The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Vivek Ramaswamy Talks DOGE, Elon Musk, Trump, Biden Pardons, Running For Governor of Ohio + More

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Vivek Ramaswamy To Discuss DOGE, Elon Musk, Trump, Biden Pardons, Running For Governor of Ohio. Listen For More!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Morning everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy, we are The Breakfast Club. Laurel and Rosa filling in for Jess and we got a special guest in the building. Yes indeed. Vivek Ram Swami, welcome. How you doing man?

How you feeling? You know, I would say pretty good except for my two year old who usually sleeps really well. When he comes to New York City, the kid does not sleep and so when he doesn't sleep, my wife and I don't sleep. But other than that, we're feeling good. Is it the noise? Is it the traffic? It's excitement. It's excitement. He loves it here. He was happy this morning but 12 a.m. to about 4 a.m. Yeah, we were up playing trucks. But all good. All doing well. This is your first

interview in what you said like a month? Yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been been, you know, a lot going on, I haven't been, you know, a lot going on, but I haven't been out on media, but you know, people are gonna be hearing more from me. Starting now, why not? You called me over the weekend. I told you I happened to be in the city, so this worked out well.

Well, well tell us Vivek, what happened with Doge? Yeah, so- Well, congratulations on the job. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Well, you don't have it anymore. It's not my job right now. Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I'll take that back then.

I'm moving on to my next frontier. Did. So what happened? Did you get pushed out? I'm moving on to my next frontier. Did you get fired? Like what? Did you leave? No, it was a slightly different vision from where we started to where we landed. And it's not that it's, you know, one's right or wrong. But if you take a look at where we began, right, Doja is going to be an outside body

to the government. One of my core areas of focus throughout has been the constitutional and legal basis for shutting down the bureaucracy and the federal government and downsizing it. That's what I focus written my books on, etc. It evolved in more of a direction of a technology project using a technology first approach. And so, Elon and I were on good terms, we have good personal relationship, slightly different approaches to the project. And what he and I both concluded, and I think this is right, is given my focus on law, on legislation, the right way to realize my vision is through elected office. And so that's what I'm going to be pursuing. We have an announcement probably coming up in the next month,

but that's my next path. The governor of Ohio, we heard about that. Coming up soon, but that was where my next path. The governor of Ohio, we heard about that. Yeah, we heard about that. Coming up soon. But that was where we all landed. Was the right way to do this for me was if I'm focused on constitutional law, deregulation, legislation to downsize government. That's been my vision for a long time. Let me realize that I'm on my own two feet

through elected office. At the same time, I'm happy to have helped over the last couple of months to be able to get this off the ground and a technology first approach from within the government now, it's not outside the government, it made all the sense in the world to make this the time that we went separate ways. So it was true there was an exclusive report in the Washington Post that said you were pushed out because your vision didn't

align with Elon's. I would say that we arrived at it pretty mutually. I mean I think when it came the doge was in the government, so there's actually a law, it's called the Hatch Act, boring stuff, but you literally can't run for office while you are an employee of the government unless you're the president or vice president. I've been committed to this path of likely running for governor of Ohio for a long time. My plan initially might have been to do those at the same time. Once it became clear that was impossible to do at the same time, once it became clear to me that that was the right next leadership destination for me, felt like the start of

the project on day one was the right way to start that next chapter. That's why we did it. Now you did say the last couple of months you've been focused on getting Trump in office. Yeah. So now that he's in office and we've seen the last couple of days, what are your thoughts and do you still stand by it, everything that he's done? You know, I really think he's off to a pretty good start. I mean, you think about most presidents,

they take a little bit of time to get warmed up. He didn't go through the warm-up phase. He got started right away. And I think there's a reason for that, which is very few presidents have actually been the president before, and then they come all the way back. Then Grover Cleveland was the only other one who did it.

So he, in some ways, is coming in for a second term, but I actually do think those four years of being able to reflect on what actually mattered to him were actually pretty good. So I like a lot of what we've seen in that first week. Unleash energy production, that's going to bring down energy prices, it's going to stimulate the economy. A lot of the regulatory and red tape rollback, I think is just a good thing for the country. If you travel the country and you ask most Americans, do you think there's too much red

tape or do you think there's too little red tape? I don't think there's anybody who would tell you that. I think there's too little red tape. I think there's a lot of people, especially business owners, small business owners, that tell you there's too much red tape. Trump has gone pretty aggressive even in the first week in saying we're rolling back a lot of those regulations. tape. Trump has gone pretty aggressive even in the first week in saying we're rolling back a lot of those regulations. We're rolling back the regulations that hold back energy production

in the United States, getting very serious about the border. And I think that you can have your debates about what the legal immigration policy in the US should look like, but I think most people are united that we don't want an open southern border. And yet functionally, that's what it's been for much of the last four years. So I think it's been a lot of pretty good moves out the gate. I'm pretty excited about it. What don't you like? If there's one thing that you didn't like that you've seen so far that he's done.

So I will say in the first week out the gate, I like pretty much everything I've seen. I think that there are some areas where I could imagine over the next year I might have some shades of difference in opinion. There's really nothing in that first week. All of this stuff struck me as very common sense. And when you think about what's gonna actually make people's lives better, that's where I'm focused. Okay, economically, in terms of reducing crime,

in terms of fixing our border, what do people across the country actually care about affecting their lives? I think it'd be pretty hard to pick something in that first week that I would say wasn't strictly good for the country. How is eliminating government diversity programs like DEI beneficial to anybody other than straight white males?

Oh, I think there are some ways in which it's not even beneficial to straight white males, which I'll tell you about in a second. But I think this culture of reviving merit in the country is a very American idea. You and I have talked about this in some of our discussions here in the past, I think, is America is a country where you are not judged on the color of your skin. You ought to be judged on the content of your character and your contributions. The best person ought to get the job regardless of their genetics. That's America at its best. We haven't always been that.

You could argue that we've never actually been that perfectly. We're an imperfect nation because we're comprised of human beings and not gods. But I do think it is a step forward to say that after we've turned the page on 160 years ago, and then 60 years ago with the Civil Rights Revolution, after we've made all the progress we have, now's the time not to engage in blaming for the past or whatever. We haven't been perfect, but to move forward to say we're a country where we want the best person to get the job without regard to their skin color or their sexuality or their race. So I think that's a good thing. And the only thing I would tell you that you might be interested in for the angle you mentioned

is, I also think there has been a culture emerging in the last few years, a culture of excuses amongst people who say, oh, I didn't get that job because of DEI. And in certain cases, that may be true that certain people, maybe white male was denied a job because somebody else got the job because of racial or gender preferences. But there's also a lot of instances in which that provides somebody else a new excuse. And I just want to know excuses culture across the board where one of the side effects of ending DEI is that nobody's going to have excuses anymore for why

they didn't get that job either. That's not true. So I just think merit across the board is the way to go. But do you trust people though? Like, do you trust people enough to say, Hey, you know what? I'm not going to be prejudiced against this person because of their identity. I mean, we all have, let me, let me say something. We all have our innate biases, right? We're human beings. As I said, we're human beings. We're not gods. We're flawed. And people have their innate

biases. But the question is, is there a perfect system? No, there's not. But what's the least imperfect system? And I think the least imperfect system is one where we aspire to at least think of our country through the lens of merit. And what is merit? I mean, I bandied this word around a lot. I actually got a tough question when I ran for president. I was a college kid. I was talking about waxing eloquent about merit from the stage. He said, what is merit? What is meritocracy? Made me think for a second. You have to define what you're talking about. I think a meritocracy is a system that recognizes that not everybody has the same God-given talents.

In fact, it recognizes that everyone has different God-given talents. That's true diversity. That's a beautiful thing. But a meritocracy is one that says whatever your unique God given talents are, you get to achieve the maximum of your potential without any system standing in your way. To me that's America at its best. And so are we going to be perfect as human beings in realizing that? Of course not, because we're human beings.

But does that mean that we shouldn't at least do our best to design systems that aspire to it? No, I think that a step forward is, and I'm done, I'm mostly, I'd like to be mostly done, I think I am done with the DEI debates. I think we've turned the page on that. I'm interested in a forward-looking conversation about what does equal opportunity actually look like. I think that in the debates we've had about equal opportunity versus equal results, the DEI side of this often has fallen into equal results camp and people would say, oh, well, we want equal opportunity.

And that was a conservative response. But now we have to confront the hard work of what does that actually look like? What actually does equality of opportunity, whichever acknowledges doesn't exist today, how do we actually do that hard work? And I think that that's a good result of going past the group quota DEI regime to have an honest conversation about the fact that we don't have equal opportunity across the country.

Early education, do we have equal opportunity when it's public schools organized according to zip codes rather than actually giving every kid access to the best education they can have? That's not equal opportunity. But we haven't been able to have that conversation because we're having the cosmetic discussion about DEI or quotas or whatever.

Now that we're done with that, that hard work can begin across the board. And I think that that's a conversation where a lot of thoughtful voices on the left and right can now roll up our sleeves and say, we've preached the message of equal opportunity. How do we actually get there? And I for one am game for that discussion

You know, yeah, I was a way to get there. You don't think that I think it has proven not to be the way to get there I've obviously been an opponent of it for for four or five years So I'm obviously gonna have biased views on this from where I sit But what is it exactly the policy because you need diversity to get there you need equity to get there You need inclusion to get this so I think part of what happened is when you started using the capital D, capital E, capital I, here's what happened is I think in the name of diversity of thought, right, because that's where you want diversity of thought in an organization, the capital D diversity actually ended up saying that certain viewpoints aren't welcome, that we actually

sacrifice true diversity of thought. In the name of equity, which is measured in terms of outcomes, I think we actually sacrifice true diversity of thought. In the name of equity, which is measured in terms of outcomes, I think we actually sacrificed true equality of opportunity. And then at a certain place, and this is really where it took a dark turn to me, is in the name of inclusion, we created a culture of exclusion where certain viewpoints were not welcome in an organization. And what that does is it causes the bottled up emotion to fester. That doesn't lead to good places. When you tell somebody, shut up, sit down, do as you're told, keep your views to yourself,

that actually fosters resentment. And the weirdest thing I think has happened in the last few years, and I do actually blame a lot of the DEI and related policies for this is that we have seen a reactionary wave of racism in the country, anti-minority racism, that would not have existed but for that DEI culture of not only taking something away from somebody based on their skin color, but even worse in the name of inclusion saying that you can't express your view. And then there's an ugly side that comes up in response. I don't want this game of tug and war where the war continues.

Everybody lay down arms. Are we perfect? No, we're not. But whatever residual racism or prejudice might exist, let it slowly melt away as we've been on the course for the last 60 years of heading in the right direction. And then let's have a substantive. I think we've been in the right direction, obviously.

Compared to 1960, I don't think that's really debatable. I think we were. So now we're having a healthy discussion where I think we've been in the right direction, obviously, compared to 1960. I don't think that's really debatable. I think we were. So now we're having a healthy discussion where I think that the rise of even well-intentioned DEI programs, even from those who had the best of intentions, I think did, in retrospect, I think we can say, set us back. Not the rise of MAGA and Trump's executive orders from last week. I think the executive orders from last week were about what we is what we're talking about, it's the circle here, which is does ending the DI programs,

do we think that's a step forward for the country or not? I think it's a step forward for the country. Is that the destination? No, it's just the beginning of a real discussion about equal opportunity that lifts all Americans up. Why would you have a conversation about equal opportunity if they don't even want to have a conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion? You get what I'm saying? I understand where you're trying to go with it, but you can't have one without the other, I think is the point. And how do you do that?

It seems like that's your disconnect even with Doge, right? No, I think a couple different, couple different topics there. Look, are we a country where we want equal opportunity for every person to achieve the maximum of their God given potential? Yes, we do. Are we perfect in realizing that? No, we're not. Do we think that group quota systems are the right way to achieve that? I'm of the view the answer is no, and I think the last few years show us that it hasn't even been effective in actually empowering the people it was supposed to empower while it's created a resentment of a lot of the people who felt deprived. So I think we just got to go to post-DI world. That ship, in my opinion, for the better,

maybe in other people's opinion, for the worse, that ship has sailed. Now let's look to the future and say what does equal opportunity actually look like? I'll give you one of the areas I'm most passionate about. I think equal opportunity to a high quality early education makes a difference. There's a lot of focus on college and what the college composition needs to be. There's a lot of focus on college and what the college composition needs to be. You miss the boat if you're doing this after somebody's already 18 years old and in 12th grade, the cake is baked. This starts young. I mean, early childhood achievement trajectories are set in preschool, set in first grade,

set in second grade. There's a massive disparity set at that point in time based on the quality of schools that somebody in inner cities relegated to, because they don't have the choice for better opportunities, versus somebody who's in a suburb with a better public school or access to a private school. That is an injustice. I think anybody who's really concerned

with true equality of opportunity in this country that's not dealing with that problem doesn't actually care, it's just they want to pontificate. I don't have a lot of patience for that. So I think that, you know, it becomes a buzzword that goes in one ear out the other when you say it this way. But universal school choice, it's like people hear those buzzwords. But when you think about what that means, it means every kid, no matter their skin color

or what neighborhood they're born in, has at least the opportunity to get the best possible education. Some of this stuff gets boring. Part of the people is people don't have patience for the boring stuff, but the boring stuff is what matters. Even summer break, not even a very political topic, right? Summer break, especially early on, is something that actually causes the educational achievement gap to widen because people who are from well-to-do families tend to have programs that enrich their kids. And so there's a well-known phenomenon where when you come back in the fall you have some regress for the kid. That

regress is small or non-existent for people who can actually afford the right kind of summer programs or educational programs for those three months. For kids who come from poorer communities, it's massive. Multiply that 12 times over. By the time you get to 12th grade, you have just different levels of preparedness. I don't care what kind of quota system an Ivy League university establishes, that's not really establishing true equality because some of the same people who are admitted to those programs are doing no better when they then enter the workforce because a lot of this traced back to equality or inequality of opportunity at a really young age. And by the way, all against the

backdrop of, a lot of people don't pay attention to this. Actually, I'll just ask you a question, just you have no reason to know the answers, I've studied this, but what percentage of eighth graders in the United States today are proficient in math according to international standards? What's that? At an eighth grade level? Eighth grade level, yeah. In eighth grade, what percentage of eighth graders are performing at what should be an eighth grade level according to international developed world standards?

62%? 25%. 25% in the United States. So that's just unacceptable. So we're talking about equality issues. Now let's just zoom out and talk about overall achievement issues. Our educational system is not working. There is a deep failure and we can debate the causes and-

I agree with that. Yeah, well, and people, you know, I think can often get a little bit upset. I've had the experience of people getting upset when you confront these questions. But I care about this country too much to just look passively at that and look the other way because it doesn't make people feel good. And you know, a classic response is to blame a lot of that on woke indoctrination or whatever. And I'm against all of the woke indoctrination at a young age, but that's not the real issue

here. The real issue is just an achievement problem in the United States. And that doesn't start in high school. It doesn't start in college. It starts young. And so I just see an opportunity right now where we can make the choice to enter a new golden age in America. Will you shock me?

