. Your financial goals may feel far away, but you can take the first step towards them today with Betterment. For most of us, that starts with saving and investing,

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Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.com slash audio. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca slash yamex. Welcome back. I want to talk to you a bit about your votes because I mentioned in the

introduction, you know, as a liberal living in a conservative media world, I'm always looking for the rare conservative that is saying something that's pushing back against the administration and you given me a good amount of fodder and I thank you for that. You've made some of my time a little bit easier on the five. I've given the far right bloggers a lot of fodder too. It's very strange. Everybody loves you, but also everybody hates you, which is such a weird place to be in the national discourse when I told a bunch of my Democratic friends on the Hill that I was having you on. Everyone. Oh, love Don. Everyone loves Don. We're going to miss Don so much. But also, why did Don vote for the reconciliation bill? So you were out there saying this is going to cut Medicaid. Millions of people are going to lose their health insurance. It sure seemed like you were going to be a no. And then. you were magically a yes. How did that happen? Well, I think a little bit what I said was mischaracterized.

About a month or two months before our vote, I said that I could support, I got to go back and get my memory banks here, when it come to Medicaid, that I could support work requirements for able-bodied adults without young children, and that was like a significant savings to that alone. Also, those who are not qualified to be in Medicaid, but we haven't done an audit of the role. since COVID. So if you earn too much money, you should be on Medicaid. And I also said if you were illegally here. So those are the three things I put out there. Also, if you're enrolled in two different states. So I said those four things I could accept, which was about a $500, $600 billion

savings. I said I could support that. But if it's beyond that, I would be very hard-pressed. You'd have to convince me that it's not hurting the person who actually needs it. So that became a redlined. That's $500,600 billion. But really, that was my statement to the media. These are the four areas I can support. Beyond that, you're going to have to convince me it doesn't hurt individuals. And what passed the House was that. I actually, my position became the House position, believe it or not. You wouldn't have thought that when I first said it. I had the speaker, contacted me, the two White House officials came to my office, the day I said it to the media. But what we passed out of the House was exactly that. Now, the Senate

added a little bit more. And I think that that made the... a bill works. A lot more. Now, they took from 6% to 3%. And I think it took the bill backwards in my view. But for my vantage point, I got away a bill in, you know, its totality. I couldn't vote for a bill that was going to be a 20% tax increase. I wanted to vote for this bill. So I tried my hardest to get the best compromise that I could on Medicaid and SNAP and a few other areas. And I was able to move the ball in some areas. But in the end, a vote no was a vote to raise taxes 20%. And, and I was a vote to raise tax is 20%. It was a vote to cut the child income tax credit in half. So there was a lot of other things in the bill. Like, for example, we're going to modernize our air traffic control

system. We were going to plus up the military by $150 billion. Now, we're spending the record low on defense per GDP going back to 1940. And if we're going to be a real superpower, it's not enough. So I would just say there's a lot of good things of this bill, too. But I don't think, I mean, even just today, the GOP conference was having a meeting with Tony Fabrizio about the need for a rebrand because the American public knows that this isn't a good bill. And I don't doubt your intentions and I understand that how you thought it was going to come through the Senate is a bit different. But the reality of what this does to the American public and especially the poor American public is devastating. And that's why you even have people like Josh Hawley

bringing his own bill to try to get Medicaid coverage back for people. And you say everyone's going to have this huge tax increase. $2,400. a year extra for our poorest Americans while our richest Americans are getting a tax cut. And that is the message that the American public has heard loud and clear. Actually, this bill would have, if we wouldn't have voted for it, the average American, the average middle class American would have got a 20% tax increase. And that's the fact. This is from the IRS, not from some right wing or left wing of commentators to have an axe

to grind. So if I would have voted knowing this bill would have gone down and the average person making $60,000 a year is going to pay 20% more taxes. There would have been a bigger outcry. So you don't regret the vote. No, I don't regret the vote. Now, I wish to set up what is stuck with the House version of the Medicaid thing. I think we had a better bill there. But I got to weigh a bill in its totality. And I do believe if we look, we go down a year or two and we see that the money is too little going to our hospitals, we have the ability to correct that and add more money to the hospitals if it you know because we're all hospitals are already shutting down

and they're citing cut well they were shutting down before the bill even passed right but we did plus up 50 billion for for hospitals and if it needs to be more we can do that but I'm not going to raise taxes on the average American we're not talking the the richest of the rich only getting this the middle class workers got a 20% tax cut in 2017 that was going to go away the child tax credit was going to be cut in half if we didn't vote for this and that there's There's a lot of other things. Goodies in the bill, but those are the two big ones. Okay. We could go back and forth all day on this one. But I'm curious by extension, then, you know, obviously you're defending your choice and voting for it. I understand it's an enormous bill. And arguably it could have been split up into a bunch of smaller bills and that might have been better for the future of the country. But did you feel like there would be retribution coming your way if you voted against it? Because there have been a number of members of the Republican Party who have spoken out about that that Donald Trump and his minions are going to. going to come for you if you don't get in line, like Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis, leaving the

