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Summary
On today's show, we are joined by Rich Valdez, host of America at Night Radio and host of the late night show, "America at Night" where he takes on a plethora of issues, from immigration, to Cabinet picks, to the recent crash of an American Airlines jet carrying 239 passengers and crew.
Transcript
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Hello, everybody, and welcome to The Great America Show.
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As is every day under a Trump administration, another busy day in America.
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Deportations across America of these violent criminals continue to happen.
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We're still waiting on some answers out of D.C. as to what caused that horrific plane
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accident between that military aircraft and that American Airlines civilian plane.
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As I've been saying, we pray for the lives of those loved ones who lost their family members
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Our prayers are deeply with you as we await some answers.
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Folks, on today's show, we're going to be joined in just a moment by Rich Valdez, radio
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Catch him each and every night where you get your radio.
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We're going to take up a plethora of issues from the southern border to President Trump's
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cabinet picks, to this horrific accident, to DEI going bye-bye in America.
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Like I said, Rich Valdez is our guest today here on The Great America Show.
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Rich, it's great to have you back with us here on The Great America Show.
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If you're not on TV, you're doing your radio show, Late Night Edition.
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I want to start with first the Trump administration and the first, we'll call it 14 days to make
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Give me your reaction so far on the job that I often say on the show daily, promises made,
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promises kept will be the mantra for the next four years because we're, like I said, two
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weeks in and this man is doing more than he said he was going to do.
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Well, listen, John, first I want to say thanks for inviting me on the show.
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And I'm also grateful to ICE for not deporting me because I've driven through Newark, New
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I've driven all over the place where they're saying they're getting everybody and they
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But I say that in jest because there's so much propaganda out there and it has to do
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All the action that has been taken in the first 10, 11, 12 days of this administration,
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that is really just a barrage of things, right?
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Last night I had Congressman Byron Donalds on the show and he was saying that it was no accident
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that this stuff came out lightning speed, you know, all these executive orders at the same
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time, all these actions and every step that they took happened at the same time so that
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the deep state wouldn't be able to keep up with the pace that El Trompito and the team
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And I think he only could have done that having served before and having dealt with the deep
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There's a lot being done on the front of immigration, on the front of dismantling DEI in terms of
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pulling no punches with the media, reconstructing how they're doing the White House press briefings.
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It's, you know, the Democrats want to play their games and they want to hold back.
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But we've got through some of the most important ones we need.
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Pete Hegseth, Cash Patel, we expect to be put through this week as well.
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And then we'll begin the dismantling of the FBI because that's what Cash promised to do.
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Trump telling some of these top brass FBI guys, get out now before Cash gets you.
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What do you think is going to happen with the FBI and this deep state operation that they ran
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It's really the last 10 years when they spied on his campaign.
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You know, John, I think that that's going to continue no matter where they are.
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There's people that are out there to get Trump.
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Some of them, I think, are going to say, all right, I think I'm all right.
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But I think there's a lot of them are going to say, no, no, I'm going I'm giving this guy
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everything I got, like John Brennan, for example.
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He's not riding off on his pony into the sunset.
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This guy's added as much as he can, whether he wants to be a thorn in your side or not.
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He's going to use this influence however he can.
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I think some of the FBI guys, Strzok and McCabe, anybody's guess.
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I think cash is going to clean house if the ones that don't voluntarily walk away.
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I think Trump was smart to telegraph that and say, hey, look, you got a chance to go now.
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I think everybody expects the president to deliver on these things.
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And that's why, again, just to circle back to what I said before, there's a lot of propaganda
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I guess since I'm Puerto Rican, I get the feed that says, you know, I see these guys
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out on the island saying, you know, the ICE people came in here and they asked us to talk
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I got to tell you, I believe it's a pseudo event.
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This family that says that they were approached by ICE in a mall because they were speaking Spanish.
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We've got six million listeners in 250 markets across the country and no takers.
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They're making these stories up to put them on social media, to try and get a blip in the
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And it's working with some people, but mainly to the base that wasn't with Trump anyway.
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I spoke to Victor Avila the other day, who was a former supervisory special agent with ICE.
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And he had explained to me very easily, very simply, if you are a non-criminal illegal alien
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and you're hanging around with people who have committed crimes, who are the people who are
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being deported right now, they're starting with the people who have committed crimes and
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They have every right to question you because you're with this person who is a known criminal
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So I'm not really entirely sure where the disconnect is.
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But President Trump taking it a step further, Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay and Alcatraz were not
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two names on my bingo card before President Trump took office on January 20th.
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We now find out he wants to open up Guantanamo Bay, which I had mentioned years ago, which
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You want to come to America, you want to commit crimes.
