In this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, Charlie talks about the importance of not sending your kids to college, and why you should get married young, have as many kids as possible, and start a "turning point" in your life.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts, and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000Everybody, let's please welcome Charlie Kirk to the stage.
00:01:12.000We're about to see something is coming in.
00:01:54.000Uh I have some views on immigration and other stuff that you might not share, but instead of us yelling at each other, I want to learn from you in the open mic perspective and hear what you're going through on the front lines, and then we can have a back and forth.
00:02:06.000Because that's actually how this country should operate, right?
00:02:08.000Not name calling or you know, death threats or any of that nonsense.
00:02:12.000But uh the main thing I want to talk about is the perspective that we have or the lack thereof of how we educate young people.
00:02:20.000What you guys are involved in is what I call a muscular class job.
00:02:25.000It's a job where the people that you employ, they shower before work and they shower after work.
00:02:32.000Far too often we have had over the last 20 years an over-emphasis on a brain economy while sacrificing the body of the economy.
00:02:40.000We have shipped too many jobs overseas to China.
00:02:42.000We've allowed the middle class to be destroyed, we've allowed the industrial base of America to be hollowed out, and we have forgotten that more than anything else, an economy is made strong based on your ability to make stuff and fix stuff, build stuff, things you can touch, places you can live, places you can travel to.
00:03:02.000And far too often we act as if economic growth is nothing more than just flipping through a social media app or creating a better selfie or a different dancing video.
00:03:10.000We ask ourselves the question are we still building the great buildings, the great towers, the great dams, and the great places of a generation prior, and increasingly it is difficult to do that through regulation and red tape.
00:03:22.000And one of the other main reasons, and this is where I have kind of spent a lot of time in my commentary, is we have unnecessarily sent way too many kids to four-year college in this country.
00:03:32.000We are sending way too many kids to four-year college.
00:03:34.000It's not even a political standpoint, by the way.
00:03:38.000We have a need for 500,000 electricians right now.
00:03:41.000We do not need more sociologists, but we certainly need more electricians.
00:03:46.000What happens is that in the suburbs of Dallas or anywhere across the country, parents believe and they're being kind of taught, hey, you have to send your kid to four-year college.
00:03:56.000You have to send them to University of Texas or University of Houston.
00:04:00.000I have to say Tex CNM or someone's gonna throw something at me, or whatever, or Texas Tech, or someone's gonna.
00:04:05.000I think I checked most of the boxes, or Baylor.
00:04:18.000So by the way, the most hate I ever got was when I spoke at AM and I did this.
00:04:22.000People got so mad I got the most nasty messages.
00:04:25.000So anyway, we are sending way we've been sending way too many kids to four-year college To go borrow money they don't have, to study things that don't matter, to find jobs that do not exist.
00:04:34.000And there is a massive trade deficit right now in this country.
00:04:38.000And it's because, if we're honest with it, and you guys are in the roofing business, if you grew up in Plano or in Frisco and you went to high school and you told your parents, hey, I'm gonna go become a roofer.
00:05:05.000And we all laugh, but we know it's true at some level.
00:05:08.000We know that there is those of you that are in the trades and that run these companies, you are treated as if you are stupid and you are dumb because you don't have that four-year degree on your wall when you walk in.
00:05:20.000I will trust the wisdom of a roofer well above that of a PhD from Harvard any day in this country.
00:05:35.000The roofer can tell you what a woman is.
00:05:48.000And there's that practical knowledge when you have to wake up early every single day and go to work and deal in reality.
00:05:55.000I don't deal with gravity and deal with the complexities of that craft, which is not easy.
00:06:00.000And I want to just say, thank you guys for the hard work that you are doing for disaster relief and all across the board, because it's a forgotten portion of the American economy that is so necessary and so important.
00:06:11.000But broadly, we have trades like plumbers, electricians, HVAC, roofers, that we talk down to these people.
00:06:18.000Where there is a college credentialed class and then there's a working class.
00:06:22.000People look at these last couple elections and they say, well, you know, what is dividing the country?
00:06:28.000It's actually more elitism versus the working class.
00:06:31.000It's people that talk from a very elitist ivory tower and try to talk down to a population that has not seen their wages always go up, that are seeing things get more expensive, and they're told that they're dumb and they're stupid just because they did not go to a small subset of universities and colleges.
00:06:47.000And in fact, not only is it wrong, but it's 180 degrees opposite of what we should be doing.
00:06:51.000What we should be doing, and I'm I was told by Josie, who's doing a great job, that we're finally getting roofing back into high schools, getting the idea of a roofing trade back into high schools.
00:06:59.000We should be celebrating the trades to our seventh graders, our eighth graders, our freshmen in high school.
00:07:04.000We should be lifting up the idea that if you are able to change a tire and be a mechanic, that is an admirable thing.
00:07:12.000Not only is it important, but it is something that is so rare and exceptional because we have an oversupply right now of the college credentialed class.
00:07:21.000And you all saw them this morning when you ordered your Macchiato at Starbucks.
00:07:24.000You know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:07:27.000They're all over-credentialed, but we have an oversupply in that.
00:07:31.000And one again, the main fundamental reason is we've bought into a lie as a society that the only way to success is to go into debt and go study something that is just abstract and doesn't matter.
00:07:43.000But that there's something wrong or there's something dirty if you have to sweat when you go to work.
