Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Debating Immigration: Economic Boost or National Crisis? | Sohrab Ahmari

00:00:00.000 Last week I invited Sarabh Amari, a leading intellectual on the so-called new right, about his own evolution from being more of a classical conservative to being a conservative who frankly favors more about his own evolution from being more of a classical conservative to being a conservative who frankly favors more muscular state intervention

00:00:23.000 Turns out, though, we only scratched the surface on a few topics and we didn't get to some of the topics that I intended to dive deep in with him on, including, perhaps most importantly, immigration policy, but lurking underneath that a deeper discussion about American national identity.

00:00:37.000 And so I figured that we would continue that discussion this week, picking up where we left off last week, for diving deep into the future directions of the new right and exploring whether the so-called new right is really even one movement or itself, a collection or umbrella of movements that are united by their rejection of old-school Republican neoconservatism, but may have some deep rifts within their own views for the future of America.

00:01:01.000 And my own view is that That's exactly where we are right now, is at the bleeding edge of defining what the future of America First actually is.

00:01:09.000 You'll probably remember last week, we covered a lot of trade policy, a lot of industrial policy-related questions.

00:01:16.000 And Saurabh, I think, was braver than many, even in the protectionist America First camp, to be able to come out and say that getting rid of the administrative state is not really a desirable or achievable possibility.

00:01:27.000 As you all well know, that's something I most definitively favor, is getting rid and shutting down the fourth branch of government.

00:01:33.000 But Saurabh explained to us his view that in a modern, complex, post-industrial revolution economy, it requires some level of management and administrative oversight.

00:01:43.000 And the real focus of the conservative movement should be shaping that for the betterment of American workers and manufacturers and American interests, rather than abdicating the project altogether, which is a very different view than the one that I favor of getting in there and shutting it down.

00:01:57.000 Eyes wide open to the risks that that entails nonetheless.

00:02:00.000 So that was a great discussion, and I expect we're going to dive into some more of that relating to questions of industrial policy and trade policy.

00:02:06.000 But if you're really interested in that discussion, check out last week's episode.

00:02:10.000 What we're doing right now is diving deeper into this question of competing visions for the future of America First as it relates to immigration.

00:02:18.000 And for that, I invited Saurabh back on the podcast, and I want to say thank you, man, for taking two weeks back to back to have this free-flowing discussion.

00:02:27.000 It's my absolute pleasure.

00:02:29.000 Thanks for having me back.

00:02:30.000 I know it's unusual.

00:02:32.000 Yeah, well, I want to dive into where we last left off, but I would be remiss if I didn't note that I just was at least breezing through.

00:02:41.000 I didn't have a chance to carefully read it yet, but read most of what is a nearly 10,000-word essay you just wrote, among other topics on your experience using ayahuasca in Mexico and reconciling that or even comparing that or informing that with your Catholic faith.

00:02:55.000 And given that you put so much into that article, I thought, It might even have some, let's just say, atmospheric relationships to the discussion we're about to have on immigration.

00:03:03.000 But I thought I'd give you a chance to summarize that conversation that you had with your audience about your experience of going into tribal regions of Mexico and trying ayahuasca and what that entailed.

00:03:17.000 So maybe you could say a word about what motivated you to write that piece.

00:03:20.000 Yeah, I mean, the motivation was there's this great explosion right now of questions about psychedelic As an alternative to the conventional psychiatric care, which is failing Americans in many respects.

00:03:36.000 The conventional mental health system gorges itself on some $225 billion annually.

00:03:43.000 Rates of misery are only going up because things aren't being solved.

00:03:49.000 But, you know, so there's this idea that the indigenous peoples of the Americas hit upon these treatments, including ayahuasca, that are a way to overcome trauma and so on.

00:04:01.000 So I went with kind of curiosity about that.

00:04:03.000 And I have to say, I don't have an easy answer to say, yes, you know, it's great because I... First of all, as you mentioned, and we discussed last time, I'm a Catholic.

00:04:13.000 And when I went, I didn't realize there was a whole ceremonial aspect to it.

00:04:16.000 And I had to really struggle to think, can I even participate in the ceremonial dimension?

00:04:22.000 Because, you know, does that violate the first commandment?

00:04:24.000 Thou shalt have no other god before me.

00:04:27.000 And so I found a kind of a compromise where I would be at the ceremony and I would drink the juice or the potion, but I would not kind of participate in anything that's kind of ritual or sacramental.

00:04:40.000 And then the trip, as it were, itself was absolutely terrifying, to be honest.

00:04:47.000 Everything they say is true.

00:04:48.000 People say it's the five hardest hours of your life, this kind of ego-battering experience.

00:04:53.000 And I certainly felt that.

00:04:55.000 And at the end of it, you feel very good because it takes you to purgatory and then brings you out and you're sort of like, wow, I love life.

00:05:03.000 That said, I wouldn't easily recommend it, even though I've heard that You know, look, there are studies that show that it helps with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and other things like that.

00:05:13.000 But it's a hard thing.

00:05:15.000 And then for me, I mean, there's this kind of complexity that I grappled with.

00:05:19.000 And I'm not even sure I'm fully happy with how I resolved it.

00:05:23.000 I feel like I participated in like another religion ceremony in a way that is prohibited to Christians.

00:05:28.000 And I'm something that I'm racked with.

00:05:31.000 But I try to work it out in 10,000 words and just lay out what my thoughts were.

00:05:34.000 So that might be the best way to summarize something so long.

00:05:38.000 Yeah, well, that dimension of it, I can't leave that hanging, because I think that's actually the most interesting part of it, about whether the participation in some type of ritualistic activity like you did would be at all in tension with the first commandment.

00:05:54.000 Why would that be the case?

00:05:56.000 Well, because it depends on how you view what happens at an ayahuasca ceremony.

00:06:02.000 It's a psychedelic medicine that creates this kind of visionary state.

00:06:06.000 And there are basically maestros, they call them teachers, who also drink it and they look at you and in their visionary state, they sort of see what ails you and they sing these songs that are called Icaros that are supposed to heal you.

00:06:20.000 And there's a debate.

00:06:23.000 In this community, and it touches on, if you're a Christian, it touches on, like, whether or not it's kosher.

00:06:30.000 It's a Jewish term, but whether it's okay.

00:06:32.000 So to speak.

00:06:33.000 So to speak, yeah.

00:06:34.000 One is, you know, are they, is this kind of process merely a kind of indigenous technology, which is the manipulation of plants, energies, and intelligences that modern science has yet to catch up with?

00:06:48.000 In which case, it's kind of, it's not mystical.

00:06:50.000 It's really, it's a kind of It's a kind of unusual healing technology.

00:06:55.000 Or whether or not there's a mystical dimension to this that has to do with manipulation of plant spirits, and it's a whole indigenous American cosmology that would rival the biblical one.

00:07:10.000 And ultimately, I couldn't resolve it on my own.

00:07:16.000 There are moral theologians, Catholic moral theologians, who try to think through the use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, and that's okay, fine.

00:07:24.000 A lot of them have come to the conclusion that that might be fine.

00:07:28.000 Again, it's a little bit of a gray area, but nobody has weighed in on the use of psychedelic medicines in their ceremonial or ritual setting.

00:07:38.000 Yeah.

00:07:39.000 And there I felt like, well, I can't resolve this, but what I will do is I ask the maestros, the Indians, to not interact with me in that way. 1.00

00:07:49.000 And they understood your request?

00:07:53.000 Yes, yeah.

00:07:53.000 I told them that this would conflict with my deeply held beliefs.

00:07:57.000 And of course, they don't force you.

00:08:00.000 But still, after several sessions, at the very end, I thought, okay, well, this actually does...

00:08:08.000 It is a rival worldview, and that's what was terrifying about it.

00:08:11.000 And I sort of ran out of the room on the fifth one, and I said, I need to go say my own prayers.

00:08:16.000 I've come into something that's a rich cosmology.

00:08:19.000 It deserves our respect and attempt to understand it better and so on.

00:08:23.000 But I'm not at all clear that that resolution is...

00:08:26.000 One that is uncomfortable with.

00:08:28.000 You know what I mean?

00:08:29.000 Is trying on a different set of clothes you think incompatible?

00:08:33.000 As long as you sort of keep in your mind from a Catholic worldview that Christ is the Son of God and the path to truth or is the truth.

00:08:43.000 And if you have that as a fixed North Star in your faith worldview, is it really in conflict to sort of try on a different set of clothes at the same time?

00:08:53.000 Even just the practice of it without changing your conviction?

00:08:58.000 Well, look, I mean, there is this concept of natural revelation in Catholic theology.

00:09:03.000 And believe me, I thought we were going to talk about immigration, but I'm happy to get into this.

00:09:06.000 I think I would like to, but this is interesting enough.

00:09:08.000 The idea of natural revelation, at least there's natural reason which all human beings are blessed with, and that should lead you to At least to natural law and at least to the idea that there is a God, right?

00:09:18.000 That reason alone suffices for that.

00:09:21.000 But this idea of natural revelation is that somehow the unevangelized peoples of the world have been granted sort of partial access to the truth through their own ritual context.

00:09:33.000 And so, for example, there are tribes out there in Africa who are completely unevangelized whose central belief or ritual is this idea that a merciful deity comes down to their conditions and allows himself to be murdered by the community. 0.90

00:09:50.000 And this act of murder of an innocent god then becomes the principle of their communal renewal and reconciliation.

00:09:56.000 Which, of course, if you're an atheist critic of Christianity, you say, well, see, Christianity is just one more of these myths that are of the self-sacrificing deity myth.

00:10:06.000 But the concept of natural theology, which is something, for example, Pope Benedict engaged with, says, no, no, no, it's no proof against Christianity.

00:10:14.000 It just shows that the world itself at its deepest layers is cruciform, that it's imbued with this yearning for a God who sacrifices himself and And whose death alone can expiate our sins.

00:10:28.000 And that way you can sort of respect, you can approach, you can think about what these kind of indigenous practices are like and what they say about us.

00:10:36.000 But still, active participation in that for an outsider is at the very least is an uncomfortable gray zone.

00:10:48.000 And I lay out the discomfort in the piece.

00:10:51.000 Yeah, and can I just ask you a converse question, which is more or less orthogonal to even the discussion we've been having.

00:10:57.000 Do you think that the participation in Catholic ritual by somebody who does not have full belief in the actual underlying theology, does that present the same conflict to you, or is it more of a personal conflict in the other direction?

00:11:13.000 No, because I believe Catholicism is true, and so anyone who at least comes to Mass will begin to gain access to – get a taste for the sacramental life, although I should say, as you know, if you're not confirmed and you're not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church – You're not supposed to take, you know, you're supposed to eat the Eucharist for precisely that reason.

00:11:35.000 You're not in communion yet.

00:11:37.000 But lots of people do that.

00:11:38.000 I mean, you know, who come and you still, you hear the preaching, you hear the, you know, those earlier elements.

00:11:46.000 It used to be, you know, like the division was very clear in the early church.

00:11:49.000 It was called the Mass of the Catechumens, which was roughly the first half, hearing the Bible and so everyone could come in.

00:11:56.000 And then the mass for the members of the Catholic Church.

00:11:59.000 And it was like almost physically there was a sort of division between the two.

00:12:04.000 The second half was not for the catechumens.

00:12:07.000 Right.

00:12:07.000 So yeah, no, I would encourage that.

00:12:09.000 But it's only because I believe that one religion is the one true faith, to be clear.

00:12:16.000 And I definitely wanted you to bring it back to talk about immigration, but you're drawing me into such interesting subject matter that just for a couple more minutes, I want to dwell on a question.

00:12:28.000 You brought up the Eucharist, for example, and that related to a separate conversation I was having in recent days.

00:12:33.000 I get a lot of questions when I travel to these different events I'm doing across the country.

00:12:39.000 During my own campaign and even now in this latter phase of it about my own faith.

00:12:42.000 So I'm Hindu, but many people mistake that for polytheist religion.

00:12:46.000 I consider myself to actually be an ethical monotheist.

00:12:48.000 I believe there's one true God and that is the supreme being that is otherwise present in all forms, but there's one true God above.

00:12:58.000 And anyway, you know, I think one of the questions that I've sort of gotten when challenged on my faith of whether or not, is that a pagan belief set or not?

00:13:06.000 Actually, it's not pagan.

00:13:07.000 I think it is ethical monotheism is a...

00:13:10.000 Is a worldview that I think many of our founders, former presidents, have shared, and I think it's a worldview deeply consistent with that of the founding of this country.

00:13:17.000 But in the context of those conversations when challenged, one of the questions I got was, well, what are, you know, Hindus doing at temples with deities?

00:13:25.000 And I've kind of explained, well, it's kind of the equivalent to having a symbol and a crucifix at the front of a temple.

00:13:30.000 I bring up all of that for the reason that you brought up the Eucharist, and it was one question on my mind that I'd love to actually probe your thoughts on, especially because you are such a thoughtful, You know, thoughtful about your journey to Catholicism here, and you brought up the Eucharist.

00:13:44.000 What is your perspective on, you know, I guess we'll call it the doctrine or the church teaching of transubstantiation then, like the idea that the Eucharist, which you're not supposed to take until you've been baptized in the church.

00:13:58.000 But that you are eating literally at that moment.

00:14:01.000 It's not that you're eating something that's symbolic of the body and blood of Christ, but you actually are in a real sense, in that sense, eating the actual blood and body of Christ as opposed to just a symbol of it.

00:14:13.000 I thought of that in the context of, and you and I are able to have free conversations, and so I like this, but I thought about it in the context of being challenged in some of the challenging questions I got, which are like, oh, well, what are Hindus doing with deities at the temple and believing that God's in that?

00:14:27.000 I try to explain, well, that's not really what the belief is anyway, but I could have imagined in a Hindu context if you said that people get nuts and raisins, as you often do, and it was just a Hindu belief then.

00:14:36.000 The Hindus believe that there was God in those nuts and raisins that would have otherwise been dismissed as a pagan belief.

00:14:41.000 And yet, in the context of Catholic doctrine, like that is actually a pretty essential element of Catholic doctrine is that the doctrine of transubstantiation says that Catholics believe that and ought to believe that that is the body and blood of Christ.

00:14:56.000 How do you sort of resolve that framing of it as I just laid out?

00:15:01.000 Well, the The belief comes from our Lord's teaching, which is most clearly laid out in John chapter 6, where he says, unless you eat my flesh, drink my blood.

00:15:16.000 You don't have salvation.

00:15:18.000 And it was shocking at the time.

00:15:23.000 His hearers at the time were like, what is he talking about?

00:15:26.000 But the interesting thing is that when he's...

00:15:29.000 There are moments where he speaks figuratively.

00:15:33.000 He makes it clear that when he says something, he doesn't...

00:15:36.000 It's a figure of speech.

00:15:38.000 But on this one, he...

00:15:40.000 Doubles down and triples down and makes it clear that he means it literally.

00:15:44.000 And so it is a matter of faith.

00:15:47.000 Faith is a gift and...

00:15:51.000 It's something you exceed to.

00:15:52.000 It comes to you by a gift of grace.

