Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Uncle Sam’s Welfare Trap EXPOSED: How Dismantling the Nanny State Solves Immigration | TRUTH Ep. #64

00:00:00.000 So this week, I'd like to share with you my thoughts on a number of recent developments, especially as it relates to the presidential race.

00:00:13.000 I'm doing this in the middle of also releasing my new book, Truths, The Future of America First.

00:00:19.000 And I do appreciate everybody taking an opportunity to read through that book.

00:00:23.000 I think that if you liked what I said during the presidential campaign, there's a very good chance you're going to find this book incredibly interesting.

00:00:29.000 I think there's a good chance it's my most interesting and most important book that I've written so far.

00:00:34.000 But even if you disagree with a lot of what I said during the campaign, I tried to write this book in a way that reaches people who disagree with us as well, but try to bring them along with the best arguments for the other side.

00:00:46.000 And so with that being said, that book relates to exactly the themes we're going to discuss which relate to some of the themes even heading into this election.

00:00:53.000 But I'd like to start off by telling you where I see the current state of the race.

00:00:57.000 There's an interesting dynamic.

00:00:59.000 I'm not a horse race analyst, usually, but I can give you my perspective on what is happening in the dynamic of this election, both at the presidential level and the Senate level.

00:01:08.000 It's a reversal of the dynamic that we saw back in 2016. So back in 2016, there was this trend where people across the country were afraid to tell pollsters on the phone that they were going to vote for Donald Trump.

00:01:19.000 You saw that show up in a number of different ways.

00:01:22.000 One was even in certain online polls where people just filled it out online but without talking to a human being.

00:01:28.000 Donald Trump tended to perform a little bit better than he did in telephonic surveys when you had to tell another human being that I am voting for Donald Trump.

00:01:35.000 That appeared to be something that people were reluctant to do, even as other candidates, say for US Senate, were overperforming him as Republicans in those same states, which would have suggested this split-ticket voting dynamic that would have made you question exactly, are these polls really understating what Donald Trump's going to do?

00:01:51.000 And it turns out that's exactly what happened.

00:01:53.000 Donald Trump over-delivered those polls.

00:01:55.000 Different story now.

00:01:57.000 Eight years later in 2024, what we're actually seeing is pretty much in every single state where there's a major Senate race of a Republican versus a Democrat, Donald Trump is overperforming the U.S. Senate candidate, the Republican Senate candidate.

00:02:13.000 By staggering margins that I think we haven't seen possibly ever in American history.

00:02:18.000 We're seeing 10, 12 point overperformances, which means that a lot of people in each of those states, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, you could look at Michigan, you could look at Pennsylvania, you're seeing the same trend where people are saying they're going to vote for Donald Trump, but vote for the Democrat for US Senate.

00:02:38.000 I have concerns on the substance of that in terms of a governing agenda.

00:02:41.000 Even if we elect Donald Trump as president, if we don't have control of the Senate, and I think it has to be decisive control, we're not going to really be able to fully implement that agenda.

00:02:49.000 So I think it's important we win those Senate races.

00:02:52.000 But I'm saying it now.

00:02:53.000 I don't usually do horse race analysis, but I wanted to make a brief observation here.

00:02:57.000 That's an interesting dynamic that says a few things.

00:03:00.000 I think this time around, it's also a sign that we can't be complacent It's a sign that actually Donald Trump may not actually have the chance for the over-performing the poll numbers like we did in 2016. The polls may be a better and more accurate indicator of where we're headed.

00:03:14.000 So that's a sign of making sure that every person who's able to vote actually turns out and actually votes.

00:03:19.000 Complacency I think is a big risk heading into this election.

00:03:23.000 But culturally speaking, to get out of the horse race stuff, culturally speaking, I also think it's an interesting sign.

00:03:28.000 It suggests that we have, I hope, turned something of a corner around the peak of the culture of fear that has held this country hostage over the last several years.

00:03:43.000 There has been a culture of fear, fear of losing your job or fear of your kids getting a bad grade in school, fear of becoming an outcast in your community if you say the wrong thing.

00:03:52.000 If you wear the wrong hat for the wrong presidential candidate.

00:03:56.000 I see the earliest signs.

00:03:58.000 I'm not saying we're anywhere near over that culture of fear.

00:04:00.000 Of course, it's still a problem in America.

00:04:02.000 We all know it.

00:04:03.000 But I think that we may see the peak of that behind us.

00:04:08.000 And this small little tidbit about the way in which Donald Trump and his relationship to Senate candidates and how they respectively perform versus one another in telephonic polling seems like an esoteric detail, but it's another one of these glimmers of hope that I have that we are turning the page slowly on a chapter of our national history that I do think was un-American at its core. 0.62

00:04:31.000 And I think that's a good thing for us to have.

00:04:33.000 We can't just be running from something.

00:04:35.000 We got to be running to something.

00:04:36.000 We're not running from the past.

00:04:38.000 We're running to the future.

00:04:40.000 And those glimmers of hope, I think, give me certainly a greater sense of encouragement and even purpose heading into not only this election as the destination, Maybe viewing this election as the starting line for a new chapter and new dawn in American history.

00:04:53.000 And I hopefully don't say that in some sort of corny, sappy kind of way, but I mean it certainly in a true way, and I hope you take it that way too.

00:05:03.000 Now let's get to some issues that are relevant heading into this election.

00:05:06.000 I talked a little bit about that control of the Senate.

00:05:09.000 Why is it important?

00:05:10.000 You have one good example of that even in the last week.

00:05:13.000 Seeing the failure, and it is a failure, of the SAVE Act in both houses.

00:05:18.000 So this is something that Donald Trump has supported.

00:05:20.000 Good friends of mine like Mike Lee.

00:05:21.000 Mike Lee has been a great senator who has pushed this diligently.

00:05:25.000 It's a basic intuitive measure that I think should unite Americans and shore up public trust in elections at a time when both sides have concerns about public trust in elections.

00:05:34.000 It says that if you're a non-citizen, you can't vote.

00:05:38.000 You have to have proof of citizenship in order to vote in a US election.