00:07:50.000And when we think about it, those are the jobs of the professions that built America into the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:07:57.000And will again, and I guarantee you, just looking at this audience, this audience is a lot different than when I speak on college campuses, like a lot less purple hair, same amount of tattoos, but a lot more testosterone.
00:08:20.000But I could sense in this audience, many of you were former roofers, or maybe certainly are or still are, or at least you were you were involved in some sort of summer job.
00:08:29.000By the way, again, we're we'll we'll have the immigration discussion a little bit, but I think we can all agree, let's bring back summer jobs for kids in high school again.
00:08:38.000I I wait where did we as a culture get away from that?
00:08:41.000I think that's a point of agreement that I think summer sports is important, but the one downside of summer sports is that 14, 15, and 16-year-olds don't always have to go get summer jobs.
00:08:51.000You know, back in the 60s and 70s, we were a nation where it was an expectation when you hit the age of 14, 15 or 16, you would go get some sort of a summer job.
00:09:00.000You'd work at a diner, you'd be working in a kitchen and cleaning dishes.
00:09:03.000And as a parent of two young kids, I think to myself, I hope I'm a good enough parent by the time that they get to be a teenager that I'm gonna say, no, go work on some job that is maybe below our income level.
00:09:16.000Because once we reach the upper middle class, we have this idea that our kids should not have to do the jobs that we once did.
00:09:23.000But the idea of a summer job, I think it made kids understand the value of hard work, of discipline, of sacrifice, waking up early, and it's especially humbling if you come from an upper middle class family to have to go caddy for a summer, or have to go work for a roofing company, or just whatever it might be.
00:09:43.000And what I find is I talk to employers all the time.
00:09:46.000I say, how many kids are applying for summer jobs?
00:09:48.000They say, Oh no, they they just they want to sit around and play video games.
00:09:51.000And I know that's not a total true, but I bet you guys could agree with that largely.
00:09:54.000That if you guys, as roofing professionals were trying to go find, you know, running roofing companies, we're trying to find a 16 or 17 year old to go work a summer job, that's a hard thing to find.
00:10:04.000We need to culturally bank bring back an expectation of if you are young, we want you to try out a lot of different stuff.
00:10:17.000If you have if you want to go be a mechanic, go be go help the guy just do the most basic elementary work at a body shop.
00:10:24.000If you want to go be a roofer, if you want to go be a plumber, an electrician, whatever it is, at the most fundamental level, and we change this change in the 1980s and 1990s because my parents from the baby boomer generation, they thought to themselves, our kids are gonna be more elevated above summer jobs.
00:10:41.000And I I don't know about you guys, but I wasted a lot of time when I was in summer.
00:10:45.000I was involved in you know, sports and basketball, football, and you know, Eagle Scouts and all, you know, being an Eagle Scout, all that.
00:10:51.000But still, I think back to I wish there would have been a cultural expectation because I know what it did to the country prior.
00:10:58.000And those kind of sometimes those dirty jobs that Mike Rowe always talks about, we need to celebrate those people to do those jobs.
00:11:06.000And some people say, but Charlie, if I don't go to college, I cannot succeed.
00:11:10.000Mike Rowe reports that there are 11 million good job openings right now.
00:11:15.000How many of you guys would hire Americans right now if you could and you have job openings?
00:11:18.000I mean, I'm seeing hands all across the room.
00:11:20.000And so we need to kind of reset the expectation of hey, we want to be a culture of work, a culture of not just of meritocracy, but there needs to be an expectation.
00:11:33.000And part of this is also it's easy not to, it's too easy not to work in this country.
00:11:38.000Our welfare programs are way too big and way too easy to scam.
00:11:43.000That again, we all agree that we should have a safety net, but we don't want that safety net to become a hammock where you can sit around all day long, and we the taxpayers have to keep on paying lots of taxes, and it makes you even if it's within 10,000 dollars, someone's gonna sit at home.
00:11:58.000Meaning that if they could roof for like $60,000 a year, and they could sit at home for $50,000 a year, they're gonna sit at home, they're gonna figure it out.
00:12:06.000But even worse than that, and I'm sure you guys know this, they'll then work for cash and not report the income, and then it's not reliable, and it's just all over the place.
00:12:15.000And so where we went wrong, in my personal opinion, is that we started to worship the power, and we started to appreciate the not even appreciate, we started to give too much credence to the university power structure in this country in a way that the bottom has completely fallen out.
00:12:54.000And if one of my again, I I don't want to pick on on some of the wonderful people that watch our podcast and videos, and I always get a kick when I ask you know, some of these students, what are you studying in college?
00:13:17.000How many of you guys just had no idea what you were doing when you started your business?
00:13:21.000You took a risk, and you're like, I'm just gonna outwork everybody and I'm gonna figure it out along the way.
00:13:26.000You didn't go to Baylor to go study entrepreneurship.
00:13:30.000And that was a master class that you couldn't have paid for.
00:13:34.000Because I know I remember the first time I went into a bank, I didn't know credit from debit.
00:13:38.000By the way, we don't teach any personal finance anymore in our schools.
00:13:41.000We've got to bring back for personal finance, and we have to stop this easy way that young kids are getting way too into debt in this country.
00:13:59.000When you are under pressure, your creative juices flow, you work all night, you'll drive to places you wouldn't imagine, you'll take that extra job, you'll say yes to everything.
00:14:09.000And also, when is the best time to be an entrepreneur?
