Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - Peter Navarro Went to Prison So You Won't Have to | TRIGGERED Ep,286

00:06:25.000 Hey guys, welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.

00:06:29.000 Today we'll have a familiar face back with us, Peter Navarro.

00:06:34.000 Peter is serving in my father's White House and even went to prison for standing up against the corrupt January 6th committee.

00:06:43.000 So you guys, make sure that you're liking, sharing, subscribing so you never miss one of these major episodes so we can get it out there.

00:06:50.000 Remember, if you miss the show here on Rumble, you can head over to Apple.

00:06:54.000 You can head over to Spotified Podcasts.

00:06:56.000 If your friends get their podcast that way, share it with them.

00:07:00.000 Subscribe anyway, even if you're a regular watcher here.

00:07:03.000 Like, share, subscribe, check us out on Apple, Spotify.

00:07:03.000 Okay.

00:07:07.000 Just do it.

00:07:08.000 For all of the top headlines that we cover here on the show, go over to my news app, MXM News, like minute by minute, MXM, where you get the mainstream news without the mainstream bias.

00:07:20.000 And of course, be sure to check out our incredible sponsors, people who have the guts to support this program.

00:07:28.000 And let's be clear, guys, cryptocurrency is no longer emerging.

00:07:32.000 It's here.

00:07:33.000 And a big move is cementing that reality in a major way.

00:07:38.000 Trump Media, you know, True Social, just inked a massive $6.4 billion deal with Yorkwill Acquisition Corp and crypto.com.

00:07:48.000 They're teaming up to acquire $6.4 billion in the powerhouse tokens CRO to establish America's first CRO treasury.

00:07:58.000 CRO fuels fast, low-fee, DeFi, staking rewards, and real-tworld perks like cashback on your spend.

00:08:07.000 When it's done, this new company will be the biggest publicly traded CRO holder out there.

00:08:12.000 If you want to learn how you can be part of it, head over to crypto.com today.

00:08:17.000 For more information on the proposed business combination, check out Yorkwill Acquisitions Corp's public filings.

00:08:23.000 But again, check out crypto.com today.

00:08:27.000 And also, guys, don't forget about the Birch Gold Group, where you can diversify your savings and protect your future.

00:08:35.000 The Trump administration is moving fast to right all of the left's wrongs.

00:08:40.000 But with all the damage we've seen the Democrats do, it's always smart to be prepared.

00:08:46.000 And that's why thousands of Americans are buying gold now from the Birch Gold Group.

00:08:51.000 Here are the facts.

00:08:52.000 In the past 12 months, the value of gold has increased by 30%.

00:08:57.000 And Birch Gold makes it extremely easy to convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered IRA in physical gold.

00:09:07.000 Or you can even buy some gold to store in your home safe.

00:09:11.000 Just text my name, Don Jr.

00:09:14.000 D-O-N-J-R, to the number 989898, and Birch Gold will send you a free info kit on gold.

00:09:22.000 There's no obligation, only useful information.

00:09:25.000 It's about learning more and educating yourself.

00:09:28.000 With an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers take control of protecting your savings today.

00:09:37.000 Again, text my name, Don Jr., D-O-N-J-R, to the number 989898.

00:09:44.000 Joining me now, the author of I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, White House Senior Counselor for Trade, Peter Navarro.

00:09:52.000 Peter, good to have you back, buddy.

00:09:55.000 Hey man, it's just so good to be with you.

00:09:57.000 I want to show your folks this.

00:10:00.000 It's me and my sweetheart on the stage of the Republican National Convention July 17th, 120 days after prison.

00:10:11.000 And it's like literally the night of the day I get out.

00:10:16.000 Don, I didn't know what was going to happen that night.

00:10:18.000 I had no idea whether people even knew who I was at the time, but the reception, which is so heartwarming to me.

00:10:26.000 And I think the lesson of my case basically that was brought to the American people is, hey, those Democrats, they are weaponizing our justice system.

00:10:37.000 They're doing everything possible to put people like Navarro Bannon in prison, trying to put your dad in prison for 700 years.

00:10:46.000 Me too, by the way.

00:10:49.000 Me too.

00:10:50.000 Well, let's get to you and your brother.

00:10:53.000 I mean, how many hours of your life, how many millions of dollars in legal fees did you have to?

00:11:01.000 I mean, everybody, Don Jr., that I served with in the first Trump White House paid some kind of price, whether it was billions of dollars by Dan Scavino, Mark Meadows, and Mike Flynn, or me going to prison.

00:11:19.000 It's just, it's crazy stuff.

00:11:21.000 And so I wrote the book, and you're in the dedication, and rightly so.

00:11:28.000 You were one of the few people who were allowed to see me.

00:11:32.000 They didn't dare keep you out.

00:11:34.000 Yeah, no, when I met your now sweetheart, the first time was actually in a federal prison down in South Florida.

00:11:43.000 I had to come visit my boy.

00:11:46.000 And you did.

00:11:47.000 You brought Brother Sergio along.

00:11:50.000 You know, what was funny about that, of course, is they wouldn't let you in the visitor's room because they squirreled us away in some place because you would have brought the house down there.

