Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1118 | The Great H-1B Debate & the Keys to Keeping Resolutions

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

In today's episode, we sit down with Allie's dad, Ron Simmons, to discuss all the ins and outs of the H-1B controversy and what this means for the conservative movement and President-elect Trump's upcoming second term. We also go over the connections between Trump's potential reforms to the Department of Education and the H-1B visas and the workforce in the country at large. Ron gives us his predictions for Trump's second term and his insight into why there seems to be so little resistance from the Democrats on his election win. And we talk about our New Year's resolutions and what we want to accomplish in the year to come. Buy Ron's book, "Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon: 15 Ways to Take Charge and Create a Path to Success": https://a.co/d/9e4cF5e Buy Allie's new book, "Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion": https://a.co/d/4COtBxy --- Timecodes: (03:10) H-1B visa controversy (19:18) Developing technologies (20:58) Job growth for foreign-born workers (28:10) Reactions to Elon’s H-1B take (32:07) Vivek on American culture (36:20) Mass deportations and media freakout (41:28) Trump’s first 100 days in office (46:25) Lack of Democrat pushback (50:20) New Year’s Resolutions ---   Today's Sponsors: Switch to America's Christian Credit Union today for faith-aligned banking with exceptional rates and nationwide access. ACCU will donate a box of EveryLife diapers to a Christian pregnancy resource center for every new member who opens a checking account before January 31st, and pay a $100 bonus to a new account when you sign up with code "ALLIE". Visit https://www.americaschristiancu.com/allie to get started! Good Ranchers — Go to GoodRanchers.com and use code ALLIE at checkout to claim $25 off, free express shipping, and your choice of FREE ground beef, chicken, or salmon in every order for an entire year CrowdHealth — get your first 3 months for just $99/month. Use promo code 'ALLIE' when you sign up at JoinCrowdHealth.com. --- Related Episodes: Ep 1093 | Trump’s Tariff Plan & How He’ll Lower Inflation | Guest: Ron Simmons https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-1093-trumps-tariff-plan-how-hell-lower-inflation/id1359249098?i=1000675255115 Ep 993 | The Right & Wrong Way to Read the Bible | Guest: Tara-Leigh Cobble https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-993-the-right-wrong-way-to-read-the-bible-guest/id1359249098?i=1000653963937 ---   Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Over Christmas, conservatives on acts went to war over immigration and H-1B visas. The pro-H-1B side was spearheaded by none other than Elon Musk, who said that he would go to battle over this issue. Vivek Ramoswamy also coming in to support Elon Musk. And then we've got people on the other side of this debate, like me, who took issue with some of their arguments. And here today is my dad. We changed up a little bit from what we told you what happened this week. Schedule-wise, he is here today to talk about this H-1B debate. We've got a little bit of a variety of perspectives and disagreements going on.

So I think that you'll enjoy it. Also, we will be talking about Trump's priorities. And my dad will be giving some encouragement, some advice, some wisdom on how to start your year on the right foot. This episode is brought to you by crowdhealth. Go to join crowdhealth. Use code alley, join crowdhealth.com, code alley. All right, before we start with my dad, I just want to give you a definition of what H1B is. We get into that just a little bit, but I really like for you to know what exactly we are talking about before we get into these conversations.

I really like defining our terms. So this is according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire non-immigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. A specialty occupation is one that requires the application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. So a lot of people think of it as like a STEM worker or someone who, face card never gets denied, like Melania Trump. Melania Trump was, she actually came to America

on H-1B status to work as a model in 1996. The problem, though, is that this program has been abused. And I think even Elon Musk agrees that Americans have been deprioritized, that they have been really thrown under the bus for cheaper labor. But there are so many layers, complexities, and nuances to this conversation, and we will be tackling as many as we can today with my dad. So without further ado, here he is. Dad, welcome back to the program. Gosh, it's glad to be back. It seemed like it's been a long time for you to be live and for me to be back on, but I'm glad

to be here. I know, me too. We had a change in schedule today. So I said yesterday that my dad would be on on Thursday, that we would be talking to a British journalist today, but things have been switched around. So people will be very happy that you are back on. You are one of the most requested guests. So we are talking about this H-1B debate.

And I knew what the H-1B visa was. I didn't know that it was this much of a contentious issue, specifically on the right. So it was an intra-conservative Republican Party debate that was really spearheaded by Elon Musk over the holidays. It sparked, it seems, on December 23rd, when Trump. Trump announced that India-born Sri Ram, Sri Ram, Krishna, will serve as the president's senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence. He is a tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist. Some in the MAGA camp criticized Krishna's support for increasing the immigration of skilled workers, arguing that his position contradicts Trump's America First policy. Elon Musk, the Vec Ramoswamy, chimed in with Elon Musk saying, look, I'm here and a bunch of the people who work at Tesla are here and doing great work because of the H-1B program.

The Vake Ramoswami went on this whole rant, which I didn't really appreciate and I can get into my take later saying, you know, American culture kind of sucks. and we elevate the wrong heroes, our sitcoms, celebrate laziness. And Asia, they create harder workers. They create smarter people because their education system is better. Their culture is better, whatever. So we need H-1Bs if we want America to succeed and be number one. A lot of conservatives on the other side saying, America first means prioritizing American workers as much as possible. So that's the big picture overview we can get into the details. But what's your take on all this? Well, it's like everything, nothing is simple. It's a complex subject.