00:14:14.000Both can work, but the best time to be an entrepreneur is when you have literally nothing to lose, no family to support, you know, no wife, like, or whatever.
00:14:22.000But when you end up to be, you know, 35, you have a wife and kids, all of a sudden the pressure is a little bit different.
00:14:26.000You're like, hey, I'm gonna kind of take the easy route.
00:14:28.000Entrepreneurship rates have gone like this over the last 30 years.
00:14:31.000I believe, in my pivonient opinion, which is probably provocative, as people have started to go to college, more entrepreneurship rates have gone down.
00:14:39.000Because everything in college is about risk aversion.
00:14:43.000And you guys would not be here in this room as entrepreneurs if you were averse to risk at all.
00:14:49.000The I the the journey of an entrepreneur is that we are gonna go try to solve a problem for somebody, it might not succeed, it almost certainly will fail, and I'm gonna do it anyway.
00:14:58.000What makes America a different nation than our European card counterparts?
00:15:09.000And so, how do we treat an 18-year-old right now at a local high school that says, I don't want to go to high school, I don't want to go to college, I just want to start a uh a business or something.
00:15:19.000Well, the traditional path is well, you know, go get your four-year degree, just think.
00:15:23.000Instead, we should be celebrating an 18-year-old to want to go take that risk and want to go create value, to want to go out into the marketplace and do something unique and interesting and creative.
00:15:34.000Last thing I'll say is this, um, and then we can have a fun a fun discussion, guys, and I want to learn from you and hear from you is that you guys on the front lines of building businesses are not just the the most are not just critically important, but I want to encourage you that I believe that we are going to be on the verge of an economic golden era in the next couple of years.
00:15:56.000I believe though that we're at this pent up, this pent-up demand.
00:16:00.000We're gonna see no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.
00:16:02.000I know capital expenditures are going to flow.
00:16:04.000More than all of that, though, America globally, I'm you know, I've been able to travel the world last couple of months.
00:16:10.000Everyone is now saying America is back, America is back.
00:16:14.000As our 47th president and 45th president would say, our country was dead a year ago, and we are the hottest country in the world.
00:16:22.000And even if here's my challenge, even if you are here sneering at me and you hate my guts and you hate you know, the president, you should want this president to succeed.
00:17:49.000We need to have more children in this country, we need to have more babies, and we need to reverse the fertility collapse because we're having less and less kids, and it's a major problem for everybody.
00:17:58.000We need to celebrate that idea that family is the foundational fabric of the United States of America.
00:18:03.000And finally, even on top of that, you look at the other kind of current dynamics of the affordability crisis and how things have becoming routinely more expensive.
00:18:12.000The answer to all of this is not gonna be like Zoran Mam Donny, government run grocery stores in New York City.
00:18:20.000The answer is getting the government off of all of your backs, deregulation, lower taxes, empowering entrepreneurs so you guys can create value, create wealth, and make America a better country.
00:18:35.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:18:38.000And today I want to point you to their podcast.
00:18:40.000It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson podcast.
00:18:44.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:18:47.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today gender confusion, abortion, immigration, doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:20:14.000So I'm uh I'm a chain breaking, grow up in the barrio, own multiple eight-figure uh companies who has a high school education.
00:20:23.000And I want to thank you for your conservative uh position on uh uh what you talk about.
00:20:29.000But one thing I wanted to point out is my wife and I many years ago, we have compassion for you know the children that come over the border and what have you.
00:20:37.000And what I hear a lot is um there are a lot of Americans who talk about, you know, we need to do all these programs, we need to do all this.
00:20:45.000I'm the father to three Costa Ricans, one Chinese, and two biological children.
00:20:50.000And when we want to talk about how we help the children, how about we put our money where our mouth is and go bring them home and make them uh our children and then grow them up in the greatest uh country ever?
00:21:01.000Well, God bless you, and thank you for your great heart.
00:21:03.000You you you you have lived it more than just said it.
00:21:19.000So both of my parents are like liberals on steroids.
00:21:24.000And I just wanted to ask you, what would what do you think would be the most tactical way uh just to try to get them to see our side?
00:21:34.000And because I I do believe it's not, you know, they're they're baby boomers, and it's not a Democrat isn't the same thing as it was 50 years ago.
00:21:41.000So what would be some simple things that you would suggest if you were in the same situation as I. Got it.
00:21:45.000So first thing is cut off their CNN subscription, right?
00:22:26.000But I would ask them, is it the secure southern border they don't like, Or is it like the six wars ended that they don't like or the massive tax cut that they don't like or drill baby drill or like no more DEI or wokeness or like no transgender surgery for kids?
00:22:40.000Like which one in particular are they really fired up about?
00:22:43.000And then happen happy Thanksgiving is what I have to say to you.
00:22:56.000I uh I think that uh you and I are a lot alike, and I really appreciate everything that you're doing here today.
00:23:01.000And uh uh I run a nonprofit as well, and I know you do as well.
00:23:05.000And I think that uh one of the awards that we can get as a nonprofit is the transparency award, right?
00:23:11.000So I think that how can we be more transparent, you know, in uh delegating those dollars and what it would possibly look like to be able to create a system that I'm currently working on, actually, to be able to implement that into the government's tax system, where you know, say the government would be uh able to be awarded a transparency award like you or I that is you know,
00:23:34.000so you know, like just the taxes and what if we were all knew exactly where our taxes were going to the exact dollar and we were excited about paying taxes.