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You're not going back to where you came from, where it's a lot better off than Guantanamo
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Now they're going to send you to Guantanamo Bay because President Trump's not sure your
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Like what was that drug lord's name from Mexico that they've got?
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El Chapo Guzman wasn't able to contain him over there.
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So guys like that, you know, we're going to hold because they can't be trusted.
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Your thoughts on Guantanamo Bay and now maybe Alcatraz.
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Well, I mean, the QAnon people are going, you know, they're wetting their pants.
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But I'll tell you this, I do think it's a good move, but it wasn't, this wasn't just
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Trump being Trumpian and playing 4D chess and all that other stuff.
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He literally said, look, I'm here, I'm repatriating you with your people.
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So what happens when you have a plane full of people that these people won't take back?
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You got to put them somewhere and it can't be here because clearly they're raping little
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And again, we're talking about the worst of the worst.
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So I think Trump had no choice but to say, well, guess what?
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The Coast Guard uses Guantanamo Bay to hold on to, for, what's the word I'm using?
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To detain illegal immigrants that they encounter on the seas.
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So I think that was a good move and one that likely won't happen.
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Just a little while ago on Friday, I saw a breaking news story in the afternoon from
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President Petro from Colombia putting out a statement saying to all Colombians in America
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illegally, please come home, asking them to come home.
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A different tune than he was singing six or seven days ago when he was saying, ah, you
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So I think people are realizing that Trump is not bluffing.
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And I think we're going to get this problem under control sooner rather than later.
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The Los Angeles Chief Recovery Officer, Steve Sarabroff, says, well, you're going to take
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half of our kitchen staffs and labor force out of L.A.
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And number two, it's not just these illegals who are responsible for being in this country
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You and I both live in New York and New Jersey, respectively.
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Every restaurant you go into, I'd say probably 99% of them, there's some sort of illegal in
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the kitchen with a fake Social Security number, whether it be a construction company or whatever.
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You go down the list, everyone is using cheap, illegal labor force.
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Are we supposed to feel bad for these people for knowingly harboring illegals contributing
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It used to be these guys would make, I have a lot of friends who are guilty of this as
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They come to this country, they used to get paid $100 a day.
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It's more than Americans are making to go work in an office somewhere, Rich.
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Number one, it's not lost on me that we should have compassion on people, irrespective of anything.
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And I know that because I had this conversation with somebody the other day, and he was telling
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So, I stopped by, and I was like, yo, I just need some help in a project in my house.
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And he said, 10 of them came to the car, and they all wanted $350 for the day.
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And he was like, bro, I don't get $350 in a day, so you're not getting $350 a day.
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And now, what I'll say in that particular example, and I'm talking about Broad Avenue
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in whatever town that is, Ridgefield or whatever, in Jersey, there's hundreds of day laborers
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There's way more men that are available to work as day laborers than there is demand for
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So, for anybody saying they're doing the work Americans won't do, A, I don't believe
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They're undercutting each other because there's too many of them.
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So, I think the smart thing to do would be to get the free ride home and say, hey, look,
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Figure out how to do it a better way and come back home.
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And this is where I talk about the compassion part.
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I don't believe – the reason we have mass immigration and a desire for people to risk
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life and limb and put their kids at risk of getting raped to come to this country is
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because they believe not in the America that you and I know because they don't know that
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They just know that things can happen here that can't happen anywhere else.
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You could say things here you can't say anywhere else.
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In El Salvador, and Trump talks about this all the time, saying that things are better
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there because we don't have so many – they don't have the MS-13 people we do and same
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They do have a good president in El Salvador, Bukele, and he's cleaned things up incredibly.
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People don't want to leave El Salvador as much as they wanted to leave before.
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Once you can handle crime and you can manage poverty and you can work on your economy, people
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There's a lot of Colombians I'm sure are happy to go back home.
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So I think as economies begin to scale in these countries through trade or working with the
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Trump administration for whatever export they have, I think it puts them in a position
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to be actually more advantageous to their citizenry when they say, hey, look, we're doing things
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We're not going to see a lot of Argentinian immigrants with Millet in office.
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So I think as we see those changes happening, we're going to see less of a demand for illegal
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And you mentioned the demand surplus, the supply surplus outpacing the demand.
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But the only thing I could think of is you start resorting to crime.
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If you can't get a job, how are you going to make ends meet to live here in America?
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Then people don't talk about in those rich suburban areas where they have the three million
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dollar houses where they're all in favor of this illegal immigration until you move them
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It's sort of hypocritical for these folks, you know, who don't want them.
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The other thing that was so surprising to me, Rich, was during the 2024 election cycle,
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President Trump probably got more union support than he's ever gotten in his life.
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But some of them came up short of endorsing him.
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And the craziest thing to me is these illegal immigrants, excuse me, hurt these unions more
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than anybody by undercutting labor costs in Manhattan and of all places, building projects
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across the country where it's, you know, union laborers are getting double the cost, but
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Well, you know, unions are very wishy-washy that way, in my opinion.
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They've always been in it for the political purpose, not for even for their industry, which
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The politicians, you know, reciprocate that power.
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So, I mean, it's not like, yes, the teachers union takes care of teachers, but are they
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really about teachers or are they about the power that they wield in Washington, right?
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You get these guys that miss the mark, but it doesn't change the fact that you're right.
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And again, I've never met an illegal immigrant that was giving themselves a job, right?
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It's always some guy that looks like you or me that's giving them a job.
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And this is where we, this has always been a problem, a bipartisan problem, right?
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This was the country club, Republicans always wanting good relationship with Mexico to have
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I don't think we're ever going to get rid of immigrants.
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We're never going to get rid of even illegal immigration.
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What I think the focus on right now is to kind of stop this massive flow of people emptying
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out their prisons and their mental hospitals saying, go to the US and we're going to have
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a good country here so that they can deal with the problem.
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Trump is putting the kibosh on that and doing it quickly.
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We're talking about Rich Valdez, radio host, 6 million listeners.
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When we come back, Rich, I want to talk about a little bit of a long-term issue with the
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border, how we're going to finally secure this thing up once and for all, stop this massive
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leak that's coming in and sure it up for whoever's the next president in four years.
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I also want to take up that horrific plane crash in Washington, D.C.
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We saw last week, we pray for the souls and lives and family members of those folks who
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Rich, we were talking about the border last segment.
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Just in President Trump's first week, we saw a 55% drop in migrant encounters at the southern border.
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You stopped the flow at the border by putting up this wall that President Trump promised his first term.
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What do you think the long-term plan is to finally sure this thing up once we finish these deportation raids and start moving on to the less violent criminals to get them out of this country?
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They broke the law at the end of the day as well.
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Maybe they didn't commit a crime where they hurt somebody or got a DUI or something like that.
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But being in this country is a crime in itself that's punishable.
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How do we sure this thing up once and for all so that when J.D. Vance comes into office in four years, this thing is foolproof and we don't need politicians running on fixing the border anymore?
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Well, I don't know that that's really an option, and I'll tell you why.
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I think if you look at past this prologue, Donald Trump served as president for four years.
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He was incredibly tough on immigration, in particular border security, right?
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He was never – he's still not known as the deporter-in-chief.
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Maybe after this term he might, but he's got to give Obama a run for his money.
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And this is really Trump's issue, is securing the border.
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It was never really on getting you out until Biden came in, ruined everything, and now he's saying, all right, I've got to clean up Biden's mess and we're going to clean up what's going on.
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But if you remember, Trump was all on board with DACA.
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So I don't see him doing a reversal on those things.
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I think Trump is very serious when he says we are going to get rid of the criminal element, these aliens that are committing felonies in this country or that came here wanted with felonies from other countries.
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I think – and it seems like they know exactly where everybody is, interestingly.
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I mean there's no shortage of raids going on, targeted raids.
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So I think once that happens and there's no longer a transnational criminal threat in the United States like Tren de Aragua or MS-13 actively doing their dirt in our backyard, I think this stuff will slow down.
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So it will be back to the regular pace of the occasional, oh, wow, there's a warehouse that's filled with illegal aliens.
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Maybe ICE will go there and do what they do with an enforcement operation.
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But I don't think it's going to be what we're seeing today where you're seeing 1,000 people arrested per day.
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But eventually I think we run out of bad guys, and that's a good thing for us.
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The other thing is there is an enormous cost of doing this, and you can't do this every day for four years.
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Ultimately, it becomes an unpopular opinion, and Trump's himself.
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He's just – I've never seen him be in favor of getting rid of every last person.
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It just hasn't been what he showed while he was in office before.
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So I don't think we're going to empty kitchens across the country.
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I could be wrong, but I don't think that's what's in store for us.
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I think there's going to be a pathway like he insinuated last time.
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He was happy to have the conversation about making the DACA people full citizens.
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I think we'll probably see something like that.
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I think Trump's a dealmaker, and he's always looking to make a deal, but he demands the law and order, and that's appropriate.
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I maybe would have agreed with you if you told me this two weeks ago before he took office, but from everything I see right now, he's taking the hardest line of stance we've ever seen.
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Guantanamo Bay, like I said, that wasn't on my bingo card.
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He's all in favor of helping this thing up to put the –
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But Guantanamo Bay, John, I think is going to be for, again, the people that their home countries don't want them back, right?
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I think most people – I think we're going to see a big push for self-deportation.
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I was just at lunch a little while ago with a friend of mine.
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His girl works in a public school on the Jersey side of the Hudson, not far from me.
