On this episode of Everybody s Business, we sit down with Newt Gingrich to discuss his new book, How We Live Here Now: The New American Dream, and what it means to be a conservative in the 21st century.
00:07:07.980And so there's a great deal of socialization that went into being an immigrant in the U.S.
00:07:14.180We went into a cycle which was captured in a book called The Tragedy of American Compassion,
00:07:21.000where starting really in the big way with the great society, it became inappropriate
00:07:26.060to suggest to people that they give up wherever they came from, to say that the habits and the culture you came from aren't, you know.
00:07:35.620So if you happen to come from a place which engages in clitorectomy, who are we to suggest as a matter of women's rights that maybe that's not a very good habit?
00:07:44.580It would be like in the middle of the 19th century when sati was still practiced in India and widows were expected to be burned with their husbands.
00:07:54.300So the question becomes, can we find a path back to work?
00:09:36.900For all purposes, it is their native country.
00:09:39.440So we couldn't have that debate until we got control of the border.
00:09:45.460My guess is that by sometime in 27, we will begin to have a very healthy debate.
00:09:52.740People will have calmed down and will now be into how do we solve this problem as opposed to just being so rigid.
00:09:58.880And it may even happen starting in 26.
00:10:01.780I mean, I thought the speed, I don't know what your reaction was, but I thought the speed with which they turned around the southern border was almost unbelievable.
00:10:38.640And I'm curious just from that perspective, because I think a lot of it was rhetorical.
00:10:42.580I mean, it was substantive in terms of some of the moves that he's made, but mostly rhetorical, I think, in terms of the impacts even occurring before in the executive orders went into effect.
00:10:52.160And certainly no fundamental legislative shifts yet.
00:11:18.860Look, the challenge for Trump's critics on this line of reasoning is that he got the highest percentage any Republican's ever gotten in the Hispanic community.
00:11:31.800He got the largest percentage of African-American males of any Republican since Eisenhower, you know, 70 years ago.
00:11:40.100He's the first Republican to get a majority of the Catholic vote.
00:11:43.900So there's an awful lot of people who are first and second generation legal immigrants who are as mad about illegal immigrants as people whose relatives came over in 1700.
00:11:58.460I mean, there's a sense of, I paid my dues, I waited, I obeyed the law, and frankly, I left these people behind.
00:12:07.460I don't want a Venezuelan gang in my neighborhood.
00:12:10.080And while that's exaggerated, it's real enough.
00:12:13.660And particularly if you look at the people, you know, who have been killed or the people who have been raped, you don't need many symbols.
00:12:25.140Country to decide, you know, I don't, that's a risk I don't.
00:12:27.280No, I just, I miss, what I hate is how it's exploited.
00:12:31.040And as we know, I mean, we all know the stats, I mean, native-born are more likely to commit crimes than foreign-born, legal or without documentation.
00:20:34.060I mean, if Harvard were semi-smart, they'd say, you know, this is a losing fight.
00:20:39.220Even if they win round one in court, because he's going to be there for four years.
00:20:44.380If they win one round in court, the Justice Department will be there with round two, three, and four.
00:20:49.880And he's not going to give up until they kowtow.
00:20:52.580It's just, no, he's not necessarily going to go and pick a fight with, you know, the Ohio State University, partly because he likes their football team.
00:21:01.040But as a general rule, this is classically Trump behavior.
00:21:06.480You saw him just do it to the Europeans.
00:21:08.180The Europeans said, we don't want to talk.
00:21:09.520He said, fine, 50% tariff next Monday.
00:21:12.080And then he negotiates against himself.
00:21:38.140A lot of folks have, not just, you know, including, by the way, Democrats.
00:21:41.520I mean, the tariff policies were advanced and increased against China, in particular during the Biden administration, but not across the board, not with the fits and starts, not negotiating against ourselves.
00:21:53.420Tell me, you, tell me, tell me that you find the approach to tariffs under the Trump administration fullhardy and not necessarily productive at this stage.
00:22:05.580Or am I missing this great negotiator's capacity to deliver punches like a chess master five months from now or a year from now?
00:22:28.600I really thought, as did most of the people who studied it, that opening up China economically was a great step towards a more open China.
00:22:38.880And I totally misunderstood Deng Xiaoping's southern tour, where he gave the speeches about markets and said, you know, I don't care whether it's a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches the rat.
00:22:51.760And it sounded like he was really talking about openness.
00:22:55.620Well, a couple of years ago, I did a book called Trump and China, and I went back and did a lot of research.
00:23:02.760I mean, Deng Xiaoping was one of the 24 people in Paris who create the Chinese Communist Party.
00:23:09.760He leaves Paris at the end of World War I, goes to Moscow and spends a year at Lenin University studying Marxism, Leninism.
00:23:18.260He is saying, and none of us caught this, we have to have a market to create enough prosperity to strengthen the party's grip on the country.
00:23:29.140Because if people stay too poor, they're going to throw the party out.
00:23:32.200So I'm not going to an open market so I can open up China.
00:23:36.300I'm going to an open market so I can sustain the dictatorship.