And if we want America first, then we need to have the brightest in certain areas. Now, would we prefer them to be America? citizens, absolutely 100%. There is truth about our education system. As you know, our education system fails our kids day in and day out. The public education system does. And that's where the core of the issue begins. And so what we need to be focusing on is to let's, how do we improve our education system? And I know that Trump is looking at, you know, maybe abolishing the Department of Education, which I think is a good idea. It should go right back down. to where the parents have the most control.

That's how you get schools to be better. But in the meantime, if we do want these technologies that we need to control and be the leader in, we do need to have the brightest people. Now, I will say that we should look for American citizens first. And we shouldn't, it doesn't need to be a level playing field, in my opinion. in that we should try to hire as many citizens as we can. And we've got a lot of them that maybe are being passed over because of the wage thing, which I think we'll talk about.

But I'm not, you know, it's interesting. This whole program started in 1990, all right? And it started with the lower number than they have now. Now they can do about $85,000 a year is how many can be given. There's many, many more that want that, but $85,000 are strict. But many institutions are exempt. And so right now we're handing out somewhere like 700,000 H1Bs a year. Yeah, I don't think that number's correct, actually. But it may be more. There are 55,000 put in law and 20,000 more that are exempt. So, or 30,000 more that are exempt.

According to the Office of Homeland Security, 755,000 people were admitted to the United States in H1B status. fiscal year, 2003. That's a lot. That is a lot, yeah. So it, and there are 11 different types of visas, temporary visas, right? This is just one of them. It is interesting to note that in 23, over a million temporary visas were granted versus 2019 when it was 600,000. So you look at the Biden versus Trump scenario. So I do see that, I do see that changing a little bit. I'm not as opposed to it as I hear some people being opposed to it. I think there are a couple of fixes we could do. For example, we could, they're supposed to pay them the prevailing wage of what, you know, other people make in that particular field. We need to crack down on that. There needs to be a fine if they don't

pay them the same as we do, you know, say an American citizen. That would reduce the competition as I mean, that would help competition as well. I mean, that's one thing for sure that we can do. And we should also put requirements in that if there are similarly qualified American citizens, that they should be given first priority for that. I mean, that's simply what it should do. Now, in some cases, there may not be. Remember also, this is something to think about. These people come in, let's just use India as an example, excuse me, because that's where a lot of the software engineers, which supposedly are what's the number one job for this. Those people want to leave that country because of poverty and other reasons.

If we don't pick the brightest ones out of there to come over here and try to, quote, unquote, Americanize them, where do you think they're going to go? They're going to go a lot of times to our enemies, China, Iran. The question is, are they really the brightest, or are they because they are, because they are escaping dire poverty in India. They are escaping a life that most of us cannot imagine. Are they willing to do more work for less money? Yes. Because many Indians come from, and I don't blame them one bit. I don't blame anyone who comes over here for a better life from somewhere like India or China. But they come over here. They typically live multiple generations to a household. So you've

got typically multiple income makers in one house. That already makes the housing market very competitive and a negative way for a lot of Americans who only have one income maker per household. And they are willing to work a lot more for a lot less money. And how are Americans supposed to compete with that? Because Americans don't have the same motivation or the same incentive because we're not escaping the slums. We're trying to live a good life. And we're trying to live a good life. And and, you know, provide for our families, but we just don't have the same desire to basically be a slave to a job.

Any kind of work here is an upgrade for people coming from India. I just don't know if necessarily we're, maybe we are, we're going to pick out the best and the brightest from India. I mean, they rank almost the very bottom when you're looking at all of the countries when it comes to education,

way worse than America when it comes to the ranking of their education system. That's because a lot of them aren't, even schooled. I think if you carved out that and you looked at their, you looked at their most educated, where do they rank? I think that, especially in STEM fields, I think, Ali, it's a very simple solution, though, to the problem with they're willing to work for less money is we should not allow the companies to pay them, you know, 60 or 70 percent less than what, or whatever the number is. Yeah. And they're paying their American counterparts. If the, if the pay is the same,

then that that disincentivizes the companies from trying to recruit them just for that reason. Yeah. That is a simple fix. Yeah. And that's what Elon Musk said. And that's what we should do and see what happens. Are they really the brightest or not? You know, I think we've got a lot of bright people here in America, but I don't necessarily think, like, for example, when you look at STEM, okay, the science, technology, whatever, all that stands for, and you look at, in America, and you look at, in America,

females that enter that field versus, say, India. It is a vast, vast difference. Again, we're working on that. We're trying to encourage, you know, female engineers and software people and all that, and we should be doing that. But other countries are way further along than we are in that. We don't have this big of a pool to pick from as we should have. And I think what Vivek was saying is that what we glamorize in the United States

And what we put on a pedestal are things that are not necessarily engineering, science, software, base. They are people that we see on TV or people that we see on social media and what have you. And that's not always best. Yeah, I disagreed with what Vivek said about, you know, he was talking about different sitcoms. We lionized the quarterback and we kind of vilify the nerd. But really, the American story is that whether you're the nerd, so-called or the quarterback, you can succeed in your particular field. Whereas if you look at most Asian cultures, yeah, you have to be good at math. You have to be good at science. That is your

ticket out of there. That's your ticket to success. That maybe your ticket out of the slums. And this kind of tiger mom mentality that we're going to beat your back until you get straight A's and that is where you're worth and value comes from. There might be some good in that. But I actually think that the beauty of America is that you can be eccentric, that you can be an artist. that you can be a writer, that you can succeed in these ways. And maybe that does make it harder. Maybe we have fewer people to choose from when it comes to the STEM field. I mean, you're actually making the own argument is that, yeah, that is great for America,