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And she was saying to him that they're getting calls from parents all over the place saying, should I send my kids to school?
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Is ICE coming to the school to arrest the kids, right?
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But ultimately, this is going to transcend into people saying, I'm out.
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This isn't the free ride that it was while Biden was here.
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And I think those types of things are what – that's going to get people to take action.
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The tunnels, we've got to work on those, right?
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I think there's not enough of a focus down there.
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So I think once we control the security of the border and we don't have this influx, it'll be easier to work out what's inside.
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I just – I'm not sold on the idea that there's going to be massive enforcement against every last person that's been in this country for 20 years and paying tax on a fake Social Security number.
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I think ultimately the – it's like a pressure pot.
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But as we let off some of that pressure and we see more deportations of these horrible, vile criminals that are child rapists and whatnot, that stuff I think will begin to dissipate.
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And people are going to go back to saying, all right, now eggs are still nine bucks.
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What – in your opinion, what can we do to these folks who are hiring?
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If you start holding these people criminally liable for hiring illegals, they're not going to come here.
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They're going to go home back to their own country.
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And listen, I've said this often on the show too.
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But we've had no problem going into the Middle East and raiding countries and turning them upside down, Iraq, Afghanistan.
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You could throw a dart over at the Middle East and it'll land on a country that we as America had something to do with screwing up their country, Syria.
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Saddam Hussein, I mean, go down the list, right?
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I'm all in favor of figuring out a way to get the corruption out of Mexico.
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If we can get Mexico under control, we spend far too much money in the Middle East, what is it to spend an extra little bit of money to get Mexico to be a habitable country, to be a legitimate country to live in, where people can live and not live in fear and not live in fear of the cartels coming and banging down their doors?
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If we can help Mexico fix their own country, we can fix a massive, massive problem.
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And like I said, we've spent money, rich places.
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Go look at how much money we spent spending, sending over to Gaza for what did Caroline Levitt say?
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But there's got to be someone in Mexico who's in favor of fixing their country.
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It's clearly not Scheinbaum and it wasn't Manuel Lopez Ovidor.
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But, you know, why can't we do something like that?
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Start penalizing these business owners who are hiring these illegals, number one.
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Help fix the corruption so that these people, Rich, at the end of the day, they don't want to come to America.
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The Mexicans, the Hondurians, they don't want to come here.
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They want to be with their families, but they can't.
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If we can help these people fix their countries, Rich, if we can pull some business out of China.
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We have so much space down in the Caribbean and South America where we can send facilities to print T-shirts or, you know, whatever, textiles, anything you want to name that we can take out of China.
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You're employing people who need money, who want to stay in their country, they don't have to come to America, and you're taking business away from China.
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I don't think that's a Trumpian position, right?
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If you look at how Trump rolls, he's very anti-intervention.
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I don't think it's off the table, though, and I think that's the first thing he said, and he said it last time, too.
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He said, you know, if you don't do this, we're going to label you a narco-terrorist organization, and we're coming after you.
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And it worked then, and it worked again this time.
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So I think that they're willing to play ball because they don't want that smoke, right?
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Whether they have the ability to engage in the war or not, they don't want it.
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The United States is a war machine, and why get into a – this is a country that can do a 20-year war.
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So I think that's the challenge that we have in an approach like that.
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I think we're probably going to see Trump cut a deal, cutting a deal where everybody's making money.
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Maybe a tariff deal, maybe some sort of manufacturing deal, something like the USMCA, maybe USMCA 2.0, something like that, where we offer help and maybe they accept.
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Short of a regime change, how will you get – Scheinbaum just got there, and she does not seem to be – I can't say she's incredibly obstacular, but she doesn't seem to be on board either.
00:24:36.560
And when she ran, Mexicans were telling me, this woman is not Mexican.
00:24:42.000
So we have a person that is not even representing the people running the country.
00:24:47.420
So she, I think, is the epitome of the deep state in Mexico doing what they do there.
00:24:52.500
So I think she's just being a politician playing lip service, and I think Trump can utilize the option you're talking about.
00:25:02.520
Yeah, the thing is, is there's not been, like I said, a Mexican president who hasn't been in the pocket of the cartels.
00:25:09.860
They have no choice, and they know that when they're running.
00:25:13.760
It's either you get on board and you get on the payroll or you get killed, and your family gets killed and tortured.
00:25:19.860
Like I said, we went in and toppled so many different countries in the Middle East for absolutely no reason.
00:25:24.220
But they weren't really any better, were they, John?
00:25:27.920
This is directly – Trump, I was listening to him on Friday.
00:25:30.680
He had said about giving money to NATO, and he said very simply, the countries in Europe have a lot bigger problem and a lot bigger issue because we have a massive ocean in between us.