00:23:48.000Boy, that would be something, wouldn't it?
00:23:50.000Um we need to put every federal cent online in real time so that we could track it.
00:23:55.000The best solution I think is blockchain.
00:23:57.000Bringing blockchain technology to the federal government is the best and only solution.
00:24:02.000And I say that after a lot of years of research and thinking, it's a very simple, easy solution.
00:24:07.000It's transparent, it's bulletproof, it's end-to-end encrypted, it's also a way to restore trust.
00:24:13.000Also, our voting should be secured by blockchain as well.
00:24:16.000It would restore integrity back to our elections.
00:24:19.000So, and then finally, um, there should be no black box budgets in the federal government.
00:24:24.000There should be no place where we don't know where the money is going.
00:24:26.000We should know down to the Snickers bar that the Central Intelligence Agency is buying.
00:24:39.000It's our money that they take from us, and they have to take it for good reason, and then they have to prove it, and then they have to keep on year after year show us why they have to keep on taking so much money from us.
00:24:49.000And so I think we need a whole different framing of how taxation happens in this country.
00:25:02.000I just have one question that I know a lot of us have a burning question for.
00:25:06.000For one, I'm half Mexican myself, my family's been here since the 1800s.
00:25:10.000Do you feel with all the technology and the the intelligence we have that there is a way to take the illegals that are here working their off, providing for the families?
00:25:21.000Is there a way, should there be, of course, should there be?
00:25:24.000Is there a way to make it streamlined to make it efficient that we don't have to strip them and throw them back to Mexico or wherever they came from?
00:25:31.000Because we do, I think, would understand the mathematics that the next big hurricane that hits, they're continuing to strip our workers off the roofs and send them back, who the hell is gonna do the work?
00:25:41.000Do you think there's a a safe way we can do that?
00:25:44.000So this is um so why don't you educate me of what mass port mass deportations would do to your industry?
00:25:53.000There'd be no one to work on the to build back.
00:27:09.000We obviously as a country don't have the stomach for that.
00:27:12.000We don't have the ability or the capacity.
00:27:15.000And that's I'm gonna be the one that's gonna hold the line and say, hey, the American people should at least get one year of what they voted for.
00:27:21.000And I understand it might cause a lot of disruption, but call me old-fashioned.
00:27:26.000I think that if you break into somebody's home, you shouldn't be allowed to stay.
00:27:54.000You're either here legally or you're not.
00:27:56.000And I've talked to some of my crew leaders about it because I mean, yeah, you've got ICE that has offices in certain areas and they're legit like getting in their vans or whatever it is, coming through neighborhoods and just sweeping people away, and then they're scared of work.
00:28:12.000So it is a battle that we are uh experiencing in the field.
00:28:17.000And I mean, I'm white, I don't want white people doing the roofs because we're, you know, I got people complaining it's hot outside.
00:28:25.000So I I've talked to him and it's like, so is there a way to, if you deport them, to have them ready to come right back where they go through a certain system and filling things out?
00:28:37.000Or technology where we can have people instead of removing them coming around to get them registered where they're here legally without sending them back.
00:28:58.000Number one, uh, I'm not the president of the United States, um, so I'm not calling shots on this.
00:29:02.000Um I'm a commentator, so just kind of keep that in mind.
00:29:05.000The president, however, has signaled that he does want to work with business to figure this out, right?
00:29:11.000Charlie Kirk's opinion is one more of that is represented by voters and grassroots that have said we have we have completely ignored the enforcement of law for 40 years at great cost to public services, national unity, and you can't deny that.
00:30:00.000So you're to your to your point, though.
00:30:02.000The president has his own opinion and his own perspective, and he's getting calls from both sides, right?
00:30:07.000He's getting a lot of calls from industry, from restaurants, hotels, and let me just tell you from my perspective, and again, I think this will be educational.
00:30:14.000This is like the third or fourth event I've spoken at like this in the last couple of months, and every event I speak at, everybody has a similar thing.
00:30:21.000Charlie, my restaurant is gonna shut down, Charlie, my golf course is gonna shut down, Charlie Disney World is gonna shut down, you know.
00:30:28.000And at some point I say, wow, like the in I guess this is like apocalypse like on steroids.
00:30:34.000Here's my other perspective, and you guys are gonna be in total like opposition to this.
00:30:40.000I'm a little bit skeptical when I hear the over-catastrophization of events after we have been led like at maximal catastrophization at every corner in our country.
00:30:50.000Now, as far as President Trump, he's talked about expedited getting people in legally and expanding visas.
00:30:56.000My opinion is actually different than that one, but doesn't matter what I believe because I'm not president.
00:31:00.000All I'm asking for is just one year out of four to see how can we enforce the laws.
00:31:06.000But I think we're really reaching an important conclusion as a country.
00:31:09.000We are reliant, addicted, and okay with illegal labor in this country.
00:31:15.000And that's been a sad realization for me.
00:31:17.000I would love to be a nation like Mexico that doesn't put up with it, but it turns out our nation has been so reliant on it for nearly 40 years.
00:31:25.000But again, I don't want to try to target you guys in the room here or um throw opposition To you.
00:31:31.000Yeah, it's it's just it's been the norm for so long.
00:31:34.000And it hasn't really been addressed on this level because I mean we all know certain presidency let every single person in that you could possibly imagine.
00:31:44.000So I get both sides, but it's just finding something strategic that makes sense.
00:33:35.000But they they actually are serving in police forces, but you're correct, they can.
00:33:38.000So have a very, very, very dear friend who I consider family at this point, who served as a United States Marine for twelve years and has been denied American citizenship five times.
00:33:49.000It's taken him tens of thousands of dollars.
00:33:51.000But you just said they can't serve in the military.
00:34:04.000And so the reason, and this goes back to this gentleman over here who's gonna have a really hard time at Thanksgiving talking to his parents.
00:34:10.000Haven't talked to my father in years over Zach conversation because there's so many nuances to the way immigration works right now.
00:34:17.000And as Texans really close to the border, you experience it a little bit different, right?
00:34:21.000So that said, if we focused, are you you tell me what you think about this?
00:34:27.000If we focused even a percentage of the efforts and time and thought and energy into the policy reform for immigration that we're putting into just really quick, fast, everybody out as fast as you can.
00:34:39.000Do you think that would have um a similar obviously there's gonna have to be some corrective measures that take place?
00:34:45.000But yeah, again, I I'm a call me old school and call me radical.
00:34:49.000We haven't even had a couple months of enforcement, and everyone's losing their mind.
00:35:34.000Again, I visit, I travel the world, a lot of you guys understand this perspective, which is we have we have immigration laws that nobody else has across the world.
00:36:28.000I I'm I'm I'm an I'm an old-fashioned radical that if you come if you come here illegally, you have cut in line from another immigrant or someone that had to come here correctly.
00:36:40.000I think federal immigration law matters, and I think if you don't follow it and if you don't adhere laws, we should not make special accommodations for them.
00:36:57.000Uh first and foremost, I am a college graduate, but I absolutely love spending every single morning when I'm having my coffee, watching you decimate these new college.
00:37:06.000It is just a highlight of my morning, and it is just fantastic because when I was in college, I don't remember kids being this pompous and d that being said, switching the subject slightly.
00:37:20.000And and uh uh you know, you have a room full of for the most part blue-collar guys here, guys and women.
00:37:26.000Uh what is your position on the the lobbyists of this country, specifically the insurance lobby, because it's kind of hard to to make your business and be a great entrepreneur when multi-trillion dollar enterprises are bashing your every step of the way to become successful in life.
00:37:44.000And why hasn't President Trump, in your opinion, made this a more pertinent issue in the country?
00:37:50.000I think we can all agree that that a small subset of companies constantly lobbying for their own interests is really bad for us, and it decreases the amount of voice that everyday Americans have.
00:38:03.000One that I I believe in that I think is not con I don't think there's any representative here, but you never know.
00:38:08.000They seem to be everywhere is I don't understand why we have pharmaceutical advertisements on television.
00:38:15.000Um I think this ties in actually to some of your industry guys.
00:38:20.000As you represent roofers, these are hard-working, really awesome people that get hurt.
00:38:25.000And when they get hurt, all of a sudden the first thing that is always offered to them is some sort of either opioid or opioid equivalent pharmaceutical drug.
00:38:33.000I bet you in this audience, many of you guys have had employees that work for you that got hurt, got addicted to opioids and had a really rough life, or maybe even died afterwards.
00:38:42.000Do you guys have similar stories like that?
00:39:31.000Um hate to bring stuff back to immigration, but uh, you know, I'm a representative of Win the Storm, and I think I recognize and I agree with you that there's a problem.
00:40:18.000Because he's the one that's gonna make the decisions.
00:40:20.000The president's view is he wants to try to make sure that businesses are not abruptly just taken apart because of him also fulfilling the mandate.
00:40:29.000He has said he Wants to try to either create space or create time.
00:40:34.000At the same at the while also simultaneously saying that, I think everyone here in this audience, my advice to you guys, I think that there needs to be more automation when it comes in all your industries, right?
00:40:43.000And I mean, you look at I I don't know the specifics of roofing in the sense of automation, but as far as building homes, a lot of other countries, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Singaporeans, they're able to build homes in a week, basically all with robotics and computerized labor in a very, very impressive way.
00:41:01.000So what is my advice for all of you guys?
00:41:03.000First of all, I would try to hire American the best you can, get really involved in your local high school and go back to your local high school and push and lobby them for a roofing trade to be offered in high school.
00:41:21.000But the great thing about this country is you guys might win and go have your voice be heard, and you have a president, despite what the media says, he's a very he's a realist, he's a builder, and he will listen to you, right?
00:41:32.000And I think that he he comes from a perspective where he wants to see America strong and built while also you know kind of fulfilling that mandate.
00:41:39.000So you guys could not ask for a better president in that.
00:41:42.000And the final thing, I want to come up with a solution that if I'm invited to speak back four years from now, we don't have to talk about this anymore.
00:41:49.000I want to just be like, okay, we came up with a solution.
00:41:52.000It it is it is rooted in what we ran on, it's rooted in common sense, it's rooted in a pro-business, but also a mandate of the rule of law, and then we can kind of put it to bed and we say that issue is solved, and then we can go on to you know, let's say other pastures, because the problem is we don't want this to be a continuous issue for multiple decades, it's not good for anybody.
00:42:19.000I'm uh probably your biggest fan here.
00:42:21.000Um I've listened to you, watched your reels.
00:42:23.000I've stay up at night to my wives are rolling back of my head watching them.
00:42:27.000Um I just want to point out another angle.