00:12:00.000 But there's all sorts of fun stories in the book about a really dark place, prison.

00:12:05.000 I mean, I did make the best of it.

00:12:08.000 There's a lot of stories in there about it.

00:12:10.000 And not only did I survive, I don't know if you had time to even look at the book, but while I was in there, I uncovered this $5 billion taxpayer scandal and actually on the outside now because I'm blessed to have been able to go to the White House and they're working with the Bureau of Prisons to fix all it.

00:12:29.000 So it's been quite a journey.

00:12:31.000 But look, the message of I went to prison so you won't have to is one that will resonate with you.

00:12:38.000 It's simply this. 1.00

00:12:39.000 If we don't hold these bastards accountable, they're just going to do it again. 1.00

00:12:45.000 And Comey is like the tip of the iceberg. 1.00

00:12:48.000 You know, it's Clapper, Brennan, Paige, Strzok.

00:12:52.000 It's Adam Schiff.

00:12:53.000 It's all the politicians who were wearing, were in their district attorney rose, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Jack Smith's way at the top of my list.

00:13:05.000 But there's a funny story here.

00:13:07.000 We've been getting a lot of whistleblower documents out of the FBI.

00:13:11.000 I don't know if you've been following this story, but Senator Chuck Grassley's been doing a really good job of getting it out.

00:13:18.000 And it turns out that the FBI agent who put me in handcuffs and leg irons in that famous circus arrest with my fiancé at Reagan National Airport, he has like two degrees of separation with me and your dad.

00:13:34.000 And follow me here.

00:13:36.000 We find out that this guy, Walter Giordina, guy who puts me in leg irons and handcuffs, he goes back to the original steel dossier in 2016.

00:13:47.000 Because of course he does.

00:13:48.000 Christopher Steele, manufactured, paid for by Hillary Clinton, fake dossier.

00:13:54.000 This guy was at the center of that.

00:13:58.000 He's the guy, Don, who said it was a real dossier, not a fake.

00:14:03.000 And then that said, in Motion Crossfire Hurricane, Giodino is part of that.

00:14:08.000 He was on the Mueller Report investigation and mysteriously, not so mysteriously, maybe, all the stuff on his laptop disappeared, right?

00:14:20.000 And then he went on.

00:14:22.000 It doesn't even stop there.

00:14:23.000 Was, I don't know if you ever heard of Crimson, Operation Crimson River, but that was the one where they accused your dad of getting money from the Egyptians for his campaign.

00:14:33.000 It was like looter.

00:14:34.000 Well, they did everything.

00:14:34.000 I remember in Russia, Russia, Russia with me, it was like 39 agents magically had their cell phones lost.

00:14:42.000 They lost, they just all lost them.

00:14:43.000 Like, like the same day, like they were under subpoena.

00:14:46.000 Like 39, like, I don't think I've ever lost my cell phone.

00:14:48.000 And I certainly don't know 39 people that are the only 39 people working on one given subject that could all lose their cell phones.

00:14:56.000 We can't share anything.

00:14:57.000 We all lost them magically.

00:15:00.000 They also had a trick, Don, is where if you logged in with an improper password like three times into your FBI equipment, I think it worked on the laptop too.

00:15:09.000 Everything got erased.

00:15:10.000 Right?

00:15:11.000 So, anyway, what's the point?

00:15:13.000 The point is that what my, I'm a microcosm of this vast conspiracy, a word I never use lightly, but it turns out when you see the arc of history, the arc of history through the lens of this Giordina,

00:15:29.000 we see, yeah, they were all these people, Comey, Clapper, Page, Strzz, Rosenstein, Schiff, they were involved in two things: an insurrection, which was an attempted overthrow of the government when your dad was in the oval, and election interference by trying to stop them from winning the 2016, 2020, 24 election.

00:15:51.000 So I went to prison, so you won't have to.

00:15:53.000 There's a story about that.

00:15:55.000 My appeal actually is ongoing.

00:15:58.000 If I lose that appeal, everybody in the White House, this White House, right, and every White House going forward will be subject to going to prison if they don't bow to the knee of partisan Congresses.

00:16:12.000 So, talk about that a little bit, Peter, because I mean, you literally made the decision to go to prison rather than comply with an illegitimate congressional demand.

00:16:22.000 Now that you've had sort of more time to reflect on it, how do you sum that all up?

00:16:27.000 I mean, you're talking about the threats for the future.

00:16:30.000 The other side is always talking about the biggest threat to democracy.

00:16:33.000 It seems like that if people are made to comply to nonsense and go against everything they believe, not have to follow the law.

00:16:42.000 I mean, that's a true threat to democracy.

00:16:45.000 Take a little history here.

00:16:47.000 Back in the 1780s, President George Washington goes before Congress and establishes what's called the doctrine of executive privilege.

00:16:58.000 Washington says to Congress, I can no more command you to come to the White House than you can command me to go to Capitol Hill.

00:17:07.000 And over time, the Supreme Court basically reinforced the importance of this doctrine in what's called the candor and confidentiality of presidential decision-making, which is to say that senior advisors like me must be shielded from this prime of Congress to protect the candor and confidentiality and therefore the effect of decision-making of the president.