00:15:56.000 However, in terms of then trying to explain it in subsequent centuries, the church turned to the concept of transubstantiation and just the difference between forms and substances, what's essential, what's in appearance, et cetera, drawn from Greek philosophy to try to explain it as best, as much as it can be explained in terms of natural reason.

00:16:20.000 But ultimately, you know, it is a matter of faith.

00:16:24.000 And, you know, you can, to some extent, you can reason through it as the church has by using the concept of transubstantiation and substances and appearances, this kind of Aristotelian philosophy that the church deployed.

00:16:37.000 But it can only go so far.

00:16:40.000 And there is that element of faith, right?

00:16:43.000 Yeah, it's not reason.

00:16:46.000 You can't reason your way into a faith-based conviction.

00:16:50.000 Yes, yes.

00:16:51.000 But I will say, from my own experience, when I was drawn to the Catholic Church, and this is in my early 30s, about a decade ago, I would go to Mass, and I had what's called a kind of Eucharistic hunger.

00:17:04.000 I was really...

00:17:06.000 In a way that I couldn't explain, I wanted to partake of that, and I was sort of jealous of the people who were allowed to go up and receive communion.

00:17:15.000 So, but that's, again, that's not something I can fully explain.

00:17:22.000 Yeah, right, right, right.

00:17:24.000 Right, right.

00:17:25.000 No, I've enjoyed the conversations I've had as well, being, you know, I think healthily challenged on elements of my own faith, but I Think about applying that standard I think is actually interesting universally in discussions about faith cannot be reasoned into on either side on either side of that.

00:17:45.000 However, I hope you won't ask me about Hinduism because I'll be completely honest. 0.97

00:17:50.000 It's one of the world religions that is the most sort of it's a lacuna in my reading like I Just some stereotypical things, you know?

00:18:00.000 Why don't we...

00:18:01.000 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or something?

00:18:04.000 Well, I think, you know, I'd enjoy...

00:18:07.000 We bookmarked this conversation for immigration, so we better get there.

00:18:10.000 But maybe we'll save a future discussion about the comparisons and contrasts, perhaps, of Hindu theological structure and Catholic and more broadly Christian theological structure.

00:18:21.000 I would enjoy that because I think you are...

00:18:23.000 Deeply thoughtful about your own, the basis for your own faith convictions.

00:18:28.000 And I also happen to have been educated in Catholic school and really enjoyed and engaged with a lot of Catholic philosophy and, you know, Aquinas on down.

00:18:37.000 So we'll reserve that for future conversation we're going to have.

00:18:39.000 Let's get to where we left off last week, however, which is on the question of...

00:18:45.000 Trade and industrial policy that brought us to the doorstep now of immigration policy.

00:18:50.000 So what do you think is the right framework for America First policy to approach the question of legal immigration?

00:19:01.000 And I'll give you one more piece of backdrop from which I asked that question.

00:19:04.000 We sometimes use the vehemence of our shared opposition to illegal immigration, like all conservatives, and even many other non-conservatives too, are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration on grounds that it's a violation of the rule of law, which of course it is. 0.99

00:19:18.000 But we use the vehemence of our shared opposition to illegal immigration to obfuscate, and if we're being perfectly honest, even Sweep under the rug some deep-seated disagreements that I think we actually do have on the right about what the proper legal immigration policies ought to be.

00:19:37.000 I have my own views of what the goals of our legal immigration policies ought to be, and I can share those with you, but I first want to hear yours, right?

00:19:45.000 What do you think constitutes proper America first immigration policy when it comes to reforming our legal immigration system without necessarily delving into our ritual rejections and condemnations of illegal immigration, which we do too often?

00:20:03.000 Yep.

00:20:04.000 So I draw my views from the great reactionary sage Ann Coulter, who wrote a few years ago, wrote, quote, legal immigration has costs.

00:20:14.000 immigrants with relatively low education and skills may compete for jobs and public services with the most vulnerable of Americans, particularly those who are unemployed or underemployed jobs generated by immigrants.

00:20:26.000 Businesses do not always address this problem concentrated and or rapid entry of legal immigrants into a locality may impose immediate net costs, particularly in education funding, et cetera, et cetera.

00:20:37.000 So actually that was not Ann Coulter, as you can imagine, because the pros should have given it away.

00:20:43.000 It was so kind of wonky.

00:20:44.000 But it was a Democrat.

00:20:46.000 It was Barbara Jordan, who was a member of Congress from Texas. 0.86

00:20:52.000 She was a protege of Lyndon B. Johnson, the first African-American woman elected to the Texas state legislature since Reconstruction, and the first African-American I'm not shocked. 1.00

00:21:16.000 I'm not shocked.

00:21:25.000 Or Paul Krugman, actually.

00:21:27.000 There are immigration restrictionist columns by Paul Krugman, which I've pointed it out to him, you know, because I do this immigration.

00:21:34.000 Or even like Bernie Sanders, for that matter, who ran for president.

00:21:36.000 Of course, Bernie Sanders was the last of them.

00:21:38.000 As recently as 2015, he was saying stuff like this.

00:21:41.000 As recently as 2020, even maybe a little bit, you know, when he ran, I mean, recently as 2016, that's right, in 2020. Yeah, in 2020, they bullied, they bullied the left, the kind of progressive wing, bullied Sanders into adopting to shut up, yeah, on this issue.

00:21:56.000 So, so here's my view.

00:21:58.000 And I think from what we spoke last time, I think we may have agreement on this.

00:22:05.000 We'll see.

00:22:05.000 I think that fundamentally, the question we need to ask with immigration policy is, how does it strategically serve the interests of the United States?

00:22:17.000 In other words, the interests of the country comes before the interests of a class, of any class, especially of immigrants. 0.93

00:22:25.000 And I say that as someone who is an immigrant himself.

00:22:28.000 100%, by the way.

00:22:29.000 100%.

00:22:34.000 We're not reunifying families all the time, yet that is the basis of our immigration policy.

00:22:40.000 So there's about a million newcomers a year that are legally accepted into this country.

00:22:46.000 Of those, roughly two-thirds are various forms of family reunification, whereas only about, depending on the categories, you know, let's say 80,000 to 120,000 are employment-based legal migration.

00:23:04.000 And then you have various other categories of refugee resettlement, humanitarian assistance.

00:23:10.000 And those are, of course, in part, the United States has to do because it's bound by international law.

00:23:15.000 But my point is that the share of immigrants that we accept on the basis of what they actually add to our economy, and even those, I will get – I'll maybe argue a little bit to say that we are too loosey-goosey with it. 1.00

00:23:29.000 But assuming even all those people add to the economy is too low.

00:23:34.000 And so I favor moving towards something like a points-based or skills-based system like they have in many other comparable developed countries, like Canada, like Britain, that judges people based on what skills they bring.

00:23:49.000 And by the way, even in terms of skills they bring, we have to think, what are the things where we have to do our own workforce, native workforce development, before we turn to bringing in outsiders?

00:24:00.000 But the basic line here is a strategic immigration policy cannot be a family reunification policy.

00:24:06.000 I have been, because I do these debates on college campuses all the time, and I'm accused of hypocrisy on this front, and I'll just own up to it.

00:24:15.000 I came to this country thanks to what's called the family preference visa program, chain migration.

00:24:22.000 But at the end of the day, I then became an American.

00:24:25.000 I have, like, You know, Iran is a distant thing to me, and I care about the well-being of this country.

00:24:32.000 And even though I'm a family reunification migrant, I'll put my cards on the table and say that family reunification is not good for the common good of this country.

00:24:41.000 Because it brings in too many low-skilled migrants who I can show you study after study over their lifetimes, even if they do work, do not contribute enough in taxes to make up for the social services they use. 1.00

00:24:55.000 So, you know, number of responses.