00:05:42.000 I don't think this should be controversial.

00:05:44.000 I think most countries around the world require it.

00:05:48.000 Even states like Puerto Rico have far more stringent election security measures than we have in US states.

00:05:53.000 Puerto Rico is not a state, but territories like Puerto Rico have more secure elections than we do in the other 50 states because of stronger election security measures.

00:06:01.000 There's no reason we can't adopt that in the rest of the 50 states as well.

00:06:06.000 That's what the SAVE Act was designed to accomplish, but it couldn't pass.

00:06:09.000 You could blame the Democrats.

00:06:11.000 But that would be belying the real issue, which is that many Republicans are reluctant to push this through or even support this in advance of this election as well, which says that we have a real risk here.

00:06:25.000 If you combine that with the polling, We have a real risk here, first of all, that Donald Trump will, the good part is, will potentially win the White House if the polling continues to go in the direction that it is.

00:06:35.000 The bad news is, he may not have the ability to fully translate that into a legislative agenda with the absence of a majority in the Senate.

00:06:42.000 And one of the things we learned from this debate about the SAVE Act, a basic measure that says non-citizens can't vote, and we established that as a bare minimum standard for federal elections.

00:06:52.000 That says that even a 50-50 or a 50.1 or a 51-49 majority in the Senate probably isn't really good enough to take on an aggressive agenda involving dismantling the fourth branch of government, involving securing elections in the United States, securing our border, like actually, in a real way, fixing our immigration system in a lasting way.

00:07:14.000 I think that's going to require more than a 51-49 type of majority in the Senate.

00:07:19.000 And I think it's going to require leaders more than just who have a little R after the name and claim to be Republican, but people actually stand for the constitutionalist principles the country was founded on and basic common sense principles, even when they're controversial, that most Americans agree on.

00:07:34.000 Personally, I think one of the more important things we could do in the country is to turn the page on this chapter of our history where there are concerns about the security and the integrity of elections in a way that's dividing the country.

00:07:47.000 My view is one of the ways to deal with this is, imagine a simple law.

00:07:50.000 I've talked about this for a lot of last year.

00:07:52.000 I'll say it again.

00:07:53.000 Single-day voting on Election Day as a national holiday with paper ballots and government-issued voter ID to match the voter file.

00:08:02.000 And I personally would go one step further.

00:08:04.000 I would also say English is the sole language that appears on a ballot.

00:08:07.000 That's not controversial.

00:08:08.000 That's common sense.

00:08:09.000 And if we pass that through, I will pledge to do whatever I can to lead my side of the aisle, the Republican Party, and not even my side of the aisle, but Americans across the board, to move on from complaining about stolen elections.

00:08:21.000 Nobody wants to or should want to be complaining about stolen elections, but we have the ability to move past that if we pass a common sense measure of single-day voting on Election Day as a national holiday with paper ballots and government-issued ID to match the voter file.

00:08:35.000 That is literally what they already do in Puerto Rico.

00:08:37.000 It's possible in the United States.

00:08:39.000 If somebody wants to give me the best argument against requiring voter ID and even having a single day as election day as a national holiday that can unite us, and think about what that would do for our country, a single day where we all recognize our civic purpose and come together as Americans to exercise that civic duty, I'd wait for the best counterargument to that.

00:08:59.000 I haven't heard one yet.

00:09:01.000 And the fact that that is controversial, or even a far more watered-down measure, like the SAVE Act that isn't going to now pass Congress or the Senate, the fact that that's controversial actually sows further doubts, and understandably so, around what exactly it is they're trying to preserve about the way we're conducting elections right now.

00:09:19.000 That feeds the very concerns we have about election integrity.

00:09:23.000 So I had an idea, and I posted it this week on social media.

00:09:26.000 I've talked about it publicly in the press.

00:09:28.000 My view is In the interest of the country, even before we get to passing that statute, I think we have room for an even more modest win-win, which is to say that if we do get the SAVE Act through the election, Republicans, including Donald Trump, can just step up and say, you know what, if we pass the SAVE Act right now, in advance of this election, I know there are some smart voices who also have even tactical Administrative objections to that.

00:09:57.000 Registrations have already taken place, so the SAVE Act passing it now versus a year ago is going to have even a more blunted effect.

00:10:03.000 But it still would have some powerful effect on sending a signal that it is a crime, a federal crime, to vote in an election as a non-citizen for federal office.

00:10:11.000 Even that could have an effect on this election and public trust in this election.

00:10:15.000 If we pass the SAVE Act right now, I think both sides, Republicans and Democrats, ought to make a public pledge in conjunction with that to say that neither side is going to complain about a stolen election afterwards.

00:10:25.000 I know that involves some level of sacrifice for each side.

00:10:28.000 We're still not going to have perfect elections this time around if we pass the SAVE Act.

00:10:32.000 But it's at least going to be a step in the direction of what we know is at least a more secure election in the United States.

00:10:37.000 And the fact that we can't do that, the fact that that itself is controversial, does raise serious concerns in this country.

00:10:45.000 So my goal in this isn't to be some type of partisan hack that's looking for ways of engaging in conservative victimhood wallowing.

00:10:53.000 That's not the goal.

00:10:53.000 The goal is how do we move the country forward?

00:10:56.000 And I do think we have legitimate common sense approaches to secure public trust in elections by securing the elections and use that as a basis to say that we're also turning the page to move forward such that we're not arguing about the results of elections afterwards.

00:11:10.000 But the sad truth is we haven't gotten there.

00:11:12.000 Now, the SAVE Act, why pass it now?

00:11:14.000 They say, okay, illegal immigrants haven't voted in elections in the past.

00:11:17.000 There's a very simple and practical answer to that.

00:11:20.000 We've had the largest influx of illegal aliens into this country in US history.

00:11:27.000 By the way, I think it stands to reason if you've had the largest influx of illegal aliens into the country in U.S. history, then we ought to have the largest mass deportation in American history.

00:11:35.000 That's not racist or xenophobic.

00:11:36.000 It's what it means to stand for the rule of law.

