The Daily Signal - #391: What Ideas Were Good, Bad in the State of the Union

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

In today’s special edition of the podcast, The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness sits down with a number of Heritage Foundation scholars to get their take on the policy proposals in President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.We also cover these stories:•Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., asked Neomi Rao, a judicial nominee, whether she thought gay marriage was "sinful".•A woman accusing Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, which he denies, is now working with the same law firm that helped Christine Blasey Ford. •Ivanka Trump reacts to a new art exhibit in Washington, D.C. that features a model resembling her vacuuming crumbs visitors throw. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Nothing else is Rees. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, February 6th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Well, last night, President Trump delivered his long-awaited state of union address after a week's long standoff with Democrats. In today's special edition of the podcast, The Daily Signal's Kelsey Harkness sits down with a number of Heritage Foundation scholars to get their take on the policy proposals in Trump's speech. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, Democrats are back at it with religious tests for public.

office. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Naomi Rao, a Trump judicial nominee, to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And there, Senator Cory Booker, also known as Spartacus, wasted no time asking Rao not about her judicial views, but her religious views. Are gay relationships, in your opinion, immoral? Senator, I'm not sure, you know, the relevance of that to, you know, I mean, my person is doing that. relevant your opinion. If you think African-American relationships are immoral, do you think gay relationships are immoral? You personally believe that gay relationship? No, I do not. You do not believe that? No. Do you believe there is sin?

Senator, you know, my personal views on any of these subjects are things I would put to one side, and I would faithfully find... So you're not willing to say here that whether you believe it is sinful for a man, two men to be married. You're not willing to comment on that? You know, Senator, no. Excuse me? I'm sorry? I didn't hear your response. My response is that these are, these personal views are ones that I would put to one side.

Whatever my personal views are on this subject, I would faithfully follow the precedence in the Supreme Court. Well, later in the hearing, Senator Ted Cruz called out Booker and pointed to the Constitution. I have to say I was deeply troubled a few minutes ago to hear questioning of a nominee asking your personal views on what is sinful. In my view, that has no business in this committee. Article 6 of the Constitution says there should be no religious test for any public office. We have also seen Senate Democrats attack what they've characterized as religious dogma. We've seen Senate Democrats attack nominees for their own personal views on salvation. I don't believe this is a theological court of inquisition.

And as Cruz said there, this was not a first. In 2017, Senator Diane Feinstein crossed the line by telling a Catholic, Judicial nominee that she was concerned because, quote, the dogma lives loudly within you. And Senator Bernie Sanders also aggressively questioned an evangelical nominee over his views on salvation. A row who wrote op-eds about the dangerous role consuming alcohol could play in women being vulnerable to sexual assault while she was in college, was asked about her views on the topic by Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican of Iowa, who disclosed recently that she is a sexual

assault survivor. Mrs. Rao, you've been nominated to serve on the D.C. Circuit. And although the D.C. Circuit can be described as primarily handling federal administrative law, I believe that judges who serve on this very powerful court need to share the same values and morals as any other judge. And that includes a number of sensitive topics and concerns that I am the vast majority of the country hold dear. And so I'm not going to mince words. a couple folks here have touched on it. I've had a chance to review a number of your writings while you were in college, and they do give me pause,

and not just from my own personal experiences, but regarding a message that we are sending young women everywhere. And I've said time and time again that we need to change the culture around sexual violence from our college campuses to the U.S. Olympic Committee to our military and beyond. And a large part of this is ensuring that young women feel comfortable sharing the stories and experiences that they've endured and that they are given a chance to be heard and that they know that we hear them and that someone out there actually cares about them. I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve on this committee. I'd like to discuss some of these issues with you today. So right out the gate, do you believe that rape is wrong?

Absolutely. It's a horrific crime. And who is at fault in a rape? The rapist, you know, the man who commits the rape is, of course, at fault. Senator Lindsay Graham, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, also questioned Rao about her college writings. Here's how she responded. To be honest, you know, looking back at some of those writings and rereading them, I cringe at some of the language that I used. And, you know, I was young. It's over two decades ago now. but, you know, I think I was responding to things that were happening happening on campus at that time. And, you know, in that, you know, in the intervening two decades, I like to think that I have matured as a thinker and writer and indeed as a person.

Well, specifically about the situation with the intoxication and sexual assault. Can you explain to sort of what you were thinking then and where you're at now? In some of my writings, I talked about the issue of rape and sexual assault, and I emphasize that rape and sexual assault are crimes for which men should be held accountable and that no one should blame a victim of sexual assault or rape. I also attempted to make the common sense observation that there were some actions a woman could take to make it less likely to be a victim of those horrible crimes. And so that's what I was expressing in some of those pieces.

Well, the Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that cuts against some of President Trump's Middle East policies. The bill would impose new sanctions on Syria, and it included a symbolic rebuke of the president's plan to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan. Last December, the president surprised the country and even his top advisors when he announced his intention to withdraw U.S. troops from those countries, though he later seemed to backtrack on the speed of that withdrawal. In addition to that, the bill also included a measure that allows states to withhold contracts from companies that boycott Israel. The bill passed 77 to 23 with just one Republican, Rand Paul, voting no. Earlier this week, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska asked for the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require that children born after an abortion get medical care to be passed in the Senate by unanimous consent.