00:17:33.000 That was like well established for like two centuries here until Joe Biden came along.

00:17:39.000 I mean, it was the policy of the Department of Justice itself that if I got a subpoena or if a guy like me got a subpoena, then I had absolute testimonial immunity.

00:17:50.000 It was my duty not to go.

00:17:52.000 And that's different from, say, Hunter Biden.

00:17:55.000 When he gets a subpoena, he's not a White House advisor.

00:17:58.000 There's no executive approach here.

00:18:00.000 He should have went.

00:18:01.000 Of course, he didn't go to prison.

00:18:05.000 But the point is that.

00:18:06.000 Maybe he was running the Auto Pen and therefore covered.

00:18:12.000 I'm not so sure that guy could even do that.

00:18:14.000 But so, look, here's the problem.

00:18:17.000 The way my case went down, everybody involved in my incarceration was a Democrat, judge, jury, executioner, Congress, Merrick Garland, on down, right?

00:18:29.000 But here's the problem: it's like whenever the opposing party controls the White House and the House of Representatives, and therefore the Justice Department, you run the risk of being able to put the other side in prison if they don't bow to your subpoenas.

00:18:51.000 So every White House advisor going forward will be subject to a prison term if they refuse to testify before Congress.

00:19:01.000 And that's obeying their oath of office.

00:19:05.000 So it's an untenable position to put people like me in.

00:19:10.000 That's what I was in.

00:19:11.000 I made the choice to stand up for principal.

00:19:14.000 I'm continuing that fight.

00:19:16.000 I think it's going to go all the way to the Supreme Court.

00:19:19.000 But the stakes are really high.

00:19:21.000 And I get back to the central lesson, Don, of I went to prison so you won't have to.

00:19:27.000 If we don't hold them accountable, they'll do it again and again and again.

00:19:31.000 And as early as 2026, I mean, can you imagine if Hakeem Jeffries is the speaker of the House?

00:19:38.000 I mean, it's going to be crazy town.

00:19:40.000 I remember in the first term, and I'm one of only three people, proud of this, who served with your father all four years that first term.

00:19:48.000 I remember we were cruising along beautifully, and then we lose the 2018 election, and Pelosi gets there.

00:19:57.000 And, you know, that was the seeds of my own imprisonment.

00:20:00.000 I didn't know it at the time.

00:20:01.000 But the next two years, it was like chaos.

00:20:04.000 It was impeachment, impeachment, hoax, hoax, hoax.

00:20:07.000 It's like the country deserves a whole lot better than that.

00:20:13.000 So we've got to stop that weaponization.

00:20:15.000 And so what we do is like we got to focus on the people who were responsible.

00:20:20.000 And I know the names of these people: it's James Comey, it's Brennan.

00:20:26.000 And by the way, I think Jim Jordan yesterday just asked for Brennan's investigation and indictment, but it's Clapper, it's the page instruct, you know, the old twins at the FBI, very bad, very pivotal.

00:20:41.000 They wind up with a payday from the Department of Justice rather than going to prison.

00:20:46.000 It's like crazy stuff.

00:20:47.000 Yeah, you'd love not to have to talk about this stuff, but like you also have to be playing the same game because they keep doing the same thing to us.

00:20:53.000 And then we get in there.

00:20:54.000 And like, I mean, just, hey, their rules, not ours, but we can't be playing t-ball while they're playing hardball.

00:21:00.000 It doesn't work.

00:21:01.000 I mean, I think you're the same as I am, Don.

00:21:04.000 If there's an Old Testament and a New Testament there and they ask you which one you want to abide by, you're an Old Testament guy.

00:21:11.000 And that's what I am.

00:21:12.000 It's like, and it's good economics in a way, because if you think about it, if you don't hold people accountable, it's the perverse incentive for them to do it again.

00:21:23.000 So I come at it from both the law and economics.

00:21:25.000 It's like, I want to rein these people in.

00:21:28.000 So, I mean, look, Merrick Garland, Matt Gray, at the Justice Department, the people who were involved in my incarceration, Matt Graves, the U.S. Attorney, Merrick Garland, the prosecutors, Elizabeth Loy, John Crabb, and then the judge himself.

00:21:45.000 I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

00:21:46.000 The judge, hey, you want to be a judge, Don?

00:21:48.000 Here's how you do it in Washington.

00:21:50.000 If you're a Democrat, you go bundle money, literally, campaign contributions for a Democratic presidential nominee.

00:21:58.000 And as soon as he gets elected, you get appointed to the bench.

00:22:02.000 That was my judge.

00:22:03.000 And then, of course, the jury, I mean, look, you know how jury pools are, right?

00:22:07.000 You draw from the voter pools.

00:22:09.000 Hey, listen, that's why they sued Trump in New York and Atlanta and DC.

00:22:14.000 And the only place that went nowhere was Florida, and they didn't want to do there, but they had no choice based on the way the jurisdiction works.

00:22:20.000 So, I mean, you know, they're clearly venue shopping, and so they understand.