Senate. I had President Trump run against me in my district at 2022, and I've taken votes on infrastructure, you know, pro-infrastructure I voted for. I voted to certify the election despite the threats. I've done a lot of votes. I vote my conscience. I didn't vote for a speaker that I thought was not the right choice. I took a lot of threats for that and prevailed. In the end, our district knows that I try to be honest. And, is this bill perfect? I mean, a lot of people want to say it's the perfect bill. I don't.

I think the Senate took it backwards on Medicaid. However, there's so much good stuff in this bill. We're going to modernize our air traffic control for the first time of generations. You never hear that, right? There's a lot of things that we're doing in this bill that has a lot of good in the end. And I do think if there's damage done on the hospital side, we have a chance to fix it if we see it going the wrong direction. But that said, you know, I don't say it's 100 or a zero. Sometimes you got to vote for a bill that's an 80. You may think it's a 40. I don't know. I think it's way less than a 40, but we're being friends here. I can't get a tax increase there, Jesse. Okay. I don't want to waste all our valuable time on this. But, you know, modernizing air traffic control is important. I live in New York City and no one will go to Newark Airport anymore, including Secretary Duffy. So obviously something needs to be done about safety.

in the skies. The next crisis that's coming our way is the spending fight. What do you expect that the next month looks like? Do you think there's any role for bipartisanship in this? I imagine Thomas Massey is going to say, you know, I'm not going to vote for that. Maybe you'll need a Democrat or two. Do you think Republicans would be interested in any sort of deal? Well, I think we should be. We have to get the next year's budget. And unfortunately, the last two years we've been doing continuing resolutions and then modifying it. And, of course, we did the reconciliation bill that added money in certain areas. But I think a CR is a wrong way to go.

So we've got three options. We're going to have a shutdown. We're going to do a CR or we're going to do an appropriations bill. Most people think we're going to have a short-term CR for a month, two months, and then hopefully get an appropriations bill. That will actually update our spending and not lock us into things that we agreed to two or three years ago. I mean, it's hard to have new starts when you do a CR. So to do that, that we're going to have to have bipartisanship.

We have Republicans who are never going to vote for a budget. And you're going to have at least 60 senators in the Senate to pass this. That means you've got to have some Democrats if you're going to do an appropriations bill. So I hope that our leadership on the Republican side works with the Democrats. They're going to want something and we're going to give them stuff and it's going to be a give and take. But I want to see an appropriations bill get passed and update all of our spending and all 12 appropriations bills. And like I already mentioned, we've gone two years stagnant, and that's not good. It's not a good way to run our country.

Now, the Democrats are going to have to hopefully swallow their pride a little bit because of the reconciliation bill. A few things that the president does, they don't want to meet us anywhere on the table with any of this. And if they hold true 100% on that, we'll have a shutdown. So hopefully we can find some that we'll say, okay, let's do some give-and-take and let's get an appropriations bill. As a minimum, we've got to do a CR, but I'd hate to see us do that for a third. year in a row. I think it's bad governance. It's bad for a military, bad for all across our government doing a continuing resolution for the third time. Yeah, we seem to kind of live by that system. I want to kind of take a look at before your term is over. What are your

priorities, what do you hope to get done? Obviously, supporting Ukraine is atop that list, especially as an Air Force veteran. But what do you have your eyes on? You know, our farmers are really struggling in the Midwest. And I know some people want to make it partisan. Either way, our farmers have been struggling for two years. Commodity prices have been down. We've lost markets. I think it started under President Trump 45. It got worse under Biden, and it's getting worse now. So right now, our average farmer is losing 80 cents on every bushel of corn. And so there's a crisis in the Midwest. A farm bill will help with that. We've got to expand trade markets. It's got to be immediate. We need immediate markets for corn and soy beans.