00:25:39.440
We don't have any ocean in between us and Mexico.
00:25:42.120
It's a walk or a jump or a climb or a dig right under that border wall.
00:25:47.520
This is a country where I think it's worth investing the money into figuring out how to help them help themselves because it's a long-term effect.
00:25:55.980
Like I said, it would be so nice, Rich, in four years, in eight years, we've got a lot more time to live, you and I.
00:26:01.700
It would be nice in our lifetime to never have to hear a politician talk about securing the border.
00:26:06.620
We heard George Bush talk about it, did absolutely nothing.
00:26:12.880
It would be a godsend to never hear a politician say, we're going to secure this border.
00:26:17.420
And I think it starts with helping them fix their own country, whether it be, like I said, moving factories, having these companies' incentives to move factories.
00:26:34.020
And China needs to get out of Mexico is better said, right?
00:26:37.240
I think China has been making moves all over the world, right?
00:26:41.760
There's factories in India that are Chinese factories, so they can say made in India instead of made in China because people are hip to that.
00:26:47.540
There's now made in Mexico, which is really made in China.
00:26:50.340
So I think we have to keep our eye on China and make sure we can control that threat because I think that's probably the most active threat.
00:26:58.260
They're death by a thousand cuts every time, every scenario, you name it, manufacturing, intellectual property, security.
00:27:06.000
They wanted to take Puerto Rico a couple of years ago and build a port.
00:27:10.620
I mean, the things that they do are just so, in my opinion, egregious.
00:27:14.460
And I think a lot of Democrats turn a blind eye to that.
00:27:23.320
We have to make sure they're OK, too, because we're sandwiched in between.
00:27:26.860
And all you need is for them to become further to the left and make friends with another enemy of ours.
00:27:36.480
But I do think Canada, I think he's got that part under control.
00:27:39.820
They're going in the right direction with Mexico.
00:27:42.680
I think they can go in the right direction with the right coaxing.
00:27:51.820
We saw the threat in them with Colombia in his first week in office on Saturday.
00:27:57.000
They went into effect on Canada and Mexico at 25 percent.
00:28:00.380
25 percent may seem like a little bit on paper, but from a nation like Canada or Mexico, it's going to hit them hard.
00:28:07.560
Maybe China wouldn't be hit by 25 percent, as we saw in the first term, but it's going to hurt them.
00:28:12.620
And, you know, I said this with Victor Avila the other day.
00:28:20.420
He's just saying shut down your borders, control your borders and keep your drugs on your side of the country.
00:28:31.800
Our people don't consume drugs like the Americans do.
00:28:34.420
So, you know, if you guys would stop using our drugs, we'd stop selling them to you.
00:28:41.380
And I think this is the reason why so many previous administrations, Biden et al, have been complicit in this, because, A, maybe they got a cut of it.
00:28:49.060
But, B, they're like, oh, we can't fix this problem.
00:28:53.160
This is where I think Trump is different, where he does believe, yeah, there's a solution here.
00:29:00.600
And if we're all making money, then we're all good.
00:29:02.040
And this is why I always echo back with Trump being a businessman.
00:29:08.080
You know, New York City real estate, tough, tough crowd.
00:29:22.020
So, you know, I think he's probably one of the most skilled politicians we've had as president, despite never having served in public office.
00:29:28.580
And I think we're seeing it right now when he makes these moves.
00:29:30.960
Just imagine you're on a call with Petro and you're Trump and he's like, hello, Petro.
00:29:46.500
Think of the impact on tourism when Colombia becomes an enemy of the United States.
00:29:54.840
So as long as you can keep getting the dollar, Trump's all about that dollar and strengthening the dollar.
00:30:00.320
So I think there's a lot of work to be done, but we're headed in the right direction.
00:30:04.460
And I think we're going to see, honestly, I think we're going to see the Americas being made it great again.
00:30:09.560
To your point earlier, I think when you see a Colombia that's thriving, Argentina that's thriving.
00:30:14.200
I don't know if it happens in Venezuela, but Brazil perhaps that starts thriving.
00:30:18.540
Less people coming here, more people going there.
00:30:22.740
Yeah, I kind of agree with you on the Colombian ban.
00:30:25.520
My hairline's not moving any further towards my nose.
00:30:29.080
So eventually I'm going to need to head over there and get some hair.
00:30:37.940
I'm kind of against it now, but maybe one day I'll be for it.
00:30:47.220
And we've seen that, which is so crazy to me why the mainstream media, and we're going to talk about this on the other side of this break, the mainstream media and the left hates him so much.
00:30:54.600
It's so mind-boggling to me because we haven't had such a gentle president in, you know, I can't even think of the last time.
00:31:03.820
We're talking about Rich Valdez, America at Night is the show, right, Rich?