00:22:24.000 And again, we've never played the game the way that they do, but you know, hey, they play it well and it's worked.

00:22:28.000 But, Peter, I'd ask, you know, for those who may not necessarily understand all of the legal nuances, what is the Supreme Court precedent here?

00:22:37.000 What are the other major constitutional issues here as it relates to executive privilege, et cetera?

00:22:43.000 That's a great question.

00:22:45.000 And the beauty of this is that my case is called a case of first impressions.

00:22:50.000 There literally has been no senior White House advisor ever charged with this crime and much less convicted and put in prison.

00:23:02.000 And the Supreme Court has weighed in the past on issues related to executive privilege.

00:23:10.000 It's always firmly supported it on the grounds that it protects the candor and confidentiality of presidential decision making.

00:23:20.000 There's a very famous dicta.

00:23:21.000 The only time executive privilege was qualified, it was done in a very limited way.

00:23:27.000 The text says cabin to criminal matters.

00:23:31.000 And the things I was involved with had nothing to do with criminal matters.

00:23:36.000 It was simply that I refused the subpoena.

00:23:38.000 So the Supreme Court, in the best possible world, says that senior White House advisors have absolute testimony immunity according to what had been 50 years of Department of Justice policy, that executive privilege is presumptive.

00:23:57.000 You know, there was some debate about how executive privilege was invoked in my case, which the judge, the Democrat judge, used to dick around and violate the constitutional separation of powers between the judiciary and the president.

00:24:11.000 So that needs to be settled.

00:24:13.000 And the third one is like every time this has happened before, there's been some kind of accommodation process.

00:24:21.000 Hey, look, I wouldn't even have.

00:24:23.000 We don't get those benefits, Vader.

00:24:25.000 Yeah, I would have been happy to testify.

00:24:26.000 I told him repeatedly, I said, just go to President Trump and ask him to waive the privilege.

00:24:32.000 They never ever did that.

00:24:34.000 So it's a big case.

00:24:36.000 And again, if I lose, then anybody who serves in the White House serving the president will run the risk at some point, either inside or out afterwards, going to prison if they don't go and spill their guts about very private and confidential, important conversations in the White House.

00:24:58.000 I mean, you can imagine all the negotiations with China or Russia or something like that.

00:25:05.000 All the options that advisors talk about, confidentiality, you don't want that out there.

00:25:12.000 I mean, that's what George Washington saw when he negotiated the Jay Treaty.

00:25:16.000 No, no, no.

00:25:17.000 You don't get to look under the hood there.

00:25:20.000 That's bad policy.

00:25:21.000 That's bad decision making.

00:25:23.000 So we'll see what happens, as your father is so fond of saying.

00:25:28.000 But in the meantime, try to fight the good fight on this.

00:25:32.000 And my oral arguments in the case actually are in December.

00:25:37.000 Here's how screwed up things are.

00:25:38.000 Okay.

00:25:39.000 Why would it take that long?

00:25:40.000 I mean, you've been out of jail for a year now.

00:25:44.000 Well, welcome to my world.

00:25:46.000 But here's what's interesting here.

00:25:47.000 Think about this.

00:25:48.000 It's like when I got convicted and sentenced, the normal course of events would have been to release me pending appeal.

00:25:56.000 That's the legal term of art.

00:25:58.000 Let me have my appeal before you put me in the slammer because there's serious constitutional issues involved.

00:25:58.000 Okay.

00:26:05.000 There's no question about that.

00:26:07.000 Okay.

00:26:08.000 Yet, the three-judge panel who ruled that I had to go to prison before my appeal was heard said there was no constitutional issues.

00:26:18.000 I mean, it's like absurd on his face.

00:26:20.000 Now, here's the punchline: the three-judge panel that I'm going to have oral arguments in front of, guess what?

00:26:28.000 Same people, Patricia Millette, Cornelia Pillard in particular.

00:26:34.000 So there's no random draw in this.

00:26:37.000 They just, it's like the appeals court at the district level in D.C. is a total cesspool.

00:26:42.000 They're sacking the deck.

00:26:43.000 And that's why I say this will eventually have to go to the Supreme Court.

00:26:49.000 And I just hope they'll take it up.

00:26:52.000 You never know.

00:26:53.000 That's always a crapshoot.

00:26:54.000 But it's a case of extreme importance constitutionally.

00:26:59.000 Again, let's see what happens.

00:27:01.000 So if I remember correctly, when I went down to visit you, I think you were the only person in that Miami federal penitentiary serving time for a misdemeanor.

00:27:11.000 Yeah, everyone else, you know, felons, you're in there for a misdemeanor.

00:27:14.000 Again, they wouldn't let you do, you know, hold off till the appeal process went through.

00:27:19.000 They just wanted you off the grid during an election cycle, I guess.

00:27:22.000 And, you know, what did your fellow inmates think about your situation?

00:27:27.000 And perhaps what surprised you most about the federal prison system from the inside?

00:27:32.000 Yeah, so I have two claims to fame down there.

00:27:37.000 I was the only guy with a misdemeanor among 200 felons.