but we still need these people if we want to advance technologically. But I wonder if we do. Like what, maybe this is just a totally ignorant question. But Timothy and I were talking about this. We're saying, oh, we need to advance an AI. We need to advance and do. technology. Are these people coming over and making updates to Snapchat? Because I don't think we need that. Like, how much more do we need AI? What technological developments are actually being worked on by

these people that we apparently need from India and China that is actually helping our society and is not just making the CEOs of these companies richer? Yeah, well, 30 years ago, we would have, could have said the same thing. What else could we invent? What else? Well, those are technology. And then here we are today what's happened over the last 30 years. So we don't know the answer that. I agree with you though. I really want to know. I agree with you though on the Snapchat and all that. The other thing that I would not, I don't want these people doing and it's

happening. This again, it's an easy fix. And it's a, I get it. You can make an argument against it. I don't think any any of these H-1B visa holders should be working on anything to do with our national security or anything that would consider classified or secret. And I believe that is happening. And in the Department of Defense and in their contractors, I just,

I just think there's too big a risk in vetting people, especially when we allow them to go back and forth to their home countries. You know, they can go back and forth to their home countries. And I just, I think that's a mistake. Yes, especially, I mean, China and India really benefit from this in some ways. In some ways, it hurts a place like India because the argument is with, you know, the H-1B is that apparently India has just this treasure trove of like, hidden geniuses. And for whatever reason, India is not able to fix their own country, but as soon as they get to America, they're able to, like, advance us beyond what native-born citizens are able to do. It's kind of strange to me, apparently, how that works. But that causes brain drain.

You've got the best and the brightest people, leaving them. And so the vulnerable people, the really poor people, I mean, they're left destitute. That can happen to any country. But there is a kind of a short-term, more superficial benefit in that those who are coming from a place like India making money here, they're sending money back to their families. And so the people in India, those people benefiting from them still like that. And then when you look at the CCP, we know that they steal our technology and our secrets as much as they possibly can. And I just wonder if there are any protections, as you were saying, within this program, to make sure it's not just the best and the brightest.

It has to be people that we trust, that love this country, that care about our values, that care about our culture, that want to assimilate to a degree, and want to uphold American principles. I agree. And that's why it seems like it would be easier to just prioritize American citizens. How are you ever going to know if a guy who is, you know, supportive of the CCP comes over here and it's really trustworthy? We should support them, prioritize American citizens first, no question about it. Now, I do like the fact that they pay Social Security taxes and all that and don't ever get to benefit from unless they become a citizen down the road. That's a benefit for the rest of us. Yeah.

Okay, it's not enough of it to make a difference, but I think it's a benefit. Yeah, I had a couple of things written down. Again, I just believe that the temporary visa programs have some value. you, for example. Now, this is an H1B. This is actually H2, agriculture. I've got friends that own landscaping, outdoor construction companies, right? And the very best stone masons in the Americas come from Mexico. And this gentleman's company requires, needs those people temporarily. But see, The way that works is, is they work six months here, and then they go back to Mexico for six months during the year, right? So they'll work during the summer months here, and then they'll go back

to Mexico during the winter months where they do similar work. I think those types of things, it's kind of like what the migrant workers used to, and they would pick crops when they were doing most of that by hand and still do some of that. I think those types of programs are really, really good, and it just, it really got out of hand, is what happened. Quick pause for our first sponsor for the day, and that is America's Christian Credit Union. America's Christian Credit Union is a Christian-owned credit union that serves patriotic Americans just like you, started by a group of pastors specifically for their congregants, but now they have branches all across the U.S. And they have partnered with Every Life Diapers.

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Go to America's ChristianCCU.com slash alley. I'm thinking back to what you were saying about the technology. So 1990, this was HW. Bush, the H-1B program happened under him, right? And the technology that was developed. But how did we get by before H-1B? because obviously we went to the moon. There was a lot of technology that was developed with just American citizens before H-1B. So why after 1990, all of a sudden, were these foreign workers necessary?

Well, I do think it was part of President Bush the Seniors' thousand points of light. And I do think it was, partly was a way to spread democracy in people's minds. So he thought. So we thought. And Reagan thought. Yeah. And George W. Bush thought the same thing. And I get it.

It hasn't worked out that well since World War II anyway. But I do believe that they saw these very, very bright people that they could be an asset to America and not a negative. I don't think they thought about or didn't see the fact that they were taking jobs. It's that they couldn't find people to do these types of jobs. So that may have changed by now. So Daniel Horowitz, he is at Blaze Media and he has been talking about writing about immigration for a long time. And he kind of articulates a lot of people's frustration with this issue and why so many in the MAGA camp say, no, we don't just want an end to illegal immigration. Yes, that's the top priority.

But we also want to have a conversation about the limitations and some of the protections within legal immigration. He points out some facts that I found startling. I did not know this. So he said America has admitted 36 million. legal immigrants since 1989. The foreign-born population is at a record 51.6 million. At 15.5% of the American population, the foreign-born share is also a new record in American history, and this is going to continue to increase. And here's where it's relevant to this job conversation. All net job growth in the United States since 2019 has gone to foreign-born workers. Over the

last year, according to the Heritage Foundation, Native-born workers have lost 773,000 jobs on net, while foreign-born workers have gained more than one million jobs. Since before the pandemic, the foreign-born workforce has grown by 3.7 million, while the native-born workforce has shrunk by 873,000. Over the past few decades, 71 percent of jobs in Silicon Valley have gone to foreign workers, while 74% of American STEM graduates have failed to secure jobs in STEM fields. So even the STEM graduates that we do have, 74% of them can't even get a job that might even not just be because of H-1B, but because of all of the DEI initiatives that we have. If you're a white male, you're not meeting those quotas that a lot of these tech companies have.