00:11:39.000 But I do think this is one of the most pragmatic but also philosophical issues that looms over America at large in advance of this election in a way that we've never seen before, and that is this issue of immigration.

00:11:52.000 I went to Springfield last week.

00:11:54.000 We live-streamed it.

00:11:55.000 I hope many of you had a chance to see it.

00:11:57.000 Such an interesting experience.

00:11:59.000 I mean, Springfield is important to me just because actually, you know, people say, oh, MSNBC actually had a little bit the night before.

00:12:06.000 They say, Vivek Ramaswamy is descending on Springfield, like I'm some sort of just sort of, you know, somebody flying in for this opportunity to latch on to something that's happening in a town that I don't know the first thing about, but just using it to push some agenda or self promote or whatever it is.

00:12:22.000 is.

00:12:22.000 I mean, that was the veneer they were trying to cast.

00:12:26.000 Actually, the truth of the matter is Springfield's near and dear to my own heart.

00:12:29.000 I live less than an hour away.

00:12:30.000 I'm talking to you about a 50-minute drive from Springfield, a place where I spent a lot of time, not a little bit of time, but a lot of time growing up.

00:12:37.000 I had a lot of family there.

00:12:38.000 I still have family there.

00:12:39.000 And I grew up about an hour away from there as well.

00:12:42.000 So it's an important part of my youth.

00:12:44.000 Probably one of the best sub shops in the state of Ohio, if not in the country, is a place called Mike and Rosie's.

00:12:49.000 I've probably eaten there more times in my youth than most people grew up in Springfield.

00:12:53.000 So it was important to me to just go there because on the other hand, I've run for U.S. president.

00:12:57.000 I'm talking about these issues publicly.

00:12:59.000 They've shown up in my own backyard in the community that's next to me.

00:13:02.000 What kind of leader would I be if I didn't show up there?

00:13:04.000 That's why I said, you know what, it was important to me.

00:13:06.000 I just posted.

00:13:07.000 I was having dinner here in Columbus.

00:13:09.000 Took out my phone.

00:13:10.000 We were talking about Springfield with actually one of my cousins.

00:13:13.000 Who was in Columbus, my wife.

00:13:14.000 We were having dinner.

00:13:15.000 I said, you know what?

00:13:16.000 I should go to Springfield.

00:13:17.000 I just took out a poster on X. I'm going to Springfield on Thursday.

00:13:20.000 Didn't have a plan.

00:13:21.000 I don't have a campaign apparatus or anything behind me right now.

00:13:24.000 Just said, we're going to show up.

00:13:25.000 Details of event to follow.

00:13:27.000 It's going to be a casual get-together.

00:13:29.000 Turns out that, and a guy, by the way, then responded, volunteers.

00:13:32.000 He has an event center.

00:13:33.000 He talks to my team.

00:13:34.000 He says, hey, we can do it at my event center.

00:13:36.000 I say, great.

00:13:37.000 I know the part of town that it's in.

00:13:40.000 It only holds to several hundred people, but I said, okay, I think that'll be okay.

00:13:43.000 We might even have 50 people.

00:13:44.000 Come have a good open conversation in an intimate event.

00:13:48.000 It holds 250, 275 people.

00:13:50.000 Turns out that's filled.

00:13:51.000 Has an extra room nearby.

00:13:53.000 Tries to put up a TV last minute.

00:13:55.000 Has an overflow room.

00:13:56.000 Another 100 people.

00:13:57.000 We're up to fire code and then beyond.

00:13:59.000 And then you go outside.

00:14:00.000 There are hundreds of people lined up in this community.

00:14:04.000 It's not a big town.

00:14:05.000 Springfield even posts the mass influx of the Haitian migrants, of about 12,000 to 20,000 extra Haitian migrants that have been in that town now more recently.

00:14:13.000 You're talking about a town of 60,000 to 70,000 people.

00:14:17.000 You had about 2,000 people RSVP to that event in Springfield.

00:14:22.000 What does that tell you?

00:14:23.000 First is it says that everyday Americans are hungering to be heard, actually.

00:14:30.000 People just want to be heard.

00:14:31.000 People want to feel heard.

00:14:32.000 One of the things I learned from my trip to Springfield is, is there a lot that people are struggling with in that community?

00:14:36.000 Yes.

00:14:37.000 Are they driving housing costs up through demand?

00:14:39.000 Yes.

00:14:40.000 Are there some issues, even questions and concerns relating to zoning, where you have multiple families living in a home that was designed, per at least local zoning ordinances, like it or not, for a single family?

00:14:51.000 Yes, there's all kinds of issues.

00:14:53.000 Is that driving up housing costs?

00:14:54.000 Is it putting a strain on social services and supply?

00:14:57.000 Yes.

00:14:58.000 But one of my main takeaways from that trip to Springfield isn't that people are up in arms about the fact that my housing prices are going up or local primary care services are strained.

00:15:09.000 It's that my housing costs are going up and local primary care services are strained And nobody seems to actually care about it.

00:15:17.000 And it's that last part that stuck with me.

00:15:20.000 Yes, people want solutions to the underlying problems, but it's not just the technical solutions people hunger for.

00:15:25.000 People in this country, I think rightly, are concerned about the fact that nobody in charge seems to actually care genuinely about them here as human beings.

00:15:37.000 And so when I showed up there, it was interesting.

00:15:40.000 I mean, the event was well attended.

00:15:43.000 I didn't have...

00:15:44.000 I didn't have some sort of magic wand to wave and make those problems go away.

00:15:49.000 But by the end of the event, you can watch it on the live stream.

00:15:51.000 I mean, people are asking me events.

00:15:52.000 People are asking me questions that made me in some ways feel uncomfortable because I'm not some hero offering an actual tangible solution that night.

00:16:03.000 I'm hoping to drive solutions that we can offer in this country over the next number of months and years.

00:16:08.000 Yet people ask me, what are we going to do when you're gone?

00:16:11.000 What are we going to do without you here?

00:16:13.000 And it struck me that if that's the response we're getting from several hours of spending just an evening in Springfield, that's half the battle in this country is to show people that we actually stand for the Americans who already live here.