00:27:42.000 And many of them, I mean, some of them were white-collar crimes, but a lot of them were gun-related drug stuff.

00:27:48.000 So this was not a no country for old men, right?

00:27:52.000 I was also.

00:27:54.000 Hey, I saw you down there, man.

00:27:55.000 You got pretty jacked in prison, though.

00:27:56.000 I mean, you had the time. 0.99

00:27:58.000 I was like, damn, Peter, you look ripped. 0.99

00:28:00.000 I may have to let the Democrats have their way with me. 0.99

00:28:03.000 Maybe not for too long, but a couple of months just to get jacked.

00:28:08.000 I was the only guy also who served the entire prison term.

00:28:13.000 Every single day they assigned to me, I had to serve.

00:28:17.000 Everybody else gets time off for good behavior, time off for this, time off for that.

00:28:21.000 It makes you all 120 days, including like two days before I was released to go to the convention, was my birthday, right?

00:28:31.000 So the experience itself is like, I was like Switzerland in there.

00:28:35.000 People, it was funny.

00:28:37.000 They respected me right as I got in there for kind of a funny way.

00:28:42.000 There's a story, and I went to prison so you won't have to, about how I get surrounded in the yard like two days in.

00:28:49.000 And it's like, I'm thinking, you know, what could go wrong here?

00:28:52.000 And they start bannering with these guys.

00:28:53.000 They're all like Puerto Rican guys. 1.00

00:28:56.000 And a little broken English going on that the guy says, I like you.

00:29:01.000 I said, why do you like me?

00:29:02.000 And he says, you're not a snitch.

00:29:05.000 And I'm thinking to myself, you know, it may have nothing to do with snitching, but take the win, Peter.

00:29:11.000 Constitution, right?

00:29:14.000 And, you know, not snitching on your fellow mate.

00:29:17.000 But that was Switzerland.

00:29:18.000 You know, it's like in prison, it's like it's very clique, right?

00:29:22.000 There's the gangs like the white-collar guys were white.

00:29:28.000 The Haitians had a lock on the kind of internet scam crime. 1.00

00:29:33.000 The Puerto Ricans were generally in for drug running, often with gun-related offenses. 0.77

00:29:41.000 And the Puerto Ricans wind up in U.S. prisons because there's no prisons in Puerto Rico because they're too corrupt down there to run them. 1.00

00:29:50.000 So I, you know, it's like Bobbin and Wing, but every day, I mean, look, what you have to do when you're in there is have a routine.

00:29:58.000 You have to be strong in who you are.

00:30:01.000 It was very hard to stay healthy.

00:30:03.000 I was in a joke with Bannon all the time.

00:30:06.000 Bannon tries to try to say he was in a better situation because he had a cell.

00:30:12.000 I love Bannon, but yeah, he did not lose the same weight that you lost in prison.

00:30:17.000 Unless it would have been a better meal plan.

00:30:19.000 And he got more sleep because if you've got like one cellmate you got to worry about with a closed cell door versus 50 in your dorm that you got to worry about, it's a different situation.

00:30:32.000 But you'd be in there.

00:30:34.000 It's like you'd hear a guy cough.

00:30:37.000 And, you know, like two weeks later, you're getting that.

00:30:39.000 Yeah.

00:30:40.000 Right.

00:30:40.000 And there's a funny story.

00:30:41.000 And I went to prison, so you won't have to.

00:30:44.000 It's the Twain thing.

00:30:45.000 It's like, see if I get this right.

00:30:47.000 The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in a Miami prison.

00:30:51.000 I get in there like the first night, Don, and I get in and it's like it's like 58 degrees in the dorm, 58 degrees.

00:30:51.000 Right.

00:31:01.000 It's Miami in the middle of the summer.

00:31:04.000 And I'm going, what the hell is going on here?

00:31:06.000 And this is like this is like prison economics.

00:31:09.000 Like months ago, a lightning bolt had struck the electronics that guided the thermostats for the air conditioner.

00:31:18.000 So rather than spend like $100 to repair that, they spend like thousands every month just full bore.

00:31:28.000 So, you know, it was like crazy stuff.

00:31:30.000 Well, you do that.

00:31:31.000 I mean, in the book, I know you document sort of serious problems within the Bureau of Prisons.

00:31:36.000 I mean, that's, you know, that's kind of inefficiency.

00:31:39.000 But from health care failures to intentional delays and releases, you know, what were some of your major takeaways there?

00:31:45.000 And what have you done about it since then?

00:31:46.000 So that's the $5 billion scam that I uncovered in the first term, your dad signed into law this thing called the First Step Act.

00:31:59.000 And it was a response to was fairly dramatic over sentencing for the previous two decades.

00:32:07.000 Right.

00:32:07.000 So think about it this way.

00:32:08.000 You got nonviolent first time offenders primarily benefiting from the First Step Act.

00:32:15.000 And the idea is if they behave themselves, then they'll get out earlier based on time credits for basically learning new skills and doing some remedial work and things like that.

00:32:29.000 OK.

00:32:29.000 And so I get in there and the first thing I find out is I'm not getting my 30 days off for the first step back from the 120.

