The Munk Debates Podcast - The ICE detention of Mahmoud Khalil, Democrats in disarray, and can tariffs actually benefit the working class?

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

On this episode we're joined by Bernie Sanders's former presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver and Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel to debate the biggest news stories of the week.   The host of this episode is Ricki Gurwitz To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk listeners. Ricky Gurw is here. I'm sitting in for Richard Griffiths. And today's episode, we are featuring two very thoughtful and informed guests with vastly different perspectives on politics and culture. We are joined by Kim Strassel. She's a columnist with the Wall Street Journal. And a familiar voice here at the Monk debates, Jeff Weaver, who was the campaign manager for Bernie Sanders's 2016 campaign. He was an advisor on his 2020 campaign. He has a long history as a Democratic Party strategist, and we're so fortunate to have you both with us today. Welcome to the program. Great to be here. So when I first reached out to Jeff to tell him that, you know, we're having Kim on the program, would he join us? I said it would be so nice to have people with different perspectives, and he said different perspectives, we're in different universes. This is true? So today we're going to try bridge some of that universe gap. And I want to start with Mahmoud Khalil because this is a story that's raised so many questions about free speech and the government's authority to deport someone based on their, what some argue is thought crime.

What others say is a clear, you know, will to undermine Western civilization and democracy. So, Jeff, I'm going to come to you first. Where do you stand on the ICE detention of Mahmoud Khalil? All right. So in truth and advertising, I got my started politics as a young activist in the mid-80s, an anti-apartheid activist at Boston University. I was expelled from Boston University for civil disobedience. So I am somewhat – I have strong feelings about college protests and the right students to express themselves on college campuses. And I think it is crazy.

We've heard from the right for a long time about how there's a suppression of thought, of right-wing thought on college campuses. But now we see the Trump administration coming in, and when there's thoughts that they don't like, they're happy to not only suppress those thoughts, but throw people out of the country. So I think it's whether you agree with them or not, and I'm not telling you I agree with everything he has to say or everything he's done, or every flyer he's handed out, apparently has been some controversial flyers. I certainly would not condone.

There's no reason to throw somebody out. We need a free exchange of ideas in this country. and folks who are here, particularly people with green cards and students, they should have right to express themselves peacefully. And we should not be punishing people for that. Kim, do you have anything to say to respond to Jeff? Yeah. And first of all, let me just say that while Jeff and I might be in different universes, I've always loved the fact that they are respectful universes. And it's a real joy to get to sit and exchange ideas here.

And also, I'm just so happy that the Monk debate does these sort of things so that you can have that. kind of exchange of ideas. I tend to try to divide this in a different way. Instead of just focusing on speech or is it right or wrong, I like to look at, first of all, is there a legal basis for this? And then secondly, is there a good policy or precedent for doing this? Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea. I think on matters of the law, there's very little question here. There is litigation going on. But here's the reality that while aliens in the United States hear lawfully, whether you're here on a permanent visa with a green card, whether you're here on a temporary visa, you are entitled to certain free speech

and due process protections, but they are not as expansive as what are provided to American citizens. And there's a clear provision in the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that says the Secretary of State can deem anybody that he wants, who is. on here on a visa, whether permanent legal status or otherwise, someone that would have adverse consequences to foreign policy and therefore remove them. So I think some of the discussion about the legality this, look, we're going to go through the court system. But at the end of the day, if they choose to want to remove this guy, and this goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, the president's powers are at their greatest when he is acting in the capacity of national security or are at

borders. I don't think there's any question that Khalil, that they have the authority to remove him. That is different from whether or not this is a good idea. And I'm glad to see that there is due process going on here. I think we need more of the facts to know exactly what he did. I would argue a lot of people would have put in very different categories. Conservatives on campus who have felt as though they can't even express a view in a classroom without adverse consequences on their grades or their standing at that university versus somebody who is actively handing out flyers glorifying a terrorist organization, Hamas, calling for direct action and setting up encampments in which Jewish students were not allowed to walk through them and infringement

of their own civil rights. That's a very different category. I would also just throw one last thing in here. I don't think we'd be dealing with any of this, and it wouldn't have gone to the level of the federal government and this kind of high profile of case. If Columbia had stepped in and done something about this in the beginning and actually disciplined some of these students, allowed the arrest to go forward,

because that's another provision of immigration law, as if you are found guilty of a crime, you are at grave risk of losing your visa as well, too. and I think simply the history of his actions there might well have led down that road in the first place before we got to the point we are now. Yeah, let me just say, you know, I do think there is obviously there is expansive authority or the part of the executive branch in terms of dealing with foreign policy. The law is not quite as open-ended as I think Kim suggests. I believe it talks about a rational basis for believing that this person's a danger. And so whenever you have that kind of language, it's clear that the court.