00:16:24.000 Now back to this question of immigration.

00:16:26.000 We've had that largest influx of illegals into this country in American history.

00:16:30.000 The situation in Springfield is obviously even a little bit more esoteric, a little bit more complex.

00:16:36.000 Where you have temporary protected status that was a basis for technically under the law, the law as of now, people enforce it, don't view those form of migrants who are in the country or in Springfield as illegal.

00:16:47.000 The deeper question is, though, what type of legal immigration system do we actually want to design?

00:16:54.000 This is something that, to be really honest, I think Republicans often deflect.

00:16:59.000 Here's how they deflect it.

00:17:01.000 We use the vehemence of our opposition to illegal immigration as a way to sidestep the conversation about what we do with legal immigration.

00:17:11.000 Unillegal immigration, you all know this if you've been listening to me or watching me during the campaign, My new book actually has a detailed chapter on this question.

00:17:19.000 It's entitled, An Open Border is Not a Border.

00:17:21.000 But that chapter actually breaks down these questions of both illegal and legal immigration with some new facts that are even different from what you might have heard from me and what you might have heard from others in the campaign trails.

00:17:33.000 But for those who haven't heard me before, on the question of illegal immigration, I favor not only completing the wall, but using our own military on our own southern border.

00:17:41.000 I cite the fact we've got 100,000 US troops, by the way, in Europe I don't want to get started so much on a side rant there, but I think that those troops would be far better utilized on our own border than being stationed in Europe.

00:17:53.000 Dwight D. Eisenhower, when he was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, by the way, had famously said, that was at a time where we had far fewer US troops in Europe.

00:18:01.000 He said, if these troops are still here 10 years from now, that will have been evidence of the failure of NATO itself.

00:18:07.000 What do we have now?

00:18:08.000 100,000 US troops sitting in Europe.

00:18:09.000 But that's a foreign policy discussion we could save for another day.

00:18:13.000 A better use of those troops, our own National Guard, et cetera, on our own southern border, aquatic barriers in the Rio Grande, use of the Coast Guard in the Rio Grande, use of the Coast Guard to protect all four of our eastern, northern, southern, and western borders,

00:18:27.000 basic incentive changes like stopping the funding of sanctuary cities, basic incentive changes like stopping the funding of sanctuary cities, ending birthright citizenship for the kids of illegals, and deporting those who are in this country illegally, starting with those who have committed crimes and those who are already held in detention, detaining anybody who does apply for asylum until their case is adjudicated.

00:18:44.000 This is how you solve the illegal immigration crisis in the country.

00:18:48.000 I've been one of the strongest and I would say most hawkish voices on ending illegal immigration. 0.98

00:18:55.000 It was a core premise of my presidential campaign and some of the policy solutions we offered as well.

00:18:59.000 I talk about that in the book as well, right?

00:19:01.000 Those are hard truths.

00:19:02.000 Okay, so I put that in the book, truths.

00:19:04.000 Fine.

00:19:05.000 We use that though, and I also touch on this in the book, Republicans artfully use the vehemence of their opposition to illegal immigration to sidestep this question about what the heck we do about legal immigration.

00:19:18.000 And if we're being honest, and I hit this in the prologue to the book itself, I want to open right with not just preaching to hard truths to the left, but truths to our own camp as well.

00:19:28.000 There is a rift within the conservative movement on where we stand on the question of legal immigration.

00:19:34.000 Do we want the kind of legal immigration that benefits the United States of America economically and even maybe even re-infuses a civic lifeblood into our country?

00:19:45.000 Or is the goal of our immigration policy a totally separate goal of protecting American workers from the effects of foreign wage competition?

00:19:52.000 Those are two very different questions between maybe the national protectionist wing and the national libertarian wing of the America First movement.

00:20:01.000 I'd like to get pragmatic.

00:20:02.000 And this is one of the things that, tying it back to my trip to Springfield, I had not only that town hall in the evening, but I also beforehand met with not only city officials at an hour meeting with the mayor, the city manager, and city officials for a full hour before the town hall.

00:20:16.000 I met with a number of business leaders before the town hall at a separate restaurant.

00:20:20.000 But the first meeting that I took was actually with a group of Haitian community leaders.

00:20:24.000 We sat down in a room for an hour, a little over an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and had a heart-to-heart conversation.

00:20:30.000 One of the things that came out of that conversation, I think, was some of the most, I hope, practical legal immigration policies that we can apply, or at least the principles for legal immigration.

00:20:43.000 So one of the things I shared with them, and this wasn't, believe me, this was not comfortable to do in a room.

00:20:47.000 It was not that different than this table I'm sitting at right now for Haitian community leaders from Springfield and the environment we're in, sitting across the table from me.

00:20:56.000 Understandably, maybe a little bit skeptical or dubious of my presence there, but open-minded nonetheless, and I give them credit for coming to the meeting.

00:21:03.000 And they were interested in an honest conversation.

00:21:06.000 It took a while to warm up, took a while for each of us to share our backgrounds, maybe find initial pieties towards common ground.

00:21:13.000 But I didn't want this to just be a kumbaya conversation.

00:21:15.000 I wanted to air and surface some real deep-seated differences of opinion because my view is we get to truth and we get to peace by talking about them in the open.

00:21:26.000 They shared their stories.

00:21:27.000 One of them had a really compelling story that I wish more people actually had heard.

00:21:31.000 He didn't come to the town hall, but had he, I think it would have been a great opportunity for people to hear his story, which is he's a guy, he's a Haitian immigrant in Springfield who was a doctor in Haiti.

00:21:42.000 He apparently went to school for eight years, just like you would here, college for four years and then four years in medical school, trained to be a physician, was successful treating patients at a hospital there.

00:21:51.000 Relatively speaking in Haiti, that puts him in the professional class.

00:21:54.000 And yet he was the subject of multiple kidnapping plots and attempts with local gangs, not some sort of Michael Corleone-style organized crime mob.

00:22:04.000 In Haiti, if you're part of a gang, it's a guy with a gun who gets a band behind him of people to follow house to house.