During this, or there was a California-based lawsuit where a federal jury found that cognizant, the largest recipient of H1B visas for many years was guilty of discriminating against American IT workers. They said that they were actively terminating American employees to replace them with H1B workers primarily from India. I've heard the same story at places like AT&T where actually the American employees were made to train their replacements from India.

And these replacements didn't come with some amazing competitive knowledge. of the field that they were going into, but they were able to work for less. If employers are desperate for more STEM workers... Let me interrupt you just for a second. Go ahead. Some of that is not people coming here to work. See, they're mixing a whole bunch of numbers and statements in here.

Okay. Some of that, and it's not right either, but it's AT&T hiring people from India to do those jobs, but they still live in India. They're not taking calls. center jobs here in a lot of cases. For example, my CPA firm that we use, they have people in the Philippines that do some of the work. Now, they don't live here. Yeah, for no money. They live in the Philippines, right? And so, and I'm not saying that's good or bad either. I'm just saying that's,

they're mixing some of the facts and the figures in here. Also, when you look at the number of of citizens here that have jobs versus the foreign born that are getting the jobs. Part of that's due to our declining population birth rate, right? And so that, those things that we have less people in the workforce than we've had percentage-wise in a long time.

That's because, you know, the baby boomers are retiring. And so those are just natural things that are going to happen. Now, could we have replaced all of those? with American, you know, born workers? I don't know, maybe not all of them. The one statistic that does bother me is saying 70% of U.S. born people with STEM degrees

can't find a job, that's a very difficult number to believe. Yeah. Not saying it's not true, but that one I had not heard and surprising to me. And if it is, we should be doing something about it. Either we're not giving them the right education, or it's this whole thing that we're talking about people are working for less money. Yeah, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, again, this is in the article by Daniel Horowitz. He found that compensation for STEM workers in 23 was actually 7.1% lower than in 2019, which would, I mean, we're assuming here, which would

correlate with this argument that actually they're not starving for employees. They're not starving for workers. They're just lowering the wages because they know that they can with this H-1B program. So that's what a lot of people are frustrated with. They feel like it's not an even playing field. Americans can't compete. They're certainly not getting any priority. And in a lot of cases, either it's because of DEI or it's because of the lower salaries they're willing to take. Americans are really getting the shaft because of this. And people want President Trump to do something about that. Well, it should be America first, and it should be American citizens first. No question about that. When we can't fill those gaps, we need to figure out how to get them filled.

And that's the position that I would take. And I would think that's really the position that there's no value for Elon must to have, I mean, have, I mean, there's not enough people involved in that. It makes a huge payroll difference for these bigger companies. There's just not, I mean, that's, so you're talking about maybe a, a a company like an AT&T size has a thousand people or something like that that are on this or whatever I mean that's a drop in the bucket to the overall revenue scheme but we do need to fix it okay let's see what bernie sanders has to say here Bernie Sanders who used to be openly against illegal immigration because he saw how it creates unfair competition for the american worker it hurts the housing market Americans just can't compete with what they are willing to work for. And so Bernie Sanders says this, and we take everything a socialist says with a huge grain of salt. But he says, Elon Musk is wrong.

The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire the best and the brightest, but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad. The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make. So that's what Bernie Sanders has to say. Well, you know, and then again, the stats would back some of that up. So I don't know that he's necessary. I would say that's not the primary or only reason. Yeah.

Elon Musk, he was very worked up about this. And now this was before he replied to my post on. I saw that. Post on X. But he said. His one word reply, by the way. Yes. I think he just said yes or something.

Okay, so he said, the reason I'm 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 F yourself in the face, he said, I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend, which is apparently a movie quote from Tropic Thunder, but he really did say it. And when Trump, I don't know if we have the clip of Trump talking about this when someone, I think he was going into Mar-a-Lago on New Year's. Steve, but a reporter asked, like, why did you change your mind on H1B? Because when he was talking to Megan Kelly, not too long ago, he was like, oh, we need a total overhaul of the system. It's, you know, it's hurting the American worker. Now he's saying, well, we need a lot of people. We're going to need a lot of people because we're doing a lot of things. So Elon obviously has some influence over Donald Trump for better and for worse. You can have both of those. Both of those things

can be true. Yeah. So what did, let me ask you this. What did, I forget what you, I forget what you said that Elon agreed with said yes to? What was your what was your quote? Well this it actually didn't have to do with this. It did have to do with mass migration. It had to do with and this is what we were going to talk to the British journalist about today. The Rotherham scandal, the transcripts of the trials of these Muslim grooming gangs in Britain were just recently released and Elon Musk was talking about this and it's not just the story of the horrific and I will not say but the horrific thing that happened to these young British girls, but the cover-up by the police and by the British government because they didn't want to speak against immigration. They didn't want to speak

against Muslims. They were scared of Islamophobia. They were scared of a backlash of Muslims. They were probably scared of terrorist attacks. But there is a consequence to saying, we are importing these people because, you know, we believe that anyone can come here, as long as you're willing to work, as long as you can come into the STEM field, as long as you're willing to take a job that other people won't take, no matter what you believe, no matter what your background, there's going to be consequences to that. Not all cultures are equal. Not all ideologies or belief systems are equal. That's not to say every Muslim is going to do that. That's not what I'm saying. But you can't just adopt this kind of relativistic mentality that