We can make a choice to say this is our Sputnik moment, right? You look at just the news of today, I don't know how much you've taken a look at it, but Deep Seek coming out of China, right? Completely mopped the floor with respect to the cost by which they were able to get to apparently similar, maybe if not in some ways, better AI production than a lot of capital that's gone into achieve the same thing for computing power investment in the US These are good opportunities for us not to be ashamed or to be angry But to wake up and say we should have the humility to admit That we still have room for improvement. I say this as somebody who believes

This is the greatest country known to the history of mankind It is the only country I will ever pledge allegiance to. It is the country I will die fighting for if I have to. But we should still, out of our love for this country, have the ability to have humility to say, okay, here are the ways we still need to improve. And frankly, I don't think that that's a, it's not a preaching to the left or to the right.

I think it's just a wake-up call for all of us. And that's kind of what I'm interested in delivering. I think people just get nervous when there's no systems in place, like what DEI should have been if it was done the right way, because then you think that there's going to be no trickle down. Because what you're talking about, to affect people before they get to eighth grade, you have to have people that were able to go to these schools,

were able to have these certain experiences, come back to the communities teach build different administrators Like there's a whole like system that people think won't fall back down. You can't trust white supremacy Yes, so it's like even what you like with the doge thing, right? And you back in a way now me listening to you I'm like, oh it sounds like y'all didn't agree because morally you want to do right I don't know if I believe that a Elon Musk in a Trump cabinet Well on that front, let me just say, I think we all share an opposition to bureaucracy.

And by the way, you think about how bureaucracy hurts even the least well off among us, it actually hurts the least well off among us the most. I don't want to get too much in details unless you're interested in this, but take housing costs in the country, right? Why are housing costs spiking? It's because of bureaucracy and red tape that's

stopping new housing construction. There's all these zoning limitations. There's all kinds of limitations for single family homes, for smaller homes. It's really hard to build one. And a lot of that comes from regulatory red tape. So on the stuff relating to cutting back red tape and bureaucracy and regulations, I don't view that as a left versus right issue. In fact, one of the things I loved in the time period that I was helpful in involving setting up Doge was how many Democrats also said, hey, you know what? There's actually a lot of issues that we care about

where bureaucracy is getting in the way as well that raised their hand. So that I think is just a strictly good efficiency and elimination of bureaucracy, I think is good across the board. As it relates to getting serious though about addressing root inequality causes in the United States,

I think a lot of people enjoy being on one political side or the other without actually rolling up their sleeves and doing the hard work of getting to the root cause. I think the root cause starts with education at a really young age and a stable family foundation from which those kids are able to grow up and have access to the same opportunities as anybody else. And if you got to a place where every kid at the age of four, I'm not even talking about the age of 10, in some sense, it's already partially baked by then. But at the age of four, when they enter preschool, has a chance to enter the best possible school that somebody else would have to enter,

but they have to pay the actual tuition to get there. I think we've made massive progress towards restoring true equality of opportunity in the U.S. What does that mean? That means that literally you have to provide money to the families who are stuck in a bad public school to be able to opt out of that school, transportation included, the ability to pay tuition included. That is an investment that we make both in the overall future of our country and in equality of opportunity. I think we should be more vocal about standing for that. Certainly for one plan to be.

By the way, a lot of this is done not at the federal level, a lot of this is done at the state level, which gives you a sense of where part of the reason I've been drawn in my own journey to say, if I actually care about addressing these issues and not talking about them, there's actually a lot more than a governor is able to accomplish on a practical level

than even somebody sitting at the federal level. And so that's part of what I feel called to it. Are you able to have these conversations though? Cause I mean, you do get to the root of these issues, but when you tried to do it and you criticize the US for its cultural emphasis on mediocrity over excellence, MAGA and conservatives lost their mind. And a lot of people say that's the reason

you got pushed out of those. Yeah, so I will tell you this is, I would rather speak the truth and lose than to pander to an audience to tell them what they wanna hear. It's like an old expression. I think it might've been Thomas Sowell who said this actually, you know him?

Very smart man. I think he might have been Thomas Sowell who said this actually. You know him? Very smart man. I think he's the one who said this. If you care about somebody, you tell them the truth. If you care about yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. I would rather speak hard truth and take the chance of losing an election than to somehow win by just saying what you're supposed to say. Now my view on this is America is an excellent country.

I mean, America is defined by the pursuit of excellence. And it's an interesting question about American identity, right? If you go to Italy, what's the Italian identity? It's the heritage of people who grew up in Italy or Japan. It's the heritage of people who grew up in Japan. There's a language that binds them, a unique language of Italian or Japanese. And that's a beautiful thing. But what's America in that context, right?

What is the American identity? I don't think it comes down to the national identities of other countries, of a cuisine or an ethnic lineage. Even our land is relatively different, right? Our land today is very different than it was just 250 years ago, than it was even 160 years ago. Then we added Alaska, then we added Hawaii. Maybe we're gonna add some more soon.

So I think that America is not defined in the same way that other countries are. I think America is defined foremost based on the set of ideals that bind all of us together, despite our different genetics. That's what makes America special. And one of those ideals is the pursuit of excellence. The idea that you are able to achieve whatever you want without any government or bureaucracy

standing in your way, that the best person gets the job, that you get to speak your mind in the open without somebody telling you you can't speak your mind. Those are the ideals that make America itself. We don't live up to them though. What's that? We don't live up to them often.. We don't live up to them though. What's that? We don't live up to them often. We often don't live up to them. Of course not, but I would rather live in a country that has ideals and falls short of

them than a country that has no ideals at all. So you could say we're hypocritical. You can only be a hypocrite if you have ideals. So I would rather as a nation be hypocritical and have ideals rather than not have ideals and therefore not be a hypocrite. And so that's a tough message and it lands in different directions, right? I would go so far as to call it my battle against the woke left four years ago was a tough message and people on the other side had resistance to that message of what I still

consider to be tough love, but love at the core of it. I'd say the same thing with respect to my more recent commentary here. It comes from a place of love for this country, and I love this country too much. You talking about your H1B tweets? Well, I didn't talk about, I mean, that was talking about American excellence, right? About the idea that I do think we need to light a fire

under the feet of our culture right now. I do think we need to light a fire and celebrate excellence in every domain, by the way. Not just academics, sports, music, the arts, but to celebrate winning, to celebrate the person who is a striver. I don't think it should be a bad thing in America to be a striver. That word has a negative connotation to it a little bit today. Our founding fathers were strivers.

Our culture was built by strivers. Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, the people from my home state, went to outer space at the frontier. We are a culture of strivers, the best athletes. I mean, look at the legacy of Michael Jordan. He was a guy who worked hard and was unapologetic about the fact that he wanted to win and would do whatever is required to work hard to do it. Same thing with respect to our engineering talent.

That's the culture that I think we can revive in this country. I think it's necessary to revive in this country if we're going to compete against China. It's like a parent when you're talking to your kids. Sometimes the message you deliver is not well received when they hear it, but it comes from a place of love. But Mad Gang conservatives didn't want to hear that at all. And it seems like when you chastise others

for cultural concerns, it's widely accepted. But when you attack, say by the Bell and white culture, you got sidelined. I'll tell you this is, I'm consistent 360 360 degrees is what I will give you on that. You're shocked by the response. You know, I like taking a back like, damn. You know, if I think about it, I've been around American politics for a little bit.

Did I know the message that I was delivering was going to make some people upset? I did. My goal was not to make people upset for the sake of making people upset. My goal is looking at our country and saying, how do we light a fire under the feet of our nation to be able to aspire to be the very best again and to do it consistently? As you said, I've talked to the woke left for years and if I put the word woke in that, you know, message several times, many of the same people were cheering for a long time when I delivered the same message in a different way. I'm just against victimhood culture across the board.