In a few minutes, the United States Senate is going to have an opportunity to condemn infanticide. 100 United States senators are going to have an opportunity to unanimity. say the most basic thing imaginable, and that is that it's wrong to kill a little newborn baby. Every senator will have the opportunity to stand for human dignity, to stand for the belief that in this country, all of us are created equal, because if that equality means anything, surely it means that infanticide is wrong. Frankly, this shouldn't be hard. Politicians come to this floor every single day and talk about how they care for the poorest,

or the weakest or the most marginalized members of our society. However, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat who represents Washington State, objected, and the legislation banning infanticide was unable to therefore be passed by unanimous consent. Well, Governor Ralph Northam isn't the only politician in Virginia having trouble these days. Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, also a Democrat, has been accused of sexual assault by a woman named Vanessa Tyson, who says the assault happened 15 years ago. Fairfax is denying it, but Tyson is saddling up with lawyers, the same firm, actually, that represented Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year. Now, the state Democratic Party of Virginia says the allegations should be taken with profound gravity.

But what about U.S. senators? When Kavanaugh was accused, many of them openly said they believed Ford. But now it's not so clear they're believing the accuser. Daily caller reporter Henry Rogers tweeted, saying that he's asked 10 Democratic senators whether they believe Tyson and that none have answered. Some say they haven't even heard about the allegation. Cultural DC has a new art exhibit and it's of Ivanka Trump. In the exhibit, a model dressed as Ivanka Trump vacuums crumbs over and over. Visitors are encouraged to throw crumbs for the Ivanka model to vacuum up. Quote, here is what's complicated. We enjoy throwing the crumbs for Ivanka to vacuum. That is the icky truth at the center of the work.

It's funny. It's pleasurable. It makes us feel powerful and we want to do it more, says the artist, Jennifer Rubel. Ivanka Trump tweeted in response, Women can choose to knock each other down or build each other up. I choose the latter. A very classy response there. And now, reaction from heritage analysts to the state of the union address.

Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to. Members of Congress, the state of our union, is strong. Oh, and welcome to a special State of the Union edition of the Daily Signal's Facebook Live broadcast and podcast. It's a big night here in Washington, D.C., where we just finished listening to President Donald Trump address a divided Congress and a divided nation. My name is Kelsey Harkness, and I'm a senior writer and producer with The Daily Signal, and tonight I have the honor of bringing together the Heritage Foundation's leading experts to respond to the president's speech and parts of the Democrats' rebuttal.

In order to learn more about the issues President Trump touched on during his speech, will be cycling through six different experts in their respective fields for quick, educational interviews to break down the policies the president addressed. and not so much the politics. Let's get right into it. First up is Genevieve Wood, a spokeswoman for the Heritage Foundation, who's here to address the big picture of how Trump did. Genevieve, welcome to the show.

Good to be here. Late night, but good night. Talk about some of the highs and lows. Well, look, I think the president gave a great speech. And the reality is there's going to be a lot of fact-checking going on. That's always one of the fun games that people play here. But I think he began with probably what was his strong. wrong as suit, which is the economy. And whether you're a Democrat, Republican, conservative,

liberal, facts are facts in this area. And the fact is, the country, if you look at the economy, is far better off than it was two years ago before President Trump came into office. He hit a number of the points. Wages are up. Unemployment is way down. And the important thing here is not just down for some people. It's down for everybody. I mean, we've got the best unemployment numbers that we've had in 50 years. And for women, and it's got a big shout out, when he started talking about women. Look, for women, this is the lowest unemployment numbers in 65 years. So the economy is doing very well.

A lot of that, I think, has to do with deregulation, which the Trump administration can take a lot of credit for. A lot of it has to do with the tax cut plan that was passed back in 2017. And I caught the first part of Stacey Abrams, the former candidate running for governor in Georgia, and her rebuttal. And she's talking about how wages are not good.

And she's talking about how this is, is not a good time for the middle class. But the fact is, because of that tax cut, people who file their taxes this year, Americans in every congressional district across the country are going to see a tax cut. And I'm not just talking about rich folks, talking about a lot of middle income folks and low-income wage earners are some of the ones who saw the biggest gain. So economy was good. Look, he covered a lot of areas. He talked a lot about national security. I think one of the things that he said that I think really needed saying was he touched on the abortion issue. He gave some really strong remarks calling out what recently has happened in New York and Virginia

where basically you have state legislatures and a governor saying, you know what, abortion up until the moment of birth is okay. And we're going to put that into law in our states. The president came forward said it's not okay. And indeed, we should be calling on Congress to actually pass a law that stops late-term abortions. I think he's going to get a lot of kudos from that. And that's something that the majority of Americans agree with, not just Republicans. On that front, I think it was interesting the way the president decided to take on the issue of abortion, which is not something every president decides to do, whether they're for or against abortion in the state of the union speech.

I believe we have a clip of that. Let's see if we can listen in. To defend the dignity of every person I am asking Congress to, pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother's wound. So Genevieve, I thought it was interesting the way the president contrasted what he called late-late-term abortion with the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child. And then on top of it, you had, you know, you almost would expect the women to be applauding

that, you know, the gender that is the person who's doing the childbearing. But ironically, it was a lot of men who were standing and women who were sitting. Well, unfortunately, it's because a lot of the women in that room primarily are Democrats and their hard left Democrats and many of them are beholden to the abortion lobby, Planned Parenthood among others, in terms of campaign funding and the like. And look, these are, I think this debate over the past couple of weeks, and that's why I think it's so important the president address it. It's almost like you could not address it. Really ask, who are we as a society? I mean, you know, look, I'm somebody who believes that unborn life is unborn life from conception until they're born. But even people who disagree with that, most Americans,

the majority, don't believe in late-term abortions. And the reality is America is only one in seven countries today that allows elective abortions after five months or 20 weeks. So we're already on the fringe. and you saw some states like New York and Virginia, and some others are talking about it, trying to pursue it even further. I think it's going to be a negative for Democrats if they don't come out strongly against this type of action. Talk to me about health care. This is an issue that you've covered a lot in your writing. And we're at an interesting point in our country where we're seeing Democrats go from Obamacare to now many of them calling for Medicare for all, which would effectively get rid of all private health insurance. How did that contrast with President Trump's

message in regards to health care speech in the speech tonight? Well, mostly what he highlighted tonight was the fact that he wanted to lower the cost of prescription drugs. I think everybody thinks that that'd be great. He talked about more transparency in health care. That is something we have long called for because if you have transparency, you know what prices are and what things cost. It's hard to kind of fool people and you can actually get prices down there. But the reality is we need a much bigger overhaul than this. And this is one area I would have loved to see the president. The theme was choose greatness. It would have been great if he had really shown Americans, the stark choices that we have when it comes to health care.

Because frankly, I mean, if you see these 20-20 candidates on the Democratic side, those who've announced, as you said, calling for Medicare for all, single-payer, they are really pushing a government-run, government-government will make the decisions about your health care. That's their vision. We obviously have a very different view. We've been pushing ideas in Congress that would give not just states more choices, but give them the ability to get out of these federal mandates. The administration's done some of that, but they need to do a lot more. They need to work with Congress to do it.

I know that's tough considering who we have now controlling the House. But the reality is we're going to have to do a lot more to get states out from under the Obamacare mandates and regulations if we really want to see lower cost across the board. We have a couple more experts lined up ready to take on different policy areas. The president addressed in a state of the union speech. But Genevieve, before I let you go, I want to ask if there were any issues or areas that President Trump didn't address that you expected him to or maybe wish he did. Well, you know, I never expect a president to talk about cutting spending as much as I would like them to because the State of the Union is often a laundry list of here's all the wonderful things that we're doing. Here's all the wonderful things we want to do. But not a lot of talk about how we're going to pay for most of it. And this was the case, unfortunately, tonight. the president did not touch on the fact we have a $22 trillion debt and that basically averages out to about $68,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.

And we got some tough choices to make here, too, talking about choosing greatness. You can't choose greatness if you can't pay the bills. And we are increasingly up against that. I know Ramina's going to be on later. She can give you a lot of details. But the debate that's coming up in the next few months that we'll talk about whether or not we should raise the debt limit again, I think the president has to put his foot down and says no raising the debt limit if we don't pass serious budget control measures that put spending under control. What about the Second Amendment or school safety? I was surprised

that I don't think guns were mentioned once. I don't believe the Second Amendment made it into this address. You're right. He talked about school choice. He didn't really give any details beyond that. But other than that, there wasn't a lot of talk about schools. As you mentioned, school safety. We'll see if, I mean, look, Second Amendment is an issue that many Americans are very passionate about. But in the last few months, it hasn't been kind of the top of mind. Who knows? Had the abortion issue not needed saying what was said tonight, he might have worked that in. But I do think he covered a lot of ground.

Nobody's, you'll never make everybody 100% happy. Absolutely. Well, Genevieve, thank you so much for spending some time with us. I know everybody can follow your work. You publish regularly on the Daily Signal, but also, Also, NBC News. You are blogging with them. Hopefully they posted what I said. We'll see. Great. Well, when we come back, we will have our expert on energy, transportation, and infrastructure.

Stay tuned. Joining me now is Nick Loris and economist who focuses on energy, environmental, and regulatory issues as the Herber and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Nick. Nick, thank you for taking some time tonight. Yeah, good to be here. So we just heard the president make some big statements on your issue area. He called for a pretty massive infrastructure spending package. What are your takeaways? Yeah, the biggest thing here is not to do what we've done in the past with infrastructure packages,

which is a massive top-down spending, taxing, investing in mass transit, funneling money to bike paths, things that are really outside of the need and the focus of the federal government. Instead, what we need to be looking at is what are the regulatory government-imposed obstacles that can unleash the private sector to get the infrastructure that meets America's needs? And so there's a long list of environmental and labor regulations that could, if reformed, fundamentally change how we invest in infrastructure, stretch those public dollars further to those national priorities, but also invest more from the private sector, which is ultimately what we want. The Trump administration has made regulatory reforms in rollbacks really a priority, and I think

a lot of economists would credit some of those reforms to why the economy is doing so well. How far do you think they've come thus far into the administration and how much farther can they go? Yeah, to use that Trump word, bigly is probably how far they've come, and they could go even further. You've seen, even from the get-go, things like pipeline infrastructure and improving the Keystone Excel pipeline, even though it's not operational yet because of litigation, across the board, they have done an incredible job in terms of not implementing as many very costly regulations, but also rolling back significant regulations when it comes to energy, for instance,

and rolling back the clean power plan, the staple of the Obama administration's climate, change legacy so we can have more competitive investments in the energy sector. And again, that's something that he pointed to is the world largest oil and gas producer is the United States. And the consumers are the ones who benefit from that. The gas price right now is $2.5.5 per gallon. And so that's effectively another tax cut for the American people. Having these low energy prices, spending less at the pump means you have more money to spend going out to eat, going shopping, spending on health care, spending on food, whatever the case may be. This is great news for the American consumer.