00:31:11.160
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You catch him each and every night, late nights here in America on the East Coast, the West Coast.
00:32:40.060
Rich, the media has played such a role in this hatred towards Trump.
00:32:44.280
We're seeing something now I didn't think we would ever see.
00:32:46.800
A sleepy eye, Chuck Todd, as Trump likes to call him, out at NBC.
00:32:53.640
They're in talks with Trump now to settle a $10 billion defamation lawsuit from that edited Kamala Harris interview she did when she was running for office.
00:33:05.160
But it seems now these guys are either Jim Acosta, either calling it quits or being forced out.
00:33:10.840
But I don't see the narrative shifting with these people.
00:33:13.760
Caitlin Collins in the White House briefing room the other day, you know, still with her hateful questions.
00:33:22.720
The overwhelming majority of American people voted for Donald Trump, whether Jessica Tarlov on Fox News wants to acknowledge that or not.
00:33:34.640
Are we finally starting to see maybe some accountability between these sick people and the American person?
00:33:44.000
So I think you've got people in the media that are bean counters and they know how to count.
00:33:47.340
And I'll tell you, I first saw this with Chris Ruddy, who's ahead of the game on everything, the owner of Newsmax.
00:33:54.380
We're going to blow out our programming when there's a Trump rally and carry the three hours of the Trump rally.
00:33:58.480
And his ratings started to skyrocket where he started to rival CNN.
00:34:01.960
Next thing you know, they start beating CNN in some of their primetime shows.
00:34:13.180
After a year ago saying we're not covering Trump anymore, right?
00:34:20.160
They're doing whatever they can because they realize this is what the people want to see.
00:34:23.800
So when the bean counters figure out, OK, we can make money covering Trump.
00:34:31.160
MSNBC goes to Joe Scarborough and says, hey, you and Mika, go to Mar-a-Lago and interview Trump.
00:34:39.680
But you got to go on, you know, after Valdez, right?
00:34:41.880
You got to go on after him, the extreme late night.
00:34:44.120
And he says, F you, I'll do my own thing like Don Limon.
00:34:47.300
And now they're both probably going to have a Twitter show.
00:34:49.540
So ultimately, what I think happens here is these networks are realizing we got it wrong.
00:34:58.300
And some of them are not as complicit as we think, right?
00:35:00.620
They are indeed, but not in their hearts, if you will, right?
00:35:04.740
I think a lot of them were like, we were under pressure.
00:35:08.840
And when he says, I'm just trying to be a social media guy and Biden and the FBI were
00:35:12.560
like, hey, do this, do this, censor this, censor that, right?
00:35:15.500
So I think when you have all of that going on, people succumb to the people that are in
00:35:22.100
So now they're like, OK, I can take a breather.
00:35:24.900
Maybe we can make some money, actually have ratings.
00:35:28.640
Trump has created a media ecosystem that includes Real America's Voice, Newsmax TV, One America
00:35:38.460
News, and a million different content creators that are independent that all get lots of views,
00:35:45.380
Look at him with that interview he did with Trump the day of the debate that Trump said,
00:35:49.460
And they got 350 million views in a day or a day and a half.
00:35:53.540
If that doesn't speak volumes saying the whole world is watching Trump, I don't know what
00:35:57.980
So it's clear to me that they're saying, all right, look, whether we like this guy or not,
00:36:03.620
We're surrounded by these whack jobs called maggots, and we got to work with them.
00:36:08.180
Rich, these folks don't realize who are going independent media.
00:36:15.120
I was fortunate enough to be left to show by the great Lou Dobbs, who built a terrific
00:36:19.200
But if I had to build this myself, there's not a ton of money in it that it's worth living,
00:36:23.520
that you can make a living off of unless you really hustle, hustle and grind.
00:36:27.280
So these guys are going to wake up and learn the hard way that it ain't so easy.
00:36:31.740
If they weren't watching them on CNN and MSNBC, they ain't tuned into them on this, Rich.
00:36:37.420
Yeah, especially guys like Don Lemon and where these guys were making millions of dollars
00:36:43.520
But their platform begins to dissipate, obviously, I think, when they're not doing what Tucker
00:36:48.940
I think Tucker Carlson leaves Fox and becomes bigger than he was, right?
00:36:58.220
I think Don Lemon could probably be an amazing talk show host with Dr. Phil's network, you
00:37:04.080
You know, there's space for him, but he has to be able to be flexible and do his thing.
00:37:08.140
I don't think he can continue to be this attack dog for the left.
00:37:12.180
Look at how News Nation came out of nowhere, right?
00:37:16.880
They're competitive in a very short amount of time because they've decided to go kind
00:37:21.300
of center down the middle and say, you know, we're going to go this way and we're going
00:37:25.980
I think that's what the American people want because they ultimately, in the palm of their
00:37:29.420
hand, they have the ability to figure out whatever they want to figure out.