We're not a nation of victims. Even when the victims of MAGA and conservatives, because they were acting like victims when you put the, look, I'm against, I'm against any kind of victimhood. Most, most of the time for the last four years, if I'm being honest, I think the dominant strain of victimhood has been a left-wing victimhood. But there is, I wrote a book called Nation of Victims a few years ago that had a chapter called conservative victimhood. We're not a nation of victims. We are victors, not victims. That's who we are at our very best. That's the American way. And I do think that when you think about what are those American qualities? Hard work,

self-determination, self-reliance, not victimhood culture that gives you a greater claim on the government. And you could see this across the political spectrum. I don't think that we win this country back by greater dependence on our government. We win this country back by greater independence from it through reviving our self-confidence to stand on our own two feet, to teach our kids the way you get ahead isn't to see yourself as a victim and to play that as a card that gets you ahead, but instead to see yourself as a winner and somebody who isn't going to be bullied by your circumstances. The number one person, what would I tell my kids, right?

The number one person or the number one factor that determines whether you achieve your goals in life. I'm not saying it's the only one, but the number one factor that determines whether you achieve what you want in life. Is you. Is you. Let me ask you a question. No doubt about it.

And so it's not your race or your gender or your sexuality or the climate or the weather or somebody from some other country. It is you. All those things will play a part, but I agree. I didn't say it didn't play a part, but I said the number one is you. And so that's the culture where whether it's, in some ways it was the same message delivered slightly differently and got a very different reaction. But I believe I have been deeply consistent in delivering this message for a long time. And the reason why is, and by the way, on the issue of H1B, H1B is a broken system, right?

So the funny thing about this, people say, oh, why didn't you criticize H1B in his tweet? I've been saying this about a hundred times maybe for the last couple of years, probably hundreds of times. It's broken in a bunch of boring ways. They use a lottery instead of picking the very best ones. It's got an indentured servitude problem where if a company sponsors you and you come from another country, you can't leave that company so you don't actually have a competitive labor market. All those things need to be fixed. And I have been, I would argue, among the biggest proponents, if not the biggest voice in favor

of fixing those things. But that's a technical issue about fixing some H1B system. But the deeper question is, are we a country that believes America ought to be number one, that we want the best people in this country Cultivated in a homegrown way and then to fill the gaps With the best and brightest from the rest of the world as well to come here and be Americans and pledge allegiance to this country Yes, that's us. That's right. But let me ask you what were your thoughts on and you claim to be an honest person When Donald Trump signed off on the people that tried to overthrow the government. Signed off?

Pardon them. Pardon them. Here's my view is... And then I want to ask you, what did you think when Joe Biden pardoned his son and his family members as well? So let's start with Trump. So here's my view is... They tried to overthrow the government, which is totally against the law.

So let's talk about turning the page. I'll give it to you straight, okay? I think that there were many people, there's a rabbit hole, we could have an hour on this, I don't really think it's even all that relevant anymore. There were a lot of people who didn't do a thing that was wrong that ended up being ensnared in getting locked up, getting prosecuted for peacefully, without any weapons, exercising their First Amendment rights. And as a country, we're a country that celebrates political dissent and opposition. People who never entered the Capitol, people who never heard anybody, people who were unarmed walking on the Capitol grounds. And it was just sloppy the way

the whole thing was actually handled. Yeah. And I think that those kinds of peaceful protesters, the fact that they were ensnared and had their due process rights denied is an affront. And I say that as somebody who, I'm a civil libertarian, I believe the same is true for left-wing protesters. I think the same thing has been true for civil rights protesters 60 years ago. I think the same thing was true for peaceful protesters on January 6th. Now the other side. So then when you look at it holistically, right?

It was so messy in the way that it was handled. There were so many also unanswered questions and some stuff that didn't smell great. Like if you look at the first thing that came out from the Inspector General's report only came out a few weeks, a couple weeks before Trump took office, how many FBI informants and affiliated people were in that audience. It didn't smell good. And that came out, if you said that two years ago, that was considered a bad conspiracy theory.

But now they came out with the Inspector General report saying that they weren't transparent with the public. There was enough that the government did that smelled rotten there that in the interest of just turning the page, you know what I think would have been the best outcome for the country? Here's something that would have been the best outcome, but I think we got to a second best outcome. I said this before Biden left office. I think if Joe Biden had not pardoned his family member, but had pardoned the January

6 protesters in one of his final acts to say that I've been critical of this, but in the interest of moving the country forward as I'm leaving the office, I'm turning the page and looking to the future. And then Donald Trump takes office and pardons the Biden family for any alleged offenses. That would have been, I think, the best case scenario for the country. But absent that, we had the- Some of them were insurrectionists. And I mean, there's actual people who are denying pardons because they said, no, we committed a a crime Yes, there was a woman who did a hosted that interview said we did really horrible things people died I heard her I heard her interview and so to that you will say there were people who were Peaceful but then we seen people that hopped the gates ran up in there running in people's office

We see them as well. I think J.D. Vance had the best reason and when J.D. Vance said and this before Trump did the pardons. He said that we're gonna look look at, we're not going to pardon all the January 6th insurrectionists. We're going to look at it on a case by case basis. He said case by case. And see who needs to be pardoned and who doesn't. And that's what I had said for the last couple of years as well. I do think that when we're also moving quickly with respect to Trump talking about a new golden age for the country, that's what we all want, right?

We want a country where the issues we're focused on is what affects people in their everyday lives. The conversation about lifting people up economically and educationally. I think it is in that spirit to say that we're just turning the page and moving the nation forward. I understand the decision to do it not on a case by case basis, but on a blanket basis. I understand where it's coming from. Some of these people are actual criminals. Like one of the guys got out and went right back to jail for buying. By definition, just so we're talking about the same thing, by definition, anybody who

gets a pardon is getting a pardon, many of them. Anybody who gets a pardon after a conviction means they were convicted. That's right. So there are hundreds of presidential pardons. Biden issued more pardons than any president has in his final month leaving office. Every president issues pardons. But part of the reason the president has a pardon power is the job of the president is actually to look after the country. The job of a

jury and a judge in a case is to look after that individual case. But a president is a steward of a country and to say what's in the best overall interest of the country, that's why the president has a pardon power. So everybody who a president has ever pardoned is by definition a criminal. The question is, even in the face of somebody being a criminal by definition of having committed some crime, take a big step back and say, notwithstanding that, is it in the interest of a nation to be able to pardon that person and move forward?

That's the judgment that belongs on a president's shoulders. And when you look at the agenda that President Trump wants to pursue and wants to be ambitious about that and say, I just want to turn the page on the past and move forward, I understand that decision. And I think that looking at a case by case would have been a reasonable approach. I think that going blanket pardon and turning the page is also a reasonable approach. But what I do believe is that we're not going to see, I want to make this claim right now,

and I think I will be proven right. I certainly hope I'm going to be proven right. And I expect I will. There was a lot of fear mongering over the last couple of years. And some people still have the fear that, okay, Donald Trump is going to go after his political opponents and whatever.

I can tell you solidly, that just ain't going to happen. And you can roast me a year from now if we're wrong about that. It's just not going to happen. Well, just give it a minute, I don't know. And I think that that's the spirit of that decision. All that fits together is to say we've had a kind of a toxic chapter over the last four years as a country. You have a guy who is, all kinds of unprecedented things have happened, right?

Who himself was the subject of four prosecutions by the government, had been censored before that while he was leaving office and the President of the United States couldn't even speak. All of that, let's not really negate it. Let's turn the page. Let's move forward. And I think that is something that if we stay true to that promise, everybody can get behind. And I will tell you that a lot of people earnestly have the fear, I could say it's created by the media or whatever, but to say that, oh, now Donald Trump's going to prosecute his political opponents. No, it's not going to work that way. The way it's going to work is we're moving forward to say what actually lifts up all Americans.

It's part of why you had a coalition, which I thought was pretty cool this time around. You had a lot of former independents, black voters, Hispanic voters, first generation Americans. It was a different kind of coalition. It wasn't yesterday's Republican party that I hope gives us a shot at unifying the country. Gives us the best shot I think we've had in a long time.

I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it. Let's talk about some forward stuff. How do you advocate for ending birthright citizenship when both your parents were illegal and non-citizens? Were legal. They were illegal? They were legal.

Okay, okay, okay. But they were non-citizens though? That's right, that's right. When they came to country, yeah. So my view, and I've been pretty consistent on this, is that birthright citizenship should not be granted to the kids of illegals in this country. What does birthright citizenship mean? Just to get everyone on the same page. It means if you're physically born in the country,

you're automatically a citizen. And that's been part of the longstanding tradition of the country within certain guardrails. So I'll give you one that nobody contests. Let's say you're the kid of a Mexican diplomat. So it's a guy who's legally, physically in the country, but he is the ambassador from Mexico or Panama or whatever country to the US. They happen to have a baby while they're here. Is that baby a citizen of the United States? Nobody thinks the answer to that is yes.

If you're a diplomat from Mexico or a government official from another country, but physically the baby happens to be born here, you're still a citizen of another country. It goes to the 14th Amendment. It says, are you subject to the laws and jurisdiction thereof? Then you're a citizen. That's what it says. So by a similar analogy, if somebody who's an ambassador from Mexico or is in this country legally, but doesn't enjoy birthright citizenship because they're still subject to the laws and jurisdiction of the other country, then the question is, if somebody entered this country illegally, let's just

take another one. If somebody's a foreign invader to the country, right? Let's say you have a foreign invasion of the country, but it includes a pregnant woman and she happens to have a baby here. Nobody thinks that baby enjoys birthright citizenship. So then the question is, if somebody broke the law when entering the country, right? Their act of entering the country was a violation of our laws. Are they really subject to the jurisdiction and law in the same way? If they have their kid in the country, that kid does not automatically enjoy birthright citizenship. That's

in my position. I think it's a reasonable position. But why is it that moving forward, you would want an administration to pick and choose like when they give opportunities like, so for instance, like what if I'm here legally I have my kid here legally no I'm here illegally okay hypothetically if I'm here illegally right I did whatever I had to do to get here just because of whatever my circumstances are I'm not committing crimes while I'm here I'm working the best I can just trying to raise my kid my kid is doing amazing I'm providing a better life right and then all of a sudden now because Trump is in office it's like no my kid has to go back to whatever circumstances we came from, not too much set up because

they're no longer a citizen. So one of the things, if you look at President Trump's recent commentary in some of his interviews even leading up to taking office, he himself has drawn a distinction between people who have been here for a really long time and established roots versus people who have come super recently to the country, right? In the Dreamers program, you talked about how people have been here for a long time. We could have our own debates about what my own views even are on that. But let's just take, start with the easy low hanging fruit. If somebody's a criminal, should they be,

if somebody commits a crime while they're here and they're entered illegally, should they be automatically deported? Yes. And then we just go straight down the list. Consider This is a daily news podcast. And lately, the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools? Take the department of education, close it.

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I said, yes, please. Because at the center of this murky world is an alleged predator. You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior? He's just spinning the web for you to get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated.

Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm not going to argue that point because that's kind of like an easy point though. I think where I'm getting confused with you is like you kind of-

And even if it's a few years, I would say the same thing. So if somebody has come here and it hasn't been that long. So we're talking about, you know, double digit millions of people who have come here illegally under Biden's tenure. Those people have not established roots in the United States. Those people should have followed a different route. And by the way, there are millions more who didn't come here, who did not come here illegally, because they were trying to do it the right way. They're the ones we kept out, and the ones who lied or broke the rules are the ones who we let in. That's not right. So I think that sending all of the people who at least entered illegally under Biden's tenure, just

recently, even if it's just taking the last two years, that is millions of people. So even if we just said over the last 18 months, the people who entered this country illegally have to go back to their country of origin, they haven't established roots in 18 months. That alone would be the largest mass deportation in American history. Now you want to go beyond that, we could argue the details, but that alone is the literally the largest mass deportation in American history. Now you want to go beyond that, we could argue the details, but that alone is the literally the largest mass deportation in American history. And I think most people are in favor of it to say that that's fair. So why are House Republicans divided on this? Because it seems weird that you would want to fight the end birthright citizenship now, especially when you've made so many scribes with Hispanic voters.

So I'm not following necessarily what the House Republicans are divided on per se. But what I will tell you is I think most people, if explained, right? So, I'm not following necessarily what the House Republicans are divided on per se, but what I will tell you is I think most people, if explained, right, because I think the problem with this is it can become a pretty emotional conversation. If you just objectively look at the low-hanging fruit that we all agree with, that's actually pretty far from where we are today. If you look at somebody who entered this country illegally, does their kid automatically get birthright citizenship?

Going forward, we can't even change the past, right? Because those were the rules of the past. But at least going forward, we will say, that anybody new who entered this country illegally and their kid's born here doesn't enjoy birthright citizenship without even a change to the past. I think most people agree with that. Somebody who entered in the last 18 months,

pretty recent, would you send them back? It's millions of people illegally should they go back to their country. So this is for the illegals abusing birthright citizenship. That's what you're... Yeah, I mean, I think somebody who comes here illegally and has a kid here, that kid should not enjoy birthright citizenship, especially if the government has said so. So in the past, you could say it was vague, that's a separate debate. But going forward, to lay the marker down and say going forward from this date forward,

somebody who enters the country illegally and has a kid here, that kid does not automatically enjoy birthright citizenship, I think is a very reasonable position. So wouldn't that be you though, since your parents were non-citizens? They were legal. So it's one thing if you apply to the government,

you follow the legal process, there's a lot of paperwork involved, there's a vetting. But you're saying within 18 months. And I'm saying that's a separate point of the deportations. So in the deportations, let's just start there. Okay. If you look at how many people came into this country illegally, illegally in the last 18

months, okay, the last year and a half of Biden's tenure alone, that is millions, not a million, millions of people. There's no argument to be made that those people have somehow established roots in the country in 18 months or in two years. If every one of those people were returned to their country of origin, respectfully, you're not trying to mistreat anybody or anything else, but in a respectful, humane manner, is returned to their country of origin, that alone would be the largest mass deportation in American history by far. Going forward, you send the signal that we're not open for illegal immigration anymore. And this is not dehumanizing anybody.

Frankly, if any of us were in the position of somebody sitting in Guatemala or Venezuela or Colombia, and the US government's giving you a wink and a nod, who knows? Maybe many of us would do the same thing to have a better life for our families. So I'm not blaming anybody other than the US government. But now the US government can be clear to say that no, we're not open for illegal entry. We have a sealed border. There's no funding for sanctuary cities. There's no welfare or benefits for people who enter this country illegally. And if you enter illegally, you will be returned to your country of origin. What's going to happen is you're going to

see a lot fewer people even trying to come. What if your country's not accepting you back? Like we've seen it with Mexico. I think those countries need to start accepting them back. And that's where the US has leverage to say that we all got to play by the same set of rules here. Because a lot of those countries, for example, in Central America, right, there's this area called the Darien Pass. It's like a jungle area which used to be closed.

Now there's a massive northward flow of migrants. Many of those countries are recipients of US foreign aid. What does that mean? It means we're literally given our taxpayer money as aid, just as a check to those countries. It's a free check, free money to those countries. I don't think we should be given free money to those countries unless they're also at minimum doing their part to also seal their borders. So we have levers to be able to have a reasonable discussion with other countries. And I think that that's something, I don't mean to be overly partisan about this, but I think that was something we were missing under the Biden years, which is that we kind

of were just jelly spined with other countries, right? We let other countries walk all over us. And I don't think that standing for American interests, and by the way, American interest doesn't mean some segment of America, people agree with me. I'm talking about all Americans interests, regardless of skin color, regardless of political affiliation. If you're American, we're going to stand for your interests because that's what an elected leader of the United States has a responsibility to do, not give away your taxpayer money when we're $36 trillion of debt in the hole to some other country that isn't even doing what they're supposed

to do with respect to blocking their own borders on the way to the United States. That doesn't make sense. So I think that a lot of this is common sense. A restoration of common sense is the path back to American greatness. I agree with what you said about people being jelly spying under the Biden administration, but do you think it's smart for Trump to start a trade war on day six? So the thing to understand about Donald Trump,

if you look at his first term, the thing I love about the second term is you don't have to do a lot of guessing about Donald Trump like you would with your new president. You had a first term. He is a tough negotiator on the international stage, right? And so I believe there's probably three camps on this issue of tariffs. If this gets to, we won't switch the subject anytime, let me know, but this is worth probably going into. One is that I think a silly view to say it's like the turn the other cheek mentality, which is even if another country is screwing us over by charging tariffs on our goods that go to those countries, we're going to pretend like they don't and not charge tariffs for them coming to our, their goods coming to our country. That's the turn the other cheek model. Some people favor this because they say it still makes the global pie a little bit bigger. I don't favor that. The other model

is to say that, okay, we're going to at least have reciprocity, which means same standards both ways. If you're another country and you're applying tariffs to us and not just tariffs, but maybe you're doing state sponsored subsidies to your businesses, but we don't do them here. So it's an uneven playing field for those businesses. Then we're going to level the playing field. I think that is totally legitimate. In fact, I think in most cases that makes sense. Then there's a third camp, which says that even if the other country isn't really being unfair to us, we're just going to put up barriers in a way that I think is actually harmful usually to the United States. So I think camp number two

is super pragmatic to say that everybody's got to play on a level playing field. You don't get two sets of rules, one for the rest of the world, one for America. If we're going to be a trading partner and you're going to be a long run economic partner of the United States, great, let's play by the same set of rules. That's fair game. That's different from, and I will admit, there are a lot of people on the left and on the right who prefer the other camp to say that, okay, we should make sure that only things are ever made in the United States, even if it could better advance the interests of American citizens to be able to have access to broader goods and bring costs down. If the other countries playing by the same set of rules, I don't think that we should be, we should be penalizing ourselves and shooting ourselves the notes with the expression is cut your nose to spite your face I don't think we should do that but if you look at Donald Trump's record I'm not talking about rhetoric on social media

or what some supporter somewhere of Donald Trump might have an opinion if it's a big coalition here a lot of people have a lot of different opinions but Donald Trump has been super pragmatic as a businessman on these trade issues and sometimes when you're in negotiation you got to be able to play a hard card to be able to get to the place where you want to get. And so I have no problem with that. As long as the place where we land advances the interests of all Americans. Because how are you going to make things more affordable like housing when you got tariffs on everything?

Yeah. So I think that we got to pay for that. Look, I think the question is, if another country, I think you probably agree with me on this. If another country applies a tariff to the United States, do you think that we should apply the same tariff in return or not? Yes. Yeah. I think yes. So that's, it's that simple.

The only thing that's a slightly a little more complicated, but just a slight wrinkle to that is sometimes the other country may not be applying a strictly speaking tariff, but it functionally is a tariff because their government supports their industries. So they make them state-sponsored industries with their own taxpayer dollars. But we don't do that here because we believe in true competitive markets and capitalism. That is like a tariff because effectively it props up the other country's company to make it look like it's better than the U.S. company when in fact the company isn't actually that much better.

It's just using their taxpayer dollars to do it. Oh, and by the way, we're often giving foreign aid to that very country, which allows them to have extra taxpayer dollars to spend. So that's the only wrinkle is either a tariff or a tariff-like unfairness. That's what we've been on the receiving end of for a long time. How do you make things more affordable for people? Tariffs are on everything. Everything from Mexico to China to Canada. So I think what's going to happen, what typically historically plays itself out is that that other country then says, oh crap, we're actually going to be screwed and a lot worse off. Let's now play

by the same set of rules because we're not going to be getting away with arbitraging the United States of America anymore. We got away with it for a little while, we're not going to get away with it anymore. And then both countries are actually able to have a cleaner trading relationship than not. But the people got a cleaner trading relationship than not. But the people got a stuff pool until that happened. I would say because what if they don't? There's one wrinkle to this. I think most of that pretty happens pretty quickly if you study the history of these

trade deals with companies. It happens quickly with Columbia for sure. Sure. So historically, even if you look for a hundred years, the way these things play out, it happens very, I mean, it happens, it's relatively instant for correcting itself. The one exception to all of this, which I favor, I think is important to us, is with respect to China. That's different from other countries, not Japan or South Korea or India or the Philippines

or South America. China's in a different category where I don't think we should put ourselves in a position to rely on China for anything that is critical to our national security. Take our own military. It's crazy. The following is crazy fact. The number one supplier to our Department of Defense of Semiconductors is actually China. Our own military industrial base cannot exist without a Chinese dependent supply chain.

That doesn't make any sense because the whole reason you have a military industrial base is to potentially protect yourself against an adversary. It makes literally no sense if you depend on that very adversary for your own military industrial base. And I would say the same for the pharmaceutical supply chain, which is a pretty critical supply chain, especially in a week where even the CIA has now confirmed

that COVID came from a lab in China. Really, that's the same country that you want to have 95% of your ibuprofen coming from, which is what it is today. That doesn't make sense. So I put China in a different category. But then the irony on this is that if you really want to declare economic independence from China in those critical sectors, that actually means you need more, not less trade with other countries like Japan and South Korea and Vietnam and India and other countries and Brazil.

You actually want to bring as much as you can to the US, but you've got to supplement that with other countries that can also fill those gaps. And so it gets more nuanced more quickly and depends on what your priorities are. If your priorities are national security of the United States and also the economic best interests of the United States, I think what that means is you don't let other countries exploit us. You play by the same set of rules. In the case of China, you can't depend on an adversary for critical sectors.

That means more onshore into the United States, but it also means more, not less trade with a lot of our allies to fill those gaps. So I think that's a rational course forward. And this is a good conversation because actually, usually people don't get to this level of the conversation. It's just, you know, is trade war good or bad? When in fact, it's for what purpose? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I have a question for you on trade war. Like, why do we even because for instance, with Columbia, right? I saw Bakari Sellers tweeted in response to Tim Scott. Tim Scott came out and supported what Trump did with Columbia. Bakari Sellers was like, with Biden, we didn't have to do that. They accepted 475 deportation flights under Biden, more than 120 in 2024 alone. Basically why did it even have to go to this extreme? It shows how people feel about our new president and what we might have to, the extent that

we might have to go to and it's dangerous, right? Well, I think different countries are going to have different relationships, right? And so at some, at certain points you want, we want a president who will play hardball for the United States when necessary. Okay, we just, that's what we want. We don't want some sort of limp spined US president that gets rolled over because the person that's getting rolled over isn't the president, it's us. So if somebody else is trying to stiff us, right, trying to roll over us, you got to double dash.

Say if you're going to hit me, I'm going to hit you back 10 times harder, metaphorically speaking. I think that's okay for the president to take that mentality. And by the way, under Biden, part of the reason why is you had way more illegals that were of the kind that they actually want to get out of their country that were actually finding their way into ours. And so each situation is going to be different. But if you ask me, do we want a president if I had to make the choice? And I do think that often it is a trade off. Often it is a trade off between somebody who is going to be well liked or well feared on the global stage. I would rather have a president who is well feared on the global stage than one who is well liked.

Where it's possible to do both, that's the best. But when you have to make a choice, I want my president, I don't care what party he is, I want my president to be one who is feared rather than loved by adversaries or even allies who are looking after their own interests. That's what I like. But are respected. I think respect follows somebody who stands for his own interests, actually. In the short run, somebody who loves what you do may not actually respect you.

Right? And I think Donald Trump's this way with respect to other leaders. He respects other leaders who looks after their country's interests, even though he's going to play hardball with them along the way. I'm the same way. I think about the people in a business negotiation who roll over versus people who actually will hold the line when necessary for their interest. I respect that, even if that makes for a tougher negotiation. So I think we will automatically be more respected by the world if we stand for our own interests. And then here's also one area where the US

is different than other countries. It's a little bit, you know, people in other countries may take issue with it, but probably not because it's true. What hope does the rest of the free world have if the United States, the shining city on a hill, still doesn't shine? And I've talked to leaders from other countries over the last year. The way they framed it to me is the US has a choice to make. I mean, you guys decide which one you're going to be. Are you actually going to remain the leader of the world and proud of who you are?

And if you're not, just let us know because I think that we will organize our own views differently. And I do think that the United States of America in particular has an obligation not just to itself, but to history to remain the strongest version of itself. Because if the United States just goes back to being just like any other ordinary country around the world, in some sense, it's a loss of hope, not just for every American, but for the free world as we know it. And I think that too is secretly these other countries where in the short term they might want to exploit the US. But if they come back and say, no, no, no, the US is back, they're strong, they're a

leader and I might not get my little trade agreement exactly what I wanted out of it, but I know that that's somebody who I can really depend on to be consistent and looking after their own interests and for standing for what freedom means. I actually think that will win us more respect in the long run. I got a few more questions. Sure.

You're always so generous with your time. What did Trump say when you told him you wanted to leave Doge? It was a pretty good mutual discussion. He was very supportive. And I think Donald Trump and I, we built a good relationship since I left the race. I think it's, for me, I've always been somebody who,

I need to stand for my own vision for the country. I'm at my best when I'm standing for my vision for the future, and I'm excited for that. And Donald Trump was super supportive of that. We had a good time at the inauguration together. And I think we're gonna be working together informally for a long time to come. One of the executive orders that happened

was Doge was rebranded as the US digital service, which was an Obama era group, which is basically created to keep the manage the affordable Karex website, right? That's where it started. Okay. But now it determines the best practices for the government's use of technology. That wasn't your initial vision. So look, there were there were a couple different visions in approach. And I will say that Elon in taking a technology first approach, he's the best person

to take that technology first approach, no doubt about it. You know, my, what I've always been drawn to in my books and a lot of the articles I've written in my own campaign for president, a lot of my focus has been on using the constitutional landscape and using the legislative landscape to bring down spending to curb regulations. I think the best way to do that is from the perch of elected office and I think that when you think about who's gonna drive change through technology in the government, nobody better than Elon to do that. But it seems like the Trump administration, at least some of them, like Steve Bannon, the Suzy Wiles of the

world, they don't, they're not fond of him it seems. Look, Steve Bannon is made for that. I'm not a big palace intrigue, you know, person stuff. I'm an ideas guy. I believe in a vision for the country. I want to think about how we're going to best be able to improve the country. I don't really, I don't, I'm not super, I don't really think the personality driven stuff is something that's super of interest to me, but I can tell you what I see. What I see certainly for what I was part of is you got a coalition here that is

unified in wanting to restore American greatness, even with a diversity of views underneath that coalition, right? Cause you can't have both the big tent coalition while also having everybody having united views on every small question. And so I think that was part of what was cool this last year. I mean, I ran for US president with slightly different views on certain things than Donald Trump. I endorsed him when I left the race.

You got the likes of Independence. You got, you know, Bobby Kennedy. You got Tulsi. You got a bunch of other people. Elon Musk. A bunch of people who each have our own distinctive spins on what the right emphasis should be for the future of the country, but came together in what is a, you know, I think a big tent coalition, which means there's always going to be some levels of diversity of thought and opinion in that coalition. I think that's actually a

good thing. I think that makes a movement stronger. And so, I think Trump has done- They only cater to the billionaire class, though. I don't think that's true. Which is why it's so interesting that they got so many working class people to, you know, go out there and vote for them. Yeah, I don't think that's true. I don't think it's a sin to be a billionaire in the country. No, it's not a sin to be a billionaire. No, so I think that's part of the coalition. I think it was very different if you look at the stage at inauguration.

By the way, I'm a big fan of indoor inaugurations. It was a great- It was warm, huh? It was warm, it was good. I don't know if you watched it. Yeah. But if you look at the people who are... I was on stage with the diversity of people who are on that stage.

The whole front row was the tech guys, all the billionaires. Imagine that four years ago, many of those same platforms had censored and silenced the account of that same president. I think that's progress. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think there may be some people across the country who say, well, that's a bad thing and we need to go around and litigate that. That's what some people say.

But I think Donald Trump's running the country. I think that's the hard truth of the matter. And I think that there are things, there are views that everybody in this coalition who supported him may have that may be slightly different from what Donald Trump actually does because he's done a good job of building and melding together a pretty diverse coalition of independents, libertarian minded folks. You have some folks who are, you certainly got the American working class, union folks, you got minorities.

You have people who have lived the American dream themselves. You have people who have not yet lived the American dream, but aspire for their children too. It's a pretty big tent. And so obviously, if you're going to bring together that type of coalition, not everyone is going to agree on 100% of policies. I'd prefer that to one where everybody did uniformly agree on everything, but it was a much more insular segment of the American population.

So I think this is a good thing. Two more questions. How is the Trump administration going to reduce food prices when they're deporting the people who are picking the food? Because he said first day out and we didn't see no prices drop yet. Well come on, it's been a couple of weeks, right? It's been not even a couple of weeks. It's been a week.

People who are actually picking the food. Well, I mean, deporting the people. Well, maybe we should have a system. I think you would agree with me on this. Maybe we should have a system where the people who are picking our food or people who are in our food supply chain were not people who enter the country illegally, but actually fostered both American born and a proper legal immigration system to staff that in a way that isn't illegal.

That's a separate question from the rule of law. But you say you wanted to deport 20 million people and there's only 14 million people living in the country illegally. What about you getting rid of them? Let's just talk about bringing down food prices for a second because I think it's an important point. I would also add to the list, by the way, housing prices. I would add to the list energy prices, especially electricity costs. I would add insurance costs. Housing prices, especially electricity costs. I would add insurance costs.

How things are going to be tough. Insurance costs. Get the house on everything. Well, here's the number one way to do it. Increase the supply of everything. It's the laws of supply and demand. If you have constricted supply, you have higher prices. If you have more supply, prices come down. And one of the easiest things that we're able to do in all of those areas, housing, food, energy, you bring down the regulatory barrier to producing more of it. That is automatically going to bring prices down.

That's at least the first and easiest step we can take. Some of this is at the federal level, but keep in mind, not all of this is stuff that Donald Trump can do. Some of this is, a lot of this is actually at the state level too. I mean, you think about most of the regulations that stop people from producing food, most of the regulations that stop people from building new houses, including manufactured homes, which I think is actually an innovative area for the future. You think about even a lot of the restrictions on energy production, nuclear energy included. A lot of that is at the state level, which is part of why in my own reflection, right,

thinking about having an impact on the country, you want, if you're doing this public service thing, you have to tell you there's a lot about it that isn't super pleasant at all times. So if you're going to do it, you might as well have the biggest possible impact you can have. And the way I look at it is Donald Trump, he's got it covered at the federal level. I'm rooting for success and I expect success. But it's not gonna be a one man show.

At the end of the day, you got 50 states that have also have to tackle these very same problems. And especially when it's questions of affordability, questions relating to education, education is all driven by the states. I think the states is where it's at in terms of actually the need to drive real change. And so I've set my sights accordingly.

And I will try to, yeah, I've tried to stand, I'm going to hopefully stay true to not just talking about this stuff, but to actually translate it to action. And I do think that this is a lot of the issues we're talking about, bringing down housing costs, that is not a partisan issue. There are a lot of Republicans who are pissed off about high housing costs. There are a lot of Democrats who are pissed off about high housing costs. There are a lot of Democrats who are pissed off about high housing costs. And it is not a nature made problem. It's not a law of physics.

It is a manmade problem. And a manmade problem has a manmade solution. And Donald Trump can set the tone, but those regulations, most of them are actually at the state level. Same thing with respect to education. Determining whether or not that poor young kid in the inner city, black, Hispanic or white, can go to an actual good school isn't determined by the federal government, it's determined by actually those state laws. Same thing with respect to food restrictions, the constraints on nuclear energy production.

A lot of those are at the state level. And so I'm actually excited about making sure that we're not just looking at this as a one-size-fits-all solution. I supported Donald Trump pretty heavily. I dedicated a significant part of my last year to getting him elected because I thought he would restore that sense of spine, that sense of greatness to America. But it's never a one-man show. It's never one man coming down from the White House to save us. It's never been that way. In fact, our founders envisioned this system of federalism to be led by the state's bottom up as well. And so I'm excited for both of those to work in the next couple of years. Do you think you will push out of those because Trump rolled back to DEI initiatives?

No, contrary. And you know, I would say just to be super clear about it, I have no problem with, you know, framing or whatever. It was really just an actual mutual decision where you look at, here was one vision on approach, here's a different vision on an approach. That's great. There's no right or wrong answer. With a technology driven approach and a technology first approach, there's no better person than Elon to run with that. With a constitutional law focus, with a legislation focus, some of the areas I was focused on,

probably the right place to do it is elected office. And so we all agreed on that. And I think that that's actually a good thing where we're actually able to collaborate, divide and conquer. I hear you, Vivek. Yeah. I don't believe you.

Oh, it's fair enough. But I think you either got pushed out or you know that it's going to implode. I think that you know Elon is going to crash and burn it and you're a smart guy and you said, you know what? Let me get out of Dodge and go do my Governor of Ohio thing. So look, I knew that the right step for me in the long run is elected office and to pursue the vision that we're talking about here to actually translate that action in my own terms.

That's what I've been called to do. It was clear that I could not do that and serve on Doge at the same time, even for logistical reasons. It came to be in the government rather than an outside body. I was proud to be able to spend the first couple of months offering my contributions and setting it in the right direction. With its focus now, with its digital technology focus, no better person to do that than Elon in the way that he's going to lead it. And I am hopeful that there's gonna be a lot of streamlining of government bureaucracy that comes out of that and I'm pursuing my next steps at the state level.

Are they gonna endorse you? Is Elon gonna endorse you? Is Trump gonna endorse you? We're all on very good terms and so I wouldn't want to speak for anybody else but I will say that they are very supportive of the decision that I made to pursue as my next step. You got you. Yeah, alright. You've been here a long time and we appreciate your time. Yeah, man.

I really enjoyed talking to you. I'm glad you hit me up over the weekend, man. Listen, I cannot wait until you unhitch your horse from this MAGA wagon. And you can really talk. I'm telling you, it's not what I believe in. I got my horse hitched to one wagon and I'm not being corny about it, I really mean it.

It is the America wagon. I love this country and I will, you know what, I would rather fight to this country for the principles I believe in and stand for and lose than to win by checking some box along the way. And this next step for me I think is going to be, it's going to be really good. So you don't want your horse hitched to the MAGA wagon? My horse is hitched to the America wagon. And I think making America great again by the way, I'm all in for that. Okay, I'm all in for making America great again If we're doing our jobs four years from now, we won't be saying make America great again

We'll just say make America greater. That's who we've always been. So I want to turn Magga into mag. Okay, so we don't have to make America great again we just have to make America greater and I think it's good to have the humility to say make America great again, we just have to make America greater. And I think it's good to have the humility to say, make America great again acknowledges we're not perfect right now. And some people just want to make America great because they've never experienced the greatness that America has. Let's make America greater than it's ever been.

That's what I'm all in for. You're going to be able to really do that as governor? Is that just for you to be there and be quiet until you figure out what's next? Well, I'm not going to be quiet. I'm not very good at that. And you better believe that I'm going to have a lot to say at every step of this way. I don't believe in being shackled. And I think that the ability to lead a state, but also to be able to revive this culture

of victory over victimhood in America. That's what I care about. We're victors, not victims. That's who we are. And I don't care where that comes from. I've been, from my first book, Woke,oking, all the way through everything I've done ever since. I'm against victimhood culture. We're victors. We're exceptional. We believe in excellence. We believe in being unconstrained as a people and as a country. Well, if I'm going to be a leader in that

country, I'm going to be pretty unconstrained at every step of the way too. So that's why I look at it. Vic Ramoswami. Good luck in Ohio and how are you going to take care of our Haitian family over there that Trump said we need? I visited a number of them in Springfield and I think that I spent a lot of time in Springfield growing up actually. Did you have dinner with any of them?

Shut the hell up. Oh yeah. No, we did not. We hung out. It was the daytime where we hung out. But I would say that it's understandable where you have a tiny community that is really small population in Springfield that has had its population dramatically transformed. I don't blame anybody.

That's what I said when I went and visited Springfield. I don't blame anybody in that community. I don't blame the people who live in Springfield for being upset. I don't blame Haitians who made decisions for their own family to end up in Springfield the way they are. I do blame a lot of failed government policies. And at the end of the day, you could sit back and blame the government all you want. And at a certain point in time, I said, look, I'm sitting here offering commentary from an armchair. I'm done with that. I want to go in and actually be, through action, make a

difference that you want to see. Best way to do it is from elected office. And I prefer an executive office that involves actually being an executive office that involves actually being an executive rather than just being one among a chorus of 100 or 135. I'm just ready to see the real you. Because I think you're a smart dude and I listen to a lot of your interviews and I watch you a lot and I'm like,

oh, you know, Vivek says some things that I can get with. But I'm just ready to see the real you. Not yet, you might get some. Not yet. You still constrained the mag. I'm not gonna be constrained by anybody. And you know what? You could watch me over the next year. You know, winning some election, most politicians, their goal is to get reelected. I don't need to get elected to anything. We live a great life. We live the American dream.

This is my way of giving back. What's the point of going through the motions if you're just going to be hamstrung by what you say and do in the first place? And so I think that, let me put it this way, running to be the chief executive of a state, a governor, short of being a president, is the single greatest way to have unshackled impact on your country. And I'll look forward to making a big announcement about that in a few weeks. All right. It's Vivek Ramaswamy.

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