Unless you're like me who just got condent to paying $4 per gallon at a gas station on Capitol Hill, I advise all you listeners not to do that, be better than me. I did notice, however, when President Trump was talking about how we are now the number one producer of oil and natural gas, a lot of the Democrats didn't stand. for that. How come? Yeah, Joe Manchin did. I think he was one of the only ones. And it's disappointing. I mean, this is a huge success, even dating back to the Obama administration. I mean, this is happening as a result of the private sector, not really the result of any government policy, but it's been a huge boon for the American economy. Trump mentioned manufacturing jobs are coming back to the United States.

That's because we have cheap, abundant natural gas, which is an important raw material for those chemical and plastic products. The American Chemistry Council said that the investment topped over $200 billion of investment here in the United States, which is absolutely remarkable, meaning hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs. And it's been a huge benefit for our allies, too. We're now exporting more natural gas right now to 30 different countries, which is reducing their dependence on Russian gas. So we're giving our allies more energy choices. And so economically, and geopolitically. This is phenomenal news. It should be bipartisan the fact that we have such an abundance of energy and its affordability for American consumers, households, and

energy-consuming businesses is really what helps grow the economy along with things like cutting the regulations and like the tax cuts bill. Right. And it has such important implications in terms of national security as well, not to be relying on foreign oil. I don't think that can be stated enough. Another thing President Trump say was both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure. Now, we talked about this. We touched on this earlier in the interview, but I want to go back to it because I think a lot of conservatives are nervous that infrastructure is an area where President Trump will sign a huge spending bill and maybe not have enough accountability. and on that front, how do we tread this?

Because it's also a difficult messaging strategy. I think a lot of Americans driving down the highway or going over a bridge. Of course we want these things to be safe. Of course we want them to work. It's something we all want, but we have to balance that with good policy. Yeah, that's right. And part of it is correcting the miscalculation that we have this crumbling infrastructure when the data says otherwise.

So you would fact check him as wrong on that one. The fact check is wrong on crumbling infrastructure, especially at a federal level. I think if you're driving on local roads, you're probably bound to run over a pothole or a few. And that's what frustrates drivers. And then they think it's this national problem. But if you look at our federal highways, our federal bridges, they've actually, most of them are in fair or good condition. And we've actually seen improvements in bridges over the past 25 years. That said, I think there is concern among conservatives that massive spending in an infrastructure package is a bipartisan problem because both Republicans and Democrats like to bring that spending back home and they say, hey, I created these jobs, I invested in this highway or this road project or this mass transit project and brought this money back to my state or district. And that's a very likely scenario under this administration and this Congress. I think what Republicans and conservatives and hopefully Congress in total should be thinking about is how can this be fiscally responsible so they can find offsets to pay for it,

how can they focus the federal role so we're not spending on mass transit, that we're actually focusing on the federal problems at hand, fixing those highways and bridges where there are still problems and there could be improvements made. And then again, what we really, really need is long-lasting regulatory reform because you have investment projects, whether it's roads, highways, pipelines, liquefied natural gas export terminals, all of this infrastructure that's held up in regulatory limbo for one reason or another where it takes years to build these projects. And then they're sued. And so sometimes the litigation can last years.

And that's exactly what we saw with the Keystone XL pipeline, a great example of a project that was deemed environmentally safe by the Obama administration's own State Department. Yet that pipeline is still not operational because of frivolous lawsuits. And so there's so much to do here. If there's any massive spending, we need the right tradeoffs. And hopefully it will be fiscally responsible. But at the same time, we really need long-lasting regulatory reform. Absolutely.

Well, real quick, before we let you go, were there any issues or areas in terms of infrastructure and energy that President Trump didn't touch on that you maybe would have liked to hear? That's a good question. You know, I think the biggest thing is combating what the left is. focused on right now, which is this Green New Deal, and that would take us in the exact opposite direction of what the free market private sector has done for energy consumers, is we've unleashed this energy boom that has been a tremendous benefit to Americans all across the country. A Green New Deal would effectively do the opposite by raising energy prices, raising prices of the

pump, raising your electricity bills, which have negative ripple effects throughout the economy because energy is such a critical component of everything we make and everything we do. So it's good to focus on the positive for sure, and that's what we should be doing. But at the same time, we've had a number of Democrat candidates announcing for president that they're going to endorse this Green New Deal. And I think taking every opportunity to tell America why it's bad policy, both economically and from an environmental standpoint, because it's not going to do anything to mitigate global warming anyway. You should take those chances when you get them.

Absolutely. I think most of us would agree with you on that front. Well, Nick, thank you so much for breaking this down for us. We're going to take a very quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about everybody's favorite issue, The Wall. All right. Joining me now is Hans von Spikoski, who is a leading voice on quite a few issues, including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, and illegal immigration. And legal immigration. Right. Something the president actually spent a lot of time on today. Well, Hans, thanks for taking the time. Your thoughts? I have to tell you, the speech overall was, it was a great speech. And I thought it was very skillfully done, particularly when he went through and listed all the accomplishments of the administration. And there was quite a number. He spent a lot of time on immigration. And, you know, he talked not only about the dangers to,

public safety from having large numbers of illegal aliens coming into the country and giving some very grim statistics on the 266,000 illegal aliens, criminal illegal aliens, just in the last two years, arrested by ICE who have committed a very large number of murders, assaults, sexual assaults, And, you know, on the one hand, he's giving these grim statistics. And in other hand, he's pointing out a woman who he had invited to the speech up in the audience whose parents were just murdered by an illegal alien. So I think that was quite an interesting way to present that. Look, he not only talked about the specific things that needed to be done.

He was talking about more border agents. He's ordered more troops to the border. He's talking about humanitarian assistance, money for a border wall, a whole series of steps to try to solve the problem of illegal aliens. But he also talked about how there's a moral principle here. And I think that's very important. I think it's something the American people agree with. You know, he talked about the fact that it's not compassionate to allow illegal. immigration to go unchecked, particularly the way the Mexican drug cartels control this and with all

the terrible things they do to these aliens when they're trying to get across the border. Do you think he reached that moderate middle on this issue? Because I get the sense that a lot of Democrats just don't believe Republicans or conservatives when they tell them, we really do care about the humanitarian costs of the border crisis. Oh, I think he's being very middle of the wrote on this. Look, he recently offered to give the Democrats something they said they had wanted, which was to have an extension of time, for example, for DACA beneficiaries to stay in the United States. In exchange, he wanted some money for a secure border wall, and they've absolutely rejected that. All of his attempts to compromise, they've basically thrown out. You know,

one of the most interesting things was he talked about, well, he kind of countered this claim by Nancy Pelosi see that others that, oh, a wall would not be effective. Well, he said, you know, they've built portions of a wall in El Paso and San Diego. Her own state. Yeah, and not only have the number of illegal border crossers, they're gone down dramatically. He pointed out that El Paso is now one of the safest cities in the U.S. And as is San Diego. As is San Diego. That's right. I want to read one soundbite that I found really interesting. And it's almost like a taboo way to phrase the idea of border security. But, you know, Trump is not afraid of taboos.

So he said, no issue better illustrates the divide between America's working class and America's political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Oh, no. I think he's I think he's right about that. And it's the the blue collar workers who he's always shown his concern for in so many areas. You know, as he said, I think right after that, you know, they're the ones that have to deal with reduced wages, overcrowded schools, and all the costs that go along with the illegal immigration problem. All right. Well, Hans, I have to keep

this moving because there's two other issue areas I want to make sure I touch on with you. The next one is Russia. So another sound bite from Trump, he said, an economic miracle is taking place in the United States. And the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations, clearly referencing the Trump-Russia so-called collusion. Investigation, right. Yeah, which you have been covered. covering closely. I thought that was a good way to kind of mention it without sounding petty. Yeah, no, and I understand, look, I understand the president's frustration after more than a year and a half, you know, the special counsel still has not turned up a single piece of evidence on

what he was supposed to be investigating, which was supposed to collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Yeah, he's turned out, he's turned up other. wrongdoing, but it's all wrongdoing of particular individuals who mostly volunteered to work with a campaign that had nothing to do with the campaign. So I can understand that. And, you know, he didn't mention, but we should talk about the fact that, you know, you have Democrats saying, oh, they want to start introducing impeachment bills in the House. Well, for what? There's been no commission of any crime by the president. The only reason they give for that is because they disagree with him on public policy issues. And that's not a reason for

impeachment. Right. Well, another issue that I wanted to ask you about was all these judicial nominees who are in an awkward waiting period. So Trump mentioned during the speech that more than 300 highly qualified nominees are still stuck in the Senate. Some of them after years of waiting, Trump said the Senate has failed to act on these nominations, which is unfair to the nominees and to our country. How much does it affect our judicial system to have all these nominees just sitting there waiting for their appointments? Well, it makes it very difficult. I mean, he was talking about both judicial nominees and executive branch nominees. You know, the lack of executive branch nominees makes it very difficult for the president to be able to carry out his duties.

Now, it seems like that's something that Democrats actually want. In the judicial branch, there are a lot of vacancies. And when you don't have judges in those seats, you have justice delayed. And I think most people would agree that that is unfair to everyone involved in the judicial system. And it is not good public policy. And I think it's fundamentally unfair for folks to slow down. slow that down to the Senate for no reason. So there was actually a Senate judiciary hearing today for Naomi Rao, who was the nominee to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit Court.

It was a very interesting hearing. I'm sure you have some thoughts. Senator Cory Booker asked if she believed that same-sex whether same-sex relationships were immoral and sinful, his words, as if personal or religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality. have anything to do with a federal judgeship. And equally as painful to watch was Senator Kamala Harris, who is running for president in 2020, grilling row on what she considers unacceptable ideas that she wrote back in college, such as the radical notion that women bids drinking could lead to some unwanted consequences. Here's a clip of that from Senator Kamala Harris.

You said when having a conversation with Senator Ernst, you said, quote, women should take certain steps to avoid becoming a victim. What steps do you have in mind that women should take to avoid becoming a victim of sexual assault? Senator, it's just sort of a common sense idea about, for instance, excessive drinking. You know, that was advice that was given to me by my mother. So that's one step you believe women should take to avoid becoming a victim of sexual assault? It is just a way to make it less likely. It's not to blame the victim. You know, rape and sexual assault are horrible crimes,

but we're talking about what can you do to keep yourself safe. Are there other steps that you believe women should take to avoid becoming a victim of sexual assault? That is one of the issues that I discussed. I'm not sure if there are others. So do you believe if a woman does not take those steps that she is at fault or partially at fault for what happens to her? No.

So what is the significance of taking those steps? Well, I think it's just the significance of trying to avoid becoming a victim of any crime, right? We take different steps to try to protect ourselves from horrible crimes such as rape. And, you know, and I think what we want is for women to not be victims. Hans, your reaction? You know, it just is amazing

to me the kind of things we hear from senators in the U.S. Senate these days. Some of them are just repugnantly wrong. Like the Corey Booker asking about sins, you know, what someone thinks about sin. It's nothing to do with being a federal judge whatsoever. And Kamala Harris was trying to mislead the American public into trying to claim, and which is a lie, that Naomi Rao was saying

that victims should be blamed for what happened to him. No, she simply said people should not, to try to avoid, in order to avoid being victimized, not put themselves in situation where it's unfortunately easy for that to happen. Right. She doesn't realize that two things. can be true at once. You know, you're not necessarily victim-blaining, you're not victim-blaming at all if you're advising, say, your daughter not to binge drink because it could, in fact, lead to dangerous consequences. Pretty ridiculous the direction these hearings are going towards. All right. Last question, real quick. Is there, was there anything that President Trump didn't address in his speech that you would have liked him to? No, I actually think there's a

very comprehensive speech covering everything from domestic policy issues, particularly important ones like immigration, to talking about foreign policy. I was really struck by the line that he used about great nations should not be in endless wars. And I think that's a quote. I think it's going to go down in the history books and in Bartlett's book of great quotations because I thought that was a very significant thing for him to say. So overall, I thought there was a very good speech. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. When we come back, we will be talking government, spending, and the national debt. I promise we're going to make it fun. Joining me now is Romina Bacha, our leading fiscal and economic expert at the Heritage Foundation,

who focuses on government spending and the national debt. Romina, thank you for joining. Thanks for having me, Kelsey. So on that front, how did President Trump do. I think he did an exceptional job. He highlighted how well the economy is doing and some of the reasons for that. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act being one of the primary drivers of this economic boom that we're experiencing. And contrary to what Democrats continue to try and claim that it was just the tax cuts for the rich, the tax cuts are helping the most vulnerable in society. And President Trump did a really good job highlighting that unemployment numbers are at record lows for blacks, for Hispanics, for women, and even for individuals with disabilities. So

this is a really great economy. And the president's deregulatory actions and the tax cuts have a lot to do with that. Were you surprised that Democrats didn't stand for a number of the economic accomplishments that Trump touted during the speech? I am always surprised to see what goes on over in that chamber. Yeah, I don't know what's not to cheer there. This is a this should be a bipartisan success story, even though the Democrats didn't vote for the tax cuts, and they've tried to undermine the president at every turn on its deregulatory agenda. But the benefits, the outcomes, that's really what should convince them that good economic policy really does lift all boats, the rising tide lifts all boats, and we're seeing this in this country right now.

I mean, the unemployment rate at 3.9% is just unbelievable. When I joined Heritage in 2011, just after a great recession, we were talking about 5% would be a good rate, and that would have been tremendous, and now we're below 4%. It's incredible. Even the latest jobs report, we thought we would see a blip because of the government shutdown. The projections were for only maybe 170,000 jobs added. Over 300,000 jobs were added in January, which is highly unusual. So we're really in the midst of an economic boom. And both Democrats and Republicans should be happy about that. Well, there's one thing that I have a feeling you aren't happy about. And that is President Trump's decision to call for a nationwide paid family leave plan. So that, in his words, so that every child has an opportunity to bond with their newborn child. Of course, all the cameras went to Ivanka at this moment.

We know this is a proposal. that she has been championing. What are your thoughts? My thoughts are that, of course, every family, whether they're giving birth to a new child or adopting a new child, they want to have and should have time to bond with that child. The question is, how do we provide that benefit in the most effective and sustainable manner? And the way the United States is doing that right now is we're really pioneers of providing paid family leave via private. it voluntary means. And in poll after poll, what you find is that what workers truly value is flexibility. They want jobs that meet their needs and desires, and they want to be able

to work with their employers to find an arrangement that works best for that worker. And that is something that a national policy would undermine, because inevitably it's going to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach that frankly doesn't fit everybody. And what we've also seen in countries that have generous paid leave policies is they very quickly get very expensive. A very modest proposal in the United States would cost the average taxpayer about $450 more in taxes per year. But a more generous version, the American Action Forum has calculated, could add $11,000 to the tax bill. I mean, these proposals can quickly grow way beyond their intended size and scope. And so we should cheer on the private sector. In the last three years,

over 100 companies have added paid leave policies. Walmart just announced that they would set up a paid leave account for their workers. So we're seeing great progress in the private sector. We should continue to put policies in place that allow more employers to provide those benefits for their workers rather than a one-size-fits-all government mandate. And there are actually some policies that would do that like universal savings accounts, which should be part of the next stage of tax reform that would allow all workers to save for any family need or other need that they would like in simple, flexible accounts. And also the Working Families Flexibilities Act, that's a bill that's been introduced in the Senate by Senator Mike Lee that has a lot of support.

It basically allows workers to choose between paid time off when they work overtime or getting their compensation in a form of wages. State and local workers have these options. Federal workers have these options, but the Democrats are denying it to hourly wage workers because they want to continue to siphon off union fees. I mean, that's what this is about. Instead of giving workers flexibility, they're catering to unions, which is just wrong and unfair. I'm always so impressed with your knowledge on this very complicated broad area between, you know, debt spending, the economy, how much you know. And even, you know, thinking back through President Trump's speech, he touched on these issues all throughout it that, you know, obviously they weave into every issue that he covers, I think, of the infrastructure spending package. He asked Congress to present him with a bill on that front.

What do you think is important for Americans who watch this speech or maybe did not watch this speech to take away about these issues that you cover? That there are important issues where we can still make a lot of progress. But federal spending, more taxpayer money, and really right now it isn't even taxpayer money. It's future taxpayers' money because we're looking at a trillion dollar dollar. deficit this year alone and more than $13 trillion, so more than an average of a trillion dollars for the next 10 years. We haven't seen deficits like this since the Great Recession. But when it comes to infrastructure, the president's last proposal tried to strike a good balance of 20% federal funding and 80% state, local and private funding, but even that is too much.

what we need to focus on is actions that the administration and Congress can take to enable for more private sector investment. The United States is lagging behind Europe and Asia when it comes to private sector investment and infrastructure. And just to give a really recent example, what ultimately ended the government shutdown was the fact that flights were grounded at LaGuardia, and we've long advocated for air traffic control and TSA to be fully privatized. could regulate it, but it doesn't have to be run by the government and staffed with federal employees. So that's one area airport security and air traffic control, where I would hope the president will work with Congress to put in place a more effective system. Canada has it. Most European airports use privatized security and air traffic control. It works great at lower

costs. It's overdue that the United States get on board. Sounds reasonable to me. Last question. real quick. What do you wish President Trump maybe touched on in your issue areas that he didn't, that he left out? I think the big elephant in the room is the national debt. It's growing out of control. We are now quickly approaching $22 trillion, and the debt limit will be reinstated at the beginning of March. And I'm very worried that we'll see a repeat from two years ago with the president caved to democratic demands on the omnibus, and they increased discretionary spending, which covers defense, education, transportation, lots of programs, by 15%, $300 billion over two years, all of which was new deficit spending. And we're looking at a trillion dollar deficit just this

year growing rapidly. And why do I care about this? Because the national debt has real implications for economy. We don't feel it right now because the economy is strong, but it is impacting long-run growth, which means what we're benefiting from now, these low unemployment rates, great opportunity for Americans to start their own businesses, to get new jobs, to get higher wages. All of that will be imperiled if we don't get the debt under control. And that's an issue that the president didn't talk about at all tonight, which has me very worried. Well, in general, it seems like you're optimistic. You know, there are, I hate ending on a low note.

But, you know, the economy is doing great. We really appreciate your input on all this. There's a lot going on here in the short conversation we just had, but I encourage anybody listening to go check out Ramina's work at the Heritage Foundation and learn more. Thank you, Kelsey. Thank you. When we come back, we will talk all things foreign policy.

We are back with Peter Brooks, a senior fellow in National Security Fairs at the Heritage Foundation. He does quite a lot of work on quite a lot of areas. Peter, thank you for joining. Good to be here. So you are a national security expert. I want to get your broad thoughts on the speech, you know, from the foreign policy perspective. I thought it was quite comprehensive. I mean, I think he touched on about 10 or so.

different topics, you know, in a limited amount of time that he has because he had to cover so many things. So I think it was really comprehensive. It gave us some ideas about them. The things that are at the top of his list. They were certainly at the top of my list. I think we're in agreement of those 10 or 11. Those are the ones I probably would have touched upon. One of those issues was rebuilding the military, which, you know, we were in a difficult place coming out of the Obama administration. Where are we now? And did Trump had a good message on that front. Well, look, you know, we've been at war for a long time now, going back 2001 when I was at the Pentagon during the Bush administration. 17 years, it's been tough on the troops, the families,

and the equipment. That's one of the things. So the president has made equipment to put the best to the, the, made a commitment to put the best equipment in the hands of our fighting forces. And he's doing that. He's raised the defense budget to $716 billion this year. And that's particularly important, not only for our troops, but because of the rise of near peer competitors. I'm talking about Russian China. You know, for years and years we were talking about terrorism, insurgencies. Now we're talking about great power competitions. So it's critically important.

The other thing the president brought up, which he feels very strongly about, and I do as well, is burden sharing. The United States, you know, a lot of countries around the world, our allies are not spending what they should be spending on defense. It often talks about Europe. They have committed to spending 2% of their gross domestic product GDP on defense. And of the nearly 30 countries in NATO, Five or so are doing it. So the president has been pushing them, and that's the right thing to do.

And he's gotten promises of increases of defense spending in places like NATO, which faces the threat of Russia. I'm going to go through a couple different countries that the president touched on. And starting with Russia and China, do you think he effectively communicated what we're up against in this front? Well, that's hard in a speech like this. There's so many topics to get into. And when you talk about China, you talk about trade, which is an important issue.

I won't get into it because I do more security. but he's right about trade the way the Chinese treat American firms and the imbalances we have and barriers we have to doing business in China. But he didn't talk about the security issues there. But China permeates a lot of different things, including North Korea. Russia, he's talked about the Russian cheating on the INF Treaty, the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty, which goes back to the Reagan administration. In 1987, the Russians started cheating on it.