00:37:36.960
People tune in to us because they want to hear the truth and they want to hear their
00:37:40.260
opinions and get the, you know, the lowdown on things.
00:37:44.040
You know, you'd like to tune into CNN and MSNBC to get the news.
00:37:47.740
There's really no outlet anymore, Rich, where you can tune in.
00:37:51.060
I'm listening on Thursday, on Wednesday night as I'm flying on a plane back from the West
00:37:56.040
Coast as that plane, which we're going to turn to in just a moment here, crashed in Washington.
00:38:01.500
And I'm scrolling through the stations to try to get, you know, the news on what's going
00:38:05.140
on and I can't get a straight answer on what's happening.
00:38:09.880
I had to go on Twitter to figure out what exactly was going on because nobody can just
00:38:16.620
You turn to MSNBC, this is because Trump did a hiring freeze and, you know, X, Y, and
00:38:22.040
And I'm like, I just want to know what's going on.
00:38:24.420
I want to know how many people died, if anyone's dead or how, and you couldn't get the straight
00:38:28.600
And I think people are tired of it and they tune to us to, you know, to get opinions and the
00:38:33.460
truth, whereas you can't get it, which brings me to that crash.
00:38:37.740
You know, like I said, we pray for those, the lives of those all students.
00:38:40.520
We're looking at it now, Rich, three, four days, five days later, they, it took them
00:38:44.720
three, four, five days to get bodies out from underneath the plane.
00:38:54.740
What was that thing that went down to the Titanic ocean gate?
00:38:57.200
They got the people down from the sea floor, the height of the empire state building faster
00:39:02.300
than our own government was able to pull out these loved ones of family members who are
00:39:07.200
trying to figure out, you know, if they're family members on that plane or who died.
00:39:11.600
Then we find out there's two pilots on the plane, both male.
00:39:19.040
Listen, John, I don't know a ton about all that stuff because it really is crazy.
00:39:22.940
But I will tell you when it comes to accidents and things like that, it's very difficult
00:39:27.040
to tell where bodies land, how much of the body is landing.
00:39:29.920
I hate to be graphic that way, but in these types of accidents, I mean, I got a description
00:39:34.200
from a former Northwest executive who was explaining what it was like when this plane kind of split
00:39:41.700
And he said, you know, you have no idea where everything lands.
00:39:45.500
You know, the plane might be in seven feet of water, but you don't know where everything
00:39:51.840
He did assure me that there is no better airline investigation team than the ones out of
00:40:03.320
They're like constantly drawn upon by every country on the planet because they're so good
00:40:08.580
And mainly because we do it so little because we have very few accidents.
00:40:14.540
But I'll tell you, yeah, there was a lot of talk.
00:40:16.540
I think Trump was right in saying that DEI may have played a role in this, but then the
00:40:20.300
media has a mind of its own and goes after this trans pilot that had nothing to do with
00:40:23.980
it coming out saying, look, yeah, I'm the trans pilot.
00:40:38.260
You have to become very media savvy just to get by in life.
00:40:44.820
But I do think that this is going to get managed well.
00:40:47.700
And I think it's just it wasn't something we saw coming.
00:40:51.900
And there are questions that haven't been answered that I think are going to help us
00:40:56.380
One of the questions was, why was the Blackhawk so high?
00:41:03.600
This guy explained to me that that Blackhawk should never have gone higher than 200 feet,
00:41:09.300
Like, this this is a big question of why that happened, because apparently the American
00:41:14.160
flight was on the trajectory that it always takes.
00:41:17.980
So I think once we get those answers, we'll figure out exactly what happened.
00:41:22.660
And something he left me with, which I thought, man, imagine that.
00:41:28.200
Ultimately, this may be a situation where they literally didn't see it.
00:41:40.680
And, you know, I guess there would be some comfort in knowing this really was an accident
00:41:44.940
as opposed to somebody being negligent or somebody being incompetent.
00:41:52.520
I still go flying every now and then out of Morristown, New Jersey.
00:41:57.820
I mean, there's times where I've luckily never been that close to a call.
00:42:02.400
But, you know, there's times you see you really got to look, especially at nighttime,
00:42:12.260
Sometimes you'll see a star and you think it's a plane or a bright light.
00:42:17.500
I can't tell you how many times I've done this.
00:42:22.780
And it turns out it's the New Jersey Turnpike Highway.
00:42:28.240
So, you know, you have different differentiators, but, you know, you figure it out.
00:42:32.640
I mean, I don't understand as a pilot why you have a helicopter, even going at 50 feet
00:42:38.680
above the approach path of like one of the busiest airports in that area.
00:42:47.960
Then they come in, they chop down, they make these left and right turns down by the river.
00:42:56.260
I had been saying for probably two years now to friends of mine that I had this bad feeling
00:43:03.820
There was far too many near misses, Rich, that we've seen in the last two, three years.
00:43:08.060
A few weeks ago, the whole Gonzaga men's basketball team playing almost collided with the Jet Blue
00:43:16.960
I mean, these are things that are completely avoidable.
00:43:20.080
And, you know, I tell the story now a lot on the show when I was in college.
00:43:24.160
It was during the Obama times in aviation school.
00:43:27.100
Obama got rid of the college mandate for ATC controllers, meaning he could pull people
00:43:30.620
off the street and they were actually encouraging it.
00:43:32.660
If you worked at McDonald's, they were encouraging you to come apply to be an air traffic controller,
00:43:40.580
That's not where we need to be in America, Rich.
00:43:42.580
These air traffic controllers and pilots, in most cases, are more important than lawyers
00:43:53.780
The first thing in pilot school, there's no such thing as a good pilot.
00:43:57.200
You know when you're a good pilot, when an emergency happens.
00:43:59.920
Obviously, these guys on this PSA, American Airlines flight, didn't have the chance to
00:44:03.880
be good pilots because they were blindsided and hit by this Blackhawk.
00:44:08.920
It used to be back in the day, military pilots went right into the airlines.
00:44:13.700
You went right in because you were the best of the best.
00:44:19.220
When you're looking right outside your front window, that does not need to happen in America,
00:44:26.060
And that's why I said I think President Trump's comments were appropriate.
00:44:29.620
And not necessarily about the trans part of DEI, but really about what you're talking
00:44:36.520
Lowering standards with the hope that you're going to diversify your workforce.
00:44:44.800
If you're good at something, you're good at something.
00:44:48.480
You can't take somebody just because they look better and you're decorating your company.
00:44:59.480
You need people that know how to do their jobs because obviously we're seeing the repercussions
00:45:03.200
of what happens when you put people that don't know how to do their job.
00:45:06.140
And the military is probably one of the worst examples of this as we continue to see this
00:45:12.460
I was on Facebook one day and a friend of mine, a sergeant in the army, was having a back
00:45:18.640
and forth about trans in the military with her actual lieutenant from her platoon or whatever.
00:45:26.200
And this guy, to end the argument, says, listen, I am a gay black man.
00:45:38.140
And it was because they all go on this extended medical leave and it's difficult to backfill
00:45:43.120
their positions and it makes the unit that much smaller.
00:45:48.500
And if people during the Obama years were joining the military just to get free transition
00:45:53.440
surgery, this is how you weaken the American military from the inside.
00:46:00.380
So I'm grateful that Pete Hegseth is there and he seems like he has his work cut out for
00:46:05.680
Yeah, I think all these guys, before we wrap up here, I want to get your take on that.
00:46:10.740
Trump's cabinet picks and everyone who are still waiting to be confirmed.
00:46:20.620
Prices need to be paid, Rich, if these rhinos think they're going to go against the America
00:46:25.340
And that's you, Lady G, Lindsey Graham, who's up for reelection in 2026.
00:46:35.800
This man has no right to be going against President Trump's agenda.
00:46:39.480
Listen, I think I think everybody's going to get through and I'll take Lindsey Graham any
00:46:51.120
And I think we we found the cure to the rhino problem and we're working on it, I would hope
00:46:58.180
Some of these guys are going to be like and we've seen it.
00:47:01.860
I'm not coming back to Congress and good for them.
00:47:05.280
And we need to continue to fill that with the right people to continue to put these things
00:47:08.880
through, because no tax on tips has to become a thing that gets signed into law.
00:47:14.720
The no tax on Social Security would be fantastic.
00:47:22.200
This is what's going to continue the the populist support for for the America First movement.
00:47:29.360
And I think, like you said, something that's synonymous with this administration thus far
00:47:38.380
For me, all systems are go on on going forward.
00:47:42.760
And if the rhinos get in the way, it's at their own peril.
00:47:48.480
Scott Pressler, who was among one of the big saviors this election with the RFK's running
00:47:54.120
mate, Nicole, what is it, Shannon, Shanahan, Shanahan, yeah, vowing to go after every single
00:48:03.440
These people need to fear, you know, you can't let them keep getting away with this.
00:48:07.560
We dealt with Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney for far, far too long.
00:48:13.040
There was an American mandate in November and we need to stick with it.
00:48:20.020
You teach him each and every weeknight, wherever you get your radio or richvaldez.com.
00:48:30.460
We hope to see you back here tomorrow for The Great America Show.
00:48:32.460
As our quest for truth, justice, and the American way continues, see you back here tomorrow.