00:32:38.000 I'm going, what's that all about?

00:32:40.000 And I started to ask some questions and it turns out, Don, that that of the more than 50,000 inmates in the whole system, every one of them was not getting out when they should.

00:32:54.000 It was anywhere from three months to a year or more that they were being held over because the prison bureaucracy makes money off to keeping people in prison.

00:33:03.000 Now, what's the problem with that?

00:33:05.000 Well, first of all, after you punish somebody enough, if you keep them beyond that, they'll more likely recidivate because when you're in there.

00:33:13.000 You're in there, you're in there.

00:33:14.000 you'll lose all your skills.

00:33:16.000 You lose half your family and this kind of thing like that.

00:33:19.000 Plus, you have to pay more for these people in there.

00:33:22.000 And then if you've got like, if you get them to a halfway house when they should, then they're working and they pay taxes. 0.54

00:33:32.000 And then every Bonnie, come see down here.

00:33:36.000 I'm going to show you.

00:33:38.000 I got my girl here.

00:33:38.000 I'll show you.

00:33:39.000 She's going to say everything.

00:33:40.000 Every weekend, Bonnie would come visit me and we'd be with all the families, right?

00:33:47.000 Hey, great to see you.

00:33:51.000 For cameo appearance.

00:33:54.000 This is the cameo.

00:33:56.000 The families would be on food stamps and housing substances.

00:34:01.000 It's like, hey, you add it all up.

00:34:02.000 It's $5 billion.

00:34:03.000 So, what I've done since I came back in the administration, I'm working very closely.

00:34:09.000 We got a really good Bureau of Prisons director, a guy named Bill Marshall out of West Virginia.

00:34:14.000 He's got some, we helped get some good staff behind him.

00:34:17.000 Here's the funny thing.

00:34:18.000 Again, this is a vignette from I Went to Prison, so you won't have to.

00:34:23.000 There's a calculator that they used to get the credits, and that was what was screwing it up.

00:34:30.000 So I pledged in the book that I say I do two things: I get the calculator finally fixed, and then if there wasn't room in the halfway houses, people would go directly to home confinement. 1.00

00:34:43.000 So one of the first things I do is like I get the calculator fixed.

00:34:47.000 It turns out there was one guy, he was like the wizard of Oz.

00:34:50.000 His name's Andy Black.

00:34:52.000 He was like working with a 1950s IBM computer that knows no oblique cloud, none of that stuff.

00:35:01.000 And he was the one guy doing the calculations for every single person in the system, screwing it up royally.

00:35:08.000 So I got some, I got a group in.

00:35:10.000 We just like wiped that away.

00:35:12.000 We went right to the cloud, got that fixed, got the policy changed so that they go directly to home confinement.

00:35:19.000 We're still getting some resistance here.

00:35:22.000 And, but in a matter of months, it's going to be settled.

00:35:27.000 So it's all good, man.

00:35:30.000 And it's like it's pretty cool, Don, if you think about it.

00:35:33.000 I go to prison, like, okay, write my book, but actually, I'm able to write a book about solving a $5 billion problem after turning myself into an investigative reporter.

00:35:46.000 I mean, I know that doesn't happen.

00:35:48.000 So, is that what took up your time in prison all day?

00:35:50.000 Because I'm curious, like, what do you actually do in prison all day for months on end?

00:35:54.000 What else stands out to you?

00:35:56.000 Yeah, so I had discipline.

00:35:58.000 Obviously, as you said, I was ripped when I came out.

00:36:01.000 Part of it, I mean, I lost 12 pounds, but I didn't have a pound to lose.

00:36:06.000 That was not good.

00:36:08.000 But, you know, I'd go out to the yard.

00:36:11.000 They had this weird stuff.

00:36:14.000 Again, vignettes in the book.

00:36:16.000 It's like when you go out, you had to use dumbbells that were made out of mayonnaise jars filled with sand.

00:36:25.000 Okay.

00:36:26.000 You'd go out with these mayonnaise jars with sand, you do this kind of thing.

00:36:31.000 The reason why you did that is that the guards didn't want anybody to have dumbbells because they didn't want anybody to have any strength to give them any trouble, right?

00:36:39.000 So, were the mayonnaise jars made of glass or plastic?

00:36:42.000 Because I feel like plastic, okay?

00:36:44.000 Well, that makes a lot of sense.

00:36:45.000 I mean, they would last for a while, and then somebody dropped them in the cap would fall off.

00:36:49.000 You have to replace them.

00:36:50.000 But we had that.

00:36:52.000 They made cans.

00:36:57.000 There weren't any fresh vegetables.

00:36:59.000 I mean, for example, there's a little post that I went to prison, so you want to have to, but there's no oranges or grapefruit in a Miami prison.

00:37:06.000 Why?

00:37:07.000 Because they use them like for hooch. 0.98

00:37:09.000 So you get these like gallon tin cans of like peaches and crap filled with sugar, right?

00:37:16.000 So you use the empty cans and you get some cement from like the workshop that gets purloined and maybe a bar that would otherwise be used for a fence post.

00:37:27.000 And they turn those into dump to barbells, right?

