Will Cain Country - How Robby Starbuck Is Dismantling DEI In Corporate America, Plus Does President Trump & His Economic Team Have A Grand Plan?

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Story #1: Markets go up and down. Empires rise and fall. Can America be saved from the economical trappings that befall most empires or is today's potential "Black Monday" the beginning of the end? Story #2: The man behind the pushback of 'Woke' and forced corporate America to abandon DEI: A conversation with Filmmaker and creator of 'The War On Children' & Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Robby Starbuck.  Story #3: The NCAA Men's Basketball Championship is tonight as Florida battles Houston to claim ultimate victory in March Madness. Who will win the 'Friends of The Will Cain Show' bracket? Plus, Two-a-Dayz gives his review of 'Tombstone.'  Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Subscribe to The Will Cain Show on YouTube here: Watch The Will Cain Show! Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash-brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. One, markets up, markets down. Economies weak, economy's strong. Empires rise. Empire's fall, can we thread the needle of saving America?

Two, the man behind the pushback on Woke, the man who led the boycotts over DEI policies for much of corporate America, has he got? Disney, Target, Tractor Supply, also on the right path for America. Three, March Madness, it comes down to two. The weatherman, Adam Klotz, the host, Will Kane, and our review. from the men who have never seen Tombstone. It is the Will Cane Show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Every Monday through Thursday at 12 o'clock Eastern Time, set a reminder, join us.

Make us part of your day. Come hang out in the comments section, become a member of the Willisha. Also, on radio, some three. dozen stations across this great United States of America, but always on demand by subscribing at Apple or on Spotify. We have a fascinating show for you today, filmmaker and creator of the War on Children. He's now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is Robbie Starbuck, and he has led many of the boycotts from the right on policies

and companies that have embraced DEI. Many, many corporations have bent to his will, changed their policies when they were exposed as woke. What's his current fight? What's the current status of corporate America? And as we speak, markets are fluctuating up, markets are fluctuating down. A little bit earlier today. The U.S. S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial average were up and down roughly in the range of 2 to 3%. Over night, the Chinese stock market dropped 7%. The Hong Kong stock market dropped 13%. turmoil in Europe as well, all over President Donald Trump's tariff policy. Can we make sense?

Can we make sense of the short-term economic impact? Are we headed for a recession? What type of rebound do we normally expect when we head into this type of recession? But also, let's even broaden the scope out further. Let's talk about the rise and fall of empires, the Dutch, the British, the American. can it be stopped once an empire reaches its apex and begins to descend into decline often tied to its economy what can be done to arrest the fall that might just be what we're seeing here from the administration of president donald trump uh we got the boys in new york got tin foil pat we got two a days dan

we got young establishment james you guys have a good weekend yeah pretty good not bad It's basketball. A lot of movie watching for me, as you've mentioned. Two a days has now watched Tombstone. A little bit later in the Wilcane show, we're going to see if it holds up. For what it's worth, also, I rewatched the last hour of Tombstone because my son said, hey, Dad, I'm watching Tombstone. Do you want to watch the end with me?

I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Nice. So I saw it recently. It's, you know, it's pretty interesting, whatever the algorithms or the public consciousness does when someone dies. We lost Val Kilmer But it seems to be people are going back And watching his movies Most notably Tombstone

So we'll get a review From two a days When you're 25 Like what do you do on the weekend Did you just go rip the top off of it James Did you just absolutely abuse yourself Did you just stay out till 2.30 3 a.m.? Did you hit the bars in the Upper East Side?

Yeah We actually tend to go downtown more for the bars The Upper East Side is actually It's a little bit older in terms of the going out That hurts but um you're talking about it's nothing crazy

I think you know what the biggest issue with going out in New York is it's that people want to go out late like that they don't leave for a bar to like 11 you're like I don't like I want to keep my sleep schedule the same but it's just the social scene doesn't agree with that

hmm um I went out this weekend I got I got I got yeah I had a late night how late a little bit and I know this is going to

sound it's not as cracked up as it used to be that's the truth so you say it's just not so i say i'm high on life too all right let's get to it today let's get with the highs and the lows of the stock market let's get to it with story number one as mentioned the markets are fluctuating on the news and the digestion try the attempt to understand what's happening with the tariff policy of President Donald Trump. Here's what President Trump put out this morning on truth social. He's pointed out that while markets fluctuate and markets panic, the economy is actually doing pretty well.

He wrote, oil prices are down, interest rates are down, the slow moving fed should cut rates, food prices are down, there is no inflation. The longtime abused USA is bringing billions of dollars a week in the abusing countries on tariffs are already in place. This is despite the fact that the biggest abuser of them all, China, whose markets are crashing, just raised its tariffs by 34% that's on top of it's already ridiculously high tariffs.

They're not heeding our warnings not to retaliate. They've made enough for decades taking advantage of the good old USA. Our past leaders are to blame for allowing this and so much else to happen to our country. Make America great again.

Marco Romeo put this well. I do think you have to separate between economies and markets They said the fundamentals of the economy are actually doing well. Listen to Marco Rubio. Their economies are not crashing. Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade.

And so what happens is pretty straightforward. If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play the stock market realize that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China, your stock is going to go down. But ultimately, the markets, as long as they know what the rules are going to be moving forward, And as long as that's set and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets will adjust. Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade, they just need to know what the rules are. Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules.

So I don't think it's fair to say economies are crashing. Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the United States. We have to be a country that think we're the largest consumer market in the world. And yet the only thing we export is services. And we need to stop that. we need to get back to a time and we're a country that can make things. And to do that, we have to reset the global order of trade. Economies are not markets.