00:42:29.000Like my mom, she's an immigrant, she comes from Spain uh in 1977.
00:42:35.000Some of the earliest memories of my life is like my mom and dad having talks in the kitchen, they were gonna have to drive down to St. Louis to try to get the green card renewed.
00:42:42.000And they were gonna like every time they'd be afraid she wouldn't get to, and they'd kind of prep me on.
00:42:47.000So I just want to point that out that we went through that for 44 years until she finally got her citizenship and she put work in and and it cost tens of thousands of dollars.
00:43:06.000And being your biggest fan, the proudest moment in my life would be right now if you would agree to let me come look at your roof, or just put I got a lot of problems with my roof.
00:43:24.000So listen, or let one of your people take my info, like I will drive no matter how far it is, give you the most legitimate inspection.
00:44:38.000So my question is like I'm feeling very conflicted to be totally honest with you.
00:44:43.000And then a second sort of related question, it's like I've got now extended family that's essentially the construction industry, and I think they're a little bit underpaid.
00:44:53.000So I think some of us are taking advantage of depressed wages, and maybe the markets do a correction.
00:44:59.000I don't know, that's Probably not a popular opinion, but maybe you could comment on that.
00:45:04.000Well, I mean, you said the second part, I didn't.
00:45:06.000So I mean, wait wages have certainly not gone up, but I mean, look, for business owners, your costs have also gone up.
00:45:10.000I'm not here to tell you how to run your business.
00:45:13.000Um, what you what you're what you're getting at, though, is a very important moral conundrum, which is where what you believe and what you know is right is sometimes in contradiction with what you are seeing up close and personal.
00:45:25.000As far as the sun situation, I'd have to think about it.
00:45:28.000I think a visa overstay, if you marry, you can get that rectified.
00:45:32.000Maybe I know you're nodding your head, but I'm not totally sure.
00:45:36.000Look, as far as I I don't know how to quite give you advice on that, which is that you need to have your principles and believe what you believe.
00:45:44.000And I mean, yeah, I don't quite have much more to say than that.
00:45:48.000I mean, as far as the other component of increased wages, the the con the middle of the American middle class has been battered the last 30 or 40 years, and part of it is because of our bad trade policies.
00:45:59.000And honestly, also part of it is that we've seen depressed wages.
00:46:02.000When you have more workers that are able to flood the market, wages go down.
00:46:06.000And um a lot of you guys in this this room, I know are on very, very, very tight margins.
00:46:14.000But at some point we have to decouple with this shadow economy.
00:46:17.000Nobody in this room, I think, would think, would believe that a shadow economy that operates when you don't know who they are or what's happening is good.
00:46:26.000Doesn't make, by the way, you guys operate on one word.
00:46:29.000The best business owners, you guys thrive on stability.
00:46:32.000There's nothing stable about having a shadow economy of people that could leave at any time.
00:46:36.000So fixing that long term, I think adds that kind of confidence, that kind of stability.
00:46:40.000So I'm gonna have to think more about your first part of your question, though.
00:46:42.000But thank you, sir, and thank you for the kind words.
00:46:47.000So uh my question actually moves a little bit away from the immigration discussion.
00:46:52.000What you open the speech talking about was the youth in America today and the way that they're brought up and the way that they're moving forward.
00:47:00.000I myself find myself the father of three girls, which is super fun.
00:47:05.000Uh, but the role models that I find myself trying to surround my daughters with don't exist outside of them thinking they can be a teacher or a nurse or these very traditional jobs when I look across this room at some bad powerful women in here that are doing amazing things.
00:47:27.000How do you suggest someone in my position helps kind of raise a family, especially of women to be kind of empowered in that way that they go get a damn summer job.
00:47:40.000Well, first of all, if you know those role models, introduce your daughters to them immediately.
00:47:44.000And then also be very conscious of the type of celebrity role models they're also following.
00:47:50.000Um far too often these young ladies are following female influencers that embrace this widespread degeneracy and anti-Christian behavior.
00:47:59.000I'm a I'm a I'm a girl dad too, uh only three years old, but you know, um very much thinking about these sort of things.
00:48:06.000And for for young ladies, far too often we see the kind of role models by the time they're eight, nine, and ten, and that that is that they're they're not positive, they're not uplifting, they're not wholesome.
00:48:17.000So I think you know, looking at female entrepreneurs, female business owners, um, and then also in my other piece of advice is bring your daughter to work with you.
00:48:58.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries, and today I want to point you to their podcast.
00:49:04.000It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson Podcast.
00:49:08.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:49:11.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today: gender confusion, abortion, immigration, doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:50:24.000So if you are in a growth model, a growth period, let's say you're five million dollars in revenue, three million dollars, four million, six million dollars.
00:50:32.000I remember when we were we we're about 130 million dollars in revenue now with all of our nonprofit and all that.
00:50:42.000You could call them customers, but they're really donors, people that check in ten dollars, fifteen dollars, and I bet some people in this room are part of that, and bringing this kind of message to college campuses and high school campuses.
00:50:52.000The biggest inflection point is where you are presented with an opportunity to hire someone a little more than you can afford that you know will help you scale.
00:51:04.000To get from a five million dollar business to a 25 million dollar business to a hundred million dollar business, you're going to have to pay up for the people that can get you there.
00:51:13.000And you know exactly what I'm talking about, especially in the C suite and in the sales division.
00:51:19.000Those two places people that have the grit, the work ethic, and the experience.