anyone who wants to come here and work hard can. You have to have some kind of standard. And at least Elon Musk seems to agree about that. He would agree with that, I would think. I mean, obviously, I don't know him personally, but reading enough about him, I would think. And I, and I would think that Vivek would too. Vivek. Going in on American culture, that really bothered me. And he talked bad about Boy Meets World, which I just find. Which that is a big problem. It's a big problem. But I, okay, I agree with progressive ideology has certainly infected parts of American culture and that has created laziness, blah, blah, blah, all of this stuff. But American culture, like, the goodness of it

is awesome. American culture gave us, if you want to call them the jocks or whatever, heroes storming the beaches of Normandy. It gave us, it's a wonderful life. It gave us Ronald Reagan. It gave us landing on the moon. It gave us back to the future. Yes. Nothing better than that. It gave us. It gave us an absolutely incredible culture where we have accomplished amazing things. matter what your background is or socioeconomic status or skin color, but American citizens who consider this place home, not just an experiment, not just an idea, but home have done amazing things. And I just don't want to see that discredited or belittled at all. But I agree with him that we want to get back to that place. I think we can do that without H-1B abuses,

though. Oh, I agree. I don't think of it with any of our visa abuses, right? The other, you know, if you really want to do the most, and this happened around in similar time as well, is you can get rid of what Schumer did and adding this family linkage onto all the immigration. Is that chain migration? Yeah, chain migration. And again, that's allowed under the H-1B program too. They can bring their wife and kids, right? Yeah.

Can they bring their parents and. Yeah. And so that's where you just got a, I get it if you're married and you're coming over here and you've got little kids, you should bring them with you. but it should be temporary. Yeah. But this whole chain migration thing is a big, big problem. I hope they address that.

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not only the owners of the company, but the products that they create. Go to good ranchers.com slash alley. You'll get $25 off and your choice of free ground beef, chicken, or salmon in every order for an entire year. That's good ranchers.com slash alley code alley. Let's see what Ron DeSantis has to say about this, because we do have a clip of him talking about it. Here's SOT One. The problem is the way that has been implemented,

they will bring in people in technology from other countries who work for lower rates than what Americans work for. And so I don't support undercutting American wages and the H-1B program has been used to do that. I used to kind of, when people would say, hey, why not just have people that are that are credentialing? I'm like, yeah, yeah, why not?

But the way it's operated, I think, has lowered wages for Americans. And that's what you don't want. If it's an addition for the economy that benefits the American people, that's one thing. But if it's displacing an American worker, that's not good. He's basically saying what we're saying today. That's right. And hopefully most people would agree with that. I think they would.

And I think President Trump would agree with that. Yeah. And I think Elon Musk even kind of backtracked and clarified a little bit with that. Day one for Donald Trump. Do you think the mass deportations that Tom Homan is promising, we talked about this yesterday, where they will prioritize national security threats and criminals? Like, do you think that's going to happen day one or as soon as possible? Is it a top priority? Is the media going to freak out? What do you think about that? I say yes to all of what you just said, including the media freaking out, but yes, that is going to happen. There's no question about that. That will be day one. And there will be lawsuits. Okay, there's going to be lawsuits because, you know, Biden has given a lot of these people temporary status and what have you.

But they, I believe that we'll be as aggressive as you possibly can be. And, you know, we'll let the chips fall where they may from a lawfare standpoint. But yes, I absolutely believe that. And there will be, there will probably be some reports on, well, this person, you know, He took him away from his family. Of course, the family has the right to go with them too, right? They could go back to it if they want to. That's what Tom Homan said.

I mean, come on. We're not going to scalp you from taking your family. We get that. You're going to be the one that decides whether or not they separate. It's not going to be us. Yeah. We're just going to uphold the law. So no question.

That's the number one issue out there is immigration. I mean, inflation is right behind it. That's a slower thing to work on. But you can have some real wins right off the bat. There was that horrible story that we didn't talk about because it happened over the holidays where this woman on a New York subway was lit on fire while she was sleeping, my goodness, buying an illegal alien. And that's not to say that a citizen couldn't do that. I mean, the subway has a lot of problems in New York, whether they're a citizen or not. The point is that every crime committed to buying an illegal alien is preventable.

Yeah, 100%. And we already have criminals here. We have homegrown criminals. We don't need to import. more. The other thing about that particular scenario was that nobody helped the lady. No one helps. And part of that's the Daniel Penny, Daniel Penny. Yeah. Syndrome of if I help, Alvin Bragg's going to come try to put me in jail and ruin my life, right? Yeah. Because Daniel Penny's still going through a civil lawsuit, right? He's still being sued.

I mean, it's a total, I get it. Yes, by Jordan Neely's scumbag family. Oh, his scumbag father. Who completely abandoned him as a child as he went to different groups. homes apparently he was autistic i feel for jordaneli i really do but his dad coming out of the woodwork now saying i want justice for my son no you want to get rich and you're a scumbag and i feel for daniel penny i really do because who knows who would have died if he hadn't stepped in and all of us especially us women like we hope that if we're in a scenario like that that there's going to be a brave guy who is willing to take the risk but that gets rare and rarer the more Alvin Brags you have.

No question. No question about that. In fact, Joe Biden gave George Soros the Medal of Freedom. Yeah. You know, who funded the Alvin Brags of the world. It's just disgusting. Disgusting. And Hillary Clinton, but I could understand.