have a role in this to decide, you know, what that means in this particular context. So it's not like they can just throw somebody out whatever they want. That's not what the law says. And there is an opportunity for judicial review. And we're going to have that judicial review. And I do hope that the courts will, you know, there is a somewhat of a present case back in the 80s that was done by David Cole, who's every famous constitutional lawyer involving Palestinian students who the government was trying to throw out of the country for advocating for Palestinian independence. And those students ultimately prevail.

So let's hope that that continues at precedent. My only point is, I think, look, in order to change this, there have been cases, Jeff is right, where people have argued that that language in that law is too vague that the Secretary of State has too much authority. And in fact, interestingly, one of the judges who ruled that was the sister of Donald Trump. She was overturned on appeal, and including, I believe, by an appeals court that included Justice Alito at the time. And my point is only that I think if this case were to go up to the Supreme Court, the notion that you would get five members of the court who would claim that that current statute gives too much authority is very, very minimal,

especially given that we have actively used that provision many times in the past. In particular, there was a lot of deportations. You can argue if this was right or wrong in the 1950s, members of the Communist Party. So a lot of people will say now that this is very reminiscent of McCarthyism, what you just alluded to, you know, this kind of... Sure. Right. So I guess my next question to you, Kim, is are we setting, regardless of the legality of this

and if it actually gets passed, is this setting a very dangerous precedent that the government can now come after people whose views they don't disagree, don't agree with? Well, look, I think it's only a bad precedent if it's open-ended and you do not know. why people are being deported or the rationale shifts or changes. And by the way, that's a risk with this current government. Donald Trump says there will be more, but there hasn't been more deportations and he hasn't been very clear on what grounds. Again, I think a lot of people would look at the case of this particular individual and in many Americans, average Americans on the common sense test, would have a hard time defending him, in particular, given his actions.

But how far does that go? And that's the worry. Look, we have millions of grain card holders in the United States. And to have to get up every day and live in concern that some action you took may be grounds for deportation, I think injects a crazy level of insecurity and uncertainty into that system. So look, if they're going to make their arguments here. And I just hope that some very clear, rationales come out of that so that people know what is allowed and what is not allowable. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more because otherwise, you know, people are subject also to the vagaries of elections in the sense of, you know, assume you had somebody here who was, you know, against the current Cuban regime and you had a president that suddenly wanted to change U.S. policy toward Cuba. And suddenly he starts throwing out all these people who have a different view.

We start, you know, emptying out Cubans from Flora, or Cuban Americans from Flora, Cuban green card holders in Florida because they disagree with U.S. foreign policy. I mean, it's a ridiculous position. So I do hope that there's some clarity. And I do hope that this is. What do you think of this is, I've heard this argument that if this person had been a German citizen with a green card, he was a white supremacist and he was arrested on January 6th of 2020 in the insurrection. Do you think that the liberal community that is so outraged?

with the arrest of Mahmoud and Khalil would come to their support if the, if the, if it was under this other circumstance. Well, I have very strong views about January 6th, frankly, you know, as a foreign military person and a student in history, you know, Robert Lee and the treasonous people in the southern part of the country spent four years trying to raise that stars and bars over the capital. And those folks on January 6 brought that flag of treason right into the, to the, to the halls of Congress. So I have very strong feelings about January 6th. It was an insurrection. It was America's Beer Hall push. It was an attempt to overthrow the government. And I do think that the people there,

I mean, Trump has pardoned them also. It's a moot point. But I do think that if one of the great failures of the Biden administration was not to hand out a lot of treason charges and to attempt to prison people for a long, long time. So if a foreign national comes here and attempts, in my view, to help overthrow the United States government, they clearly should be expelled. Whether whether they're right left or center. One thing I just also throw in here, too, which I think is important is you have to step back and ask why that provision is in the law for deportation. And I am not suggesting that Mahmoud Khalil falls into this category. But having elevated this case to where it is now and not taking any action, and again, this is why I think it's unfortunate that Columbia didn't deal with this at a time and in a fashion that would have handled it in a less public and,

less explosive way. But now, if you do nothing, the reason that provision is in the law is to make very clear to actual legitimate terrorist groups that it's a bad idea to try to send people over here whose only interest, to Jeff's point is fomenting dissension, fomenting overthrow, essentially working on behalf of the terrorist organization's ambition of bringing down the great Satan. So again, I'm not in any way suggesting that he has a direct affiliation or sent over to do that. I want to be very clear. But one of the reasons that we have this, and it must occasionally be enforced, is to make clear to terrorist groups overseas that that provision of the law is being monitored and that this is not a good idea to try to engage in disruption in that way.

I mean, look, the danger here, we have a bad history on the States of during times of conflict scapegoating people who we perceive part of the other. And certainly Japanese Americans in the Second World War, you know, Kim talked about communists or people who do communists during the Red Scare. You know, we have a very bad history here, and we have to be very cautious about how we proceed. Yeah, I agree, except for that one thing I still think keeps getting muddied in this debate is a difference between speech and action. And this group was involved in that encampment at Columbia University, which did indeed impede the rights of other students and was an engagement in anti-Semitism. Okay, I want to just move on because we could spend the whole episode talking about Mahmoud Khalil,

but there are so many other things I want to get to. Kim, you recently wrote a Wall Street Journal article, and the title was Why Democrats Are in the Wilderness. And I thought this would be an interesting, you know, way to get at the problems plaguing the Democratic Party and also Jeff can offer some of his valuable insight into why that's happening. So why don't you start with why you think the Democrats are flailing? Sure. I mean, look, often when a party has the kind of defeat that Democrats had in November, and by the way, Republicans have had their fair share of these two, the wise thing to do is to step back and do an autopsy of what went wrong,

whether or not those always translate into actionable items or ones that the party is willing to proceed with is different. But at least take a moment of reflection and have some process where you say what happened. What we have at the moment is Democrats were beat. They certainly feel that defeat. But yet their only sort of going forward approach right now is we must oppose Donald Trump no matter what. My argument is that you cannot effectively oppose Donald Trump in his worldview unless you have already come up with a compelling worldview of your own. The one that the Democratic Party had and led them up to November was not connecting with American voters turned off a lot of American voters. Democrats have not taken the time to figure out

what they're going to stand for instead. We hear a lot of talk about, well, we're going to reconnect with the working class voters. But, you know, they have claimed to be the working class party all along. And that's clearly not translating in part because of commitments to issues like DEI and climate change, which again, we're hearing a lot of words about common sense voters these days. They simply cannot go so far as to believe that men should be in women's sports and that you shouldn't be able to drive your internal combustion car anymore because somebody in Washington said so. And those are working class voters' views. And just to add one last point, I would argue that one reason they have not been able to formulate a worldview is that

they have over the past 20 years slowly picked off everyone, almost everyone in their party that might be named a legitimate moderate. We saw the last two get run out of town to the Senate in this last election, mostly because they didn't think that they'd survive, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema, who were mercilessly opposed by the progressive left for taking any views that were outside the orthodoxy. That's been what's happened to moderate Democrats. There really are none left with any national standing in the party. And so if you're talking about a new approach and new ideas,

it's unclear who you turn to at this point to have that happen. I can say who you turn to. Look, I'll tell you a problem. And I think Kim and I will probably agree on this point, which I'm about to make. I don't want to put words in their mouth. But, you know, there are many, many people in the Democratic Party side in leadership who have zero.

zero credibility with working class people in this country. And that is why it is so difficult for the Democratic Party to rebrand itself because you have the same people out there peddling the new brand who were peddling the old fail brand. And people didn't like the old brand and they're not confident that these same people are actually offering something new. And in fact, in many cases, they're not offering something to do. Look, where we are, we're at a very pivotal moment in American politics, I think, transcends the normal left-right definitions that we've gone by for so long.

You know, working leaders of both party of the last 40 years have led economies that have seen a decline in standards of living for working class people. People are flailing looking for an alternative. Center right and center left politics are ultimately failures. And so, you know, the choice now is whether we move the Democratic Party into a more stridently or well-defined economic populist position, while at the same time embracing what the Democratic Party used to be for, which was a sort of social libertarianism, as opposed to the preachy, not only do you have to let me live the way I want to live, you also have to embrace the way I want to live, a position that they have been in over the last 15 or 20 years. We have got to what one person does in their castle, you know, as long as it doesn't impede on somebody else is what they want to do in their castle. and, you know, we'll have to work out where the properties meet, where the people's rights of one person, intersexual and another person.

Those are the lines we have to define. But otherwise, you know, we have to live and let live. We've got rid of cancel culture. Social media has contributed to this. Everybody's got a judgment about everybody else. And you know what, frankly, you know, to paraphrase Governor Walsh, like, mind your own damn business. That's where we've got to get to. You've got to get to, like, you live your life.

I'll live mine. I won't judge you. You don't judge me. if there's a conflict between, like a real conflict, then let's work that out on the margins. And then in terms of economics, we need to move in a much more economically populist direction that ensures that everybody has an opportunity to participate in an economy based on shared prosperity. And I'm hearing Democrats say that. But one thing that's notable to me is that they seem to apply it only to cultural social issues that are coming on right now.

So I've seen a lot of Democrats come out of this election and say, okay, we'll stop talking about men and women's sports, transgender issues. That's just one that didn't work for us. But here's the thing, and that's my question I have to you, what you just said sounds great to me, except for where does the rubber hit the road on policy? Like right now, we've got Bernie Sanders, the kind of the king of economic populism, out doing a tour. he's not giving up on climate change, which is not in any way Democrats letting people live their life. It's Washington saying, you'll drive this car and you must buy this washing machine and you can't have this sort of appliance anymore. And you must get all of these things that we're all going to shut down oil and gas drilling. He's not giving up on that.

Or, for instance, there are millions, tens of millions of working class union workers out there that want to keep there privately, provided health care insurance, but Bernie Sanders wants to take it away and have Medicare for all. And again, I mean, so it sounds good. You do you. I'll do me. But I don't see the Democratic Party giving up on those giant policy ambitions that are fundamentally restructuring everybody's life in the vision of the world that they have. Well, look, you know, we will have political arguments about economic policy. You know, Medicare for all, for instance, you know, look, I mean, I'm in the camp, as you probably could guess, that, you know, believes we have a parasitic, inefficient, terrible system. Some studies show it kills 60,000 people a year in the United States

having the health care we have. The Canadian listeners on this show, you know, this show are nodding their heads, yes. So you will have a fight about that. Should there be private insurance? I don't know. I think not, but because it's wasteful and inefficient. And will there be some kind of transition to that that takes a longer period of time that Bernie Sanders has proposed? Yeah, maybe there might be. Maybe there might be different car belts. Maybe there might be this. But that's a debate that we can have about a single-payer health care.

I do think it is different than the social issues, frankly. On climate change, you know, is there a different way to implement climate change? I have long been an advocate of the, let's do the things that people don't see first. Let's deal with power generation in this country. When you flick on your light in your house, you don't know whether that power comes from sun. wind, coal or oil or whatever, it doesn't affect anybody's life, assuming that the price is reasonable, right? When you flip the light on in your house, you don't know where the power comes from. Just like the way we dealt with acid rain in this country. You know, there was a big

problem with acid rain in this country, largely the power generation. We solve that problem. Does anybody today be like, oh, no, we've got to go back and we'll live with acid rain because it was some great imposition. No, there are ways to do this. And I get that, you know, we get lost in the rhetoric of this. But I do think there is common ground among people of goodwill to deal with these problems. But it is not the position of goodwill to say that climate change is not a problem that does not need to be addressed. I mean, that is just that's just not true. But the bottom line, as you're saying, is that on these big issues, the Democratic Party is still right to be out there telling everyone how they're going to live their life on policy.