00:37:32.000 So you go out and you do some workouts and stuff like that.

00:37:36.000 And they had a third of a mile track.

00:37:38.000 I did run in the Mad Dogs Englishman in Navarro, they say, go out in the noonday sun.

00:37:44.000 But I love it because I grew up in Florida.

00:37:46.000 So you do that.

00:37:47.000 And then you did my writing because there's 120 posts in, I call them posts in the book.

00:37:56.000 I went to prison so you won't have to, which are kind of my daily journals and the story unfolds that way.

00:38:02.000 You try to stay healthy.

00:38:03.000 It's very difficult.

00:38:05.000 And there's a story about, for example, how there was an SIS raid on the dorm where they completely threw all my belongings and mattresses all over the place because that particular unit wasn't representative of the guards themselves, but that particular unit didn't like Donald Trump. 0.98

00:38:28.000 So they were like harassing me that day, smashing shit. 0.95

00:38:31.000 So sometimes there were lockdowns. 0.98

00:38:34.000 So yeah, every day was every day, you know, there's a lot of danger there.

00:38:40.000 A lot of things that can go wrong.

00:38:42.000 So you got to watch your back.

00:38:44.000 But by the end, people really depended on me a lot of ways.

00:38:49.000 I actually saved the guy's life.

00:38:49.000 I mean, I did.

00:38:51.000 There's a story about that, you know, how I could use, I would take chances that these guys couldn't.

00:38:59.000 You know, if they went and gently demanded something from the guard, they'd wind up in Jacksonville the next day on a bus.

00:39:07.000 But there was this one guy, big, tall, strong guy who played a lot of ball.

00:39:13.000 He comes to me one night about six o'clock with an interpreter.

00:39:18.000 And this guy, grown man, is in tears.

00:39:22.000 And he looks about, I don't know, 10 months pregnant.

00:39:26.000 And it's like he just had tremendous pain in his stomach.

00:39:31.000 They gave him Tylenol.

00:39:33.000 They wouldn't call a hospital.

00:39:35.000 So I went to the guard, walked down the hall, went to the guard.

00:39:39.000 Guy looks at me.

00:39:40.000 I go, look, you got two choices here.

00:39:42.000 Either this guy is going to die on your watch, or you're going to call him an ambulance.

00:39:49.000 Make the choice.

00:39:50.000 We got him out of there in 20 minutes, and he had an operation for three hernias that night.

00:39:55.000 And there's a good chance he might not have survived another day if they hadn't done that.

00:40:01.000 So stuff like that.

00:40:02.000 But it's just a dangerous place. 0.96

00:40:04.000 I never played in any of the softball or basketball games, even though I was attempted because the first thing they tell you is, hey, if you get injured here, you're screwed.

00:40:15.000 So don't put yourself at that kind of risk.

00:40:20.000 So, you know, it was 120-day journey.

00:40:27.000 But at the end of the day, I think I'm not better off for it.

00:40:32.000 I think it probably shaved a few months or years off my life, but I think the world's going to be better off.

00:40:39.000 That's an interesting point.

00:40:40.000 I mean, your book's title suggests, you know, you went through this, so others won't have to.

00:40:44.000 It quite literally says that in the title.

00:40:46.000 What's your message to Americans who support President Trump, but worry they could be next if Democrats regain power?

00:40:54.000 Well, let's make sure we win elections.

00:40:57.000 I mean, you can never, ever again let your guard down in this country because these people are relentless.

00:41:06.000 They've proven they don't play by the rules.

00:41:10.000 They will do everything to skew our great Democrat system, Democratic system, their way. 0.55

00:41:20.000 And, you know, I mean, I think you and I would agree, and you and I are mad about this, that our side doesn't play as tough as they do.

00:41:29.000 And we need to learn how to do that.

00:41:32.000 I mean, certainly you and I do. 0.87

00:41:34.000 But look, the Hill, the Republicans on Capitol Hill didn't lift a friggin finger. 0.94

00:41:40.000 And they could have. 0.93

00:41:41.000 And they could have done a lot by now to hold people accountable.

00:41:47.000 So to the people, it's like, come on, this is a fight warning.

00:41:53.000 This is a fight.

00:41:54.000 It's a fight every day.

00:41:55.000 If you want to hold on to your way of life, you've got to fight for that way of life.

00:42:03.000 Get in the game.

00:42:04.000 Peter, now I got to ask you about trade because that's sort of what you specialized in.

00:42:09.000 You're the architect of a lot of the trade policy of the first administration still involved in now.

00:42:14.000 What is going on right now with the tariffs and China in particular and all of that?

00:42:20.000 What do we need to know?

00:42:21.000 Obviously, every day, sort of the markets get a little turbulent every time we even talk about it and stuff like that.

00:42:25.000 But you think we're close to some of these things?

00:42:28.000 So let's take the rest of the world over here and China here. 0.99

00:42:36.000 Your father has engineered a miracle.

00:42:39.000 It's something that I don't think anybody ever envisioned, which is to completely restructure an international trading environment, which is fundamentally and institutionally skewed against America.