The Obama administration had a hard time calling him out on it. And we finally did. And we said we've given them five years. negotiating to come back into compliance. We told them December, if you don't do within 90 days, we're out, and we're getting out. So the president was clear about that. So when people say we haven't been tough on Russia, I'm not quite sure what they're talking about. Well, here's a country. I know you've been following very closely for a long time, North Korea. I want to read a sound by, I guess quote that President Trump said in regards to North Korea. I found interesting. If I had not been

elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, being a major war with North Korea with potentially millions of people killed. Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong-un is a good one. And Chairman Kim and I will meet again on February 27th and 28th in Vietnam, not very far away. Right. We don't know what city yet, so you can't close out those office pools. A lot of people were trying to figure out where it was going to be, every place from Kazakhstan to Singapore to Vietnam. We don't have a city yet. And I think our negotiator is actually working on that right now. He's supposed to be in Pyongyang to talk about that in final detail. So the president didn't have the city. There's a couple of cities up there. But this is a very

heavy lift. There's no question about it. North Korean has been a problem for a long time. The president has engaged with Kim Jong-un in Singapore last June. We haven't seen any missile or nuclear tests in quite some time. There's been a reduction of 10. tensions on the Korean Peninsula. And the last thing anybody wants is a Korean War. So the president believes he can bring the North Koreans to the table and negotiate, make progress on negotiation, further reducing tensions, hopefully to denuclearize them. But that is a very tough challenge for this president or any president. Do you think he's giving himself too much credit there? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Like I said, he's reduced tensions. We don't have the

North Koreans talking about turning Washington into a sea of fire or the president calling Kim Jong-un Rocket Man. You know, there's been some progress between South Korea and North Korea and reducing tensions. We haven't seen these sort of tests, but like I said, there's still a long way to go. So the president feels like his personal relationship is important in this and that the summits could lead to some sort of breakthrough, and we should hope that it does. Well, as a resident of Washington, D.C., that makes me feel a little better about sleeping at night. Sees the fire and things like that. Yeah. So in terms of the Middle East, President Trump, I think this was very honest of him to say it's

one of the most complex areas and challenges that we face. He talked about the number of American heroes whose lives we have lost. You know, over 52,000 Americans have been badly wounded there. And we've spent more than $7 trillion. He said he pledged a new approach. He said, great nations do not fight endless wars. What do you think of his approach there? Well, look, we want peace in the Middle East. We want stability. We want to protect and advance American interests. You know, there are peace negotiation going on in Afghanistan, and that's the only real way to end the war. Most wars don't end, are not solved through military action. They are facilitators to bring people to the peace table to end the war. There are those negotiations going on right now between the Afghan government and

the Taliban, and we're playing a role there. We certainly like to see that war, which started in 2001, and, you know, Iraq, Syria, there's so many different challenges. Iran, that's another, that's another area. I mean, Iran is one of the largest and the most important and significant international threats to security around. We've seen some people from the left recently come out and challenge that, try to downplay the threat that Iran poses right now. Do you disagree? Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Iran is one of the greatest threats to international security from cyber.

Most people don't think about Iran and cyber, but they're active. They're involved in Yemen. They're supporting the rebel groups in Yemen. They're in Syria. They're the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism. Hezbollah, Hamas, maritime security in the Persian Gulf. Their nuclear program. They had a nuclear program.

They lied about it for years. they are a significant threat out there and people don't talk about it. And people believe that the Obama administration's nuclear deal would modify, would change, would improve Iran's international behavior. And it hasn't. That's the problem besides the other flaws in the nuclear agreement. So the president said, hey, I'm out of this. And I think it was the right decision.

And working with allies and others, we need to make Iran change course. Syria is another difficult, difficult spot. So here's what President Trump said about Syria. When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria. Today we have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty killers. Now, as we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home. Right. at the right time and when the conditions are right. The concern is that we don't want to leave

before the job is done. We have to keep pressure on ISIS. I think we learned a lesson in 2011 when Barack Obama pulled American troops out of Iraq. And we saw al-Qaeda in Iraq, which had been really taken apart by American forces, come back together, and eventually morph into ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And we remember the times of 2014, 2015, 2016, when there were terror attacks around the world, not only the terror that they were perpetrating in Syria and Iraq, but other places. ISIS had a home game in Syria and Iraq and an away game in places like Europe and the United States. Think about San Bernardino. Think about Orlando. And then, of course, the attacks that we had in Europe. So the president really has taken ISIS apart. I think we have to continue to

keep pressure, just like in Afghanistan, concerns about ISIS and al-Qaeda. We have to keep pressure on ISIS in Syria and Iraq so that they don't come back in another, in a similar form to what they were they were before. Last question real quick. Are there any areas in terms of foreign policy that President Trump did not mention that you wish he did? No, I don't think so. And I was surprised and glad that he mentioned Venezuela. I mean, that's very topical right now. And he said, this is in our neighborhood.

Venezuela isn't far from the United States. There's a terrible humanitarian crisis going on there. There's a political crisis. There are many Venezuelan Americans that have concerns. It's a socialist regime. And I think that plays into some of his talk about turning American into a socialist country. And I think that it's important what we're doing there. And hopefully we'll see a peaceful, nonviolent transition to free and fair elections under Juan Guido, who is the interim president that we've recognized, along with a lot of other countries. So America's leading there. I'm glad he mentioned it. It's very timely. It's very topical. And we wish all the best for the people of Venezuela. We know they need relief. Peter, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thank you all for tuning into this State of the Union Facebook live edition of the Daily Signal. We appreciate you spending the time with us. If you liked this, we'll be releasing it on podcast tomorrow on the Daily Signal's podcast channel.

Share it with your friends. Help us get these really incredible voices out there. I always learn a lot from talking to you and all the other experts. Very lucky to have this job here. We hope you enjoyed it too and had a great state of the union. Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country. And that's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us feedback.

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