Hillary, whatever. I mean, I obviously don't like Hillary. But George Soros is the source of so much evil. It's a slap in the face to every American, in my opinion. Yes. He is the cause of countless deaths because he. funds this restorative justice, social justice movement, this soft on crime movement that has been responsible for the progressive DAs, the progressive judges in places like Houston in other

Democrat-run cities. And that has caused people's deaths. And not only, what did you think? Because we didn't talk about this, and I don't even have the specifics in front of me, but Joe Biden using the last few days of his tenure to pardon and commute the citizens, the sentences, of all of these heinous murderers who committed the very worst crimes against children. It's a shit. I mean, it's just, again, it's a slap against the victim's families for sure. And all of those that believe in what the law is. The law convicted them under the law by a jury of their peers.

And they received the Senate scene. That should be carried out. I'm sorry, unless you can find a reason that they were wrong, that's not what they're saying. Nobody's even saying they didn't, you know, that there's new evidence. It's just, no, we just decide to do this. It's, it's pitiful. Yes, it is pitiful. And it's just all this belief, too. They don't believe in the death penalty. Even some of these murders, I mean, brutally tortured and murdered children, babies, elderly people. He's saying they don't deserve to die. And that is

against God's justice. That is calling evil good and good evil. And I do think that we, you will probably see just like we did with the last Trump administration, resuming execution for those who are in federal prison on death row. That's why he commuted the sentences so that he wouldn't do it to those particular people. Just evil. Okay. What else can we expect when it comes to Trump's first 100 days? Well, I think he's going to really be pushing for a bill, a comprehensive bill.

You know, he doesn't want a bunch of small bills. He wants a comprehensive bill. probably will not deal with the tax issue as much because that will take a little bit longer, but on immigration, on political wholeness, on DEI, on the transgender issues. I think a lot of that will be in one bill. And I see that coming out pretty quickly. Now, the House can pass it. you know, if our crazies get on board, the Republicans can pass it on their own.

It's a little bit tougher in the Senate because in the Senate, unless it's related to the budget. Okay, so you have to be tricky in how you word these things so that there's a budget impact on it. If it's not related to the budget, it takes a 60-volt threshold to get what they call cloture to take the vote. If it's related to the budget, they can do it under reconciliation. which is another thing that the Democrats put in that's now biting them in the backside, that they can do it with 51 votes, which we have that. Okay.

I think he's going to do. I also think he's going to, I do think we'll see some significant movement towards peace in the Middle East and peace in Ukraine and Russia. Do you think we'll get all the hostages back? Or Israel will they get them all back. They may not all be alive.

Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. It's interesting how Trump not even being in office yet has created a shift amongst our enemies and our allies. When you have Justin Trudeau potentially resigning, I guess he didn't officially resign. He said he's going to resign. You even have Mexico. Well, you stay prime minister until they get another one. Until they get someone else. You've got Mexico saying, oh, please don't give us tariffs. Okay, we're going to secure our borders. Like he's not even in office yet. Well, I think what he did, which is a lesson for us, okay,

is that as soon as he won the election, he decided to lead. Yeah. Where is Joe Biden even? Because there's, and just remember, there's never a vacuum. Yeah. Somebody will step up. Now, we're glad that it was President Trump. Yeah, praise God.

We should remember that as well, is that if when our president, President Trump, which I don't think he will, but when he, when it's time for him to go when the next person's elected, which will happen in four years, he's only got one term, then he needs to continue to lead until the 20th of January 20, 28, or 29. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah, which I think he will because he understands it. I don't think Biden and Arkham want to be in power.

I don't think, I mean, I know they want Democrats to be in charge, but I don't think either of them really wanted their role. both ready to go and cash in. Yeah. Continue to cash in. You think Mike Johnson will be an effective speaker? Yes, I do think he'll be an effective speaker. He's got pretty good people around him.

You know, I went to the swearing-in. I had a friend that's a new congressman up there that I served in the Texas legislature with. And so I was fortunate enough to get in the gallery, which, oddly enough, there can't be more than 100 or 200 seats in there. So I was really lucky and watched that whole thing. And I think what Mike is, is he is probably. very good example of a servant leader. Now, to be a servant leader in a body like that,

you need to have strong people around you because there's somebody has to be the enforcer in politics. That's the way it is. Whereas Kevin McCarthy was more, was just stronger. Yeah, just much more like that. And so I think he will be and I hope that people will continue to rally around him. I was very disappointed in some of the people that didn't vote for him when it first came through. I thought that was just a joke. I was very glad that President Trump stepped in and helped with that. And I'm glad they did something very smart that they didn't do with McCarthy. They held the vote open. See, because technically the Republicans still controlled the House. So they controlled that whole process. All right? And so they held the vote open rather than having to

re-vote again, right? And so they just had to see if they could change these couple of people's minds. and that's what they did. Otherwise, they had to go through all 435 again, which let me tell you, when you're sitting there watching that, that's a beat down. Yeah. Right? Because every one of them have something special.

They want to, most of them just say Mike Johnson or Hakeem Jeffries, but some of them want to give a speech. Yeah. Right. Which is like, oh, come on. Goodness. Of course. They all do.

That's why they got into politics. Are you surprised at the seeming lack of opposition that we've seen? It just seems to me like it's been kind of quiet. When Trump won last time, It was immediately rushing collusion. This is not legitimate. He cheated and all of this stuff. And of course, we had a clamoring on our own side when Biden won in 2020.