00:22:10.000 But he becomes a target.

00:22:12.000 And this is what happens if you're successful in that country.

00:22:14.000 You become an actual target for things like kidnappings, for burglaries.

00:22:18.000 They want to take you.

00:22:19.000 They kidnap you at gunpoint.

00:22:21.000 They use ransoms to be able to make their own money, to feed their own gangs, to put you back.

00:22:26.000 Eventually, his only path was out of the country.

00:22:28.000 He ended up coming to the United States, leaving his family, including his kids.

00:22:33.000 I couldn't imagine doing that.

00:22:34.000 Back in another country in Haiti, who he doesn't see for year-long or multi-year-long periods at a time.

00:22:40.000 And the only thing that we have left now for him is, the question is, how does he get a job to support that family?

00:22:45.000 That's his top question on his mind.

00:22:48.000 He ends up not being able to sit for the USMLE exam, which is what you actually certify for board certification in medicine here.

00:22:56.000 Not because he wouldn't pass it, he says, and I believe him from talking to him that he would pass that with flying colors, but that he wasn't even eligible enough as a matter of occupational licensing requirements to sit for the exam.

00:23:05.000 He couldn't be allowed to take the exam because the US doesn't recognize medical schools in Haiti.

00:23:11.000 So he ends up putting himself through nursing school, paying out of pocket to be a nurse in Springfield at a time when primary care resources are indeed strained in Springfield.

00:23:20.000 And he shared all of this to say that, okay, well, I'm working hard here.

00:23:24.000 Similar stories for the other Haitian community leaders who I met in that room.

00:23:28.000 They all spoke English.

00:23:29.000 They all spoke it well.

00:23:31.000 So what I shared with them, and as I said, this is a little bit uncomfortable, but I believe in speaking hard truths, okay?

00:23:37.000 What I said to them, and I believe it's true, is that their stories are compelling, but may not be representative, are not representative, of a lot of others who came into the United States via temporary protective status either.

00:23:52.000 And I think it's a reasonable immigration policy for legal immigration.

00:23:56.000 I don't want to be one of the Republicans that ducks this issue.

00:23:58.000 I want to take it head on.

00:24:00.000 I think it is a reasonable immigration policy for the United States to adopt, to say that if you are known to be or likely to be a recipient of government assistance, financial government assistance of any kind, upon coming into this country, then you shouldn't get into this country. 0.97

00:24:17.000 I think it's even further reasonable for us to say that If you're not fluent in English, you should not get into this country. 1.00

00:24:23.000 I think it is further reasonable still to say if you don't know the basics about U.S. history and the U.S. Constitution and our system of governance, you don't get into this country.

00:24:32.000 Let's just pause there.

00:24:33.000 If we adopt the totality of those measures, securing the southern border, move our own military to the southern border, 100,000 troops stationed in Europe, no.

00:24:42.000 How about a fraction of that, if not all of that, stationed at our own southern border, using our National Guard, using aquatic barriers in the Rio Grande, ending funding for sanctuary cities, ending birthright citizenship for the kids of illegals who, pursuant to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, doesn't apply to them.

00:24:56.000 Take those measures.

00:24:58.000 Deport the people who have entered this country illegally. 1.00

00:25:03.000 In a contained scenario.

00:25:05.000 People aren't just allowed to roam free.

00:25:07.000 People are held until their asylum claims are adjudicated.

00:25:10.000 Those basic measures enter the illegal entry across our southern border.

00:25:14.000 But combine that with a legal immigration policy that has a few basic principles.

00:25:19.000 You've got to know the language of the United States, which is English today.

00:25:22.000 Like it or not, that's the truth.

00:25:23.000 That you have to know some basics of the history of the United States and our constitutional system of self-governance.

00:25:29.000 And perhaps most practically of all, You have enough economic proof, economic background or educational background of proof that you will not be a customer, a user, a client of the ever-growing US nanny state, the welfare and entitlement state, welfare, Medicaid, and so on for at least 10 years after you've entered the United States.

00:25:47.000 And if it's after 10 years, chances are you're not ever going to be either.

00:25:51.000 That, I think, is a reasonable basis for coming to the country.

00:25:53.000 Now, that would make a lot of people uncomfortable for me to say, if you're going to be on government assistance, you should not be able to enter the country.

00:25:59.000 If you are going to not be able to stand on your own two feet without government assistance, you shouldn't enter the country.

00:26:03.000 If you don't speak English and you're not actually able to know something about U.S. history, you shouldn't be able to enter the country under all but some exceptional circumstances that we can talk about.

00:26:14.000 That is a reasonable framework for an immigration policy that we can adopt in this country.

00:26:18.000 People may say that's really controversial, but I'll tell you what happened in that room of Haitians sitting right across the table from me like we are right now.

00:26:26.000 They paused.

00:26:27.000 They were thoughtful.

00:26:28.000 And I said, these are accomplished people, several of them who I met in my own right, in that community in Springfield.

00:26:32.000 They thought about it.

00:26:34.000 They didn't immediately say I agree, but they said that that is reasonable.

00:26:37.000 That's a reasonable policy, because we talked about it.

00:26:39.000 How could the United States say, okay, we're going to let you into our country, but also be customers of our own welfare state, which itself is unsustainable on its own terms?

00:26:47.000 I think it's a reasonable policy.

00:26:50.000 And I think it smokes out what we in the conservative movement aren't actually confronting head-on ourselves, which is that nanny state right here at home.

00:27:01.000 Mark my words on this.

00:27:03.000 If we dismantle the American nanny state, most of our problems, even our immigration problem, goes right there away with it. 0.86

00:27:12.000 It just melts away because the incentive to suckle up the teat of Uncle Sam, Uncle Sucker, you could call him now, is gone.

00:27:20.000 And that's what I see as the constraint, shackling, intellectually shackling the modern conservative movement, is that you have strident voices.

00:27:29.000 And in some ways, we have fallen into this trap of competing on the stridency of what we have to say, rather than actually focusing on whether or not the content of what we're saying is actually bold enough to save the country.