00:23:40.440And by the way, since it is a dictatorship, and since we are China, if I get to rip you off, that's fine.
00:23:47.760Now, part of my education, after I left the speakership, I was approached by a former Walmart president who was going to do a deal in China.
00:23:55.180And he thought having a former speaker would help give in negotiating.
00:23:59.060So my lawyer talked to the Chinese lawyers.
00:24:01.480And after he looked at the proposed contract, he said, let me get this straight.
00:24:04.700You can define what his interest is worth on any given day, and you can buy it at your definition.
00:24:11.140And he said, yeah, that's how we do things.
00:24:18.940And then in the European case, the Europeans, and this is a genuine tragedy, and I think you have to read J.D. Vance's speeches in Paris and Munich in this context.
00:24:47.320In the long run, that's a losing game.
00:24:50.360So what they have to do is they have to somehow tax Amazon or Apple or Google or Meta or Microsoft because they literally can't compete with them.
00:25:02.020And so they rig the game in clever ways.
00:25:06.760And for a very long time, we operated within a model of somehow trying to get to a balanced world where it would also – the World Trade Organization would work.
00:25:16.200I mean, I was for China joining the WTO.
00:25:19.160And then you realize after a while, it just – this current system doesn't work.
00:25:23.680Now, what Trump has done, which I candidly don't think he's explained very well, Trump is a reversion to the late 19th century Republican model, best articulated by William McKinley, that we are going to have higher tariff walls.
00:25:39.100We're going to have higher paid workers.
00:26:06.120Or the lack of stock in the warehouse because of all the indecision and the business chill.
00:26:11.260I mean, a lot of people, they're not going to make it five months.
00:26:13.960That's my fear and disproportionate number out here in America's largest economy, California, with all that goods movement and the dock workers and truckers and obviously the small business supply chains.
00:26:36.640Look, there's going to be a lot of floundering around and ultimately we may be at a better future, but the interim is going to be – I tell people, this is not a beer party on a houseboat on a quiet lake.
00:26:48.300This is canoeing in the rapids of a wild river.
00:26:56.880Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes here, Diddy's former protege.
00:27:00.560Television personality, platinum-selling artist, Danity King alum, Aubrey O'Day, joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation.
00:27:11.520Aubrey O'Day is sitting next to us here.
00:27:13.740You are, as we sit here, right up the street from where the trial is taking place.
00:27:18.180Some people saw that you were going to be in New York and they immediately started jumping to conclusions.
00:27:24.680First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy trial?
00:27:27.720Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise based on her first-hand knowledge.
00:27:33.040From her days on making the band as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamour.
00:27:40.280It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real.
00:27:47.820Listen to Amy and T.J. presents Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:27:56.700Have you ever thought about going Boy Sober?
00:28:01.180I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation.
00:28:07.880To most people, I'm the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024.
00:28:14.380Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships.
00:28:21.000It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be.
00:28:28.720These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be Boy Sober, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.
00:28:39.660I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.
00:28:45.480It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together.
00:29:37.160And I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, from Pushkin Industries and iHeart Podcast.
00:29:47.480From Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal, to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice.
00:29:56.240These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor, going above and beyond the call of duty.
00:30:04.800You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.
00:30:12.340Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:18.760A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.
00:30:29.080Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.
00:30:45.640Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.
00:30:54.200But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick.
00:31:29.700But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.
00:31:35.560Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.
00:31:39.400But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.
00:31:42.100Cops believed everything that taser told them.
00:31:45.100From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.
00:31:55.600This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.
00:32:07.620Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:32:16.580Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.
00:32:22.120Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
00:32:49.700I tuned in because I was expecting the opposite.
00:32:52.580And the fact that the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, at the peak of their differences, engaged in a civil conversation, it makes me long for those days or wait or not.
00:33:07.300Because my reflection was one of critique and constant, you know, just, you know, confrontation, vitriol, government shutdowns.
00:33:25.080And what's happened to our country since?
00:33:29.400And how much do you feel, Mr. Speaker, in the Luntz conversation, responsible for some of that sort of toxicity, as some have described, in our politics as it relates to the relationship that you had with our party, our party with you, and the contract with America?
00:33:50.520Oh, well, you just managed to ask about three different questions.
00:35:25.460I mean, I remember at one point, Leon Panetta, we were in a negotiating session, and Panetta was screaming at him and saying, you can't give that away.
00:35:33.460We had Democrats who lost their seats because they voted for that.
00:35:36.860And it came along, yeah, but I don't want to lose my seat.
00:35:40.320And, you know, then he turned to me and said, I guess I can't do that one.
00:35:50.460Face-to-face, I mean, literally the two of you in the room, not outsourcing it to staff.
00:35:54.040Most of the other people around, but the two of us sitting across the table for 35 days, and we produced the only four balanced budgets in a century.
00:36:03.500And we did it because we listened to each other, and we talked to each other.
00:36:06.440Now, I was a harsh partisan for a reason you'll understand perfectly.
00:36:11.160I mean, it's what you have not- you haven't really had the kind of quality of opposition you should have in California that methodically goes out and spends 16 years and gradually becomes a majority, which is tragic.
00:39:25.720We created the Hart-Rudman Commission, which was the deepest and biggest review of national security since 1948.
00:39:32.960And actually, after I stepped down, even though I'd helped him impeach him in the House, they called and said, would you like to serve on the commission since you created it?
00:39:47.860And you're reminding me of the impeachment.
00:39:49.560I mean, so what do you and it was the third part of that three legged stool question.
00:39:54.220And forgive me for not articulating it more effectively.
00:39:57.900But and again, this is not an indictment, but it was in the conversation of Luntz who said he was never more proud to be associated with anything than the contract with America, which was fascinating to me.
00:40:08.200And how quick he was to not only defend it, but how reverential he thought it was at the time in terms of just being a communication document, how it had transparency, how it did represent, as you said, the will of the American people, at least in terms of the 70 percent threshold.
00:40:24.000And the fact that you submitted it to the public, meaning you tested that theory.
00:40:28.800But but the impeachment, the toxicity, the winning at all costs, hardly new and novel in politics.
00:40:35.780So I'm not suggesting you're you you're the the OG in this space.
00:40:40.100But the people connect this moment to those moments.
00:40:44.640Is that fair or unfair to Democrats oversimplify?
00:40:47.840I think we I think we profoundly mishandled the impeachment.
00:40:52.120And I think it was partly because of Kenneth Starr.
00:40:57.080In my mind, the impeachment was about committing perjury.
00:41:01.980It actually goes back to arguments we have today about whether or not whether the Supreme Court is ruled.
00:41:06.820And I suspect that the Supreme Court already ruled, we wouldn't have had a leg to stand on.
00:41:11.400But the question was, it was pretty clear that he had been convicted of committing perjury, which, you know, is a felony.
00:41:18.580And in fact, he later on was barred from practicing law for five years in Arkansas.
00:41:24.940And I thought it was important as a matter of constitutional record that a president should be held accountable.
00:41:31.720But when Starr came out with his report, it was so lurid and so related to sex that it poisoned the whole project.
00:41:42.900I was home in August and my two daughters and I went to to lunch at OK Cafe in Atlanta.
00:41:49.920And they both looked at it and they said to me, if our 401ks get destroyed because of some stupid intern, we're going to be really pissed off.
00:42:01.460I thought, OK, I had clearly misunderstood the American people and how they were going to rank, how this was going to work.
00:42:08.740And in a way, Clinton's whole behavior from 92 on changed the whole context in which you deal with sexual issues in politics.
00:42:54.180June 3rd, we got we got Trump's triumph.
00:42:57.260But in new scum, everything's scum, this sort of divisiveness, this, you know, everyone's longing to figure out a way to get them back together and start to solve.
00:43:07.360I would say as a historian, one of two things has to happen.
00:43:14.440Either there has to be a very concerted effort to reach out and to try to find bipartisan ways to work together.
00:43:23.320I just did a podcast with Ted Cruz, who had worked with Amy Klobuchar, the Democrat from Minnesota.
00:43:31.280Yeah, the book you would be very aware of.
00:43:33.200Just last week, Trump signed that bill.
00:43:38.200And it's possible that you could see just enough bipartisanship on practical things begin to re-knit the system.
00:43:46.800Otherwise, what has to happen is one side or the other has to win.
00:43:50.380I mean, historically, when you're in a period where both sides think it's life and death and both sides think they potentially could win or lose, the drive to more and more extremism.
00:44:06.160Alan Guelzo is an extraordinary professor of Abraham Lincoln.
00:44:12.260And Guelzo wrote me at one point in the 2004 campaign and said, the level of vitriol against Trump resembles the level of vitriol against Lincoln among Southern slaveholders in the 1860 campaign.
00:44:25.120He said, you can draw almost an exact parallel.
00:44:27.720And it's because both the left in its modern form and the slaveholders actually saw their way of life about to be extinguished.
00:44:36.280I mean, Trump is a mortal threat if you're AOC.
00:44:38.820He's not just a competitor, but if he wins, her world shrinks radically.
00:44:45.740So you either have to get to a point where one side clearly won.
00:44:50.280This is FDR in 34, 36, where he wins so decisively that everybody operates within the Rooseveltian world.
00:45:32.700When you have a chapter in the book, you talk about the 250th anniversary and, you know, and our pride in the best of Greek democracy and the Roman Republic, three co-equal branches of government.
00:45:46.460I hope that's the spirit that defines that.
00:45:49.140I have two final questions over under simple questions.
00:47:19.580Listen to Amy and T.J. presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy trial on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:47:29.020Have you ever thought about going Boy Sober?
00:47:33.120I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation.
00:47:38.600I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024.
00:47:44.940You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy.
00:47:48.060But to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships.
00:47:52.920It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.
00:48:35.220So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:48:41.580The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States.
00:48:46.180Recipients have done the improbable, the unexpected, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
00:48:54.920This medal is for the men who went down that day.
00:48:58.240On Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage, you'll hear about these heroes.
00:49:02.440And what their stories tell us about the nature of bravery.
00:49:06.100Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:49:11.480What happens when we come face to face with death?
00:49:14.620My truck was blown up by a 20-pound anti-tank mine.