It just seems to be going more smoothly than I anticipated. What do you think Democrats are planning? Here's what I think there's happening. First of all, I think they are being somewhat self-reflective. Are they? Obviously, what we had didn't work. Now, they still believe in. their base beliefs, right? But they are figuring how do we communicate better? We know we're

right, okay? They still believe they're right, but how do we communicate it better? Now, as soon as Trump starts taking official action, they will be just like they were in 2017. And the media will be as well. You think the media will be? Because it seems like a lot of places, Even like, you know, CNN, they're realizing that the anti-Trump gimmick is just kind of, it's not working for it. I just don't think of Jake Tapper's going to change his stripes. Probably not. You know, maybe there will be some. Maybe they'll be more news related.

And again, I don't mind their opinion people criticizing if that's what they like. I just want their news people to tell me the news, though. I don't want their news people to give me their opinion. It's kind of like my lawyer. I've had to tell lawyers in the past when I've done business deals. I want your legal advice, do not give me your business advice. I'm not hiring you to give me your business advice. Right.

Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. It's okay. There's been such a shift in the culture towards some form of conservatism and towards Trump. It's very different than 2016 that we've got comedians and even some celebrities and mainstream people who are probably moderate, but they're at least willing to say, yeah, I didn't want Kamala Harris. That's really changed things. That really has. You know, I do believe that we, we as people, the Christian faith, back to Mike Johnson a little bit and others.

And this people that Trump has appointed to some of his, you know, our good friend, my good friend, Scott Turner. I mean, his, you know, his. He's solid. Solid. Brooke Rawlins, who's another friend of mine, who's going to be head of ag, that basically oversees all of the welfare snap benefits. I mean, it's, these are huge, huge things. that and Susan Wiles evidently. Yeah.

I don't know her, but we've heard that she does have a strong Christian faith. Yeah. So I think we've got a really, now this puts us out there on the spot, right? Are we going to follow through on it? Yeah. Are we going to compromise?

Yeah. That's really the question. But, you know, it's just like something we all knew, you think it's going to be a brand new year and a brand new time. Yeah. You know, we haven't,

and we don't have too much time to talk about it, but I'm just wondering, if we're going to continue to see some of the attacks that we saw at the beginning of the year, even after Trump as president, I just imagine just with a law and order administration, there will hopefully be more fear of committing any kinds of crimes. But it's been very disturbing to see, like, the homegrown terrorism that we have had to endure. That's a good question. We've got to get the FBI recentered and the Department of Justice and focus.

on those types of things as opposed to focusing on the lady protesting outside the abortion clinic and things like that. Or the parents at the school board meeting. Oh, yeah. Hopefully that in itself will be a deterrent. Yeah. Gosh, I hope so too. Last sponsor for the day is crowd health.

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I did want to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about, I don't know if it's New Year's resolutions, but what are some goals or some strategies that you put in place at the beginning of a year? I noticed yesterday you avoided the term resolution as when you ask you about it. I don't typically have a resolution. I do have some goals. But I don't know. Do you have resolutions? I don't know that. I ever thought about it one way or the other, honestly. But here's, I do love the end of the year and the beginning of a new year. Some of my favorite time, not only because you spend time with family, which we're able to do throughout the year, it's because it seems like freshness, right? And I'm somewhat of a numbers guy, so I like to

look at all my financial numbers. And then I like to think about, okay, we're in all the areas of our lives, what did we get done, right? And so what I, what I try to do, and I wrote this down, so I think it would be helpful to people is there are five, what I call five areas of people's lives. It's their financial, their spiritual, their physical, their relationship, and their career. Career and finance don't always go together, okay? And so what I encourage people to do is to write those five things down, financial, spiritual, physical relationship career, and do an honest assessment of where they are. It's kind of like we talk about in my book. You know, you need to know where you are in the wagon. Where are you with your finances? Where are you now? Okay, at the year end,

what did you spend? What did you spend on? All of your, wherever you have all your money, you can download all that information pretty easily. Say, how did we spend our money? Did we spend it the way we thought we were going to this year? And then what would, when we were, we sit here a year from now, what would we like for that to look like? What would that look like? Did we kind of get out, do we have too many lattes or did we, did we, was there an unexpected thing come up? Too much coffee and a treat for me. Yeah, or whatever it was, right? And so I encourage you to do that. The other thing on the spiritual is I just want to pick one area to grow in. Okay, if I try to put too many things, like I want to pray more, I want to read my

Bible more, I want to witness more. It's just overwhelming. I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't, won't accomplish any of them. I want to pick one area. Okay. And then in physical, I would encourage people, they can just Google this, go on to your biological age calculator. It's a questionnaire. And wherever it is, is that, are you happy with that? If not, where do you want that to be? And then what, again, it's kind of down to one thing. What are you going to do about it? But again, if you do too much, well, I'm going to, I'm going to eat right and exercise and da-da-da-da. You won't do all that. I mean, very. Very. a few people do all that. And then when you get down to relationship, this is probably the harder one

is, who do I need to reconcile with? Who in my life do I need to reconcile with? And the second part of that is, who do I need to reconnect with? And we all need to do that. You know, it's easy just to move on and what have you. And then career, it does my current job meet or put me on a path that, that can meet my financial goals. Now, it doesn't mean that you should change jobs to make more money, but you need to, the two have to match up. Like if you're really passionate about what you do and people know you are, all right? But you can make more money doing X, okay?

Being a software engineer maybe, right? Yeah. Wow. That doesn't mean you should be a software engineer. mean you need to adjust your financial lifestyle to meet what you're really passionate about. Yeah. Now, for me, I liked my job, my work, my business, but it was really all about financial for me. Okay. I wasn't. Providing for your family, not just, not just making money for the sake of

money, but you just, you wanted freedom and flexibility for your family. I wanted to eliminate financial mediocrity and give us a base and y'all a base to start with. and if I needed to have changed the industry that I was working in to do that, then I wouldn't have bothered me. Yeah. Okay. You weren't passionate about retirement for pilots necessarily. No, I loved it.