We live in democracy. You go out there and you articulate a position. The voters can accept it or reject it. Too often these days they're forced into a position where they're forced to pick a lesser of two evils, which I understand is unsatisfying for people. But yes, like the planet is warming. We need to figure out how to deal with that as a, that is not only a country, but a world. So to say that that's not a problem, I think, is. You're responsible.

But that's my political view. That's my moral view. You can have a different one. And we'll go to the ballot box and we'll fight it out. That's all. And we can just argue about it on the month-based podcast. But I want to move on to our third and final topic, which is the big T word. And, you know, I'm sitting here from Toronto, Canada, and people here are, they're scared because of this on-off, on-off directive from the Trump administration.

No one knows what is coming tomorrow. or the next day. So let's talk about tariffs. America first. Let's talk. How do tariffs actually benefit the middle and working class, as the Trump administration hopes to do? Jeff, let's start with you. Well, look, I do think there is a role, there has historically been a role for tariffs in order to prevent the deindustrialization of high-wage countries. And we saw that in the free trade era in this country. We saw manufacturing fleeing around the world. It happens not to be a problem vis-a-vis Canada, frankly, or Europe, in my view, but it really, an issue of high-wage countries versus low-wage countries.

So is there a role for tariffs in protecting jobs in high-wage countries? Yes. Is there a role for tariffs, frankly, in helping low-wage, less-developed countries to develop? I mean, if you look at the advanced industrial countries in this world, how many of them really developed in a free trade environment. England, nope, United States, no, France, nope, almost nobody becomes an advanced industrial country in a free, I mean, there are a couple of exceptions in a free trade environment. So the tariffs are good for many developing countries to protect their internal industry. So there is a role. Is what Trump doing rational, sane, economically smart? It's it's

idiocy. And it only exposes the fact that this guy is, you know, he's a block-headed, autocratic idiot who really doesn't know what he's talking about. He wants to tax a dairy imports from Canada. Well, we don't have any dairy imports to Canada, which is hilarious. He could make them 10 million percent tariffs on dairy from Canada. It wouldn't affect anybody because we don't import any dairy from Canada, or almost none. So, I mean, the tariffs are on one day. They're off the next day. I get why the Canadians are frustrated. I grew up right on the border, 60 miles south of Montreal and Vermont in an open border environment. We used to go back and forth. Gas was cheaper on one side, one year, it was cheaper on the other side the next year.

He would shop back and forth. So I think trade across borders is good. I think what Trump is doing is lunacy. But in the abstract, is there a role for tariffs in certain contexts? Yes. Kim, the Wall Street Journal is pretty critical of tariffs. Do you share that view? Well, I think there's a, yeah. I mean, I think there's a, but there's a lot of different buckets here. I think one is the purpose. And look, when Donald Trump first came in, he was using them as a stick to get people to engage in some behavior that he wanted to see bettered. So, for instance, we saw the initial threats against Mexico and a few other countries that they weren't going to take some of these illegal immigrants back into their countries. They pretty quickly said they would. It looked as though that threat then went away. Right. He's using it as a negotiation. tactic. What's that? He was using it as a negotiating tactic. Negotiating tactic. Where it gets a lot dodgier is when Donald Trump, and this is new this time around in this, in this administration,

or at least the extent to which he's now talking about this. Donald Trump talks about tariffs are good in and of itself. As some amazing revenue generator and the way to make the economy hum, we do not really have any historical evidence for that tariffs. I mean, let's talk about the history of Smoot-Hawley. there are real problems. Look, and for the very reasons that the Jeb actually lods tariffs is one of the reasons I have a problem with them. I'll give you a good example. Like, we have a sugar industry in the United States run by some very wealthy individuals. We can't compete with any number of countries around the world whose climates are better suited to be making sugar and in vast quantities. And so we do all of this stuff to protect this little industry, which completely undermines the entire idea of trade, right?

There are some countries that are better positioned to make some things than others. I mean, you know, we have to buy rubber from outside this country. I mean, I guess we could turn all of Florida into a giant rubber-producing farm. But to what benefit for anybody when we can buy it from people who make it more cheaply? and we send things to them that we do more cheaply or better. And for instance, a lot of the things that we have benefited on in recent years are a manufacturing high-tech manufacturing where we are the crown jewel of the world. That's what we want to be exporting.

But don't you want to make America less dependent on other economies for some of their most, you know, vital products? Like why? I've heard that, you know, that's one of the reasons Trump is doing this. He wants to protect America against a potential supply chain crisis in the future. Yeah, look, I think there's a legitimate conversation to have about that rare earth minerals, et cetera, especially if part of that discussion is then aimed at making sure America is using its own resources. We have rare earth minerals in this country. We just haven't been allowed to use them because the left is locked up most of the land,

and they protest against any mining projects. So I'm all for that. I think that there are certain reasons to be looking at national security questions. The worry is when that gets extended to everything. I mean, I think sugar is a good example. Is sugar really a national security worry? I don't know. But once you start that bowl rolling, then you can use national security as a justification to protect almost any industry. Why are we not as productive as other people in the steel business, for instance? Because we have a very inefficient steel producing industry that is dominated by unions that ask for a lot of perks and privileges and makes us uncompetitive next to other people. But the final problem is you get trade wars.

And that's what we're looking at right now. I mean, we're just escalating. Well, you know, the Europeans now have got a first tranche, second tranche. The Canadians have decided what they're going to tariff. And now Donald Trump has said, oh, really, you raised us 50 percent. I will raise you 50 percent. more. That is the direction we are headed. And the question is when somebody is going to pull back and rationalize some of this. I think some of Kim's points are valid. But look, it is always true that you have a financial advantage, economic advantage in production, when you can pay people nothing. And the truth of the matter, as much of this fight about tariffs, you know, Trump's upset about drug companies in Ireland and companies in China making things. He's really not mad at the Chinese or at the Irish.

These are American companies who have fled America to take advantage of either favorable tax rules or favorable wage rates or blacks environmental standards and all these places. Really what's going on here is that Trump is trying to get these Americans. He's not saying it in this way. He's using jingoistic lingo. But really, what he's trying to do is get American companies to bring their production back into the United States. Now, we let them go years ago. And it was a big mistake. I think Democrats who were engaged, you know, who supported that now.

are looking back on it with a lot of remorse because we hollowed out America. But, you know, tariffs can be a short-term effective tool to coerce those people to come back to where they should be. Well, it already seems to have been working because people, there are companies that are coming back. Jeff just said something really important except for I'd hone in on one part of it. Look, you want to send one of the greatest influxes of capital back to the United States happened in the wake of 2017 Trump tax cuts the first time around because we changed our international taxation system so that we weren't penalizing companies for actually working in this country.

Now, of course, Democrats would like to reverse a lot of that. They call the giveaway to the rich. But my argument is, yes, I guess you can try to force this through tariffs, but there are many other policies that are far more effective at encouraging companies to come back to the United States than getting in a trade war with a lot of our partners around the world. We could abolish the minimum wage. We could get rid of environmental standards. We could end the corporate income tax.

We can do all those things. I'm sure the Wall Street General's editorial page would be cheering. But that is not the kind of country that we want to live in. Yeah. I don't think anybody is advocating for abolishing the minimum wage or getting rid of all environmental regulations. I think when we have these nuanced discussions, it's more about these particular rules that are very bad for this economy, these particular demands in one sector from unions that are over the top.

It's not about getting rid of everything. It's about having a rational discussion about some of the barriers to investment in the United States. I just have to give one second shout out to my friends in the sugar world. It is true that a bunch of sugar. Billionaires in the sugar world. I said big companies in Florida, the fanjoules and others, half of sugar in America is made from Sugar Beach, which are grown by small farmers in places like North Dakota and Maine and other things. It's a very hard way of life.

They produce an excellent product, which is indistinguishful in the bag from the product you get from Florida from the sugar cane. And those folks do deserve support. Okay. On that note, we're kind of hitting against our time today. This has been a really fascinating conversation. I've learned so much, and it's been so nice to have the two of you offer very different perspectives on some of the biggest issues making news today. So thank you, Kim. Thank you, Jeff, for joining us on the Monk Debates podcast. Thanks, Ricky. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you. Thanks, as always.

The Monk debates are a project of the Aurea and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundations. Rudyard Griffiths and Ricky Gerwitz are the producers. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.