if we're going to save some farmers in Illinois or Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and things like that. What do you think the future of President Trump's tariffs are now that they're tied up in the court system? Obviously, they can stay in place until it gets eventually to the Supreme Court. But what is your expectation on how that ruling will go? I think two to one odds the Supreme Court will rule against the president. And why do I say that? And I felt this way from the beginning. If you look back at my statements, Article 1.

it's pretty clear that Congress has the power of taxes and tariffs and all the revenues that the government brings in. Now, there has been three bills passed over the last century that gave the president emergency powers. But I've always felt like what he's doing here is not emergency powers. It's changes in policy. And the Constitution gives tax policy to the Congress. And the three laws that we passed over the last century was not a policy, it was emergency. And I feel like he's abusing this emergency clause that we're going to be using this emergency clause that that we gave them. Now, when you do tariffs against 80 countries, that's policy. That's not emergency in my view, which means, so I think the Supreme Court will rule in our favor. And the

appeals court showed it was, I think it was a 7-4 decision. And it read as if I wrote it, frankly, I believe what they wrote was right and accurate. And if this happens, what that means is the president's got to work with Congress. He's going to come in and say, I think we need tariffs on China for these reasons. A lot of Democrats and Republicans would support him on a trade policy that's a little tougher on China because they've been unfair. There may be some things we should do with India if they're propped up Russia's economy.

Let's have that discussion, but we've got to vote on it. And I really chafe at this, I don't know what you want to call it, a monarchial or monarchy-type presidency that thinks he can do tariffs, also do a pocket veto or a pocket, what do you call it, rescissions, yeah. I don't believe any of that's constitutional. I believe Congress, we own the spending. and the revenues. The president's supposed to execute them. And so I anticipate that the Supreme Court will rule back up the appeals court. And then the president's got to work with Congress. And that's the way it was meant to be.

Good luck with that. There's going to be some angry truth socials about Congressman Don Bacon after that comes down. So what's one thing that makes you rage and one thing that you think we should all calm down about? Well, I've been most angry about the Ukraine thing. First of all, I've learned in the Air Force in my time. in Congress, the 40 years total, never lose your temper. If you lose your temper, it's a weakness. So I don't rage. But what gets you really mad is when the president repeatedly says, I don't understand why Ukraine decided to have this war with Russia when they're 10 times smaller. You're like, Russia did the invasion. And that has been a trigger for me because it just goes against history and it's dishonest, frankly. I wish there was more moral clarity on Ukraine. So I think that that's one thing that bothers me.

I was also a little, I was angered about how we treated Canada, Denmark, and Greenland. We treated them not like allies, not like our friends, but second-class countries. And for what reason? What benefit did it give us or them? All it did is make these countries or our friends mad at us. And I just want some little wisdom when it comes to our foreign affairs, the national security. And some of the stuff, it doesn't make sense. It's crazy.

What do I think is maybe exaggerated or were blown over? Well, I don't know if it's been exaggerated or not. I think the president can surely do better on this. But I think we should acknowledge that crime in our big cities is wrong. You look at all the crime in the world, of major cities all over the world. Why are our cities so bad? So I would encourage the president to sit down with the mayors and the governors and come up with a plan. I don't think it's setting the guard to Chicago or St. Louis.

Maybe it's all right for Washington being as a federal city. but we've got to realize there is something wrong. It should be a Republican or Democrat issue. It should be an American issue. You know, Chicago has six times more violent crime than Omaha per 100,000 people. And I think D.C. is about the same. There's a lot of innocent people being killed here. So I wish we could do this in a not a partisan way.

Let's sit at the table with the governors, even Democrat governor, Republican president, Democrat mayors for the most part, and to come up with a plan. Nobody wants this high crime. We should be able to figure out ways to work. together on this, and it should not be a partisan issue. Another thing I think is overblown is the immigration policies we have. Now that we fix the border, and I would say the president should declare victory, we went on 12,000 a day to zero, essentially. Now it's time to make an immigration policy that opens up the doors for legal immigration. Our country needs legal immigration.

Without it, we're a declining population, which hurts our economy and it hurts our future as a country. we need to have a, you know, let's say a slight population growth is how you maintain a strong economy. So I think the time now for the president is to sit down and figure out, we're going to Democrats and Republicans. How can we reform our legal immigration and open up the doors, not fully, but at least more than what it is right now. It's too hard to come here. That's why so many people come here illegally. Congressman Don Bacon, you are far too sane for your party. Radically sane. Radically sane. I like it.

Raging Moderate has radically sane on. It was a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.