00:27:41.000 So everybody, I mean, who in the Republican Party is for illegal immigration in the country?

00:27:47.000 It's a silly thing.

00:27:48.000 Nobody's arguing here to argue the other side of that.

00:27:52.000 But what Republicans do is to substitute for the debate on the hard thing will be increasingly strident in how opposed we are to illegal immigration at the southern border versus, I think, actually taking a measured approach, talking in style of how we approach that issue with compassion, understanding that many of the people who cross that southern border They're not bad human beings.

00:28:13.000 If many of us were in their shoes under those circumstances in Guatemala or Nicaragua or whatever, parents of kids who want a better life, maybe we'd be doing the same thing too.

00:28:21.000 But that doesn't mean that we soften our position on what we do about it.

00:28:24.000 That's actually one of my top lessons over the last year.

00:28:28.000 It's easy to be pugnacious on style and then compromise on actual policy.

00:28:33.000 I view it the other way around.

00:28:35.000 I think it's far more effective for us, and I'm aiming and striving to do this myself going forward, to actually be Respectful of those who disagree with us on style so that we can actually be uncompromising on substance.

00:28:51.000 You see, that's a choice for the future of America first.

00:28:54.000 I mean, is the goal to be pugnacious, to go viral on social media, to show up with cable news bookings at night, and to be really strident in the way you say something when push comes to shove, when it comes to actually passing laws or taking executive action, that you go soft and compromise?

00:29:07.000 Or is actually the better way to do this actually engage with, maybe persuade in a respectful way?

00:29:13.000 And courteous to our fellow Americans who may deeply disagree with us, but to be uncompromising on principle and policy.

00:29:18.000 I think that's actually going to be a far more successful strategy, both for standing for the principles we actually care about in our America First and pro-American movement, but also to, dare I say, unite the country in the process.

00:29:29.000 So on this question of legal immigration, that's what I tried to do with the group of Haitians who we met with in Springfield, is to offer a...

00:29:38.000 It's not a rated PG policy.

00:29:40.000 It's not something that is soft around the edges.

00:29:43.000 If you're going to be a customer of the welfare state, if you're going to depend on government assistance, you shouldn't be allowed in the country. 0.64

00:29:48.000 If you can't speak the language, you shouldn't be allowed in the country. 1.00

00:29:51.000 If you don't know the basics about the country and our constitution and our history, you shouldn't be allowed in the country. 0.94

00:29:57.000 That's a reasonable framework that would solve 70, 80, maybe 90% of our mass immigration problem into the United States.

00:30:06.000 And yet, the irony is the most strident voices against the migration crisis in the country aren't really willing to tackle the nanny state.

00:30:16.000 This is the fork in the road for the future of the conservative movement, for the future of America First.

00:30:23.000 Do we want to preserve the nanny state or not? 0.96

00:30:25.000 Do we want to replace the left-wing nanny state with a new right-wing nanny state? 1.00

00:30:30.000 I say hell no to that vision actually.

00:30:32.000 I say we want to go in and dismantle that nanny state. 0.80

00:30:35.000 The nanny state presents itself in three forms.

00:30:37.000 You have the entitlement state.

00:30:39.000 That's the welfare state. 0.88

00:30:40.000 Work requirements, I think, are the clearest bridge to eventually dismantling and getting rid of that.

00:30:45.000 You have the regulatory state.

00:30:47.000 That's a manifestation of the nanny state that says that you don't know enough about what's right for you, that we can't trust you to self-govern or even elect representatives to make the laws.

00:30:54.000 They have to be done by backroom bureaucrats and three-letter agencies.

00:30:58.000 That's the administrative state.

00:30:59.000 I've talked about that extensively elsewhere.

00:31:01.000 I talk about that extensively in the book as well, by the way.

00:31:05.000 And then there's the third form of the nanny state, which is the foreign entitlement state, the nanny state through the foreign aid industrial complex as well.

00:31:13.000 That is the nanny state in America. 1.00

00:31:15.000 And I think that we deserve and we require a conservative movement that is strong enough in its spine to say that we are actually going to take on and not just incrementally massage, but to go in and dismantle that nanny state.

00:31:31.000 And that's what's missing today.

00:31:33.000 I think there's a strand of the America First movement with less of a libertarian bent, as I have, but more of a protectionist bent, that says the right job of government is to replace that left-wing regulatory state with a right-wing regulatory state, the left-wing nanny state with right-wing industrial policy or whatever.

00:31:50.000 No.

00:31:52.000 That misses the point because the same shoe can fit the other foot in the future.

00:31:55.000 And you know, what's the principal basis of deciding?

00:31:57.000 Who gets to decide which is the right kind of government nanny state or interventionist policy versus not?

00:32:02.000 The right answer is to get in there and in three words, shut it down.

00:32:08.000 Shut down the regulatory state, shut down the entitlement state, shut down the foreign nanny state and the foreign aid industrial complex. 0.55

00:32:16.000 That's how we save a nation.

00:32:18.000 That's how we save a country.

00:32:19.000 And right now, we don't really have the level of clarity I'd like for us to have in the conservative movement.

00:32:24.000 But if we do, and I do think there's an opportunity for the second Trump term to be the first step, indecisive step in this direction to saving the country.

00:32:33.000 And that's why I'm doing everything I can to make sure we get there.

00:32:36.000 Now, there is this issue of tariffs, both in the election as well as a debate within the Republican Party, as well as, and this is a topic I hit in my book a little bit as well.

00:32:46.000 What are we to make of Donald Trump's position on tariffs if you're approaching this with a more libertarian-leaning mindset?

00:32:54.000 Here's my view.

00:32:54.000 So actually, there's a distinction between Donald Trump and the protectionist direction of certain segments, at least, of the new right.

00:33:03.000 Donald Trump is actually very much a pragmatist on this, and that's what people need to understand.

00:33:07.000 This idea, if you get too philosophical about just looking at this from the clouds without looking at the pragmatic details, you miss what's actually happening.

00:33:15.000 What Donald Trump has said is, and this is something that I actually think is very reasonable, I favor it, is that if another country is applying tariffs on our goods, then we have to apply that same standard to them.