00:24:57.000 Yeah, very good.

00:24:57.000 Number of responses to what you said.

00:24:59.000 First of all, I find that sort of personal hypocritical allegation to be completely unpersuasive and hollow and uninteresting.

00:25:05.000 I mean, just because you, you know, a lot of people on the left would say that they need to raise tax rates.

00:25:10.000 I don't think that that somebody means somebody is a hypocrite because they only paid the amount of taxes that were actually due, right?

00:25:16.000 There's a separate debate about what the laws should be versus abiding by the laws as they exist.

00:25:21.000 You see this coming up in certain circles today about early voting.

00:25:24.000 I think we need single day voting on election day as a national holiday.

00:25:27.000 Do I think Republicans should vote early in order to win this election, potentially be in a position to change those rules?

00:25:32.000 Yes, I do.

00:25:33.000 And I don't think that that's some kind of the allegation of hypocrisy to play by the rules as they exist.

00:25:38.000 But still have an alternative vision to change them to what they should be, I think is kind of unworthy of further engagement.

00:25:46.000 So next time somebody tells you that, my advice would be spend the airtime on more productive conversation about what our immigration policy should be.

00:25:56.000 On the second point, I would say that we are in deep agreement, that the sole objective of US immigration policy should be to ask the question of what advances the interests of America.

00:26:08.000 But I'd be, if I may just hone that slightly, not only in the interest of America in some vague sense, because then that runs into a circular question of what is America?

00:26:17.000 Does it include the immigrants who have come here?

00:26:18.000 Is it inclusive of them or not?

00:26:19.000 No, no, no.

00:26:21.000 I would say, what advances the interests of the American citizens who are already here?

00:26:25.000 That should actually be the sole purpose of immigration policies.

00:26:27.000 There's a class of people in America called the United States citizens.

00:26:31.000 You and I are among them, but so are many other people who aren't the kids of immigrants or themselves immigrants.

00:26:36.000 That class of people who are the citizens of the United States of America, the sole purpose of our immigration policy should ask the question of what advances the interests of those citizens who are already here. 0.83

00:26:46.000 And I think the meat of this actually comes to the separate question of what does skilled immigration actually, what ought skilled immigration look like?

00:26:54.000 But before we get there, you raise the very practical point that that's not where most illegal immigration is today anyway.

00:26:58.000 It's more chain migration or family reunification.

00:27:01.000 And though you and I come down on the same side of this question, which is that that's not really compatible with a merit-based framework for immigration, to just air the argument for the other side of both of us, right?

00:27:13.000 So I'm not on the other side of you on this, but to air the other side's argument and to maybe hear your response from it.

00:27:19.000 The most interesting version of the other side, at least, is how can people like you and I call ourselves pro-family in America to believe that the family unit is the foundational bedrock of creating a great country?

00:27:31.000 To say that somebody's going to come here as a skilled worker because they're going to add value to the U.S., But not also stand by our pro-family value set when it comes to allowing that family unit.

00:27:45.000 Either you believe the nuclear family and the family unit is the most important backbone for building a great nation, or you don't, but you can't really have it both ways when we're talking in different contexts.

00:27:55.000 What would be your response to that objection if it were raised to your and my view here?

00:28:01.000 Okay, so what would limiting – the question is what would limiting family reunification look like?

00:28:07.000 I think, for example, the Barbara Jordan Commission's – the bit that I read was from a report she did commissioned by the Clinton administration for the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, and she was the chairwoman.

00:28:18.000 And her stance was, look – Yes, Americans are family people.

00:28:24.000 There's that component of family values.

00:28:27.000 So it's about her recommendation, which I think is reasonable, though I think people maybe who are harder to my right on immigration would disagree, is only immediate nuclear family reunification.

00:28:41.000 We get that, right?

00:28:42.000 So if a husband... 0.98

00:28:44.000 Or wife comes over.

00:28:47.000 Or kids.

00:28:48.000 Or their kids.

00:28:53.000 We bring them over for jobs purposes, but they say you can't bring your family.

00:28:57.000 If you agree that they add on the skills side, but further than that, like siblings.

00:29:05.000 It goes out with many, many layers.

00:29:07.000 It's called chain migration.

00:29:09.000 I would limit that.

00:29:11.000 So I think that's just a reasonable way to...

00:29:12.000 And just very practically here, because it's a question of when the nuclear family ends, right?

00:29:18.000 Like when you're five years old, your three-year-old brother is part of your nuclear family.

00:29:22.000 At what point is your brother not part of your nuclear family on the line you would draw?

00:29:27.000 Adulthood.

00:29:28.000 18, yeah.

00:29:29.000 So if you're an adult, yeah, adult, a sibling doesn't count.

00:29:33.000 I mean, the nuclear family is, the definition of nuclear family is pretty, it's like, you know, like nowadays we have same-sex marriage, but mom, dad, kids.

00:29:42.000 Yeah, mom, dad, kids.

00:29:42.000 Nowadays we would be like dad, dad, kids as well.

00:29:44.000 I disagree with that, but it's a reality.

00:29:46.000 Yeah.

00:29:47.000 That's a separate discussion for another orthogonal to this.

00:29:50.000 And then just to finish the practical laying out of what nuclear family means, does mom, dad, kids, does that framework go away of mom and dad no longer included when you're 18 as well?

00:30:02.000 I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

00:30:03.000 Let's say you're 22. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:05.000 Just because I think we use...

00:30:07.000 I'm a big fan of clarity of definitions, right?

00:30:09.000 We use the word nuclear family.

00:30:11.000 So let's just say somebody immigrates at the age of 25. I think it counts...

00:30:16.000 To me, I think it would be chain migration to say that their parents...

00:30:19.000 Just because that person becomes a naturalized citizen.

00:30:21.000 Oh, right.

00:30:22.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:22.000 Of course.

00:30:24.000 No elderly parents. 0.96

00:30:26.000 I mean, that's...

00:30:27.000 Sorry, but that's a classic case of...

00:30:29.000 People who will come.

00:30:30.000 And they'll come just when they need social services without having contributed taxes.

00:30:36.000 That's pretty unfair.

00:30:39.000 And you went right to the question I was going to go to next is, how would your view on this change if there was a hard ban or prohibition on being a customer of the welfare state in any form in bringing such person?

00:30:53.000 Does that change the balance of what you believe on this question of chain migration?

00:30:58.000 It would not, because I care about the labor market effects, which would not fundamentally change that.

00:31:07.000 What I mean by labor market effect is when you bring unskilled workers to the United States, they typically have lower education and they have less bargaining power in the work.

00:31:19.000 They're more desperate, etc., etc.

00:31:21.000 When you bring them in, that puts downward pressure on the wages of native-born workers, U.S. citizens. 0.97

00:31:27.000 Let me tell you what I think is going on in this discussion, if I may, because I think we're going to track this.

00:31:32.000 One is the macro point, which I think you and I agree with, is we use the vehemence of our opposition to illegal immigration to confound our disagreements on this question of legal immigration.

00:31:39.000 But I think there's a second layer of that waterfall that's also happening, which we use the effect of this chain migration in the dominant form of legal immigration in this country that you and I are both opposed to.

00:31:51.000 To use that to confound something else that's going on in this debate that we're not actually willing to usually smoke out, but I'd like to with you if you're willing.

00:31:59.000 Which is that, yes, okay, there's too much chain migration.

00:32:02.000 You and I agree on that.

00:32:03.000 But that confounds a really separate lurking debate too, which is this question about the effect on American workers' wages.

00:32:11.000 And then you use the word unskilled.

00:32:13.000 I suspect, and I don't know if this is your view, but I wonder and think it might be, although you can clarify that, but certainly it is a new right view, a NatCon view or an immigration protectionist view to say that even if it was skilled, we need to cap the number of people who are coming from Asian countries or India or whatever to be computer programmers in Silicon Valley.

00:32:36.000 We got too many of them.

00:32:38.000 And so I would rather, for the purpose of clarity and arriving at future policy, be able to just talk about that in the open, rather than sort of pinning it on illegal, or then chain migration, or then this question of unskilled.

00:32:50.000 Because I don't think that's actually really where the meat of the divide really is.

00:32:55.000 I think if we're talking about those mass numbers of skilled, I think there's a lot of opponents to that too, right?

00:33:00.000 Well, when you're talking about the pro-immigration side, the non-restrictionist side, unskilled is a pretty big issue.

00:33:06.000 The numbers are just...

00:33:07.000 So I don't think...

00:33:09.000 But then when you get into the nitty-gritty of debates on the right, you know, yes.

00:33:14.000 I mean, I think people maybe do tend to brush the skilled aspect under the rug of these other things where we clearly agree.

00:33:22.000 So let's...

00:33:23.000 Get into it.

00:33:25.000 I'd rather go to the disagreement area rather than just using vehement agreements, right?

00:33:28.000 Yeah, where we agree on 90% of this stuff.

00:33:30.000 Sure, sure.

00:33:30.000 So, like, we have to think about this, again, strategically and sort of plan and think about whether or not the workers who are marketed as skilled workers are ones which the domestic workforce could not otherwise supply to our employers.

00:33:51.000 Okay.

00:33:52.000 And so, for example, that's why I did respectfully disagree vehemently with President Trump when he went on a podcast.

00:34:02.000 I doubt it will become policy, but he said, anyone who gets at least an associate's degree, a two-year degree, we will staple a green card.

00:34:10.000 Okay.

00:34:11.000 We have people with associate's degrees who need work.

00:34:13.000 They would be considered, in various contexts, skilled workers.

00:34:16.000 But They're not going to, you know, like our own domestic workforce.

00:34:21.000 So it has to be like legitimately difficult sort of skills that are, you know, as we try to ramp up our own workforce development, we cannot supply to employers right now.

00:34:32.000 I get that.

00:34:33.000 I think that's fine.

00:34:34.000 And just there's no way around that.

00:34:36.000 But I will say that there are categories of workers who are barred over as high-skilled workers where it's just displacing domestic workers and it cuts against the principle that you rightly laid out That it should be the well-being of existing U.S. citizens.

00:34:50.000 So when you have, for example, companies, tech companies who bring in an H-1B workforce, and H-1B, I realize, is not the same as immigration per se, but still, they bring them in to train their own existing domestic workforce To get trained by their existing domestic workforce.

00:35:10.000 And once the training program is over, they usher the domestic workers out, and this happens.

00:35:15.000 This has happened.

00:35:16.000 And why do you think they're doing that?

00:35:18.000 Because H-1B workers are... 0.58

00:35:20.000 First of all, it can be cheaper, but second of all, H-1B workers are actually...

00:35:26.000 In the tech sector, might it be because some of them are also more effective at carrying out the job?

00:35:31.000 Exactly.

00:35:33.000 I'll get to that one second, but I think the main advantage is, honestly, it's a kind of indentured servitude, because in that case— Oh, it's a horrible program.

00:35:40.000 It's a horrible program.

00:35:41.000 I agree with you.

00:35:42.000 You have no bargaining power because the employer controls your visa.

00:35:46.000 Oh, I mean, I've spoken about it extensively, Sir Rob.

00:35:49.000 This H-1B program is horribly administered.

00:35:52.000 Okay, thank you.

00:35:52.000 I agree.

00:35:52.000 I'm no defender of the H-1B program, but I want to go to the first principle.

00:35:55.000 On the skills point, too, there's something revealing in the facts.

00:35:58.000 So there are actually four categories of H-1B visas.

00:36:01.000 The top two are, you know, the top one is literally for genius level.

00:36:06.000 It's supposed to be, right?

00:36:07.000 Like really, really skilled, unique skill set, etc.

00:36:11.000 The second one is also very typically high.

00:36:13.000 And on there, you would agree unlimited numbers would be good in that first category.

00:36:17.000 As long as there is a parallel program for workforce development so that we can begin to supply these.

00:36:24.000 We have to have engineering schools.

00:36:26.000 We have to fill our engineering schools.

00:36:27.000 And that means reforming K-12 so that when kids come up, not only can they do freaking basic math, but are able to get into engineering schools.

00:36:35.000 I kind of want to start at the end of the waterfall because otherwise we end up on other parts of the waterfall.

00:36:40.000 In some ways, we start at the end of the waterfall.

00:36:42.000 On that one, though.

00:36:43.000 On that one, which is where I think the rubber really hits the road.

00:36:46.000 Are you in favor of, like, let's just take what you call the genius category, on the hierarchy of four categories of H-1B. In there, are you in favor of uncapped numbers?

00:36:56.000 If there are immigrants who fit that criteria, and I'm a little bit more hawkish than you, actually.

00:37:01.000 I would add one more criteria, which is love of country and national identity and civic values.

00:37:06.000 Engagement and ability to speak English.

00:37:07.000 I would add that to workforce contribution.

00:37:09.000 When you're talking at that level, they tend to be easy to assimilate, high educated.

00:37:16.000 But in that category, are you uncapped there?

00:37:20.000 As long as there is Parallel efforts to do workforce development so that we are able to...

00:37:28.000 Yeah, I don't see that caveat.

00:37:28.000 I don't get that caveat because here's why.

00:37:31.000 You're talking about K-12.

00:37:33.000 That's not intention within the present bringing in the Elon Musk class of person.

00:37:38.000 And the idea of saying that you're going to say no to one Elon Musk person because you don't have K-12 development is like comparing apples and oranges.

00:37:45.000 Okay, so I would go with you and I'll concede that yes, but I would just say that You know, when we say unlimited, actually the number of people who are really fit into that category is pretty small.

00:37:56.000 And here's the point I was trying to make.

00:37:57.000 The next two levels of H-1B really aren't that skilled.

00:38:01.000 All they offer is that they're relatively cheaper because they're used to lower wages in their own home countries or they can't get work in their home countries.

00:38:09.000 Or...

00:38:10.000 You know, they're just, like, easier to oppress in a management employment context.

00:38:15.000 And, like, they are not geniuses, right?

00:38:17.000 And that's, here's the key fact that's a scandal.

00:38:20.000 Guess what two categories get used a lot more?

00:38:24.000 It's not the genius level.

00:38:26.000 It's not the, you know, it's like the basic ones that are primarily used by tech companies.

00:38:31.000 So, you know...

00:38:32.000 Yeah.

00:38:34.000 And how would you describe those two categories?

00:38:37.000 They're skilled workers.

00:38:39.000 They have bachelor's degrees from Chinese universities or Indian universities or whatever.

00:38:44.000 But our economy does produce people like that.

00:38:48.000 And sometimes those people who are domestic U.S. workers get displaced in this outrageous way where they train their own replacements.

00:38:55.000 That's just pure expectation.

00:38:57.000 I guess for companies in a competitive market, what is their self-interest in going out of their way to go through?

00:39:05.000 What are some bureaucratic hurdles, some additional legal compliance hurdles to still say, I would rather choose that worker rather than a native-born one?

00:39:14.000 What accounts for that decision?

00:39:16.000 You could start with the premise that they're just hostile to the country.

00:39:18.000 They hate the United States of America and their corporation.

00:39:21.000 But I just don't think that's what's going on.

00:39:22.000 I don't think it's true.

00:39:24.000 It's just a story as old as time.

00:39:30.000 Capital has a tendency to It always wants to lower labor costs.

00:39:38.000 That's right.

00:39:39.000 I agree with you.

00:39:40.000 That's what it's about.

00:39:41.000 That's all I'd say.

00:39:44.000 That doesn't mean that that drive to always lower labor costs is necessarily consistent.

00:39:52.000 Consistent with American national interest.

00:39:54.000 In some cases, look, you want to make it possible.

00:40:01.000 When we talk about American national interest, I want to talk a little bit about what's included in there.

00:40:05.000 Because clearly, you have pointed to one area where it could arguably not be in the American national interest, which is in the wages that American-born workers are able to command in those same roles, which is an interesting point you've put your finger on.

00:40:16.000 I do think that it is a little bit of an assertion to therefore conclude that that is the totality of what we determine counts as the American national interest.

00:40:26.000 Because I do find myself sometimes frustrated listening to the screeds of people on our own side of this talking about this question and saying that we need to make sure that those companies are paying higher wages.

00:40:39.000 And we aren't replacing somebody with the same person who can do the job $2 more cheaply for at least as good of a quality and work harder for longer hours.

00:40:49.000 We don't want that to happen, but we're also going to What do you think is the net effect of restricting a company's ability to bring down its marginal cost in an otherwise competitive market?

00:41:04.000 I think you are somewhat restricted in your ability to just mouth off about inflation while talking about this is a problem at the same time without recognizing there's some tension between those two points of view.

00:41:13.000 And you're smart enough to level with that.

00:41:18.000 I think it's—and Jerome Powell does this as much as anyone—is to blame inflation primarily on wage price inflation and ignore the other sort of bottlenecks that have built up in the American economy, where even where we're investing in XYZ industry— Because we've lost,

00:41:39.000 and this goes back to the earlier debate, because we've lost the industrial capacity, because we've lost the industrial know-how, because, and I hear this from employers all the time, I hear patriotic employers who listen to my message on industrial policy and things like this, and they'll say, hey, I'm with you on this stuff, but you know what problem I have?

00:42:01.000 I have trouble finding workers who can stay sober from 9 to 5. And it breaks my heart when I hear that, but I know it's true, and they mean it.

00:42:10.000 But why is that happening?

00:42:11.000 It's because we've neglected this stuff for so long.

00:42:13.000 So I just think it's a mistake to just say...

00:42:17.000 I don't know if that's why it's happening.

00:42:19.000 I don't know why it's happening.

00:42:20.000 What is the only driver of inflation is wage price inflation, I think is a mistake.

00:42:25.000 I don't think it's the only driver.

00:42:27.000 I don't think it's the only driver.

00:42:28.000 But sometimes it's treated that way, and it helps the...

00:42:31.000 It helps the employer class to just focus on that at the expense of all else.

00:42:36.000 But look...

00:42:37.000 But I'm asking you, and that's the straw man version of that argument.

00:42:41.000 But let's just say it was a component, because I think you and I would agree.

00:42:45.000 Obviously, it's not negligible.

00:42:47.000 So when you're talking about the American national interest, how does one, even in a framework, when you're thinking about the government, and as you know, I'm a little bit of a skeptic of this, about the fatal conceit of any central plan or being able to...

00:42:57.000 Weighed all of this, but suppose you want some central planner or at least a central body to be able to weight this of what's in the national interest.

00:43:03.000 How do you weight the effect on American workers of whom fewer than would be hired by the company, but at least they'd be American born, which is a pro-American national interest, I'll grant that.

00:43:13.000 How do you weigh that against the incremental effect that that would have on the cost that those same American workers are paying when they go to the store to buy a t-shirt or get a haircut?

00:43:24.000 If you have a higher wage economy as a whole, and again, this is why my immigration restrictionism is part of a broader package of what I think the political economy as a whole should look like, then you have an economy in which wages can absorb higher prices I think we're good to

00:43:56.000 And then those workers can pay a little bit more for the haircut. 1.00

00:43:59.000 But so like what I'm trying to tell you, though, is I grant you that some of the measures that I'm talking about will mean, you know, a more expensive country at the consumer level. a more expensive country at the consumer level.

00:44:18.000 I appreciate the honesty.

00:44:20.000 Thank you for not denying that.

00:44:22.000 I would just say that Americans, here's the national interest point, is that Americans' lives as workers and producers...

00:44:30.000 Are just as important as our lives as consumers.

00:44:33.000 And for too long, policy as a whole, not just Republicans, not just Democrats, the center elite has emphasized everything at the level of consumption.

00:44:42.000 You know, well, we're getting cheaper.

00:44:44.000 This is, you know, not realizing the ramifications of the inability to produce.

00:44:49.000 I'm not even talking about the fact we don't produce.

00:44:51.000 Because we've neglected it for so long, we've lost kind of a competent workforce, and then we have to turn to immigration.

00:44:58.000 So that's what I'm saying.

00:44:59.000 Let's think about that, and let's think about the costs that are associated with just an emphasis on Americans' consumption patterns and the neglect of our ability to produce.

00:45:12.000 And immigration is...

00:45:14.000 Is a key part of this.

00:45:17.000 Think about it.

00:45:20.000 You don't want a future in which China or even India have all the engineering schools that actually produce...

00:45:28.000 Our workers, what paths do they follow?

00:45:34.000 Finance, entertainment, and soft creative fields, or precarious service jobs.

00:45:40.000 Those are the options.

00:45:41.000 And then when we need engineers, turn to Chinese universities.

00:45:46.000 I agree with you wholeheartedly on we don't want the United States to become the backwater of people who are only PR and communications makers.

00:45:57.000 We're kind of on the way.

00:45:58.000 We're at risk of going down the valley.

00:46:01.000 So I just worry that further pretending like those other engineering minds don't exist elsewhere in the world is actually going to make us less prepared, not more prepared, to be able to actually meet the standards that the rest of the world sets.

00:46:16.000 And I don't want to be a frog in the well, to use the old expression.

00:46:19.000 And that's why I said we should attract those genuinely high-skilled people, but be wary Of people whose skills we could either have already in the existing workforce, or we could develop in quick order.

00:46:34.000 Why bring in immigrants for that? 1.00

00:46:36.000 Other than just to let people...

00:46:39.000 So that would be the judgment.

00:46:41.000 So that means from a first principles, like I'm no defender of the current immigration system.

00:46:45.000 I think it's broken, including the H-1B system and anything else.

00:46:47.000 But if you're drawing up from a whiteboard, because I think in some ways you got to know what target you're solving for before you debate implementation.

00:46:55.000 And I think part of what happens in this is I think that we conflate...

00:46:59.000 Not you and I, but I think the broader debates conflate a discussion about implementation when, in fact, you're using that to joust over alternative goals.

00:47:06.000 So once you have your goals set, then at least you can work back to your implementation.

00:47:09.000 So on your view of it, in principle, If you have immigrants who are going to add more value to the United States of America by working harder, being more industrious, being more intelligent or innovative, and love the country more,

00:47:25.000 know about its civic history, better at speaking English than the modal or even median native-born American in the similar shoe here, a merit-based immigration system would welcome The immigrants who fit the categories that I just checked off.

00:47:44.000 I think that's not an unfair description.

00:47:48.000 Again, I would just say...

00:47:49.000 And I would add, less likely to be a customer of the welfare state as well.

00:47:52.000 Yeah.

00:47:52.000 I would just add that that's...

00:47:56.000 That the numbers needn't be as big as employers would want, right?

00:48:01.000 Employers will want to shoehorn people who don't necessarily fit that category into the one...

00:48:07.000 Yeah, forget that's an implementation question.

00:48:10.000 And without the shoehorning...

00:48:11.000 Without the shoehorning...

00:48:14.000 Sure.

00:48:14.000 You would say that you would...

00:48:16.000 In fact, for that category, you would go so far as to say, on your view, be apply no cap.

00:48:21.000 To the number of such immigrants who would come.

00:48:23.000 And I'll list the criteria for you again, which are, because I think it smokes out a deeper question that I'd love to at least have on the table so we can see with clear eyes.

00:48:31.000 Love of country, civics test, knowledge of US constitutional principles and value, US law, history, competency in English, proficiency in English, ability to make contributions to the country, high skills, willingness to work hard, and likelihood of ever being a customer of the US welfare state.

00:48:53.000 I love all of those.

00:48:56.000 I love all of those, but where you said high-skilled, I would just, if I may, just refine a little bit.

00:49:01.000 High-skilled in the sense that they possess skills that the domestic workforce currently doesn't have in sufficient numbers given any sector.

00:49:10.000 Or quality.

00:49:12.000 Or quality.

00:49:16.000 I don't know.

00:49:16.000 It goes into how hard work...

00:49:18.000 I think Americans are really hardworking people.

00:49:19.000 The hardest working in the world.

00:49:20.000 I'm just somebody who's also been a business owner, so I just want to...

00:49:23.000 I come from the standpoint of who's going to be the best person to do that job, but fills all of the other criteria, including love of country, proficiency in English, unlikely to be a customer of the welfare state, all of that.

00:49:32.000 We don't have the skills in sufficient numbers given the sector.

00:49:38.000 And we cannot...

00:49:39.000 The ramp-up time for domestic workforce development is too long.

00:49:43.000 And in the meanwhile, the sector would face problems.

00:49:47.000 And so they're like...

00:49:50.000 Sure.

00:49:52.000 Not the sector would face problems.

00:49:53.000 Take that one off the table.

00:49:54.000 Take the sector would face problems.

00:49:55.000 Because what does problems mean versus like...

00:49:58.000 Success in a business or economic sector is scalar.

00:50:00.000 It's not a binary of you're doing well or you have a problem.

00:50:03.000 It's a question of how well you want to be doing and you want to be the outer doing of well.

00:50:06.000 So it's not like a...

00:50:07.000 It's not a quantum category.

00:50:09.000 It's a scalar category.

00:50:11.000 Not to say that the industry would be in trouble, but we want it to be doing as well as possible in the United States of America, but you have immigrants who fit all of those criteria.

00:50:19.000 In theory, on your view, you would be uncapped on that number.

00:50:22.000 Yep.

00:50:23.000 But now let's go back.

00:50:24.000 Let's go to the real world, right?

00:50:26.000 I think the CHIPS Act is partly an achievement.

00:50:29.000 I think the Biden CHIPS Act is good.

00:50:31.000 But there's enormous, like, things that...

00:50:33.000 You know, I disagree on that.

00:50:34.000 Yeah.

00:50:34.000 The things that piss you off.

00:50:36.000 You know, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the TSMC, has brought in builders for the plant manufacturer to Arizona.

00:50:51.000 Arizona has good unionized builders.

00:50:54.000 And of course, the unions in Arizona are fighting back against this.

00:50:56.000 But just like, you know...

00:50:59.000 One of the things they would tell you...

00:51:01.000 This may make you upset, Saurabh, but one of the things they would tell you, and I can't attest to this being true, but one of the things they would tell you is the difference in the Taiwanese worker who comes here versus the American worker is like the nature of manufacturing these semiconductors is itself an innovative art of itself.

00:51:15.000 And TSMC in Taiwan can get to like...

00:51:17.000 No, I agree.

00:51:18.000 We don't have the...

00:51:19.000 We don't have the plant...

00:51:20.000 Sure.

00:51:21.000 Okay, so let me revise that.

00:51:22.000 You're right.

00:51:23.000 Let me just finish the point because I want you to make sure you understand what I'm about to say, which is a little bit provocative, but I think it's what they would say, so I want to get the view on the table.

00:51:30.000 It's not just that we've failed to train the American workers on how to know how to build that leading edge sub-10 nanometer, sub-5 nanometer semiconductor, okay?

00:51:41.000 But that the cultural attributes of the workers from Taiwan were actually better suited in terms of industriousness, willingness to work hard, and the ability to have the innovative capacity than they are able to find amongst the American workforce.

00:51:57.000 I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong, but what I am saying is that would be a claim that the people who are running into major problems replicating in Arizona what they're able to do in Taiwan would tell you is a rate limiter for what they're able to do.

00:52:07.000 So I think this goes back to where I said skills and you said skills and quality.

00:52:14.000 And I'm willing to say, look, we haven't trained our plant fabricators to possess the kind of know-how that's involved in fabricating those kinds of plants, and that's our failing.

00:52:29.000 In the meanwhile, okay, fine, bring over your 500 Taiwanese workers.

00:52:33.000 That quality element can sometimes mean it can be a facade for basically saying, well, they're just used to a workforce culture in which the employer wields more bargaining power and the employee has to just kind of go along.

00:52:52.000 And you call that, oh, what an industrious worker.

00:52:54.000 What you're really doing is saying, we don't want the Kind of Western-style model of having, trying at least a little bit in the workplace, have relatively equal bargaining power, and the power to coerce doesn't run only in one way, but kind of is mutual or symmetrical.

00:53:10.000 I get a little bit uneasy with language about quality, which to me sounds like just saying like, well...

00:53:17.000 Let me pull up a headline.

00:53:18.000 That goes to China model too, where it's like, well, they sleep at the factory floors. 0.93

00:53:24.000 What great workforce?

00:53:25.000 I don't like it when Elon says this.

00:53:26.000 It's like, well, we've made achievements of workers' rights in this country that we should be proud of.

00:53:32.000 Let's take the Chinese and Asian dimension out. 0.99

00:53:33.000 I'm going to just read you a headline.

00:53:34.000 I actually just saw this this last week.

00:53:36.000 I picked up my phone to read you the exact headline.

00:53:38.000 It was from a European CEO talking about America.

00:53:41.000 Here's what he says, his exact quote.

00:53:43.000 Quote, unquote, Americans just work harder than Europeans, says CEO of Norway's $1.6 trillion oil fund, because they have, quote, a higher general level of ambition.

00:53:54.000 So in his case, he's accounting.

00:53:56.000 In that case, we're trying on it.

00:53:57.000 It's a different comparison here.

00:53:59.000 But he would say the reason that the United States of America and the companies here are just more successful than their European counterparts, apples to apples, in many cases, is because of that cultural attribute of American exceptionalism and the willingness to work hard and self-determination and the cultural willingness to do that here.

00:54:16.000 Right.

00:54:16.000 So what you described is something that lies on a spectrum.

00:54:22.000 And you just said American workers Which I agree.

00:54:28.000 I think American workers… Compared to Europeans. 1.00

00:54:31.000 Yeah, but if you give them a fair deal and the training and you don't have a society that's just pulled every rug from under them, American workers are just exceptional.

00:54:45.000 Yeah.

00:54:46.000 Well, I tend to agree with you.

00:54:47.000 That's why I'm telling you that.

00:54:48.000 That's why when I go to Europe, I'm not afraid to give them bitter medicine.

00:54:51.000 Sorry, but it bothers me when it's like compared to countries that maintain sweatshop conditions and workers haven't made the gains of the past century or so.

00:55:01.000 But the TSMC... To use that against...

00:55:03.000 I know this form of argument, the sweatshop argument, and I think this happens up and down the immigration discussion where we use one example to obfuscate an adjacent issue that actually where the action is.

00:55:14.000 So here on this TSMC point, TSMC is not having those.

00:55:17.000 I mean, these are not assembly line workers that are being whipped on the back to turn out stuff like that.

00:55:23.000 No, I know, I know.

00:55:23.000 These are geniuses in their own right.

00:55:26.000 These are the people who are creating the innovation of how we're actually fabricating semiconductors with a slightly smaller width, right?

00:55:33.000 Nanometer difference, which has huge implications for the utility of these chips.

00:55:37.000 So we can't use the sweatshop condition point on the culture point.

00:55:41.000 What I'm saying is America relative to Europe and our culture of ingenuity that has made U.S. prosperity greater than that of Europe's over the last 60 years, driving to what I think are some fundamental cultural difference between the United States and Europe.

00:55:52.000 That, I think, if we're really being honest, is a little bit of what's going on with respect to certain other sectors from Taiwan, China, India, where you have, when I use the word quality, a kind of cultural competition in terms of innovation.

00:56:05.000 Not somebody who's working in sweatshop conditions.

00:56:07.000 That's a little bit of...

00:56:09.000 That's a separate debate.

00:56:10.000 It's adjacent, but we can't use that to sweep this other difference under the rug because it's literally the ones that the people in TSMC Arizona would tell you is a difference, is the quality of those Taiwanese workers who are able to do it in a way that American born can.

00:56:19.000 And I'm with you in wanting America to be the country that produces them, but I think we're more likely to get there, not less, if we actually open our eyes to what the best and brightest actually look like, rather than shielding ourselves with tunnel vision like a frog in the well.

00:56:31.000 I don't want America to become the Great Britain of the next two centuries, of a decaying, elegant empire that's just in decline.

00:56:40.000 And I think that with those shared goals of advancing the American national interest, it's not that I view some other ideology of like...

00:56:48.000 Free trade and labor or whatever is an alternative to what is in the American national interest, but I think it is an alternative vision of what actually constitutes the wholer American national interest.

00:57:00.000 That, especially in this question of immigration, we'll go to the illegals, we'll go to the chain migration, we'll go to the sweatshop conditions.

00:57:05.000 But sidestep, what I do think is a real rubber hitting the road in the American first right, which is I think part of what's guiding this, part of what's guiding you maybe, I can't speak to you, but part of what's guiding the viewpoint of protectionism in this question is actually kind of a blood and soil view too.

00:57:21.000 That the idea that you have too many of a certain number that come in has a dilutive effect.

00:57:27.000 I do think it's lurking underneath the surface and it's worth at least acknowledging it.

00:57:31.000 Yeah, I completely reject the blood and soil characterization.

00:57:35.000 I don't know how much you follow my work.

00:57:36.000 Not characterization, but the argument.

00:57:38.000 That's what's lurking behind my case because, look, like I said, Maybe not your case.

00:57:44.000 - Yeah, maybe not your case. - I'm an immigrant born in the United States. - I don't think blood and soil is bad, by the way.

00:57:49.000 I'm not saying that's bad.

00:57:50.000 I think it's a view to know that there's too much demographic change too quickly on its own terms, that that is itself a goal to avoid, which if it is, we can debate that, but let's at least get it on the table.

00:58:00.000 'Cause I do think that that's in the discussion and we would do better to have a clear - Whenever I've debated immigration against the left, I make almost exclusively economic arguments And what I love to do is, like I said, point out how the views that I represent, I think actually President Trump represents, was like the Democratic Party norm as recently as the 1990s or the aughts.

00:58:24.000 But look, I think we agreed on the definition of how to deal with the kind of skilled question.

00:58:33.000 At some point, we're run up against the skills and qualities.

00:58:37.000 I just want to emphasize skills.

00:58:39.000 You want to do skills and quality?

00:58:40.000 Okay, whatever.

00:58:41.000 That's a marginal thing.

00:58:43.000 I think we reached a good place on that.

00:58:47.000 Uncapped when it comes to that kind of person.

00:58:50.000 On this question of...

00:58:53.000 You know, the pace of demographic change, I think it's an issue that we should be able to honestly talk about.

00:59:00.000 And in Europe, the inability to honestly talk about it has led to a lot of these kind of bottled up social tensions.

00:59:06.000 Totally.

00:59:07.000 And if we aren't able to talk about it honestly, I actually worry that like the next version of American populism...

00:59:14.000 We'll be, like, really scary, right?

00:59:17.000 Because it's been bottled up and people are...

00:59:20.000 And, like, people like you and me will have to, like, form a united front against, like, Nazis, you know, with the left.

00:59:26.000 And I don't want that situation to come around, right?

00:59:29.000 But in order to do that, we have to address common concerns.

00:59:33.000 And I think, again, just to go back to the bigger framing, my main thing is to cut down on family unification, right?

00:59:43.000 space, which will mean we're on the same page.

00:59:45.000 And if we do that, then I think it kind of addresses the demographic issue.

00:59:49.000 At the same time, like, look, there's a lot of immigration and just race discourse on the like the right, which I like people say, oh, it's just the fringes of there's some really, really ugly stuff out there against against Indian.

01:00:02.000 I don't want to call it ugly.

01:00:03.000 I don't even want to call it ugly.

01:00:04.000 Let's just get it on the table so we know what we're solving for because I do think that there's – and the more you bottle it up, the uglier than it then becomes versus a legitimate concern to say – I people don't look the way that I'm used to them looking 40 years ago.

01:00:20.000 I don't want to say that you're a racist for saying that.

01:00:22.000 I'd like to get that on the table to say that that is a consideration.

01:00:25.000 Because what ends up happening.

01:00:27.000 I think that should be that should I totally agree.

01:00:30.000 I'm agreeing with you.

01:00:31.000 I think that should be a more democratic conversation.

01:00:33.000 You're super intellectually honest, but I think part of what ends up happening is that for a lot of people on the right who have constructive conversations, I do think that they're earnest, but that is part of what – a component of what matters.

01:00:44.000 But then we end up making these sort of cockamamie second- and third-rate economic arguments that don't really hold up because we're solving for a slightly different thing.

01:00:52.000 Wait.

01:00:52.000 No, no, no, no, no, no.

01:00:53.000 That makes me sound like I'm – Not yours.

01:00:57.000 The unskilled one is totally a germane economic argument.

01:01:03.000 I agree with that.

01:01:04.000 Even if we increase the manufacturing share of the GDP, the manufacturing share of the workforce won't budge.

01:01:17.000 It might still be the same because of automation.

01:01:19.000 So we're saying for a lot of Americans, we're going to have a services-based economy, and then we're bringing in unskilled service workers.

01:01:26.000 Why?

01:01:27.000 That makes no sense.

01:01:28.000 And so I think that's a very serious argument and is not a cover for demographic arguments.

01:01:33.000 We might actually, if you're open to it, we might actually have to have a third one.

01:01:38.000 Okay, let's do it.

01:01:39.000 Because we do want to get into this demography and the sort of rise- Because I didn't give you my view, actually.

01:01:44.000 I've been asking you views.

01:01:46.000 I have actually, for the purpose, I have not yet aired what my actually view on the whole question is, which actually relates to a heightened emphasis on national identity.

01:01:54.000 And then what is American national identity, I think, requires being answered before saying if we're going to put a heightened emphasis on national identity, which we're not doing in today's immigration system, what does that actually mean?

01:02:04.000 And I would love to have that discussion with you.

01:02:07.000 Okay.

01:02:07.000 Great.

01:02:08.000 Yeah.

01:02:08.000 So, sounds good, man.

01:02:09.000 This is a lot of fun, and sometime in the coming weeks, at least, I would welcome continuing this, because you make me smarter.

01:02:18.000 I appreciate that.

01:02:19.000 And likewise you.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - October 31, 2024

Debating Immigration: Economic Boost or National Crisis? | Sohrab Ahmari

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