00:51:23.000And I could say that from personal experience.
00:51:25.000When we were right around five or seven million, I used the small little money I had to go pay for people that I otherwise couldn't afford.
00:51:30.000I didn't take a salary the first five or six years as I was running the organization just because I try to invest all the money back into it.
00:51:36.000Um the final the other thing though, and I I'm sure you guys know this and you have it, is having very crisply defined missional statements and cultural values, and make sure that everyone knows the why behind what you are doing, and make sure that you have a code of conduct that is presently and publicly always available that people can buy into that's no more than maybe eight to ten points.
00:52:06.000And but also make sure your team is invested in that growth.
00:52:11.000Make sure that they know that you want to grow.
00:52:15.000Because not everyone that works for you guys even like cares that much about it.
00:52:18.000They want to get a job, they want okay, get a job, get paid, go home.
00:52:21.000But if they know that there's a direction, there is growth to it, that they could have higher incomes and even a little bit of piece of the equity, that makes a that makes a major difference.
00:52:29.000And so finally, those of you that are founders, those of you that are CEOs, for the first couple of years, this definitely needs to be true.
00:52:38.000You need to work harder than your employees.
00:52:41.000Especially when you are in that one to ten million dollar revenue.
00:52:44.000You do not have the luxury of delegating too much.
00:52:48.000You need to be the hardest working employee at your organization or at your company, even more so than the people that are working for you if you want to scale, if you want to scale.
00:53:39.000In 2023, Minnesota spends nearly 46,000 per person in poverty on public welfare and stuff like that.
00:53:48.000I know a lot of immigrants in this country and a lot of poor people.
00:53:51.000I and my question to you how do we cut back on supporting the lazy behavior?
00:53:57.000My wife is a therapist, and you know, People come to her, like 20, 22 years old from Somali, Ukraine, you know, uh Africa, and I'm like, how do they can afford you?
00:54:26.000As a business owner, how do I compete with you know people I know immigrants who don't want to do what I do, don't want to do construction jobs because they can get housing, they can get food, they can get stamps, they can get everything.
00:54:40.000How do we count back this BS in this country?
00:54:45.000Um I will I will second something I said earlier, which is that so the may the major so for social welfare state is hurting your businesses, everybody.
00:54:57.000People can get money from the government, so they do not enter the job market.
00:55:01.000I will just make one other point on the immigration thing.
00:55:36.000That if you are here as a visitor, why should you be able to get benefits from the United States government?
00:55:40.000That should be for U.S. citizens only.
00:55:42.000Finally, I think we need more work requirements, and we need to be far less open of the amount of money the government pays for people not to work.
00:55:50.000We have low employment, we have job openings, we should not have the social welfare programs that we have in our nation right now.
00:55:57.000And that that is just the tip of the iceberg, my friend, of one example of thousands that we could go through.
00:56:56.000We learned so much about depression, what we thought was causes of depression and and what happens in the human body through this whole process the last year with our son.
00:57:07.000And one thing that thankfully we learned is a lot of the things that we put in our body, his wasn't related to some event, his was related to different things that would were given to him over time that we had to get rid of in his body.
00:57:21.000A friend of mine's son was diagnosed with something, and the doctor prescribed something where the first ingredient is the same first ingredient that's an antifreeze.
00:57:31.000A doctor told a family to give their two-year-old something that is an antifreeze.
00:57:38.000So my question is how can we solve this going forward?
00:57:42.000How can we help each other and how can we be educated so this kind of stuff doesn't keep getting worse?
00:57:48.000So, all of you that run roofing companies or construction companies or both, I would encourage you.
00:57:53.000There's a great doctor, his name's Dr. Daniel Aman, A-M-E-N.
00:57:58.000If you guys know him, his whole perspective is less about mental health and it's about brain health, and it's really applies to all of you that are people in the muscular trades.
00:58:07.000You guys would be shocked at how many people that are depressed and anxious that are just brain injured.
00:58:12.000They might have a concussion, they might have had a traumatic brain injury, might be interfering with their um cerebellum, with their amygdala, very, very great doctor.
00:58:29.000If you have a liver problem, they're gonna go do an MRI of your liver.
00:58:32.000But if you say I have depression, they just give you and they give you pharmaceuticals.
00:58:36.000And so he says, why aren't we scanning the brain to see if the brain is itself damaged as an organ?
00:58:41.000We need to treat the organ of the brain first, and then we can see if there's underlying mental issues.
00:58:46.000And what the issue, guys, and this is important, so many of you that guys that work for you, they have had their brains either damaged at work, at home, from smelling fumes, being out whatever it might be, and it's not their fault, it's not your fault, but they might actually have damaged organs and they don't even know it.
00:59:02.000So this doctor is the best at it in the country.
00:59:04.000He's Dr. Daniel Amen, like Amen, A M E N. He has a whole book on this.
00:59:09.000Um and then, yeah, the final thing that I'll say is that um before look, I'm there's there's a ton of people that are on antidepressants right now.
00:59:18.000Some people it works great, some people it doesn't.
00:59:21.000And for the people that it doesn't, honestly, either they're they they have brain damage, or we should also just present other non far non-pharmaceutical options.
00:59:32.000I think there's a spiritual crisis in this country that is happening, and we need people to go back to church and give their lives to Jesus Christ, which is the most important thing.
00:59:40.000And so, and finally, this goes back to uh the the whole Maha thing, how you eat impacts your brain.
00:59:50.000When you eat just garbage potato chips and Twinkies and brownies and McDonald's, it actually slows down your body's ability to process information.
01:00:00.000Um if you, for example, if someone is depressed, if they go on a ketogenic diet, it could help.
01:00:06.000It actually healthy fats, lean proteins, less comp less carbohydrates can be really good.
01:00:12.000And I'm not here as a doctor to prescribe it.
01:00:14.000I'm all I'm on I'm someone I had a terrible traumatic brain injury like six or seven years ago.
01:00:19.000Um I was skiing, everyone said I had a fun time, I woke up in a hospital.
01:00:22.000Um, and so I really learned a lot about this stuff, and you can it can get better.
01:00:27.000The organ, the brain is an organ that can get better.
01:00:29.000And I think we need to start kind of talking about it because someone says, you think about how hard it is if you're a roofer and you're like a proud guy.
01:00:36.000It's hard to be like, yeah, you know, I have mental health problems.
01:00:38.000Like that's but imagine if you said, Yeah, my brain got hit.
01:00:41.000That's actually a lot easier for someone to verbalize and vocalize.
01:00:44.000It's it's a it's it's a way to have an introduction to a conversation, and um, we need to look at it as much as a damaged organ more than anything else.
01:01:24.000I think you need to come maybe spend some time with humans that are awesome human beings that I would I would lay down my life for some of these guys.
01:01:33.000They move with us through the thick and thin, they kill themselves for us.
01:01:37.000And let's not forget their job has 800% more likely to die on the job than a cop, an active duty cop, right, on the streets.
01:01:47.000So they are serving their country, they are serving this country a lot more than anybody living on welfare that might have been born in America.
01:01:57.000Um I think for you, I just think there's a lot of uh need for really strong leadership, and you do appeal to a lot of the youth as well as you know, Generation X and all that, and we need strong leadership to come out and just tell the truth.
01:02:20.000And we're for real about it and what's happening to our holy sites and what's happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Middle East by a country that I'm sorry, I've never heard you come out and condemn the current leadership of that country.
01:02:36.000I think you, as a leader, should come out and say something that we do not support that, that the current regime in Israel, we don't support what they're doing.
01:04:10.000I I for sure want a strong border that, you know, there are no illegal crossings, you know, we don't have illegal immigrants.
01:04:19.000I really feel that for wage labor, for policing community, I get that.
01:04:24.000But at the same time, as a Christian, I look in the eyes of some of these people that I grew up with, and my heart fills with compassion for people who come from a horrible place.
01:04:38.000And I get that there are murderers that have come and cartel members, and I I hate that.
01:04:44.000But at the end of the day, when I look at some of these amazing people, and I know that there's not a good system in place currently for them to come legally, whether it's cost, wait time, whatever, I feel like I can't turn them away, and it's my Christian duty to accept them.
01:05:01.000Okay, so first of all, there's a lot there, and I don't have a lot of time to do it.
01:05:04.000First of all, the Bible is very clear on immigration that you must assimilate when you come to the land of which you are in.
01:05:10.000Number two, it does not mean you have to even have any immigrants whatsoever.
01:05:14.000We kind of have a like a very false impression of this.
01:05:17.000Um, for example, the entire book of Nehemiah, which is Donald Trump's favorite book of the Bible, it's all about building the wall.
01:05:22.000And um, it's the idea of strong borders is a biblical concept in and of itself.
01:05:28.000Look, I understand that you're filled with compassion with that, but honestly, my compassion is also for the American people that have not gotten a fair hearing in this nation the last 40 or 50 years.
01:05:37.000And I again, this entire dialogue today has been very helpful to me, and you guys have been awesome.
01:05:42.000But I have to say, you have proven a very um uh a depressing point that we are not a nation that wants to have immigration policy.
01:05:58.000And I would I thought that we were, maybe, but uh uh uh maybe we could have a couple months of it.
01:06:04.000And look, as far as the compassion thing, I look at it.
01:06:07.000Why is it not compassion to send them back to their country of origin?
01:06:10.000I don't why do they have a right to come to our nation?
01:06:13.000A nation has a right to be able to invite, be able to reject people of their choosing.
01:06:18.000And as far as the Christian standpoint of it, in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, all throughout the scriptures, there's plenty of examples of repelling people from coming to your nation and prioritizing those in your homeland.
01:06:29.000But you have a big heart, and I appreciate that.
01:06:31.000My heart is also for the 74 million people that voted for a mandate this last November.
01:06:37.000We obviously, I don't think, have the stomach to actually do that.
01:06:40.000And the consequence, everybody, is we're just gonna have 50 million people in this country.
01:06:43.000We don't know who they are, and they're just gonna end up being a shadow force because we're afraid of actually having our laws enforced.
01:06:52.000Do you want to have a final thought on that?
01:06:54.000I would just say that again, I fully support a strong border.
01:06:59.000I feel like I would be much more inclined to support the actions behind it if we first built a really clean process for these wonderful people to come here.
01:07:10.000And once that's in place, then I could I could support border enforcement.
01:07:26.000All right, let me just say in closing, guys, that dialogue is what it's all about.
01:07:30.000I don't know if we agreed we agreed on some, we disagreed on some, but most importantly, I want to end how I started, which is what you guys are doing is incredibly important.
01:07:37.000I learned a lot by being here and thank you guys for respectfully listening and having this great conversation.