00:33:27.000 That's different than saying that in a vacuum we have to suddenly raise tariffs when nobody else is.

00:33:32.000 That's about saying that we have to be competing on an even playing field.

00:33:34.000 So we can't sit in this blithe neoliberal mythology that just says that, okay, we're going to pretend like the rest of the world, And their behaviors don't matter for us, but we're going to pretend that we still live in a Friedmanite, Hayek, Vivek-style idealized free market when that free market doesn't exist.

00:33:52.000 If other countries are applying those tariffs to the United States of America, we got to be in a position to apply the same in return.

00:33:58.000 That's a different position from saying that we need to adopt a strictly protectionist position for U.S. manufacturers ahead of other countries doing the same.

00:34:05.000 So one of the things you saw in Trump's first term, and people need to understand this as a take-home message, is many of those tariff threats that he made, we didn't actually even have to follow through on many of them because the other countries immediately came to the negotiating table afterwards.

00:34:19.000 It was an effective tactic even with respect to other issues, other issues like illegal mass migration into the country, leverage for actually Mexico's cooperation with us.

00:34:28.000 For the Remain in Mexico policy, which is one of the most successful policies even on halting the effects of mass illegal migration into the country.

00:34:37.000 That I think is a sensible approach of using leverage to accomplish objectives to make sure we're competing on a level playing field.

00:34:44.000 I think that is a...

00:35:04.000 Even if understandable impulse, I think a more self-harming direction for American workers and manufacturers, above all, to actually go in the long run.

00:35:12.000 So I think it's important to draw that distinction of using the ability for an even playing field as a lever to ensure that we have an even playing field, Versus a willy-nilly protectionist direction.

00:35:24.000 There's a distinction.

00:35:25.000 And I don't think that it is fair to those who try to characterize Donald Trump in that purely protectionist camp.

00:35:30.000 That's not exactly what he's doing.

00:35:32.000 He's a businessman.

00:35:33.000 He's pragmatic.

00:35:34.000 And I think that that's, I think, a far more understandable and rational approach than I think some on the right may otherwise want to take it in the future.

00:35:44.000 Let's get serious, though, about the number one area where we do need to worry about our economic dependence.

00:35:49.000 It is our economic dependence on China for our core elements of national security. 0.59

00:35:56.000 And national security doesn't just mean military national security.

00:35:58.000 It means the security of the United States would be disrupted if we no longer had access to certain forms of supply.

00:36:03.000 Our pharmaceutical supply chain, but also our military industrial base, our semiconductors powering our own military equipment, and much of our military equipment It comes from China.

00:36:13.000 Now, that doesn't make a ton of sense if you think about it.

00:36:16.000 Why the heck are we stockpiling all of this military equipment if it's not to at least be prepared, God forbid, for a conflict scenario in the future that none of us want to see?

00:36:25.000 But even Hayek in The Road to Serfdom, you could take a careful reading of that, Agrees that we should not and no country should depend on its adversary to provide its own national defense.

00:36:35.000 It just logically doesn't make sense.

00:36:37.000 Yet that's exactly where we are in the United States today.

00:36:39.000 That's why we have military contractors, I believe it was the CEO of Raytheon, who some number of months ago said that we need to make nice with China because, frankly, we depend on them for our defense.

00:36:48.000 Well, maybe we shouldn't depend on them for our defense.

00:36:50.000 It's a separate question.

00:36:52.000 None of us want war or conflict.

00:36:54.000 But we should not depend on our most likely adversary for our own national self-defense.

00:37:00.000 So this actually relates to some of this debate about the future direction of the America first and protectionist versus more liberty-leaning approach to the American right.

00:37:08.000 If we're really serious about declaring economic independence from China in those areas critical for our national security, you could think about our military industrial base, our pharmaceutical supply chain, and so on.

00:37:20.000 Of course, we want to onshore a lot of that production to the United States, but it also means Realistically, expanding, not contracting our relationships with countries like Japan, South Korea, India, the Philippines, other countries, you could talk about Vietnam, other countries around the world to fill that void.

00:37:42.000 Now, that is intention with your top goal is to protect American manufacturers from the effects of foreign product competition in the United States, then you actually would want to lessen or cut off trade ties with those other countries.

00:37:56.000 But there's no free launch on this.

00:37:57.000 That delays the timeline that it would take for us to actually declare economic independence from China if we're relying solely on on-shoring versus near-shoring to allies.

00:38:06.000 And it's worth seeing this with clarity, because in both cases, both camps here reject the blithe neoliberalism of the past.

00:38:13.000 The blithe neoliberalism of the past Believe that somehow we were going to spread democracy to China by sending Big Macs and Happy Meals, okay?

00:38:21.000 That somehow we're going to use capitalism as a vector to spread American norms and democracy to places like China.

00:38:26.000 That hasn't worked out.

00:38:27.000 In fact, that has been turned on its head in countless ways.

00:38:30.000 China actually used that system in some ways to get us to be more like them rather than the other way around. 0.84

00:38:36.000 They often use this to accomplish geopolitical goals they otherwise couldn't have accomplished by telling US companies, effectively, you criticize the CCP, you don't access the Chinese market.

00:38:45.000 But if you're critical of the United States, we roll out the red carpet.

00:38:48.000 If you're trying to apply a scope three emissions cap to a Chinese energy company, close your door on the way out, they might say.

00:38:54.000 But if you're applying climate change limitations on US production or US coal production or US emissions, great, they'll roll out the red carpet for you because that evens out for them The dynamic between the US and China over the long run.

00:39:08.000 So China in many ways exploited that system of internationalism, the system of democratic capitalism, the idea of we indulging this myth that we would use capitalism as a vector-spread democracy.

00:39:19.000 China turned that on its head to their own advantage. 0.71

00:39:21.000 And I think that much of the modern America first right agrees that that was a foolish mistake.

00:39:27.000 The goal isn't just to The goal isn't to dunk on the people who made the mistakes in the past.

00:39:32.000 The goal is to learn from the mistakes of the past to actually turn the page to a smarter, more rational future.