It's a great job. I'm very blessed to have had that career. But that wasn't the thing for me. Some people that's not that way, right? Yeah. And people do need to hear that that's okay because I have friends, people in my life who sometimes they have felt paralyzed because for me, okay, I always knew that I like to talk. Really? I know. You're surprised by that. I'm letting you know that for the first time. But I have always known that I wanted to do something like this in high school. I thought it would look like Megan Kelly. I just wanted to be like Megan Kelly. Obviously, the landscape changed and I was able to do something like this. And I think some people believe that that is the only picture of fulfillment and success. That you have to find what you love doing as a hobby and find a way to make money doing that. Sometimes, yes, but not always. And that doesn't mean.

just because you don't have a clear-cut dream or specific passion that aligns with the way to make money does not mean you cannot be successful or fulfilled. No, you have two choices. You can either, like for me, it was the things outside of work where I got my fulfillment, right? I enjoyed my work, but I got my fulfillment because it helped me to be able to accomplish the things that I wanted to accomplish. For other people, the fulfillment is their career. And whatever that pays them is what it is. And they need to reduce their financial budget or needs to meet that. Otherwise, it will cause tremendous conflict within themselves, for sure, but even more likely in their marriage relationship.

That has to be very clear. Yeah. Can't have it both ways. I'm about to be 33 next month. What would you tell your 33-year-old self if you were sitting across from him? I would tell my 33-year-old self I was sitting across from him that it's going to be okay. Because at 33, it's odd that you're saying next. At 33, I had my boss walked in the owners of our company that owned the majority of it walked into me and said,

hey, we're getting ready to fire the CEO of this company. and you'll be the CEO starting next week. Or if you don't like that, you can leave as well. And so my friend who was CEO but had done some things, not illegal or anything like that, but just conflict-wise, was fired. And it was a very nervous time for me. I was 33.

And mom had just had your favorite daughter. Yeah, just had my favorite daughter. And, it was very nervous time. And so how am I going to take care of all of that? But it would just be that it's going to be okay. That things are going to be okay. Pay attention. I mean, I didn't work any less.

I worked probably more, but pay attention, but it's going to be okay. That's very good. I did just want to give a shout out. You mentioned the spiritual, and I kind of have the same categories of goals, resolutions that I have written out as well. But a lot of people have asked me, okay, spiritually, what are you doing this year? so many people are wanting to read the Bible for the first time this year. I had a friend the other day saying, you know, I feel like I should know more about the Bible. And now that I'm a mom, I want to teach my

daughter and I don't feel like I know enough. And this is one of those things where it can very quickly become overwhelming if you say, well, I'm just going to read the Bible this year. Oh, that's tough. That's really hard. So I'm doing something that I haven't done before. And this is not, like I haven't done this particular program, and so I can't endorse all of the interpretations and opinions that might be shared. But I'm doing the Bible recap, and I've had Tara Lee Cobble on before. She started the Bible Recap podcast a few years ago. Go listen to the episode with her if you haven't already. But she's got a chronological reading plan. So it's not Genesis to Revelation. We started in Genesis. Now we're in Job. And I have been listening. And I think that that could be a cheat code

for a lot of busy moms out there that maybe you're like, I don't even have 20 minutes in the morning to sit down and read. I have something called the Dwell app. And again, this is not an ad or anything, but I listen in my car on a walk, folding laundry, cleaning the dishes, and I can listen to the passages on the Dwell app,

and then I can listen to Tara Lee Cobble's recap, and she does a really good job of everything that I've heard so far. So maybe that's something that you want to join in on. I love my ESV study Bible. You can get it for maybe 18 bucks on Amazon. They also have plans at the back of that. But let this be your year. If you get behind on it, it's no big deal. Think of it as I heard this analogy a few years ago. Think about reading your Bible as eating. Just because you forgot to eat breakfast this morning doesn't mean that you're not going to eat lunch. You eat because you need. food and so you eat as much as you can when you can. Don't think of it as this perfectionist task. And it's okay if you don't understand everything too. Yeah, that's a really good. That's a really good lesson. You know, I, even if you only get through half of it, that's half more than you had. So it's, again, it's, it is, it is okay. But I do believe that as Christians, we got what we asked for for the most part.

So now we need to act on it. It's not time to sit idly by. Remember that. You're talking about with Trump. With everything. Yeah. Satan is out there every day. He has not given up.

No. And so we got to be on guard and we will be. And we can't expect for other people to do everything for us. Yeah. And actually, he could use this time that we're about to see. Hopefully it's a time of prosperity and positive change to low. us into complacency. You're easy to do. All you've got to do. When you're reading your Bible through, you'll see that time and time and time again. The greatest king of all outside of Jesus,

King David, sure happened to him. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dad. And I do want to remind people, because I saw this reposed on my Instagram. Someone started out the year reading life lessons from The Little Red Wagon. And I'm not just saying this. This is, I would say, more than my books that I've written. This is a great book to start your year out on. Of course, you can read it at any time, but it's just a very practical, it's storytelling, but it's also a practical guide for how you can order your life in a way that is not just biblical, but lends itself to wisdom and success. So you can follow the link in the description of this episode. Dad, thanks so much. Thank you. Congratulations on getting another year going. It's going to be awesome. Thanks. You bet.