Markets are not economies. And the fundamentals of the economies right now suggest oil prices are down. Unemployment is down. Inflation is down. Pay attention to the economy, said Scott Bessent on MSNBC. Chris, and what I like is data. And if we look at data from President Trump's first term, and there's a big study that just came out from a group of economists, mostly at MIT, that showed that a 20%, 20%

tariff on China led to a 0.7% tax or price level increase over four years. I think that's pretty good. If we can take in 20% in tariffs, and it's a 0.7% increase. And, Kristen, the little publicized story this week, everyone wants to look at the stock market going. down you know what else went down oil prices went down almost 15% in two days which impacts working americans much more than the stock market does well prices down in addition to inflation in addition to unemployment you have an economy that has fundamentals that look good i would add to what mark ruby had to say look a market is a voting mechanism especially in the short term it's simply a collection of beliefs it's like a poll it's like a poll it's

almost like a online poll in that respect. That doesn't mean that, you know, it doesn't have real world implications. But a market can be divorced from reality. And there are many of the believe for quite some time our markets have been divorced from reality. They're divorced from the fundamentals of their corporation. They're divorced from, for example, it's one metric, PE ratios, price to earning ratios, which should be a reflection of, hey, is this company healthy? Is it making a profit? Is it trading at a reasonable metric? Well, for some time, you know, companies that in some cases don't even make profits have been trading at ridiculous price to earnings. They have been trading in the, you know, 30s, 40s when a healthy price

earning ratio is more like 15. The point is, for a long time, our markets have been divorced from reality and the voting mechanism today saying, I don't feel good about tomorrow, doesn't necessarily reflect what's happening in our economy. If people can show up and buy gas, if they can easily get a mortgage on their home because interest rates come down, if they have a job, then you're sitting on good fundamentals of an economy. So the point is to separate economies and markets. And you hope, you hope, any good investor and any country hopes that over time a market follows and reflects an economy. now we have over a long period of time had some really scary indicators when it comes to the economy our country's debt and deficit for example ray dalio is a big thinker historical thinker um market

watcher as well economist and he has a fascinating video up about the rise and fall of empires he's followed the dutch he's followed the british he's followed the american and the chinese and he talks about there quite easily is a discernible common cycle among empires they rise in an expansion phase in the beginning they achieve record level investments when people see oh this economy is on the rise you start feeling good about yourself you start borrowing you rack up debts and deficits you get to an apex of your economy at which point inequality is at its highest difference between the rich and the poor but not just that the rich in the middle class time if this doesn't sound like america at some point in the last 10 to 20 years. And then you start a decline because you have civil unrest internally, division. In some cases worse, you have violence and civil war. Again, tell me we don't show some of the indicators of that

right there in the United States. When you're on your way down, other empires start seeing your vulnerability and seeing their opportunity to rise. And as they start rising, by the way, they get further investment. Tell me that doesn't sound like China. Ultimately, there is a global conflict. And you can see this in the early 1900s, mid to early 1900s with the British. And that conflict either saves or exacerbates the fall of the empire.

What it seems to me, and everybody today, I woke up this morning and I put it on CNBC, everybody's trying to make sense of what is the long-term plan of the Trump administration? What are they doing? It doesn't seem like they would do something intentionally unpopular. Unpopularity is not really the currency of Donald Trump, but this is not going to be popular in the short term, the market being a voting mechanism. So why would he do it? It would seem to me only because they have a long-term vision in hand.

Now, that doesn't mean it's right or wrong, that it will work or it will fail, only that they have a bigger plan. And they have offered two reasons for these tariffs. One, for revenue. Two, to get companies to lower their tariffs, reciprocal tariffs. Well, those don't work together. If you get countries to lower their tariffs, well, then you're not going to get the tariff revenue in. If you get the tariff revenue in, you're not going to get a bunch of companies investing in America, onshoreing.

So it's hard to know 100% what they want to be the outcome of this over the long term. But in the short term, if we're looking at a recession, and we're looking at a 60% confidence among forecasters that we might be headed for recession. On average, these types of recessions, especially when the fundamentals of the economy are good. is like 12 to 18 months. That's the type of rebound effect you have on these market crashes. But I think the bigger picture is

can they do something to arrest the fall of the American Empire by resetting the global economy back, making the American economy healthier? And hopefully, and this is the part nobody's talking about yet, avoiding that conflict or war that almost always accompanies, either civil or global, almost always accompanies this cycle of fall. Remember that when you hear things about Iran.

Remember that when you think about China. Going into World War II, the U.S. had major tariffs and embargoes on Japanese products, rubber being one of them, oil and gas. It was a big problem for the Japanese economy. And many people think that's why they then decided to launch their attack on Pearl Harbor. so these types of things can lead you've always heard trade wars do lead to real wars that's not because we want a real war that's not because we're trying to precipitate it is because everybody becomes unpredictable when their economies start to crash and if this is

designed to pivot away from the rise of the chinese empire and away from the fall of the american empire we also have to be able to think about and hold a mind what will be the response of the Chinese at some point. I think this long-term play is an attempt to reorganize the global economy, to arrest the fall of the American Empire. I don't know whether or not it will work or whether it will fail, but I do know the path that we were on, even if in the short-term the economy looked good or the markets looked good, the path that we were on has been a path that is well trod by many empires before us. And we might want to try to reposition or arrest that fall

and sustain the American Empire. Robbie Starbuck has led the protest, the boycott on many companies who embrace DEI and woke. He's going to join us next to talk about his successes and where else he's focusing now in corporate America. Next in the Will Cain Show. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $6.5 million.

Visit go dot Fox forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the TradeGatty podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com. It is the Will Cane show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Always available by subscribing on Apple or Spotify or joining us every Monday through Thursday, live right here at Fox News.com and the Fox News YouTube channel. Joining us now is a filmmaker and the creator of The War on Children.