00:39:38.000 But even in that rejection of historic neoliberalism, there is this question about, okay, then how serious are we about declaring economic independence from China in those areas critical to U.S. national security?

00:39:50.000 How serious are we about that?

00:39:51.000 Where does that rank on the list of priorities versus the competing priority of protecting American manufacturers from the effects of foreign wage competition?

00:39:59.000 Those are intention.

00:40:00.000 And I don't think that our movement is weaker for us recognizing that.

00:40:04.000 I think a movement that recognizes internal debate of accomplishing a shared goal is actually stronger for airing those debates and disagreements as well.

00:40:12.000 So if your top goal is to protect American manufacturers from the effects of foreign wage competition, then you want to cut off trade with everybody.

00:40:18.000 Mexico, Japan, South Korea, India, Philippines, doesn't matter. 0.87

00:40:22.000 You want less competition.

00:40:23.000 But that necessarily means You are committing to a longer timeline to declare economic independence from China, because onshore in the United States would take that much longer as the exclusive means to do it.

00:40:34.000 But if your goal is, I think the top priority right now is we can't, as a security matter, and this is what I happen to believe, can't depend on China for those critical areas for our own national security and our own infrastructure, then yes, the first best approach is to onshore as much as we can to the United States. 0.71

00:40:49.000 But it also means that we have to be ambitious about, at least as quickly as possible, even as an intermediate step, nearshoring as much as we can to those allies.

00:40:58.000 I don't see us having that level of nuanced debate yet on the American right.

00:41:03.000 I want to see that change.

00:41:05.000 I think our movement will be stronger for it.

00:41:07.000 It's easy to dunk on the left.

00:41:09.000 It's a lot harder to take a long, hard look in the mirror ourselves and ask ourselves who we are and what we actually stand for.

00:41:18.000 And that too is the core thesis of this book, is that we're only going to be able to truly save our country if we actually have our own vision for what this country actually is and what are we running to.

00:41:32.000 That's my call to action for conservative movement.

00:41:34.000 You've heard it from me before, but that's also one of the things that motivated me not only to write this book, but to write this book when I did.

00:41:42.000 As I said, my fourth book in four years, I've written several books, and some of them are more niche than others.

00:41:48.000 My last book, Capitalist Punishment, was super niche, intended to be for a Almost esoteric audience interested in certain issues in financial markets.

00:41:57.000 But this book is meant for every American who hopefully is able to read it, every voter in this country, every citizen of this country who is hungry for a national revival.

00:42:09.000 How are we going to get there?

00:42:10.000 It's going to be through free speech and open debate.

00:42:12.000 Yes, with and amongst the left, but also on the American right as well.

00:42:17.000 The path to truth runs through free speech and open debate.

00:42:21.000 The path to peace runs through free speech and open debate, and that's what I hope to spawn.

00:42:26.000 And, you know, if you're able to not only read this book, but more importantly, if I may give you an assignment to also use some of the arguments raised in this book with your friends and fellow debates, both on the American right and with your friends on the left, that will have been a success.

00:42:40.000 And I think that's the stuff of how we actually save a country.

00:42:43.000 The other thing is between now and the election, we've got about 40, a little bit over 40 days left.

00:42:49.000 The best advice I could give a lot of Republicans out there, up and down ballot, is show up in the places you're not supposed to traditionally show up, or that people would predict that you wouldn't show up as a Republican.

00:43:01.000 College campuses are a great place to do it.

00:43:04.000 You know the funny thing about swing states?

00:43:05.000 I'm surprised nobody's really taken notice of this yet.

00:43:07.000 Every one of the swing states has great college football teams.

00:43:10.000 That's a vibrant time on campus.

00:43:12.000 I'm an Ohio State fan.

00:43:13.000 Obviously, I live here in Columbus, Ohio.

00:43:15.000 Ohio is arguably not even a swing state at the presidential level.

00:43:18.000 But Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, these are states with strong college football traditions right now, strong college football programs.

00:43:27.000 It's a great time this fall between now and the election to show up.

00:43:31.000 And so for my part, I'm going to be doing that in the next few weeks, going to other campuses, engaging in and holding to the standard, hopefully respectful dialogue.

00:43:40.000 You know, it's easy to find college students.

00:43:42.000 You can defeat them in a debate or dunk on them or dunk on the left.

00:43:47.000 We're fellow citizens at the end of it.

00:43:49.000 That's not the point, is to defeat the other side.

00:43:52.000 Certainly when it comes to the next generation, I draw a distinction.

00:43:55.000 The goal isn't to defeat them.

00:43:56.000 The goal is actually to maybe offer an alternative and really see what that alternative path looks like.

00:44:03.000 And as I go to these campuses and I advise other Republicans to do the same, Lay out the winning arguments, but give them the space to come along for that final inch themselves.

00:44:13.000 I think we'll be much more likely to do it.

00:44:16.000 The problem is if you put somebody in a box, they have to stay in that box.

00:44:19.000 And I think what we want to do is give people a path out of that box.

00:44:23.000 It's going to be one of the ways that I think we succeed, not just in this election, but as I said earlier, this election, it's not the destination, it's the starting line.

00:44:32.000 That's one of the ways that we get to that start line.

00:44:34.000 And I'm going to be doing more of that in the next few weeks.

00:44:36.000 We'll try to livestream as much of that for you all to see as possible.

00:44:39.000 But I'm also encouraging other Republicans to do the same thing.

00:44:43.000 Most underexploited tactic.

00:44:44.000 Show up in places where people who actually disagree with you, college campuses included, and you'll be surprised how hungry people are for that open conversation and how much they'll reward you for it.

00:44:55.000 We saw that in Springfield.

00:44:56.000 We saw that at the University of Pittsburgh last week.

00:44:59.000 And I'm hopeful we're going to see that as I travel these campuses heading into the election in these swing states especially.

00:45:05.000 We're going to have some fun with it.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - September 25, 2024

Uncle Sam’s Welfare Trap EXPOSED: How Dismantling the Nanny State Solves Immigration | TRUTH Ep. #64

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript