Over Christmas, conservatives on the right went to war over immigration and H-1B visas. The pro-H-1-B side was spearheaded by none other than Elon Musk, who said he would go to battle over this issue. And then we've got people on the other side of this debate, like me, who took issue with some of their arguments. And here today, my dad is here to talk about this issue, and we ve got a variety of perspectives and disagreements going on. Also, we ll be talking about Trump s priorities, and my dad will be giving some encouragement, some advice, and some wisdom on how to start your year on the correct foot.
00:03:31.580It sparked, it seems, on December 23rd when Trump announced that India-born Sriram Krishnan
00:03:39.340will serve as the president's senior policy advisor for artificial intelligence.
00:03:44.560He is a tech entrepreneur, a venture capitalist.
00:03:46.740Some in the MAGA camp criticized Krishnan's support for increasing the immigration of skilled workers, arguing that his position contradicts Trump's America-first policy.
00:04:01.900Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in with Elon Musk saying, look, I'm here and a bunch of the people who work at Tesla are here and doing great work because of the H-1B program.
00:04:16.820Vivek Ramaswamy went on this whole rant, which I didn't really appreciate, and I can get into my take later, saying, you know, American culture kind of sucks.
00:04:27.920And we elevate the wrong heroes, our sitcoms celebrate laziness, and Asia, they create harder workers.
00:04:38.300They create smarter people because their education system is better, their culture is better, whatever.
00:04:43.120So we need H-1Bs if we want America to succeed and be number one.
00:04:50.480A lot of conservatives on the other side saying, oh, America first means prioritizing American workers as much as possible.
00:05:34.880And that's where the core of the issue begins.
00:05:38.360And so what we need to be focusing on is to let's how do we improve our education system?
00:05:45.320And I know that Trump is looking at, you know, maybe abolishing the Department of Education, which I think is a good idea.
00:05:51.020It should go right back down to where the parents have the most control.
00:05:55.460That's how you get schools to be better.
00:05:57.360But in the meantime, if we do want these technologies that we need to control and be the leader in, we do need to have the brightest people.
00:06:08.180Now, I will say that we should look for American citizens first.
00:06:13.800And we shouldn't, it doesn't need to be a level playing field, in my opinion, in that we should try to hire as many citizens as we can.
00:06:24.320And we've got a lot of them that maybe are being passed over because of the wage thing, which I think we'll talk about.
00:06:30.520But I'm not, you know, it's interesting.
00:08:01.780There needs to be a fine if they don't pay them the same as we do, you know, say an American citizen.
00:08:08.120That would reduce the competition as well.
00:08:11.120I mean, that would help competition as well.
00:08:12.760I mean, that's one thing for sure that we can do.
00:08:15.520And we should also put requirements in that if there are similarly qualified American citizens, that they should be given first priority for that.
00:08:27.620I mean, that's simply what it should do.
00:08:32.360Remember also, this is something to think about.
00:08:36.100These people come in, let's just use India as an example, excuse me, because that's where a lot of the software engineers, which supposedly are what's the number one job for this, those people want to leave that country because of poverty and other reasons.
00:08:52.980If we don't pick the brightest ones out of there to come over here and try to, quote unquote, Americanize them, where do you think they're going to go?
00:09:04.940They're going to go to a lot of times to our enemies, China, Iran.
00:09:09.980The question is, are they really the brightest or are they because they are escaping dire poverty in India?
00:09:17.960They are escaping a life that most of us cannot imagine.
00:09:23.040Are they willing to do more work for less money?
00:09:37.400They typically live multiple generations to a household.
00:09:40.940So you've got typically multiple income makers and one house.
00:09:45.860That already makes the housing market very competitive in a negative way for a lot of Americans who only have one income maker per household.
00:09:56.900And they are willing to work a lot more for a lot less money.
00:10:01.900And how are Americans supposed to compete with that?
00:10:04.460Because Americans don't have the same motivation or the same incentive because we're not escaping the slums.
00:10:09.680We're trying to live a good life and, you know, provide for our families.
00:10:13.920But we just don't have the same desire to basically be a slave to a job.
00:10:18.700Any kind of work here is an upgrade for people coming from India.
00:10:22.280I just don't know if necessarily we're, maybe we are, we're going to pick out the best and the brightest from India.
00:10:29.800I mean, they rank almost the very bottom when you're looking at all of the countries when it comes to education.
00:10:35.820Way worse than America when it comes to the ranking of their education system.
00:10:40.300That's because a lot of them aren't even schooled.
00:10:42.780I think if you carved out that and you looked at their, you looked at their most educated, where do they rank?
00:10:50.060I think that, especially in STEM fields, I think, Allie, it's a very simple solution, though, to the problem with they're willing to work for less money.
00:10:57.580It's we should not allow the companies to pay them, you know, 60 or 70 percent less than what or whatever the number is than they're paying their American counterparts.
00:11:07.440If the pay is the same, then that disincentivizes the companies from trying to recruit them just for that reason.
00:11:21.780And that's what we should do and see what happens.
00:11:23.900Are they, and then we should have a, are they really the brightest or not?
00:11:27.560You know, I think we've got a lot of bright people here in America, but I don't necessarily think, like, for example, when you, when you look at STEM, okay, the science, technology, whatever all that stands for, and you look at, in America, females that enter that field versus, say, India.
00:11:50.700We're trying to encourage, you know, female engineers and software people and all that, and we should be doing that.
00:11:56.820But other countries are way further along than we are in that.
00:12:01.300We don't have this big of a pool to pick from as we should have.
00:12:05.440And I think what Vivek was saying is that what we glamorize in the United States and what we put on a pedestal are things that are not necessarily engineering, science, software-based.
00:12:18.000They are people that we see on TV or people that we see on social media and what have you.
00:12:23.000And that's not, that's not always best.
00:12:25.380Yeah, I disagreed with what Vivek said about, you know, he was talking about different sitcoms.
00:12:31.500We lionized the quarterback and we kind of vilify the nerd.
00:12:36.320But really, the American story is that whether you're the nerd, so-called, or the quarterback, you can succeed in your particular field.
00:12:44.640Whereas if you look at most Asian cultures, yeah, you have to be good at math.
00:13:05.000But I actually think that the beauty of America is that you can be eccentric, that you can be an artist, that you can be a writer, that you can succeed in these ways.
00:13:49.300What technological developments are actually being worked on by these people that we apparently need from India and China that is actually helping our society and is not just making the CEOs of these companies richer?
00:14:03.420Yeah, well, 30 years ago, we could have said the same thing.
00:14:26.160I don't think any of these H-1B visa holders should be working on anything to do with our national security or anything that we're considered classified or secret.
00:14:39.360And I believe that is happening in the Department of Defense and in their contractors.
00:14:43.800I just think there's too big a risk in vetting people, especially when we allow them to go back and forth to their home countries.
00:14:50.400You know, they can go back and forth to their home countries.
00:14:56.140Yes, especially, I mean, China and India really benefit from this in some ways.
00:15:00.560In some ways, it hurts a place like India because the argument is with, you know, the H-1Bs that apparently India has just this treasure trove of, like, hidden geniuses.
00:15:10.060And for whatever reason, India is not able to fix their own country.
00:15:14.700But as soon as they get to America, they're able to, like, advance us beyond what native-born citizens are able to do.
00:15:23.120It's kind of strange to me, apparently, how that works.
00:15:36.080But there is a kind of a short-term, more superficial benefit in that those who are coming from a place like India making money here, they're sending money back to their families.
00:15:46.200And so the people in India, those people benefiting from them still like that.
00:15:50.380And then when you look at the CCP, we know that they steal our technology and our secrets as much as they possibly can.
00:15:56.340And I just wonder if there are any protections, as you were saying, within this program to make sure it's not just the best and the brightest.
00:16:05.760It has to be people that we trust, that love this country, that care about our values, that care about our culture, that want to assimilate to a degree and want to uphold American principles.
00:16:21.440And that's why it seems like it would be easier to just prioritize American citizens.
00:16:25.420How are you ever going to know if a guy who is supportive of the CCP comes over here and is really trustworthy?
00:16:33.820We should support and prioritize American citizens first, no question about it.
00:16:37.420Now, I do like the fact that they pay Social Security taxes and all that and don't ever get to benefit from it unless they become a citizen down the road.
00:17:08.980I've got friends that own landscaping, outdoor construction companies, right?
00:17:15.160Um, and the very best stonemasons, uh, in the Americas come from Mexico and this, this gentleman's company requires, needs those people temporarily.
00:17:29.700But see, the way that works is, is they work six months here and then they go back to Mexico for six months during the year, right?
00:17:37.760So they'll work during the summer months here and then they'll go back to Mexico during the winter months where they do similar work.
00:17:44.160I think those types of things, it's kind of like what the migrant workers used to when they would, uh, you know, pick crops when they were doing most of that by hand and still do some of that.
00:17:52.200I think those types of programs are really, really good.
00:17:54.840And it just, it really got out of hand is what happened.
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00:20:33.580So Daniel Horowitz, he is at Blaze Media, and he has been talking about writing about immigration for a long time.
00:20:41.520And he kind of articulates a lot of people's frustration with this issue and why so many in the MAGA camp say, no, we don't just want an end to illegal immigration.
00:21:00.960So he said, America has admitted 36 million legal immigrants since 1989.
00:21:06.440The foreign-born population is at a record of 51.6 million.
00:21:11.080At 15.5% of the American population, the foreign-born share is also a new record in American history.
00:21:18.000And this is going to continue to increase.
00:21:21.140And here's where it's relevant to this job conversation.
00:21:24.040All net job growth in the United States since 2019 has gone to foreign-born workers.
00:21:32.760Over the last year, according to the Heritage Foundation, native-born workers have lost 773,000 jobs on net, while foreign-born workers have gained more than 1 million jobs.
00:21:45.440Since before the pandemic, the foreign-born workforce has grown by 3.7 million, while the native-born workforce has shrunk by 873,000.
00:21:54.620Over the past few decades, 71% of jobs in Silicon Valley have gone to foreign workers, while 74% of American STEM graduates have failed to secure jobs in STEM fields.
00:22:05.540So even the STEM graduates that we do have, 74% of them can't even get a job that might even not just be because of H-1B, but because of all of the DEI initiatives that we have.
00:22:15.260If you're a white male, you're not meeting those quotas that a lot of these tech companies have.
00:22:19.160During this, there was a California-based lawsuit where a federal jury found that Cognizant, the largest recipient of H-1B visas for many years, was guilty of discriminating against American IT workers.
00:22:37.400They said that they were actively terminating American employees to replace them with H-1B workers, primarily from India.
00:22:45.020I've heard the same story at places like AT&T, where actually the American employees were made to train their replacements from India.
00:22:54.120And these replacements didn't come with some amazing competitive knowledge of the field that they were going into, but they were able to work for less.
00:23:03.660If employers are desperate for more STEM workers—
00:23:06.120Let me interrupt you just for a second.
00:26:00.220When we can't fill those gaps, we need to figure out how to get them filled.
00:26:04.560And that's the position that I would take.
00:26:07.180And I would think that's really the position that—there's no value for Elon Musk to have—I mean, there's not enough people involved that makes a huge payroll difference for these bigger companies.
00:26:21.040There's just not enough—I mean, that's—so you're talking about maybe a company like an AT&T size has 1,000 people or something like that that are on this or whatever.
00:26:29.960I mean, that's a drop in the bucket to the overall revenue scheme.
00:26:35.460Okay, let's see what Bernie Sanders has to say here.
00:26:38.280Bernie Sanders, who used to be openly against illegal immigration because he saw how it creates unfair competition for the American worker.
00:27:01.780The main function of the H-1B visa program is not to hire the best and the brightest, but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.
00:27:14.540The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.
00:27:19.640So that's what Bernie Sanders has to say.
00:27:21.400Well, you know, and again, the stats would back some of that up.
00:27:26.700So I don't know that he's necessarily wrong.
00:27:28.880I would say that's not the primary or only reason.
00:27:47.560I think he just said yes or something.
00:27:49.220OK, so he said, the reason I'm in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.
00:27:59.980Take a big step back and F yourself in the face.
00:28:03.060He said, I will go to war on this issue, the likes of what you cannot possibly comprehend, which is apparently a movie quote from Tropic Thunder.
00:28:13.520And when Trump, I don't know if we have the clip of Trump talking about this when someone, I think he was going into Mar-a-Lago on New Year's Eve.
00:28:20.180But a reporter asked, like, why did you change your mind on H-1B?
00:28:23.880Because when he was talking to Megyn Kelly not too long ago, he was like, oh, we need a total overhaul of the system.
00:28:29.380It's, you know, it's hurting the American worker.
00:28:33.020Now he's like, well, we need a lot of people.
00:28:35.160We're going to need a lot of people because we're doing a lot of things.
00:28:38.360So Elon obviously has some influence over Donald Trump for better and for worse.
00:28:41.620It doesn't mean he doesn't need an overhaul, though.
00:28:54.760Well, it actually didn't have to do with this.
00:28:56.620It did have to do with mass migration.
00:28:58.200It had to do with, and this is what we were going to talk to the British journalist about today, the Rotherham scandal.
00:29:05.160The transcripts of the trials of these Muslim grooming gangs in Britain were just recently released, and Elon Musk was talking about this.
00:29:15.320And it's not just the story of the horrific, and I will not say, but the horrific thing that happened to these young British girls, but the cover-up by the police and by the British government because they didn't want to speak against immigration.
00:29:28.060They didn't want to speak against Muslims.
00:29:32.220They were scared of a backlash of Muslims.
00:29:34.260They were probably scared of terrorist attacks.
00:29:36.440But there is a consequence to saying, we are importing these people because, you know, we believe that anyone can come here as long as you're willing to work, as long as you can come into the STEM field, as long as you're willing to take a job that other people won't take, no matter what you believe, no matter what your background.
00:29:55.320There's going to be consequences to that.
00:30:39.640But, okay, I agree with progressive ideology has certainly infected parts of American culture, and that has created laziness, blah, blah, blah, all of this stuff.
00:30:48.700But American culture, like, the goodness of it is awesome.
00:30:52.280American culture gave us, if you want to call them the jocks or whatever, heroes storming the beaches of Normandy.
00:31:09.300It gave us an absolutely incredible culture where we have accomplished amazing things, no matter what your background is or socioeconomic status or skin color.
00:31:19.520But American citizens who consider this place home, not just an experiment, not just an idea, but home, have done amazing things.
00:31:28.280And I just don't want to see that discredited or belittled at all.
00:31:32.140But I agree with him that we want to get back to that place.
00:31:35.080I think we can do that without H-1B abuses, though.
00:31:38.340I don't think it was with any of our visa abuses, right?
00:31:41.300The other, you know, if you really want to do the most, and this happened around a similar time as well, is you can get rid of what Schumer did in adding this family linkage onto all the immigration.
00:32:04.240And so that's where you just got to...
00:32:06.920I get it if you're married and you're coming over here and you've got little kids, you should bring them with you, but it should be temporary.
00:32:35.040We've got the better than organic chicken.
00:32:37.100We love that this is always American meat.
00:32:39.540We also love their seed oil-free chicken nuggets.
00:32:43.160These have been sold out for a while, wildly popular, because it's so difficult to find seed oil-free chicken nuggets, especially those that your kids will actually eat.
00:32:53.500They have such a wide variety of meat.
00:32:55.460They're always supporting American farms and ranches.
00:32:58.620And it makes it so easy to have a box of meat, whatever you want, whatever you pick out online, show up on dry ice in a box to your front door every month.
00:33:09.300You don't have to spend a bunch of time, energy, and effort at the grocery store trying to decipher if the meat is really from an American farm or if it's just packaged in America.
00:33:58.340The problem is, the way that has been implemented, they will bring in people in technology from other countries who work for lower rates than what Americans work for.
00:34:09.920And so I don't support undercutting American wages.
00:34:12.960And the H-1B program has been used to do that.
00:34:15.360I used to kind of, when people would say, hey, why not just have people that are credentialing coming up?
00:34:49.660Do you think the mass deportations that Tom Homan is promising, we talked about this yesterday, where they will prioritize national security threats and criminals?
00:34:59.220Like, do you think that's going to happen day one or as soon as possible?
00:36:12.040But you can have some real wins right off the bat.
00:36:15.420There was that horrible story that we didn't talk about because it happened over the holidays where this woman on a New York subway was lit on fire while she was sleeping, my goodness, by an illegal alien.
00:36:28.240And that's not to say that a citizen couldn't do that.
00:36:31.560I mean, the subway has a lot of problems in New York, whether they're a citizen or not.
00:36:35.400The point is, is that every crime committed by an illegal alien is preventable.
00:40:30.640And I see that coming out pretty quickly.
00:40:35.520Now, the House can pass it, you know, if our crazies get on board, the Republicans can pass it on their own.
00:40:44.260It's a little bit tougher in the Senate because in the Senate, unless it's related to the budget, okay,
00:40:52.900so you have to be tricky in how you word these things so that there's a budget impact on it.
00:40:57.220If it's not related to the budget, it takes a 60-vote threshold to get what they call cloture to take a vote.
00:41:04.220If it's related to the budget, they can do it under reconciliation, which is another thing that the Democrats put in that's now biting them in the backside.
00:41:12.780That they can do it with 51 votes, which we have that, so.
00:41:19.900I also think he's going to, I do think we'll see some significant movement towards peace in the Middle East and peace in Ukraine and Russia.
00:41:28.400Do you think we'll get all the hostages back, or Israel?
00:42:27.460We should remember that as well, is that if when our president, President Trump, which I don't think he will, but when he, when it's time for him to go and the next person's elected, which will happen in four years, he's only got one term.
00:43:16.500I had a friend that's a new congressman up there that I served in the Texas legislature with.
00:43:20.620And so I was fortunate enough to get in the gallery, which oddly enough, there's, there can't be more than 100 or 200 seats in there.
00:43:27.280So I was really lucky and watched that whole thing.
00:43:29.180And I think what Mike is, is he is probably a very good example of a servant leader.
00:43:37.140Now, to be a servant leader in a body like that, you need to have strong people around you because there's somebody has to be the enforcer in politics.
00:45:57.980Because it seems like a lot of places, even like, you know, CNN, they're realizing that the anti-Trump gimmick is just kind of not working for them.
00:46:05.500I just don't think Jake Kapper is going to change his stripes.
00:46:36.500There's been such a shift in the culture towards some form of conservatism and towards Trump.
00:46:42.800It's very different than 2016 that we've got comedians and even some celebrities and mainstream people who are probably moderate, but they're at least willing to say, yeah, I didn't want Kamala Harris.
00:46:55.980You know, I do believe that we as people of the Christian faith, back to Mike Johnson a little bit and others, and this people that Trump has appointed to some of his, you know, our good friend, my good friend, Scott Turner.
00:47:51.860You know, we haven't, and we don't have too much time to talk about it, but I'm just wondering if we're going to continue to see some of the attacks that we saw at the beginning of the year, even after Trump is president.
00:48:03.060I just imagine just with a law and order administration, there will hopefully be more fear of committing any kinds of crimes, but it's been very disturbing to see like the homegrown terrorism that we have had to endure.
00:48:18.180We got to get the, the FBI re-centered and the Department of Justice and, and focusing on those types of things as opposed to focusing on the lady protesting outside the abortion clinic and things like that.
00:48:34.160Yeah, or the parents at the school board meeting.
00:49:17.720For $175 for an individual or $575 for a family of four or more, you get access to a community of people who are willing to help you out in the event of an emergency.
00:49:28.400You also get access to telemedicine visits, discounted prescriptions, so much more.
00:49:33.240And you don't have to worry about doctors networks or rising premiums or anything like that.
00:54:43.980And so they have to adjust their other.
00:54:45.160And people do need to hear that that's okay, because I have friends, people in my life who sometimes they have felt paralyzed because, for me, okay, I always knew that I liked to talk.
00:55:06.500Obviously, the landscape changed, and I was able to do something like this.
00:55:09.980And I think some people believe that that is the only picture of fulfillment and success, that you have to find what you love doing as a hobby and find a way to make money doing that.
00:55:24.340And that doesn't mean just because you don't have a clear-cut dream or specific passion that aligns with the way to make money does not mean you cannot be successful or fulfilled.
00:55:36.680You can either, like for me, it was the things outside of work where I got my fulfillment, right?
00:55:43.260I enjoyed my work, but I got my fulfillment because it helped me to be able to accomplish the things that I wanted to accomplish.
00:55:51.600For other people, the fulfillment is their career, and whatever that pays them is what it is, and they need to reduce their financial budget or needs to meet that.
00:56:07.760Otherwise, it will cause tremendous conflict within themselves, for sure, but even more likely in their marriage relationship.
00:56:26.400What would you tell your 33-year-old self if you were sitting across from him?
00:56:30.600I would tell my 33-year-old self I was sitting across from him that it's going to be okay.
00:56:37.280Because at 33, it's odd that you're saying that.
00:56:39.600At 33, I had my boss walked in, the owners of our company that owned the majority of it walked into me and said, hey, we're getting ready to fire the CEO of this company, and you'll be the CEO starting next week.
00:56:54.540Or if you don't like that, you can leave as well.
00:57:00.020And so my friend, who was CEO but had done some things, not illegal or anything like that, but just conflict-wise, was fired.
00:57:11.020And it was a very nervous time for me.
00:57:40.800And I kind of have the same categories of goals, resolutions that I have written out as well.
00:57:46.580But a lot of people have asked me, okay, spiritually, what are you doing this year?
00:57:51.040So many people are wanting to read the Bible for the first time this year.
00:57:55.180I had a friend the other day saying, you know, I feel like I should know more about the Bible.
00:57:59.780And now that I'm a mom, I want to teach my daughter, and I don't feel like I know enough.
00:58:03.860And this is one of those things where it can very quickly become overwhelming if you say, well, I'm just going to read the Bible this year.
00:58:12.060So I'm doing something that I haven't done before, and this is not – like, I haven't done this particular program, and so I can't endorse all of the interpretations and opinions that might be shared.
00:58:24.360But I'm doing the Bible Recap, and I've had Tara Lee Cobble on before.
00:58:29.360She started the Bible Recap podcast a few years ago.
00:58:32.560Go listen to the episode with her if you haven't already.
00:58:35.520But she's got a chronological reading plan.
00:58:45.100And I think that that could be a cheat code for a lot of busy moms out there that maybe you're like, I don't even have 20 minutes in the morning to sit down and read.
00:58:53.840I have something called the Dwell app.
00:58:56.220And, again, this is not an ad or anything, but I listen in my car on a walk, folding laundry, cleaning the dishes, and I can listen to the passages on the Dwell app.
00:59:09.520And then I can listen to Tara Lee Cobble's Recap, and she does a really good job of everything that I've heard so far.
00:59:16.280So maybe that's something that you want to join in on.