He's also now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is Robbie Starbuck, and it's good to have him on the Will King Show. up, Robbie. Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me. I'm glad to have you. I don't think we've ever met in person. Of course, I know you from social media. So I'm glad to have you here, hear a little bit about what you've been working on. First of all, congratulations on the new gig at Heritage. They clearly paid attention to a lot of the stuff you've been doing of the last couple of years. And what do they want? They want you to keep focus on corporate America, looking into their policies, keep trying to get America on the right track when it comes to

its private industry? Yeah, you know, I think conservatives in general have lost their, you know, sort of a voice in the marketplace. And it's our job to reassert that and make sure that our voices are heard and that the markets never again fall back into this crazy wokeness that really infected corporate America over the last four to six years. And so my focus is multi-pronged. We'll continue our efforts to eliminate DEI and wokeness. In fact, this week I'll be announcing two Fortune 500 companies that we've come to an agreement on eliminating DEI and woke policies there. But beyond that, you know, my gig with Heritage, I think that we're going to be looking at this from multiple different sort of areas. You know, number one is how do we, you know,

consolidate and coalesce around a set of principles that we can take conservative dollars and put them to work to ensure that our voice is extremely powerful in the marketplace. So it's beyond just the direct engagement, but also how you use capital on our side. to achieve certain goals, right? And really, what is the goal? Sanity in the marketplace. We can never have this happen again where you've got these absolutely ludicrous policies

infecting our largest companies. When you say you've got two Fortune 500 companies who announced something with you, I think you said an agreement. Is that sort of, what's their agreement with you, not to boycott their products, not to boycott their companies? So I directly engage the brands.

That's a good question, Will. So we'll artfully describe this. I contact the companies and let them know I'm working on a story that exposes their DEI policies and woke policies over a long period of time. It's typically predicated off of whistleblower testimony, people who work there who come to us first and say, hey, things are out of control. This is what's going on. And then we do an open source investigation of the company.

And in doing so, put together a story that really shows a whole picture of what that company's culture is like, what they believe in, what they put their money behind. And so when we go to them with this, you know, we'll typically, you know, have this conversation where they go, hey, can we talk first? You know, and so we'll say, okay, cool, off the record, we will have conversations with your executives about these policies. And if you guys are at a point where you're considering making big changes to these policies and they've got to be big, then we're willing to go and look at this story again and maybe do a story about the changes instead of about the past failures. And so we kind of go through that conversation and see where they're at. if they truly are looking at big changes to these policies and ready to make big commitments, that's the bigger public interest story to me.

And so having this audience online that is really hungry for these types of stories, we go with the big public interest story and changes sort of number one on that list. However, if a company does not change, then we go, you know, sort of full bore on exposing the crazy policies, which one we've done in the past does not go super well for the company. You could look back at our first target last year in June, tractor supply lost over $3 billion a market cap. John Deere, when we targeted them over the course of a month, they lost over $10 billion in market cap. That's billion with a B.

And then Harley Davidson, they held out for a month until we forced them change their policies. And they had probably the largest decline of all of any of these companies that tried to test us. In their most recent earnings report, you see in almost 60 percent year-over-year decline in U.S. sales, I believe that's what the number is. And it's just an absolutely calamitous fall for them. And their stock price has tumbled as well. And so companies don't really want to test us anymore because they can see our stories not only have teeth, but they have real severe economic damage because consumers listen and they don't want to spend their money with companies that are infested with wokeness. So just to, okay, there's a lot of follow-up here.

So just tell me how that works. You know, I just got done talking about the difference between markets and economies. So you do a story and tractor supplies, stock price goes down. Okay, well, that's investors worried that tractor supplies. consumers will then choose not to buy their products based upon learning about their DEI policies. But again, that's just a stock price, that meaning it can rebound and it's a vote from the investors on what will happen. But then there is what actually happens, right? And that is, do consumers choose to stop buying a tractor supply? Do consumers choose to stop buying Harley-Davidson's?

Have you seen that has happened as well with somebody's? When you expose their internal corporate policies and social media is a huge platform for you. Has it translated into a significant percentage of consumers out there going, I'm done with Harley Davidson? Yeah, you know, that's a big part of this. So I can give you some anecdotal things that we know of. Indian motorcycle actually stopped accepting a lot of Harley Davidson trade-ins at a certain point throughout this because they couldn't move the bikes. You know, they've got a backlog in their bikes at Harley-Davidson and being able to move them. At Sturgis, the biggest biker rally in the country, they had to close down their tent a couple days early because it was such an embarrassment. Nobody was going and visiting them

essentially. It was like a ghost town there. And so even Bloomberg admitted that. They sent a reporter out there that was looking, I think, to prove that we don't have a real world effect. And instead, what they found is, oh, my gosh, they have a massive real world effect and nobody's going in there. And this is a big problem, right? And so these companies, you know, we've heard also internal sources tell us that they have a big foot traffic problem when we focused on them. So those companies that we talked about earlier, you know, that's data they have to look at internally and say, hey, you know what? This is maybe what's going to spook investors even more. We need to really figure out how we're going to handle this.

And so here's the truth about markets. I think everybody can understand. If companies can get away with a certain policy set that they favor, they will go and do everything they can to get away with it. The data internally has to be scary enough for these companies to go, oh, we've got to get out. And then you extrapolate that across the other companies that have come to terms. with us on, you know, essentially what they're going to do. They have the data based on what is going on in these other companies that have tested us in certain ways. So they look at a bunch of different metrics. And when they look at them, what they see is a lot of scary things, you know. And so

that's why most companies now immediately turn to having a conversation with us about changes they're willing to make because they don't want to be that next story. And, you know, I think that's incredibly wise on their part. And what we've seen actually happen is really an amazing thing. When we make an announcement about a company and our first announcement is that they are changing their policies and that they're not going to be engaged in any of this stuff anymore and we never go through exposing their past failures, their stock price has gone up in almost every case. And so that's that's sort of an interesting thing only because, you know, as much as that's not really our goal in this project, it's interesting because for a long time, the argument against getting rid of

these policies was that you had these, you know, overpaid consultants like McKinsey telling companies, you're going to lose all this money if you reject wokeness. You have to have this or you are just going to blow up your business. There's going to be financial calamity. And instead, the exact opposite has been true. The companies that have gotten rid of this stuff and got out from under it, they are performing better. And I think that that says that the public and investors prefer merit-based businesses. And so now you've got a lot of companies on Wall Street going, okay, in the long term, we want to be successful. We want to do our best by our shareholders. What are we going to do to make our company stronger? And they get rid of these crazy policies. and is that so that's true so i don't know of the ones we just talked about tractor supply john deer harley davidson you can name others that you've worked with have they all gotten rid of the policies in response to the boycott or the threat of the story have they all or has anybody held out has dropped their policies every single one we have 100% flip rate so there's not a company that we have worked with that has not gotten out from under these policies you keep saying worked with in agreements i'm going to come back to that because i find that

fascinating but i'm going to uh the so so they've all gotten rid of the policies how do you know rob because it's like the government okay how do you know they don't keep the policies through different euphemisms different names put people into different departments who are focused on this you know how do you know that they're really getting rid of them that's an incredibly good question and probably the most important question you're going to ask because that would be my first question if I was an outsider looking in. And so this is the beautiful thing about what we've done from the very beginning. We predicate our investigations and the companies we target off of whistleblower information, people reaching out to us, submitting a tip to us and saying,

hey, here's what's exactly going on. And so these are employees from, you know, the very top of the companies all the way down to the mailroom. And they're the ones telling us. So if a company says one thing and then does another, we're going to be the first ones to find out about it. fact, that has happened. So we've had a situation occur where a company did do that. They told us one thing. The new story goes out there. Then we find out they're doing another. We went right back to them. We brought them the evidence of what they were doing and said, hey, we're going to go run a new story on this. Just wanted to get your comment first. And their comment was, we're shutting this down immediately. We are so sorry, it will never happen again. And so, you know,

I think the fact that we have everything based on the information from whistleblowers helps us to keep an eye on these companies long term because the first people who are going to run and say, hey, this is a problem are the people who initially did that in the first place. Well, that's fascinating. Okay, so what we've established is you have the ability, it's going to require a whistleblower on most of this stuff unless it's in their policies that shareholders can see. But it clearly has teeth and has been illustrated over time and again of its effect on the company. What about the reverse, Robbie? And I know you've been sort of like in this with

Al Sharpton, but even before I saw you and Al Sharpton, you know, when these DEI policy started to go away, I started to see tweets from people, I don't know, maybe Jamel Hill or Roland Martin types, these kind of people saying, let's, I think Target was one they were talking about recently. Let's reverse Borkot target now for getting rid of DEI. Have you seen any evidence that that has teeth that there has been really any market effect on people boycotting these companies because they don't have DEI policies. Yeah, you know, not really. I will say this, though. Let's pretend there is. All they're doing is providing evidence that what I've been saying is exactly right. You should not be a right-wing company or a left-wing company if you are a public company.

You should be in every one company. You should be trying to make the most money in getting every customer in your store. How do you do that? You've got to get out of the game of divisive politics. That means don't endorse crazy bills that have nothing to do with your business. Like, you know, there were all these companies assigned onto the HRCs, you know, pack to say, hey, we need to pass this bill in Congress that is going to legalize boys and girls sports. You would be shocked the number of Fortune 500 companies assigned on to that, right? That's an incredibly stupid thing for a company to do. The only politics you should be engaged in is when it comes to things that are directly tied to the regulatory side of your business. And so

that would be the thing that I've advised companies, you know, most often is, hey, choose corporate neutrality. Don't choose my politics. Don't choose the other side's politics. Choose to be in a middle lane that doesn't get into the divisive stuff, right? Because I think when America is at its greatest, it is a country that is focused on excellence. And to focus on excellence, you know, you've got sort of squarely in first order of thought choosing how you'd run your business on the basis of merit. And so, you know, that's really what we're pushing companies to do is focus on merit, neutrality, and get out of the game of politics, stop being a prisoner every four years to who gets elected to the White House.

So how would you describe yourself, Robbie? Would you say you're an advocate? Would you say you're a journalist? Are you a, I mean, like, and those things don't have to be mutually exclusive, but how would you describe yourself? You know, it's hard to pick. I don't hide my biases. Everybody knows that I'm very, very conservative. You know, my family survived communism in Cuba. And so I'm very much anti-leftist, anti-communist. But, you know, in terms of everything that I do, I'd say I'm just somebody who tries to tell the truth and stand up for what I believe in. And I'm very, very blessed that so many people listen and that they're interested in what I have to say and are willing to take action in their own lives to use their wallets as a weapon and

try to do some good. You know, I mean, I think that that's probably the best thing people like us can do who have a platform is like not just try to be important not just try to get clicks and numbers but to try to do things that are going to bring lasting change for our kids and as a dad that's that's really the chief job right is like deliver for my kids a world that's better than the one i was born into and so that's my overarching goal every day no matter what the title is well right and i don't know that it matters the well i guess the reason that i asked that question like I hear this internal tension I don't know if you feel it

and I don't know the right answer on this either by the way like okay you do a story you've you've uncovered the truth right and now it's you have a choice I mean I don't know if you have do you tell the public the truth or do you confront the person the truth is about so that they change

so that that's where we accidentally started this conversation with you saying I have an agreement with or these companies I work with so what's clear is you're using the truth to get them to change their behavior, but then changing the story, it doesn't mean it's not true, but changing the story as it's consumed to your audience. I think that's a great question. Okay, so I should delineate some very important differences. Number one, my detractors on the left,

you know, the people who have been basically racial shakedown artists forever. There's a big difference between me and them. I don't do any financial deals with these companies. Nobody at my company is allowed to invest in the stocks of the companies we report on. You know, so there's a lot of big differences. We don't use sort of economic levers to benefit ourselves in terms of you know, how we operate with these companies. And I think that's very important because it gives us a lot of credibility with these companies that we're not going and shaking them down. Secondly, our first sort of, you know, interest is making sure that we are delivering to our audience what they want, right? And I think that's kind of the first order of business with a lot of people

who are in media. And for me, I know that what they're most interested in is change. So it's not that we're hiding the truth of what these companies have done, you know, if they choose the path of change. Because our audiences are very aware, if we're telling them what they changed, because that's what we do ultimately is we'll say, hey, they change this, this, this, and this. We're also simultaneously telling them what these companies did in the past. Because for them to change it, they had to have been doing these other things, right? I think the thing that companies are looking to avoid when they choose change is they're looking to avoid a month onslaught of daily news about every single tiny little item they've been involved in for

years and years and years. And here's the thing for us. We don't blackmail these companies. We don't say, if you don't do this, we're going to go do this. We just go to them with our story on a fact-checking basis and then say, hey, but if you guys are interested in change, let us know we're willing to have a conversation about that because that may be a more interesting story for us. So I think for us, that's like fishing for the greater story, right? Because that's the thing we want. So we're just on a fishing expedition for if that's something that they're looking to do. And in many cases for them, they're just doing the calculus in their head about what is the best economic decision for their company. So I get that. When I say we

or, you know, that we're, you know, sort of negotiating or working with these companies, I say it in the sense that like it's a collaborative effort if you're discussing these problems they've had in the past and for them to understand what consumers on our side actually want. That's something where you're having a collaborative process. So if anything, it's just sort of like a friendly way of referring to it. But it's definitely not by any measure like a business deal where we're signing a contract and saying, hey, you do this and I'll be quiet about this or anything like that. More of the Will Cain Show, right after this. On July 18th, get excited.

This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited. Sorry. Smurfs. Only date is July 18th. This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason in the House podcast.

Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines and chat with remarkable guests listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts how prevalent at this point do you think all these policies are in corporate america like how widespread well when we started it was everyone i mean it was it was the entire fortune 500 now it's reducing by orders of magnitude every week you know there's there's new companies in the fortune 500 dropping this stuff so i would say if i had to make a guess i would say by this time next year, the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies will have dropped all these policies. And you'll have a small subsection of them who still hold on to them. And they're largely going to be

companies that rely on more left-wing consumers. So places that geographically, you know, a lot of their business is done in San Francisco or New York City and things along those lines. Or, you know, companies that rely heavily on the EU and have EU, you know, regulations that they have, you know, issues in terms of the viability of their contracting and things like that. So you'll have things like that and then we get more creative with how we handle this process, I think in that sense. But, you know, they'll start to be the weird ones. And so the ultimate goal when I started this is that like there's this window of acceptable conversation and conduct that everybody understands as part of like the social contract, right? And when we started this last year in June, that window of what was acceptable included basically only wokenness. You know, for a maybe, company, anything outside of that was considered like fascism, right? You know, that's what they had sort of like branded anything even slightly center-right. And so what we've done from the very beginning is run an operation to shift that window of acceptable conduct and conversation to the right, you know, and to the center, frankly, because it had gone so wildly left that to even

move it toward the right means you're falling somewhere near the center. And so that's incredibly important, I think, for the future decades to come, because if we want to have competency in our leadership at these companies, you're going to have to prioritize merit and excellence in the way that these companies conduct themselves. And I was listening to you before I came on, you know, when it came to the tariffs. And I think you were exactly right that in so many ways, our economy and major companies have really been, you know, in this position for a while where it's almost like we were living in a fake economy, you know, like everything had bubbled to this degree. It was just it nonsensical in so many ways. You look at all these like prior metrics that for the last

hundred years would signal this, that or the other thing. And suddenly they don't signal that and we just go up, up, up, up, up and away. Yes. And then you got, you know, runaway inflation and things like that. Nothing made sense anymore. And so, you know, I'm with you that I don't know that the tariffs are going to work, but I know that we had to try something because if not, we were headed towards something absolutely horrific. And I think companies understand that as well. And many executives are coming to understand that they need to try things differently because what was going on was not working. And I think in their mind, they're probably thinking the thing you and I are when it comes to every policy that they're, you know, kind of looking two and three

times at. It's like, well, maybe this change works or doesn't work, but we have to try something because we're going to be stuck and we're going to be left behind if we don't do something. And so I'm hopeful that tears do work. I think that patience is required in the marketplace. But that's, that's kind of how I view the situation. Yeah, I think that's, I think you said it very well. were living in a fake economy, where a lot of people continued to get rich, but the richest got rich, the most. And meanwhile, all the fundamentals of the American Empire decay. And something horrific could happen, like you said, or we just decay like much of Europe. But the truth is

the decay is on the back end of something horrific happening, which was two world wars. So, yeah, I don't know. We needed to try a new path, even if the rich were fat and wealthy. And look, a lot of us, I'm doing well. So I'm not like trying to pretend that, um, you know, I'm somebody I'm not, but I just know that this is not good for America, the path that we're on. Back to, back to the DEI woke. Here's something I'm interested in. Like, okay, here's your corrective mechanism. And we've had, I think we've all had the conversation of how we got there. Like, was it weakness? Like, how did all these companies go insane in developing all these policies? Because I met a lot of guys. I know a lot of guys, not only that work at these companies that are pretty high up,

successful people and they don't believe this stuff right they just don't so like how do you end up in a place where this stuff is the order of business at these companies but there's something else at play besides weakness i think and you'll know this better than me robby and and that is like for these big companies don't they have to now at some point like get this score rating from some of these these agencies on whether or not they're a good opportunity employer and this and that in order to get a checklist and get a good score, basically, on these things, which they have to, I believe almost in terms of investor relations, they have to have these, and I can't remember the name of it, but there is one big one that almost everybody uses. Human rights, something maybe. I can't remember. Yeah, the HRCCI score. Yeah, which I think you might have referenced a minute ago, the HRCC score. Like, they, that, that group buys into all this woke ideology stuff. And then every Fortune 500 company has to do well on the HRCC score. So they have to adopt. these policies like is that not a big hurdle in all of this i've got great news for you we have

single hand handedly delivered the biggest blow to the hrc's woke crazy d i cei scoring system that there's ever been um we've gotten every company that we have announced changes to to drop their participation in these crazy third party surveys like the hrc's uh you know cei survey because essentially what they're doing is they're creating social credit systems to force corporate America into certain left-wing behaviors. And so, you know, that's something that we want real quick. What was the muscle behind that? Why did they all sign up for the HRC? There was a reason why all the companies did, right? Yeah. So it's multiprong. I mean, one, there was financial incentives in the marketplace to do so. So companies could, you know, get preferential treatment

when it came to a number of different financial things. And so they engaged in it. The second part of it was social pressure through, you know, their HR and PR team saying this is something we need to do to get the best available talent. And to be honest, that decision never reached the desk of most CEOs. It went to the top of the HR or PR departments and those people approved it. And that's another reason, by the way, in a multi-pronged sort of set of reasons of how we got here is that the HR departments and the PR departments at many of the biggest companies in the world had a direct pipeline to the wokeest universities. And you would essentially just get left-wing activists in those positions. So what you get in the end is the Trojan horse called DEI, where you can take, and this is very

important. There are some positive things that have been sort of like shoehorned into DEI, like, you know, programs for disabled kids and things like that, right? And it's used actually as a shield for all the crazy stuff. So what happens is when they roll DEI up to your door, they'll tell you the one or two things we can all agree on that like, yeah, it's good to do these programs for disabled kids. But then inside the actual horse is all the crazy left wing policy and the indoctrination and the trainings and, you know, the, you know, sort of demands that you request men going into the women's bathroom, this, that, and the other. And so, you know, it was important for us to get rid of the scoring systems from third parties, because really they have no place

in the marketplace. They're not doing anything positive for these companies. And once customers are aware of these scoring systems and what they mean and what they are, they really scare customers off. And that doesn't just go for the HRC. I mean, we talk very broadly about these third party scoring systems with the companies, that it's really like, you shouldn't be engaging in Robbie's scoring system or the HRC scoring system, right? Because in both cases, you're going to piss off a set of consumers. So just get out of the business of going and trying to, you know, please little microgroups that are based on identity and really identity politics because you're going to end up dividing your customers and your employees. And by the way, actually our success is

worth noting the HRC has had to fire 25% of their employees since we started this. And I predict more soon. That is good news. That's where you started. I've got good news for you. That's all very good news. It's like schools. Like the accreditation system is a problem. Like we can get mad at every school president and we can get mad at, you know, every CEO of every company. But there, if they've signed up to do this thing or be part of this ecosystem that forces into like in corporate America, the HRC or the school accreditation system when it comes to, you know, private schools at the high school or middle school level, you're going to always have a limited amount of power. Like you're just going to have to drop out of these things where the,

judgment of you is baked into the cake. Yeah, you know, actually, I'm glad you brought that up. It's sort of outside the bounds of what I was thinking and talking about today, but it's interesting. I actually met with the Department of Education about the accreditation stuff. And so I gave them a list of a bunch of the organizations that are accreditors for major universities and schools. And there was a lot that, you know, we discussed in terms of like, hey, there's tools

that you can use in the tool belt to strip these groups of their ability to accredit schools because what they're doing is in violation of Trump's executive order, first of all, but secondly, is just totally antithetical to the idea of a good education. And so what most people don't know is like even in states, red states where we have banned DEI in schools, there is an exception written into almost every single one of those bills that unless the school is required to by their accreditor. So what that means is it's in this fine print and most people don't realize, hey, actually we're not really getting rid of DEI because we're allowing the schools to do it

as long as an accreditor requires it. So that's why you got all these woke public. health officials you've got all these woke doctors because they go to the schools even in red states where this is required because we all do must have it yeah we all go to accredited schools how dare you wouldn't want to go to an unaccredited school like that that that brand and of itself it's like we don't know what it means but it sounds it sounds shady oh your school's not accredited you know so but the accreditation system is what's forcing us into all the policies that we hate I don't know if there's a new accreditation system to be built or whatever to replace that.

This is really good stuff, man. It's really fascinating to see behind the scenes more of what you guys are doing and how it's working with these companies. And I have to think, even with some of these companies, there's got to be a sigh of relief. They're probably not happy to get your call, Robbie. They're probably not happy to get your call, but they're probably happy to be rid of this stuff. I think a lot of them don't want this stuff. Yeah, you're not wrong. There's some executives who are actually really happy that I'm that I'm reaching out to them. You know, it's funny. You get sort of different camps. There's the true believers, right, that like they're committed to this stuff, but this is like a financial moment where they know they've got to make a decision to do something that really is fundamentally illegal in many cases, you know, that could be a major legal liability for them down the line because it's not just me. There's real legal consequences they have to worry about in the next, you know, four years. Then the other end of it is you've got these executives who are super excited. I'm reaching out because they didn't know how to handle their crazy teams. And what we're giving

them essentially is, is the opportunity to not only make these changes, but to also take a look at the employees that maybe we've highlighted, who we've found acting in egregious ways. And so then those companies have maybe some predicate to go and fire those types of employees who have been doing activist work, you know, behind the scenes and maybe even in some cases very, very publicly and when they do that and they're supposed to be representing the company you know i think we're giving them a lot of good ammunition to be able to make their company stronger and more profitable in the future and so some executives are super excited about that it just depends on the company but i actually have been surprised by the number of them who are super excited to

hear from me all right you can always check out robbie on x it's robbie with two b's starbuck just like it sounds um he's a filmmaker he's creator of the war on children now he's at the Heritage Foundation as well. Fascinating conversation. Thanks so much, Robbie. Thank you. Appreciate it, buddy. Okay, take care. There he goes. Let me check in with you guys folks really quickly in the comments section. Roaring Lion, buy American, you're all going to be just fine and buy the dip. Shane O'Connell, how can you separate an economy in a market? Don't much about economics. Really, Shane? I think you can. I don't think you understand what a market is. DZS-P-K-Z, Trump did not have to tank the economy to renegotiate tariffs.

Again, I don't see any metrics to suggest the economy itself is tanking. Maybe in a month or two, maybe in six months, we'll see. Armand Cruz going into a Great Depression. And then Tim Holmes. Just remember that we can do just fine with buying our own stuff here in America. All right, let's take a quick break. Come back, get the review from the crew of Tombstone. Check in on March Madness.

I want to play for you one more piece of sound on this entire tariff thing. It's the EU president who has now weighed in this morning on their approach to the United States. Coming up on the Will Cain Show. Listen to the all-new Brett Bear podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Bear favorites like his All-Star panel and much more. Available now at Fox News Podcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at Fox News Podcast.com. March Madness comes down to, in the Friends of Will Kane Show bracket, two people. Me and Adam Claw. It is the Will Cain Show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube. channel the fox news facebook page hit subscribe at apple or on spotify lcf storm says bro this country is cooked okay nuke orion says these are just some growing pains it's a huge transformation in policies and economics it will all shake out for the better nothing to fear flying unicorn says i'm retired

and start drawing in a year on my 401k but it will be fine we'll ride out the storm come back and make a profit. The sky is not falling. That's the other thing about the market. You only lose money if you need the money today. Now, there are those people that have dividends and maybe those dividends go down and they're living on a fixed income and dividends are part of that, I understand, or those that are on the edge of retirement and need to draw on their 401k, and that is immediate. But for the vast majority of Americans, what's lost in the market today is paper losses. Now, you hope that doesn't last over time as you need to begin to draw on that money or sell your stock in some way. But whatever's lost today isn't lost in your bank account unless you need

it to be in your bank account. And Rich Kaiser says, if you want big change, you have to pay games. No one is willing to play. The gains on the other side of this will be huge, buy stocks, and then buy more and ride the wave up. The question is when? When do you start? When does the rally start? What is the bottom? All right, let's bring in the boys now. Okay, March Madness is Let's do that first. What? Your microphone's on. Does he not?

I didn't realize it's on. Does he not know his microphones on? Real good. Does it occur to you guys that every time we have something, friends of the Will Kane show thing? There I am again, winning. I mean, you guys always, you guys are the worst. You're like the left.

You're like the left. It's not true. You take one little snippet in the second quarter of the game and go, here he goes again. He's losing. By the end of the game, here it is me again. And it's just like my sports takes. Will's an idiot.

Give it a little time, and I'm right. We've done what? Three of these? Give it a little time. Well, who won fantasy football? This year, you've had a good year. But last year, not as much. You're on a hot streak.

Who's in the finals? Who's in the finals for the March Madness? Not last year. Is it? Is it James? Do you remember when Dallas was on a hot streak? Is it two a days? You know, just a...

And now where they are, Where are they? We're the maps now. Where's the Cowboys? You know, it happens. Hot and cold. I also do want to say if Duke had made the championship and it had been you versus me, we just did the quick math. I still would have won.

Really? Florida's champion. Florida beating Duke in the finals wouldn't have put me over you? Well, shame that Duke lost. It's down to me and the weatherman. Adam Klotz, he's got Houston, I've got Florida, whoever wins tonight wins. And I feel better. I actually feel better about taking on Houston than I do, had it been Duke.

Houston led at 6 to 5 and didn't lead again until the last, what was it, 30 seconds of the game? Insent. It was a crazy game. I thought it was over. Yeah. Cooper Cup, not Christian Leitner, apparently. So sometimes two days people get mad at me on TV For things that come out of my mouth

And I'm like, I don't even know I said that Like, whatever it is, you just did that, Cooper Cup. It happens, right? Cooper to Jean. Everybody knew you. It just shows Cooper Flagg has some ways to go Until he becomes the number one Cooper. Yes.

He's just behind Cooper Cup on Cooper's. I don't know if he's behind Cooper to Jean. I don't know. He's not. But do you think Cooper Flagg heard a little bit of his draft stock missing that shot in the end. No.

It's a recency bias. One shot. I mean, he should have made that shot. If he's the guy, like we all think he's the guy, yeah, you want him to make that shot. Right. But you think that's going to drop him to second in the draft? Maybe.

He's going to go number one still. He had no conviction. The other two guys that are like in the first three, top three of the NBA draft, are they like both Rutgers players. There's two Rutgers players sort of in the top. top five. And Rutgers didn't even make the tournament, right? Isn't that Auburn player pretty high up there? What's the name? Broom. Juni. Yeah. He's up for player of the year.

Yeah, but I don't think he's, I've not seen him high in the mock drafts. Yeah. I think he's like the other Auburn players. I think he's 27 years old. I like these, I like these grad students playing in the tournament. That's Houston too, I think. There's some teams that you're like, God, these dudes, literally they're 24, 25 years old. Sir, you're 31 years old. You can't play anymore. Do you remember Brandon Whedon? Yeah, sure.

Yeah. But by the way, Duke is a bunch of 19-year-olds. Yeah. So that is a difference. Like, they're a bunch of 19-year-olds playing 24-year-olds right there. That's true. All right, so me versus Adam Kloss tonight. I've got Florida, Adam Scott, Houston.

Okay, we last week, go ahead, tinfoil, before we moved on. Go ahead. I will say, like, I think Adam Klotz, my first. be a ringer because he was the one who was pushing us to start this bracket and now here he is at the end hmm yeah he was the one that

he predicts the weather and basketball yeah yeah okay last week we memorialized Val Kilmer we did our top five lines from Tombstone I did my top five Val Kilmer movies it was revealed in this that not many guys here had seen

tombstone. I think only tinfoil Pat, in addition to me, had seen Tombstone. So with a homework assignment and given a weekend to get it done, two a days finally did watch Tombstone. So we're ready for your review, two of days. It was good. So I was given an ultimatum by the wife. We watched Tombstone, but I have to watch Wicked after. So I was really hoping Tombstone would be good so I could sit through Wicked. So we did that. Great soundtrack. Hold on, real quick. Did you do Wicked yet? We did. We did it right after we watched Toomstone. I've seen Wicked, like Broadway. Yeah.

Pretty good. But I would have no interest in seeing it as a movie. There's cool parts, but no thanks. I'm a Broadway person, not a movie, musical person. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways. Yeah, me too. So Tombstone. All right, go ahead.

Really good Western movie. A little slow. I forget how slow older movies can be. but it was a really good movie great buddy type movie a little bit of a love story the lines are great the writing was fantastic

Val Kilmer was amazing you got a young Kurt Russell which is just amazing the cast is stacked I was like I know him I know him I know her

it's unbelievable the amount of like famous actors that are in that movie overall I give it probably like an 85% out of 100 nice

okay first on the cast I'm just trying to remember like who you're like I know him on a you got uh is it Billy Zane he plays the actor yeah he was great you got Jason Priestley from 90210s in there Sam Elliott um yeah sure Bill Paxton Billy Bob Thornton a heavy Billy Bob Thornton which was weird because now he's so skinny oh I forgot he's the he's the what's the game they play the he's the he's the car dealer yeah exactly the berates the berates everybody And go ahead, skin that smoke wagon and see what happens.

And he's the one that your favorite line, too, he goes, oh, I didn't know you're still there. You may go now. That was Billy Bob. Yeah, that's right. That's right. My favorite line of the movie wasn't in your top five. Okay.

It was the one where Doc Holiday comes out. He's very drunk. And he goes, you're probably seeing two of me. I know. But I got two guns for the both of you. I got two guns One for each of you One for each of you

Great line Fantastic So my son wanted to watch it Again And I jumped in For the last Half of the movie With him

It is interesting It is dating Right Like I said Like the The clarity of the cinematography Is not up to modern standards It's just like a little

grainy A little hard to The color and everything And they're my son goes it's weird they don't use much music and I said it's weird they use a ton of music

but we noticed it in different places so like during the gun fight at the okay corral he said there's not any music it's just guns and shooting which he's right like in a modern movie they'd be like

dunna na na na na do you know like they'd ramp it up with with like action beat music but they don't and then in the other parts of the movie when it's like dialogue and there's heavy usage of music like that constant old timey western storytelling soaring storytelling music yeah in fact i think anytime there's not action there's music playing underneath the dialogue yeah i think that's an i don't know i'm not

i think that's an old western style uh way of doing movies because they want those action scenes to be just what you're hearing in terms of the action and not crowded or overtaken by a music score, I think. That's what I'm guessing. You know, Doc Holliday is an, you know, exponentially more interesting character than White Herb. First of all, the love story of Tombstone's the least interesting thing, right? It's boring. He's like cheating on his wife or whatever, and it's just, like, and then they end up together?

I don't know. That was the weirdest part. And by the way, his wife's better looking. His wife's better looking than the actress he's in love with. That's so true. My wife asked, she goes... She is hooked on heroin, but... No, I didn't realize that at first.

My wife goes, is Doc Holiday and White Earp. Are they going to end up in love? She thought it was like a, you know, a little bit of that love story. But what I'm getting at is Doc Holiday is the star of the movie, right? Val Kilmer ends up being the star of the movie. But you do watch that and you realize how cool. was Kurt Russell. Like, Kurt Russell was really cool.

And my son said that. He's like, I don't know who that guy is, but he's, he's pretty cool as an actor, right? I'm like, yeah, look at him. Handsome guy. Handsome dude. Holy. Yeah, he's, his scenes where he has to get intense with some of the guys he turns into his white erp, you know, type guy, not the retired white herp, which is.

When he's like, tell him, I'm coming. Exactly. And I'm bringing hell with me. I'm coming and I'm bringing hell with me. Amazing. We should do a top five Kurt Russell movies Because by the way, I was flipping through last night And Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was on

And I saw Kurt Russell again in that movie Like that's Big Town, Little China stuff That's Tango and Cash That's what is the top five Kurt Russell movies Overboard With Goldie Hawn See y'all are too young for all this stuff

Um Well you know what would be a better list what is Kurt Russell he's an 80s guy right primarily an 80s star i mean tombstone was in the 90s i think or like 1993 where does kurt russell rank among those guys because i don't think he ever went to number one like whoever his competitors were in that range it wasn't tom cruise like who was in who who played he's older he's 74 so he's a little

out of that range he played the cop you know what he was the cop buddy comma buddy like tango and cash is perfect like you were scared of current russell he was a he was now you weren't scared you took him seriously that he could kick some ass but he also had that rye smirk self-deprecating humor too he had both things going at the same time and i'm trying to think who was in that genre that he competed against he's that shoot him up parts that shoot him up type 80s guy like escape from new york I don't know.

I'm going to do this list. Who else that would be? Harrison Ford is in that list. Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis. Yes, those are Kurt Russell type. Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford.

It's reasonable that somebody said, well, we can't get Harrison Ford. We'll see if we can get Kurt Russell, right? Some producer, some studio said that. Josh Brosselin? Josh Brolin. What? Josh Brolin? Yeah.

Much younger. Much younger. You're thinking of his dad. Maybe Walton Gagons a little. What are you talking about? What? He's not in that range. Walton Gagons is not close to that.

You're talking about people that are now versus the 80s. Like Rob Lowe. Rob Lowe was the heartthrobb. That's a different thing in the 80s. Yeah, no one was casting Rob Lowe in Tango and Cash. Yeah, exactly. But they were casting him in the rom-com. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Overall, good movie. I liked it. Okay. I need to watch Heat next. I'm glad. Yeah, you do. I would love you a review of Heat.

Does it hold up? This is fun. Take the millennials and the Jinzier. What are you going to have to give up for that? And introduce them to real movies. Probably have to watch some rom-com on Netflix. Beverly Hills Housewives. You should have pretended like you don't like Love is Blind.

You should pretend like you don't like Love is Blind. Then you could get that trade. God. All right, that's going to do it for us today. I will see you again tomorrow. Same time, same place, same channels on the Will Cain Show. See you next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members,

you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon music app. From the Fox News Podcasts Network. Hey there, it's me. Kennedy, make sure to check out my podcast. Kennedy saves the world. It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.