Will Cain Country - Tariffs, Tech, and Tensions: The US-China Showdown Begins, Plus Wade Stotts On American Identity

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Story #1: 'Quick Takes': Anderson Cooper just can't keep up with everyone's pronouns, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett makes the case for cheap immigrant labor, and America's tariff war against China continues to ramp up! Story #2: Host of ‘The Wade Show With Wade’, Wade Stotts blew up a 4 PM episode of 'The Will Cain Show' last week, after delivering a surprising, and incessant takedown on air of Lindy Li. Wade comes to discuss that event, where he was right, and where he may have gone a little over. Plus, he and Will continue the discussion about American identity. Story #3: Former White House Speechwriter, Jonathan Horn joins the program to discuss his new book, 'The Fate of the Generals: MacArthur, Wainwright, and the Epic Battle for the Philippines,' as well as how it relates to our National Security today as tensions rise with China.  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

One, Anderson Cooper just can't keep up, misgendering live and corrected on CNN, but he can be forgiven when it's hard to keep up on the day-to-day basis of what's wrong, what's right, what's racist, so we'll bring in our expert. Jasmine Crockett in quicktakes. Two, Wade's thoughts. Our friend. and blew up the Will Cain Show the other day. He also analyzed our conversation with Vak Ramaswamy, so we're going to talk more about what it means to be an American with Wade Stikes. Three, are we ready? Are we ready for a war with China? It is the Will Kane Show streaming live at 5.

Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. 12 o'clock Eastern time every Monday through Thursday, so make sure you set a reminder on YouTube. Jump onto your Facebook page every day at this time. Jump into the comment section, become a member of the Wilicia. Terrestrial radio, three dozen markets across the great United States of America, but always available by subscribing at Apple or on Spotify. Coming up today, Jonathan Horn is the author of the book, The Fate of the Generals. he is a former white house speechwriter we're going to talk to jonathan horn about whether or not

we're boxing china into a corner and if we're ready for what they do to fight out of that corner do trade wars lead to kinetic wars we're turning the screws on china are we ready that's coming up with the author of the fate of the generals all right let's uh get to what we have coming today including wade stott's but let us get started with some quick takes in story number one. Joining us now, the boys in New York, tinfoil, Pat, two a days, Dan and young establishment, James. And we are going to get us started by turning the floor over

to the most electric man in television, Don Julio Tinfoil, Pat, and a little bit of music to accompany him in this version of QuickTakes. All right, here we go, Will. It's another exciting day and tear up for worse. breaking the last 20 minutes, the U.S. has ramped up tariffs on China to 145%. 145%. This comes after China ramped theirs up to 84% after President Trump following our show yesterday ramped ours up to 125% and then dumped everybody else's tariffs down to 10. So what's going on here? This sounds like things are heating up.

I'll tell you what's going on. 155%. That's the next step on our way to escalating this trade war. Kevin O'Leary, Shark Tank, Star, has said he wants it to go to 400%. Yep, those are rookie numbers. Got to get those numbers up. Let's take those to 400%. Yesterday, we laid out our case for the grand plan of Scott Besson,

the grand plan of President Donald Trump. not just turning the screws on China, but reimagining the American economy, building a stronger economy that supports the working class, also resetting the global world order when it comes to trade. After our show yesterday, Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs for most of the world. They will stay with a floor of 10%, but reciprocal tariffs will be put on pause while we go into a negotiation period for the next three months with the various countries across the world. The stock market skyrocketed, went up almost 8% on the day. Now, it is an interesting set of events yesterday that left me a little bit, quite honestly, scratching my head.

I think we can analyze what led to this moment. What led to the moment in part, and not to be to CNBC, was the fact that the 10-year treasury started to spike to 4.7% if the market is going down interest rates should go down but that was not happening an unexpected event occurred where our interest rates on the 10-year treasury went up and no one knew quite why there was conspiracies about whether or not the chinese were dumping american 10 years were hedge funds in america dumping the bonds charlie gasperino on fox news yesterday said it was actually the japanese that started to unload american treasuries if you're selling then the interest rate grows up. That's the price tag you got to entice new investors in, so interest rates go up. That's not

what the administration wants. They want lower interest rates. That's clear. They want it for the mortgage rates of average Americans. They want it for the price of renegotiating our national debt, which is going to roll over to some significant amount in the next several years. And if that thing starts to spin out of control or spike to 5%, we're in trouble. So did Donald Trump and Scott Bessent cry uncle? That's the story you hear on CNN, that they bent, they pivoted, away from their plan. That may be or that may not be. I'm not 100% sure. I think it's a reasonable conclusion that that is not what they wanted to do and they pivoted away while looking at what was happening to the 10-year treasury. But I don't think, and I say this honestly, I don't think

that takes them away from their overall plan. Within the next 90 days, the plan is still to renegotiate with all of these countries across the world. As we played for you yesterday, we're not going to be making nikes in oklahoma we are going to though try to put those plants into countries that have good trade deals with us vietnam mozambique mexico and we're going to renegotiate those deals with those countries in the next 90 days what we don't want is them for those plants to exist especially pharmaceuticals and things tied to our national security with our greatest economic rival on the world stage china and that takes us back to your point Don Tinfoil, we are ramping up. We are turning the screws on China.

Today at 4 o'clock on the Fox News Channel at the Wilcansha, we'll be joined by the Secretary of Defense, Pete Heggseth, who just came back from Panama, where they are looking at taking right of first and right of free through the Panama Canal and boxing out the Chinese who've come to dominate commerce at the Panama Canal. Long and short of it is, we're turning the screws on China. We are absolutely turning the screws on China. Yesterday in the Oval Office, said, I think Xi Jinping is great. He's my friend. He's smart. I fall out the people that sat behind this resolute desk that made these bad deals of the last several decades. So is there a deal to be had? As he sweet talks Xi Jinping, is there a deal to be had? Because if there is, cool. If there

isn't, we are putting China in a box. And I am a little nervous about what happens when you put a Global superpower. Make no mistake, they are a global superpower, economically but more so militarily. When you put them in a box, what they do when it becomes existential. And it will become existential for the Chinese Communist Party. If they threaten to lose their country, what do they do with Taiwan? What do they do in the South Pacific? Do you fight your way out of collapse? Go ahead, two a days. Do you think Trump sees Xi Jinping as like that friend that, you know, they're a buddy, but they're going to do some things that pisses? see off sometimes as that kind of relationship you have to call him out on it i think that's how he sees the world yeah i think that's how he sees the world he understands if somebody beats you in a trade

deal yeah that's your fault not his fault like his job is to take advantage of you and get the best job for china his job is to get the best deal for america let's just hope that it doesn't become a situation where china is such a loser in these deals that the only way to become a winner is to launch the nukes. Go ahead, 10-4. That's right, Will. Speaking of trade deals, Luca returned to Dallas last night. What do you think?

At the start of the show, Patrick. At the start of the show. You're going to bring the show down at the start. We have to talk about it. We have to get your opinion. Are you mad, sad? Did you shed a tear? You just piss well off for the next 50 minutes.

I'm just glad Nico Harrison isn't in charge or our national trade deals were working out with Mozambique in Mexico. He'd give it all away. All of it away. Watching Luca returned to Dallas last night

was super sad. I wasn't watching the game live in the first half, but I was at a soccer practice and one of the dad said to me, he's got 31 in the first half. I'm like, you've got to be kidding. You know they fed him the rock

on purpose, though? But I don't even care. I don't care that. Luca went off for 45. I don't care that the Lakers won. The only thing that I cared about was that video of Luca watching the tribute video that Dallas did for Luca. He's sitting on the bench.

Why is that funny, dude? He's sitting on the bench. Well, not that part. You guys are making this worse. But the Dallas Maverick social team shared it on all of their socials. And like, I don't know. It just kind of looked like, do they? It kind of looked like a cell phone.

A what? Like a cell phone. Like this is our worst moment. Here it is up on our social media page. Oh, a self-owned. I thought you said self-owned. Oh, yeah. I've got to differentiate.

A self-owned. Well, you have been owned. You might as well acknowledge it. Lucas sat on the bench watching that tribute video, which was a really good tribute video that they put together for him, literally with tears in his eyes. You know how sometimes on the internet everybody says, oh, you're crying or you have tears in your eyes, you know? And it's not no, literally you can see tears well and. up in his eyes and bows his head and wipes his cheeks it's freaking awful man like this was his home and he was ours and you sold our soul you did that nico harrison you sold our soul

even mark cuban saw it when they're booing nico fire nico chance mark cuban's like ah it's so depressing man the answer patrick is sad and mad go ahead 1040s all righty so one of our favorite people congresswoman jasmine crockett she is a little out of touch but um with the people of america she said we done picking cotton i'm not going to quote her because i want to let her quote herself play the clip play the clip we'll let me go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country or the fact that we are a country or the fact that we are a country of immigrants. Right, right. The fact is ain't none of y'all trying to go and farm right now. Okay, so I'm lying, raise your hands. You're not, you're not. You're not. We're done

picking cotton. We are. You can't pay us enough to find a plantation. I know that's right. She's a gift that keeps on giving, Will. Yeah. I know. And I don't even want to shout her down because if this is the voice you choose to elevate as one of the – what do you say right now? Is that a top five voice in the Democratic Party? Absolutely. Is that a top five voice we just heard right there?

You have AOC. I'll just say this. Her. She's got charisma. Bernie Sanders, maybe. Her beauty Sanders. Youthful energy. She will give Donald Trump.

much leeway for for bad days in the market from tariffs like if that's if that's your alternative i mean he could tank the entire economy and still win this is i mean racist stupid all that stuff all that stuff we're we're not done farming by the way i don't know about who's sitting in your crowd right there but we're not done farming we're one of the world's largest agricultural producers um and we're not done and i don't know what is the argument as well unfettered illegal immigration she's making the argument for that is that she's also making the argument that we need a black market of labor that works under minimum wage that doesn't get health care and benefits that undercuts the entire economy and disrupts the wage structure of america she needs a shadow

workforce that's that's just gross and ugly even if it's true how about that even if it's true to embrace it to say that you have to because we're not going to do it by the way i let just to bring in one of my favorite topics always be aware robots how long till robots are in the fields um but it's just gross go ahead james i think we're giving her too much credit like we're thinking through these things on like third and fourth order consequences I don't know if she's going that deep she's just she's thinking two things people don't like manual labor anymore and two I've got this line about picking cotton

I'm going to stitch all this together that's exactly that's what that's the depth of her thought go ahead tinfoil all right we're going to wrap it up speaking of Bernie Sanders is one of the voices he was with CNN's Anderson Cooper last night and Anderson Cooper did the worst thing that a Democrat can do. Watch the clip here. I want to introduce Grace Thomas.

She's a local civil rights attorney. She's a Democrat, great? It's a they-then pronouns, actually. Thank you. The evening, Senator Sanders. Polling and turnout data indicate that men of all racial demographics are turning away from the Democratic Party. Dude, birdie's face. All right.

For those of you listening on radio or on podcast, So the Anderson Cooper correction is great and all. Like, they, them. Oh, says Anderson Cooper. Oh. But the part that you can't hear on radio or on podcast is Bernie Sanders' face. He's sitting there, mouth agape, complete confusion on his face after this goes down. And then, and then he leans in to get a better look.

He's trying to see. He's like, wait, who's the they? There's multiple people talking. Am I missing something here? Is there one, two, three? I don't know. One person. My eyesight's going bad.

You know his brain and his eyes and everything. We're doing the same thing we're all doing. So Anderson Cooper uses the she stuff, right? She and then gets corrected that it's pronouns are they, them. And then your brain goes, oh, is that a dude actually? You know, you start looking in a little closer. And Bernie's probably going, wait, is that a guy? you know he's at a trans

but in the end by the way I'm not sure it is I think it actually is a woman extremely normal looking is it just a it's a woman saying I don't want she pronouns I want they them

I think I'm not 100% sure it's a she wanting it's a woman wanting they them pronouns yes but my point is Bernie's going through in his head the exact thing

that we're talking about right now that's a hundred percent what he's doing with his mouth and his lean in he's trying to figure out I had to leave it in. I saw it. I'm like, God, we've got to talk about that. All right. And then tinfoil, finally, I'll take over

the last element of quick take. Give me a little music. Some of your comments from the Wollisha over the last couple of days, as we talked about, our big monologue yesterday on tariffs and China. Sweet Acres, Coy Farm says, why isn't one addressing the elephant in the room? The guy who tries to fix the problem is always the bad guy. Where's the anger towards the Democrats? They're the ones who caused this met.

Sweet Acres, I would say, don't focus just on Democrats. This is also a Republican problem. This is a problem decades in the making of creating a financialized economy that focuses on wall street and real estate and the unequally distributed income because of government spending and money printing it created a problem now where we have to deal with this we and by the way also created a sugar high wall street that where valuations are completely divorced from reality completely divorced from reality so this has to come back to reality jim dandy says will doing the weave i was doing the weave

yesterday. The show is one big week. Natalie D. says, how is insecurity in the stock market going to help us? Natalie, the stock market has to reflect reality. So what you're dealing,

the best analogy I can come up with off the fly is Wall Street is a bunch of drunk dudes at a casino. Literally. And the drinks are flowing. The drinks are flowing. Free drinks.

You ever been to a casino in Vegas? Free drinks. drinks are flowing and the bets are getting increasingly reckless okay and dangerous and now you get to a point where they're going to the ATM and then they get to a point where they're borrowing money from their buddy but if you keep the drinks flowing you stay irrational and you can make these bad bets but sooner or later you're going to go belly up so what you try to do is re-engineer it to reality cut off the drink flow but when you do everybody starts acting erratically so the point is insecurity in the stock market is inevitable pivoting back to rest. It's a matter of whether or not it's going to be a crash or controlled detonation. Is it going to be 2020, 2008, 1929.com bubble, or can Bessent and Trump right-size it with some measure of control? And I'm not suggesting it went perfectly yesterday. Gamebred Duramax says, quit begging for Chinese products. What's wrong with people? There's a lot of stuff that comes from China.

Acorn Sucks says Trump does not prioritize Wall Street And then Steve Jackson says Will Kane is the truth Love to watch this show every day Steve James wrote that

James wrote that No I'm just kidding Steve we love that you're a member I've got a burner in there But it's not that I have never commented on YouTube Because you have to create an account And do all that stuff

Like I'm like no We do that for you uh steve jackson appreciate that you're a member of the willis show coming up next well it turns out he's unpredictable and he's a bomb thrower wade stott's after his explosive appearance earlier this week on the will cane show on this version of the will cane show 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 i'm janestine 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 foxnewspodcast.com Wade's thoughts analyzed our conversation with Vake Ramoswamy about what it means to be an American. He has his thoughts. He's about to join us here on the Will Kane Show streaming live at Fox News.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Hit subscribe at Apple or on Spotify. Wade Stott's is the host of the Wade Show with Wade. He's on X at Wade Stats and he joins us now. What's up, man?

Doing great. How are you, man? You're going to come in just right. out of the gate you can start going after lindy lee today yeah i'm going to hit tinfoil hat ten foil pat today that's gonna be uh i had weighed on the will can't show the other day um i don't even remember the the scheduled topic but he was scheduled to appear with lindy lee who is a former democrat um bundler fundraiser for comla harris probably joe biden before that i don't know her full resume um lindy's been on this show um she's now telling tales about the internal dysfunction

and hypocrisy and problems within the democratic party there have been a lot of people that have said wow how convenient you know that lindy is now telling this stuff after comel harris lost the election and and so forth um and i did not know you were going to do that way i did not um but it did didn't surprise me a little bit when you did do it that day like i was like oh okay we're we're doing this you're going after lindy and then i thought to myself well it that's okay because i think it's always good to live out loud and i think it's good to like air out thoughts and disagreements no i really do like i come from first take and i believe in like sort of live out loud and be authentic but i didn't see i come and i think it's fair to say neither did lindy yeah i um so you said you

didn't remember the topic I the plan topic was Democrat flip-flopping and so there were it was about tariffs and I think it was also about signal so those are the questions you were asking and I thought you know what I can't not say anything to me it was it was just funny to be talking about like clips from Bernie Sanders from 2008 and go like he's such a hypocrite for changing his mind or like saying something different like talking to somebody who was like who like tweeted about how excited she was about Kamala in November but I mean I I wanted to stay on topic, and I also wanted to be a very pro-Fox, which I thought worked out. I think that's all fair.

I really do. I actually think the conversation, like if I had Lindy come on right now, I think that's a fair conversation. I think she has to think it's fair as well. And then the question you have to answer and you have to leave the audience with is, is can someone change? And is that change sincere, right? I think the first question is for you, and the second question is for the audience to decide.

Do they think someone's change is sincere? I have changed. You know, I imagine you've changed on some things. And that was the ostensible, which we should actually get into today. That was the, to your point, it wasn't just about Democrats changing. What I was actually excited to hear about you from, because I think you're well positioned to analyze this, is also the way Republicans have changed on tariffs, for example. And so before we get into that substance, like let's put a button on the Lindy thing, like you answer, do you think someone can change and then, well, not that sincere? Yeah, I certainly think people can change their political beliefs.

I think the, I'm typically skeptical when somebody wants to keep a leadership position. So if somebody changes and still wants the microphone immediately, and I think that was what I was skeptical about, I think there was, it was 10 days after the election that she was excited to talk on Fox News about all the. all the bad stuff that she said was going on there um and then in in our conversation when she and i were talking she didn't go the route of saying i've stayed i she didn't go the route of yeah i said those things and that was insane and i've totally changed my mind she went the route of i have been coming on fox news for years as a conservative democrat uh talking about how the woke are going to destroy the party um and then i happened to have a few quotes ready uh where she had said the opposite of that had had uh talked badly about fox and also had said

said something about like that anti-wokeness mean is code for anti-blackness. It was like within six, like six months ago, you can find the most like, like lefty points that you can, that you'd get from, you know, Jasmine Crockett today. But again, 10 days after the election, she's excited to talk on Fox News about how her old team did not spend the money she raised as well as she would like. And my, my question, what I want to know is if she would have stayed silent had Kamala won. So what it looks like is she raised a lot of money They spent it in a way that she didn't approve of And then Kamala lost But if Kamala would have won

I don't know if we would be seeing the same Kind of opening of the books If you catch my drift Right, right I think those are fair questions I do and by the way you got some flack I got some flack for that segment that day Both of us did

But I actually think those are fair questions And I think I will probably interact with Lindy again I don't know if you will but I think I will ask those questions because I think those are very, very fair. Let's go back now to the more substantive element of people changing. And I think this takes us to yesterday

and it's a deeper conversation I'd love to have with you. And again, I think you're well positioned to be a voice on this topic because as I understand you, I think you and I have a lot of thought processes that overlap with one another. But I don't know where you were 10 years ago. I do know where I was 10 years ago.

And I was much more stridently libertarian. I was much more stridently, and I hate to even say this, but capitalist to the fault of being corporatist, that would be my critique of my former self, like, well, whatever the market say and however it shakes out and whatever a free market enables, well, that means it's a meritocracy, and that's so it is.

And I'm less inclined to believe in those sort of market truisms and start being a little more practical. But I have to be careful, like, are you becoming like somebody who wants to meddle in the economy and be central planning? So there's been a big change as the point, and I've gone along, and I embraced a lot of this change and some economic outlooks for the right.

So we can't just point out the changes of Bernie Sanders. We've got to point out our own as well and try to understand them. Yeah, I totally agree. Ten years ago, I was fresh out of college, so who knows? what you would get straight out of me. But yeah, I think that a big part of this is that we've realized, especially since 2020, that the public private divide is not as neat as we ideologically might have thought.

So we thought at the time that, okay, there's the private realm and there's certain kinds of private behavior that we don't like. So there are companies that will violate free speech, but they're private companies and they set the rules. You signed that you clicked the I agree to the terms. And so you are now in in their world. And then the public sphere over here, that's the thing that's protected by the Constitution. And that's where your rights are. You didn't sign up for an exception to your rights or whatever. But the especially in 2020, like I said, the public private sphere, we haven't ever really lived in a time where the public private distinction existed in that sort of way. And you get this with like, you get this with the wealth that's transferred, that's, you know, people go into Congress and then end up making a bunch of money that's definitely outside of their congressional salaries.

And you go, hey, is there possibly insider trading? Is there possibly incentivizing like this relationship between government and business that is not a clear cut line in the same way that like the governments will send money to non-government organizations so that they can keep their hands clean? This wasn't done by us. This was done by something that we gave money to. And so the money the money essentially gets laundered in these NGOs. And so I think that there's that that learning that the private public private distinction is not true, at least to the extent that we thought it was, has helped with that at least understanding. I also think, and you mentioned this in our segment, that the party has moved away from a sort of ideological conservatism or an ideological libertarianism. to more of a focus on American workers, people, people with jobs. And that's a natural change when you have somebody like Trump. So I mentioned, I answered that Trump is the leader of the party. And what I didn't say in that is that we've slowly but surely gone along with his

arguments. And if somebody makes an argument in a sustained way and continues to get people on their side on every other issue, usually the other issues fall. So that's the more practical kind of purpose. But like on the ideas side, I would say that, yeah, it's just a shift from thinking of private businesses, they can do whatever they want, oh, whatever makes the market go up, that makes me happy. I think that's a shift that's happening in the conservative MAGA movement. So I have two thoughts on what you just said.

So I do believe when I look back on my prior self and I think that I'm also a proxy for a way that I don't even know. I never, I'm not a team guy, Wade, so I always like, I don't like saying the right and I don't like saying Republicans. I just don't like it. Like, I am where I am and if it aligns, it aligns, but it's like, I don't know, I just, the labels always are kind of hard for me because labels have requirements or presumptions. And I'd rather be free to explore my own thoughts and share my own thoughts in an authentic way without being prepackaged before I get there. But I do think the right had elevated ideology to the, to the level of religion, like at least in public policy and government. I do believe that, and by the way, it wasn't just the right, progressives did as well. The entire 20th century can

kind of be defined as the age of ideology, where we replaced God and replaced a lot of other things with our political points of view and the philosophers behind them and all of their ideas, right? So that happened. And it increasingly, I think, got removed from the practical effects on real life. It doesn't make them valueless. And it doesn't make them valueless. And it doesn't make them worthless, but they also can't become the Ten Commandments, you know, regardless of the outcome, these are good ideas. The second thing is you were focused on culture just now, on that public-private divide, but I actually think that works as an analogy for economics. We were living in a world where it's like, well, we're free trade, and therefore we don't have tariffs,

and if the other people do have tariffs, that doesn't mean we should do it because they're making the mistake, not us, right? And then as well, like, well, the free market is doing its thing, and if Wall Street makes money, it makes money. But what we continue to ignore is the overlap of public and private, meaning the Federal Reserve printing money, the government spending money, had a spicket effect on our economy where the biggest buckets literally sat outside of D.C. or New York and picked up most of the money. And you can see that. Rich got way richer. Did the middle class and poor do all right? Yeah, you know what? They actually did in the whole concept of redefining poverty and standards of living. But as far as their share of our

national economy, it totally stagnated. And that's not because a free market just said you're worthless. That's because a free market was not free. It was being manipulated by the Federal Reserve and government spending, and the rich had the biggest buckets closest to the spigot. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think that there's also, if you zoom out, and so a lot of people did the zoom out thing when there was a dip in the market of last week. A lot of people zoomed out to five years on Google. So if you go and you search Dow Jones, you can zoom out to five years. People saw, hey, it's been doubling over the past five years. The Dow Jones has doubled over the past five years. The takeaway from that is not, oh, wow, the economy has been doing

amazingly over the past five years or that the country has been doing amazingly over the past five years. And thinking that the whatever it looked like in November or in February means that we have, that our economy has healed or that there's some kind of positive, like any, you mentioned sugar high earlier before I came on. And that's exactly what it was. And if people are not feeling this doubling of the economy, whatever's happening, people are, it's not a morale boosting kind of thing. You can see that the Trump gains. People felt those. And I think that there was still. a lot of the same kind of financial stuff going on, some of the ugliness, but the gains during the technical gains during the Biden administration, not something that the country felt a big sigh of relief about. That five-year window you're talking about is actually a great example. So the stock market in those five years did it double? I don't know, it increased exponentially.

It was a boom. But average Americans didn't double their, the economy didn't work that way for them. Real wages stagnated, inflation went up. And Scott Besson says it well. He's like, the bottom 50% of America has no assets. They only have debt. You know, that's a pretty scary thing. I don't know if you saw this way when he was on with Tucker.

He said, here's a story that I think illustrates it. I think it was in the summer of 24, he said, or maybe it's 23. We had record numbers of European vacations. Americans taken, you know, trips to Europe. We also had a record number of people visiting food banks. that's really bad. You know, that's a really bad divide in America. We just need a, I think we just need a healthier economy.

Yeah. And that's what I think, the point of all that is this whole tariff. I'll leave it at this way, and I'll give you the last comment. I'm actually concerned about the rebound in the last day or two. Believe it or not, I'm actually concerned about it because I think the stock market still is bubbly, and I think it still is divorced from fundamentals. And I think it still has to be brought back in to reality to reflect the economy. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the, anybody who was freaking out in a negative way about the dip and anybody who's freaking out in a positive way about the rise over the past couple of days, I think is taking the wrong lesson. We're in a really tumultuous time. Trump is kind of pressing all the buttons to see what they do. And then by the end of this, I think we'll figure out what the normal, is it, is the normal the growth, is the normal slow descent? We'll figure that out as far as the stock market goes, but I don't tend to see the dips or the big peaks as being things that I should change my mood about.

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Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy host of the Trey Gowdy 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. All right. So I was looking on your YouTube channel and you had a video, which I appreciate. You broke down the conversation. It wasn't, you called it to a debate. it wasn't a debate to me

because I know what it is to debate but I pushed back on Vivek here and there and actually more after the interview was over we had it really continued I had Vivek Ramaswami candidate for governor of Ohio former presidential candidate

a few weeks ago for like a 20 minute conversation on the Will Kane show it was centered around this idea of what it means to be an American and you broke it down you did a great job of breaking it down and you said that you believe Vake's

mistake or his calculus on what it is to be an American is basically too transactional. It's like, you know, work hard and get into America. Those are two things that make you an American. Yeah. Yeah, I think, so he focused in, and I think you opened it.

You mentioned that you were having a debate with him offline, and I think I misinterpreted that to say that you were debating with him on air. But, yeah, in his summary, it's much more focused on ideas, and you asked them a question about ideas. I think there's the sort of mental thing, the academic approach, and then the hard work, specifically academic hard work, and then openness.

So, and that in, to the, to an outsider, to somebody watching along, it might seem like he's trying to define the American story in a way that, where his is the central American story, the immigrant story of someone who comes here, works hard and succeeds. And again, that's a beautiful story. and I celebrate it. But the Central American story is something that that person enters into

and the history that somebody enters into is full of heroes, it's full of stories. There's, you know, the, like, Huckleberry Finn, you know, is in the bones of the South. And if you extract Huckleberry Finn, then that's a different place. And so there are things that are kind of intangibles and little rules and little mannerisms

and little things like that that I think that any description of the American identity that doesn't at least gesture toward, this is an insanely complicated, organic, human thing. And defining it by its openness, I think, is, openness is part of it. And academic hard work and that sort of thing is part of it. But if you define it that way, then it sort of relativizes all of those other things. I mentioned the academic hard work. I think that by his description, it'd be tough to, if hard work is so central to this whole thing.

then it'd be tough to say that, well, Indians value hard work, Chinese people value hard work. And is openness and academic hard work are those enough to make a nation? Is that enough to solidify for us to have some kind of vision? I think that as we're trying to move out of a time where we're ruled by this sort of anxiety and lack of definition or self-hatred of Americans, this like we're trying to educate our core American population into thinking that this. are the worst people in the world, that their ancestors were evil and insane. We have to be able to define not just the external attributes, things that you can put on a report card,

but define, or at least gesture toward and say out loud, hey, this is a place, again, something that's developed over the course of years, developed over the course of hundreds of years, and that it's defined, again, by the people who came here first, and the people who welcomed others, welcomed them into something that was going on before them. yeah so vivake does emphasize the concept of meritocracy to your point that's the central thematic element of the american identity to him to your point um and he has this line in our conversation which you point to where he says you can't become an italian you can't become a german you can't become an indian but you can become an american and that's true and it's a great line um but then i say but how do you become an American, right? And it can't just be through hard work.

And he, by the way, to Vivek's credit, he's very open to this conversation and he's actually open to the more controversial elements, which you and I haven't even touched on, meaning, so I pushed him on, it's a people as well. And to your point, it's a story, and it's a culture. And then Vivek would say to me,

but don't just say that, define it. What is that culture? he would say that to me i will say i don't think the vague um denies that i don't think he denies that story those people and that culture i really don't um but i think that he so it i don't know what you would say i think i saw in your video look the people largely western european largely english largely anglo-saxon protestant come along with this has been written about for centuries work ethic. It's known as the Protestant work ethic. Frontier spirit by even coming over here, there was an element of self-selection on the people

who had that level of risk tolerance as they pushed further west, another level of self-selection of people who were even more risk-tolerant that in my mind became a big part of the American identity. And then you have the additive elements that come along because it's not a closed door to his point. Then you have the Irish and the Scotch Irish and so forth, Germans that come and assimilate into that culture and also, by the way, self-select in some degree, some of those traits, meaning like the risk-tolerant traits and so forth. And I don't think Vivek would deny that. And I want to hear if you agree with that description I just gave. I don't think he would deny it. You could argue the modern-day immigrant story

does self-select for that same sort of aspirational modern-day frontiersman thing as well. Then there's the question of, do you assimilate and how do you become an American? Do you adopt these cultural moors. By the way, you're allowed to change it. We've always said, we'll take the best ideas from everybody, right, without jettisoning who we have been. You can't, one can, you can adopt new things without throwing away the old. I think you can to some extent. But what he would say, Wade, as I wind this up, is he would say this, that doesn't protect you from criticism. So if he thinks it has gotten into a malaise that culture um of participation trophy sort of world then you should be able to be criticized like any other culture and i think he's okay if i'd say he says if you go if there's

a mentality that uh hey pull your pants up work hard that people say for black america you can say that all as well for the regular the rest of the culture as well the vast whatever historical norm of the culture is. Hey, you've slid into participation trophy. Get into it. Pick yourself up. Yeah. And I think that any kind of, it all depends on where you get that work ethic from or what you're criticizing. So it, yeah, it would be a mistake for somebody to say, hey, my grandparents are really hard workers. How dare you say that I'm not? That would be silly. And it would be defensive. Bragging about your ancestry is terrible if you are not living up to their goals and what they wanted you to be. And so, yes, criticism is warranted. What I would

want is that any of that criticism turns into reform rather than changing forms to be something else. So that any kind of retrieval of the American work ethic is going to be a retrieval of the Protestant work ethic. Any kind of, it's going to be a retrieval of the American work ethic. And being able to define that and say that, yes, there's a certain way. I mean, there's a reason that Max Weber invented that term, the Protestant work ethic. There's a way in which Protestants work. There's a way in which Americans work in particular that is distinct, why they work, how they work, and that sort of thing. And that's different from a sort of burnout, you know, 80, 90 hour work weeks as a minimum and that sort of thing.

So getting and working hard, again, comes from somewhere, and it comes from a place. where again we have different heroes so like if if if somebody looks at the I mean I if somebody looks at a statue of George Washington and says wow I admire him and you try to live out the way that he lived and be the way that he was that's a different source of inspiration than the carrot and stick approach it's a different source of inspiration from a different religious approach and so yes you can look at outward behaviors you can criticize the outward behaviors of people saying I think the way to do it is you're not living up to your ideals. You're not living up to your heroes, not you're not living up to my

heroes or my ideals. And I realize that again, my idea. Because this part of the conversation is tied to Vivek originally criticizing the modern day culture of America, right? And this is what launched this entire debate, which he did back in whatever it was December. Right. Yeah. And I say fair point. I say there's plenty to say about the American work ethic. I think that ignoring the fact that, again, a lot of the jobs that are here have been shipped overseas and that a lot of the American culture has been hollowed out by a denigration of its core culture, a denigration of its core people, of its founding stock. I think we have to incorporate that in there. It's never an excuse. And I want to echo Vivek's point on that. The points that he has about all of these

things are true. Again, but I would prefer to say, to criticize and say, you're not living up to what you want. I've heard people say that in the movie business, but what you want, the note you want from the studio is, you told me that this movie was about this, but you're not giving me that. What I need is what you promised me in the pitch. And so execute the thing that you set out to do, rather than saying, coming in with some separate note and say, hey, what if you had a dog, you know, that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. I actually love this conversation. I think it can go on forever.

And as I said, and Vivek agrees, it is sort of the question of our time. No. I think it is a major existential question for this country. Dang it, I had one more thing I wanted to do besides what it means to be an American. I don't want to talk about these, the women wanting to proxy vote in Congress. I don't, I don't know. It's not the biggest issue for me in the world. Is that a big issue for you?

No, I've got my baby carrier right here, so I'm, yeah. I can do it. How many kids do you have, Wade? I have four and a pregnant wife. So I've got three boys, one girl, and then my wife's pregnant with another boy. So we are thrilled, very full. Life is good. You're just populating the compound up there in Idaho.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. filling up the bunk that's great it's always a fascinating conversation uh Wade I I really enjoy it um okay we'll see you sometime soon uh on the Wilcane show thank you Wade thank you for having me all right check him out uh it's the Wade show with it's the Wade show with Wade it's Wade's Scott's uh is on YouTube it's on X I'm sure he's on Spotify Apple check him out all right uh when we come back let's take a quick break when we come back

Jonathan Horn wrote a new book uh the fate of the generals, and he talks about what not we're ready for this confrontation with China. 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. 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 News Podcasts dot com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

We put China in a box to fight their way out, and are we ready for that fight? It's the Will Kane Show. Streaming live at foxnews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel and the Fox News Facebook page. Hit subscribe at Apple or on Spotify. Jonathan Horn is the author of a new book, The Fate of the Generals. It comes out, Tax Day, April 15th. and he's joining us now not a good day jonathan to ask people for extra money that's that's a tough release date i'll have to take that up to my publisher you should take that over your publisher

i don't know what percentage of the american public is just w2 filing now versus having to actually write a check to the government but uh that's a day you don't feel flush generally uh talk to me about the fate of the generals talking about our military preparedness secretary of defense pete Hegseth, who will be joining me a little bit later today on the Will Cain Show, has asked for a $1 trillion defense department budget. Talk to me about our preparedness. Well, you know, I noticed that the Secretary of Defense was just in the Philippines, and he was talking about the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines, and most Americans, I think, don't know that we have a mutual defense treaty. And there is a lot of tension right now in the South China Sea,

where the Chinese have made very grandiose claims to those waters. And the United States has an alliance with the Philippines. And so my book, The Fate of the Generals, MacArthur, Wainwright, in the epic battle for the Philippines, sort of is the backstory to how he got here with the Philippines. Because most people don't even know today that the Philippines used to be an American colony. And it was the place where the United States suffered its worst defeat during World War II. That's why Douglas MacArthur had to make that famous vow, I shall return.

It was because he was ordered to leave the Philippines and to leave behind his army, which was starving and eventually going to face surrender. And he left it under the command of General Jonathan Wainwright, who made a very different vow. And his vow was to stay with his men, even when that meant becoming the highest-ranking American prisoner of war of World War II. me understand the strategic importance of the Philippines. And, um, you know, I know historically what, it was a Spanish colony. Uh, that's why, uh, I can imagine that was during the race for many European powers to establish a presence in Eastern Asia from Portugal and Spain and the Dutch, um, all getting over there for trying to be the first to break into Japan, so forth. I think the, was it the, the Portuguese or the Spanish plan to actually connect, uh,

Asian Empire to a European Empire at some point all the way through China. It wasn't they could have executed that. I don't know. But historically, that was it. What was the strategic importance from the beginning when we began to invest in the Philippines? You know, that's a great question. And what happened was in 1898, the United States went to war with Spain. And as you said, the Philippines was a Spanish colony at that time.

And Theodore Roosevelt, who was the assistant secretary of the Navy at the time, had these orders. In the event of war with Spain, he sent this order to Admiral Dewey immediately proceed to Manila Bay. And of course, we won a major naval battle in Manila Bay in 1898. And then American troops in 1898, under the command of Douglas MacArthur's father, a general named Arthur MacArthur, led the very first American troops inside the walled city of Manila. They saw the American flag go up over the Philippines. and over the city, and the Philippines became an American colony. And Douglas MacArthur grew up believing that the Philippines was the key to America's future as a Pacific power. So why?

Was that already with China in mind or just controlling as much of the Pacific Ocean as possible? You know, I think there was a theory that great empires needed great navies and great navies needed naval bases. and the Philippines was a way for America to project its power into the Pacific toward this massive market of China. At the same time, military strategists realized very early that in the event of war with Japan, it would be extremely difficult to defend the Philippines. And this is sort of obvious when you just think about the geography, the Japanese who were a rising power at this time would be able to land many forces in the Philippines before we would be able to send, reinforcements across the world's largest ocean to the Philippines. And so that's how we settle on this plan, basically, instead of trying to defend the more than 7,000 islands of the Philippines, just to defend a small part of it, the mouth of Manila

Bay, and that's the Baton Peninsula, which you've heard, of course, from the Baton Death March, and the tiny island of Corrigador. And that was the plan. And, of course, it becomes one of the great disasters during the beginning of World War II. when we have what is the largest American surrender of forces in history just yesterday is the anniversary of April 9th, 1942 on the baton peninsula, nearly 80,000 American forces, United States forces, Americans and Filipinos fighting for the American flag, surrendered to the Japanese on that day.

So your book focuses on the history and the strategic importance and the role these generals played in securing the Philippines. as you apply it and look it to the modern day world, even then, even if they had China in mind, China wasn't the global superpower that it is today. Even further into the future, China wasn't seen as adversarial to the United States for a while. You know, in fact, you know, when we were fighting Japan, we thought China was more our friend. But as we've become rivals on the world stage, how key is the Philippines to I don't want to say what will happen, but what could happen in the future with China.

Well, it's very important. And you look at the geography of World War II, and we're talking about all that same geography today. You know, it is a place because of its proximity to the South China Sea and the claims that the Chinese are making right now to the majority of the South China Sea. And you have confrontations between Filipino ships and Chinese ships. the Chinese have ramped Filipino ships. And of course, the United States remains treaty bound to come to the defense of the Philippines. And, you know, one of the lessons, I think, of my book was that in the beginning of World War II, before the United States was really willing to accept the burdens of being a great military power, there was a, there was a contrast between what we were wanted to do, which was be a have these far-flung positions, and what we were willing to invent. and we weren't willing to make the investments needed to be a great military power.

And the people who end up paying the price for that mismatch are our troops in the Philippines and General Wainwright will become the highest-ranking prisoner of war of World War II. And, you know, when he emerges from captivity at the end of World War II, he returns, he receives the Medal of Honor from President Truman. You'll see him actually in the famous photograph standing behind Douglas MacArthur on the USS, Missouri, where McCarthur is accepting the surrender of the Japanese, the lesson that Wainwright takes after all these years of torture from the Japanese because he did not want to become a prisoner of the Japanese,

if you could avoid it, was the need for military preparedness. And he felt like that basically he had just been the general left holding the short stick at this time. And that was true. Well, I'm going to ask that in the context of modern day, again, when it comes to preparedness. What is the attitude of Filipinos is, are they, today, I'm curious on two fronts. How do they feel about the Spanish and how do they feel about Americans? You know, I think the United States is extremely popular in the Philippines and remains popular today. Part of it is, Douglas, you know, first of all, one of the first things that

the United States does when they move into the Philippines, there is a interaction. But once that's over, the United States begins investing in schools, in education. And Filipinos, remember that legacy today and the relations remain very close between our militaries and of course Douglas MacArthur is a huge part of that because when MacArthur is ordered out of the Philippines and goes to the safety of Australia he makes that famous vow I shall return and the story of what it took to keep that vow which he felt was a moral obligation for the United States because we have been forced out of American soil because that's what the Philippines was at the beginning of World War II at the point of a bayonet, and he felt that we have to return the same way.

And keeping his word and landing and returning to the Philippines in 1944 really did solidify those bonds between our two countries. All right. And then on the lesson of preparedness, I mean, I don't know how much you, I know you study history. I don't know how much you study modern-day American military preparedness, but it certainly is a question when it comes to China. They have just yesterday, President Trump held an executive office signing where he talked about rebuilding maritime dominance in context of the dominance of China has built up over the last couple of decades when it comes to the sea. And he's my friend. I've spent a lot of time around him.

The Secretary of Defense has talked often about the number of times we've run war games, simulations on a potential war with China. And I believe that I don't know if it's like whatever it is, 10 for 10. or 100 for 100, but it's an incredibly high number of simulations. We lose almost every time to China. And you know, as you're saying that, it is very reminiscent of the beginning of World War II and War Plan Orange because we had this plan to withdraw the baton. We hoped our soldiers could hold out, but everybody knew in Washington that really there was impossible for our forces to hold out for as long as it would take for naval forces

from the United States to come to the rescue. And so as you look at where we are today, yeah, I think it's similar to the period before World War II in the sense that the clock is ticking. And I was listening to what the Defense Secretary said when he was in the Philippines and he was saying we're going to invest in this region like never before. And, you know, the clock is ticking

because we're not necessarily prepared. And I'm not, of course, a current military strategist, but it is useful to look back at the lessons of history and see where we are. And I think as you read about our situation during World War II, so many of the same places, so much of the same geography is now in play. It's true that the enemy is now, or not I shouldn't say the enemy, but could be China. And then it was Japan.

But the same places are being under discussion. And to understand how we got here, you do need to understand the history of World War II in the Pacific. And that's what you've laid out in the fate of the generals focuses on MacArthur and Wainwright, two very different journeys, two different paths, experiences in the Philippines, but laying out what we did, the fight we took on to invest and maintain a presence and in the Philippines. Jonathan Horn, check out the book, The Fate of the Generals. We appreciate you sharing it with us today. Thank you, John.

Thanks so much for having me. Okay, take care. All right, that's going to do it for us today. Tomorrow is a Canaan Sports edition of the Will Can Show. We'll have Merrill Hage, legendary NFL running back, 22. two years in the league, break down what it takes for your team to succeed in the NFL draft, including players he believes in and knows he doesn't. That's coming up tomorrow right here on the Will Kane show.

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