00:42:54.000 By the very rules of the World Trade Organization, Don, other countries are allowed to charge us higher tariffs and have higher non-tariff barriers, and they all do.

00:43:05.000 And what your father has done with his reciprocal trade doctrine is wipe that off the charts.

00:43:12.000 And we've got most of the world now agreeing to tariffs that we put on them, tariff reductions on their end, and a whole host of reductions and non-tariff barriers by them.

00:43:26.000 At the same time, that we're going to be collecting an astonishing amount of money from the tariffs over the next 10 years, which will basically turn us from a debtor nation into one where we've got a chance of balancing our budget.

00:43:42.000 It's truly, truly, truly remarkable.

00:43:46.000 The problem looming on the horizon is, again, SCODIS, the Supreme Court.

00:43:52.000 There's a case there that if they uphold the Trump reciprocal tariffs, this country is going to be on Easy Street.

00:44:01.000 It's going to be great.

00:44:03.000 If they don't, we're going to be thrust back into the dark ages beforehand, and we're going to have to figure out what to do then.

00:44:12.000 But I'm very bullish on that.

00:44:14.000 We've got a few countries in the rest of the world we're still dealing with.

00:44:19.000 India is getting really close on India.

00:44:22.000 Your dad's getting ready to go to Southeast Asia.

00:44:24.000 I think we're going to sign a deal with Malaysia, for example.

00:44:28.000 But we've got Europe, Japan, Indonesia, Korea.

00:44:32.000 And they're all not only lowering their trade barriers, they're bringing investment here.

00:44:36.000 It's all good.

00:44:36.000 Now, China, China has revealed itself with this rare earth issue as a country which is using the weaponization of their manufacturing floor,

00:44:55.000 their supply chains, to exert pressure, not just on the United States, but to every other country that might do something that gets in the way of the Chinese dream of world domination by their 100-year birthday of the Chinese Communist Party, which is 2049.

00:45:16.000 And that's what we're fighting now.

00:45:21.000 We are in a good place with China with respect to defending ourselves. 1.00

00:45:25.000 We have tariffs a little over 50%, which is the way things should be because of all the crap they do to us. 0.74

00:45:36.000 But there's a dispute now over their intention to weaponize their supply chains to force us to stop defending ourselves, which is just unacceptable. 0.73

00:45:52.000 So no one knows how to negotiate better than your father.

00:45:58.000 It's a high-stakes poker game, but I think the markets certainly have confidence in your dad's ability to do that.

00:46:08.000 You know, the last thing I would say is that we've still got this fight on inflation.

00:46:14.000 It's the Biden inflation.

00:46:16.000 Tariffs have had no contribution to that.

00:46:19.000 We have to keep making that point because they keep saying it does and it doesn't.

00:46:23.000 It didn't in the first term.

00:46:24.000 It's not doing now.

00:46:26.000 But to the extent that Biden engaged in totally fiscally irresponsible behavior and the Federal Reserve accommodated that with easy monetary policy, they left us pretty much with a mess.

00:46:45.000 So that's going to be a topic for the midterm elections.

00:46:50.000 We're going to be working hard to keep prices coming down.

00:46:55.000 They're going to try to say it was our fault when it was theirs, but that's politics.

00:47:01.000 But your father has done more, and I guess it's nine months now, than presidents do in two terms.

00:47:14.000 I mean, it's extraordinary.

00:47:15.000 The pace this time, I was in the first time around.

00:47:18.000 It took us over a year to really get moving on the tariffs, and we're just hit the ground running.

00:47:24.000 Well, Peter, as always, thank you very much for what you're doing in there.

00:47:28.000 Thank you for what you've done to yourself and to your family standing up for us.

00:47:33.000 Guys, make sure to check out I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To by Senior Counsel for Trade, Peter Navarro.

00:47:40.000 He's just a great friend, a great patriot, a great American.

00:47:43.000 Peter, thanks very much.

00:47:45.000 I look forward to seeing you again soon, buddy.

00:47:47.000 Thanks, my brother, for being there in my hardest, hardest of times.

00:47:52.000 My back was against the wall.

00:47:55.000 You had my back, brother.

00:47:57.000 It's my honor, my friend.

00:47:58.000 Thank you.

00:47:58.000 You keep doing what you do, guys.

00:48:02.000 Thanks so much for tuning in.

00:48:03.000 Remember to like, to share, to subscribe.

00:48:06.000 It's so easy.

00:48:07.000 It's easy.

00:48:08.000 Just do it.

00:48:09.000 Check it out on Apple, Spotify Podcast.

00:48:12.000 If your friends get their podcast that way, even if you're a regular here, subscribe over there as well.

00:48:18.000 Share it with your friends if they're locked into those programs and those platforms.

00:48:22.000 Check us out.

00:48:23.000 Get it out there.

00:48:24.000 Don't forget to also look up our incredible sponsors down below and in the video description.

00:48:30.000 That's a big deal.

00:48:31.000 It's important.

00:48:31.000 You got to support those who are supporting you.

Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - October 27, 2025

Peter Navarro Went to Prison So You Won't Have to | TRIGGERED Ep,286

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript