Valuetainment - February 11, 2026


“Trump’s Shift Is MONUMENTAL” - HEATED Debate ERUPTS Over Trump's WINS Triggers On-Air Showdown


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

198.09016

Word Count

5,435

Sentence Count

455

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

12


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I sit down with Peter Schiff to talk about why he thinks Trump is the best president in the history of the United States. We talk about his views on the economy, trade, immigration and much more.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You know, that did not go over well. Look at what's happening with Canada. Look at our relationship with Canada.
00:00:06.620 You know, we're driving everybody closer to China, closer to Russia, because Trump is around, going around the world,
00:00:13.780 you sound like, Peter, respectfully, you sound like such a weak leader, and you ran for president.
00:00:19.820 I'm not a weak leader. But wait a minute, but wait a minute, you sound like it, because to me, you ran for president before.
00:00:24.760 I never ran for president. I ran for Senate once.
00:00:27.060 Did you think about running for president, or was there a speculation or story or something like that?
00:00:31.600 Well, not seriously, but I mean, I did run for U.S. Senate in 2010, but I didn't even win the Republican nomination,
00:00:39.780 but I ran in the Republican primaries in the state of Connecticut for U.S. Senate.
00:00:44.880 Right. But to me, when I'm listening to this, and this guy's sitting there going around, you know,
00:00:50.380 presenting ideas that we've never had before, a prior guy that was in there was doing what? Nothing.
00:00:56.020 Well, what ideas? Bad ideas?
00:00:58.220 Are you kidding me? Like, for us to be protected and you, you know, position China in a way that people are sitting there saying,
00:01:04.140 what's going to happen next with China?
00:01:05.500 We've driven people closer to China.
00:01:08.200 Other countries are developing relationships with China that they didn't have.
00:01:12.180 Look what's happening in South America.
00:01:14.160 Look at how much more popular, you know, they're building these deep water ports in South America
00:01:20.400 so that China can trade with this continent without having to go through Long Beach or San Pedro.
00:01:26.500 I mean, the United States is being pushed out, and they're going to be a lot closer to Canada.
00:01:30.700 Canada is our biggest trading partner, but they're going to end up doing a lot more business with China.
00:01:36.600 Mexico is.
00:01:37.580 Yeah, I think you're, I think you truly are underestimating the amount of things that these guys have done.
00:01:45.540 There is a reason why you go and CNN, when you go, well, I'll go to CNN.
00:01:49.580 I mean, CNN, nobody hates Trump more than CNN.
00:01:52.420 And CNN will tell you, their Democrats are not for the Democratic Party right now.
00:01:57.820 They can't stand their policies.
00:01:59.640 They're at a worst approval rating with their own base.
00:02:01.780 On the Republican side, CNN shows that people that voted for Trump are happier with him today than before.
00:02:08.820 For a guy like me that I'm seeing, a guy named, you know, Jimmy Carter gives up Panama.
00:02:15.940 It's like, ah, it's okay, let him keep it, let him take care of this.
00:02:18.420 And now he's sitting there saying, wait a minute, China can go out there and do damage to us at Panama Canal.
00:02:22.820 We've got to figure out where to take control of this.
00:02:24.880 It's building the relationship there for us to be protected.
00:02:27.700 China's getting into Venezuela.
00:02:28.860 He's coming closer to say, you can do what you want to do there.
00:02:31.980 Don't touch the Western Hemisphere.
00:02:33.620 I feel safer with the guy at the top that's negotiating like that.
00:02:36.640 I do.
00:02:37.320 And a lot of American people do as well in many different ways.
00:02:40.520 You may have your, you know, be a little bit butthurt because of some things maybe, you know, that didn't go your way.
00:02:46.060 And I know sometimes you play the contrarian.
00:02:48.360 That's kind of your shtick that you play that role.
00:02:50.540 But financially, I've never made this much money in my life.
00:02:54.060 I made so much money during the Trump presidency.
00:02:56.680 So I'm not talking my book.
00:02:58.200 Everything Trump is doing is making me richer.
00:03:01.300 And safer.
00:03:02.960 And safer.
00:03:03.760 Well, I don't know.
00:03:04.440 I mean, our government is very corrupt.
00:03:06.260 Well, you live in Puerto Rico.
00:03:07.520 Our government is very corrupt.
00:03:09.000 I mean, I know that from firsthand.
00:03:10.540 I mean, we have an extremely corrupt government even today.
00:03:12.960 Go back to safer.
00:03:13.480 Let's be fair and answer that question.
00:03:14.500 Do you feel safer?
00:03:15.620 Honestly.
00:03:15.800 Well, I don't feel any different as far as that.
00:03:18.120 Where did you live before?
00:03:19.220 Well, I was living in Connecticut before Trump won.
00:03:22.320 I mean, I was living in Puerto Rico.
00:03:24.620 I was living in Puerto Rico during...
00:03:26.480 In crime-ridden Fairfield County?
00:03:29.220 Well, I haven't lived in Fairfield County since 2017.
00:03:33.220 I have a house.
00:03:33.900 Well, then you're not everybody.
00:03:35.260 You're not everybody.
00:03:36.040 That's my point.
00:03:36.480 Let me explain to you.
00:03:37.320 You're not everybody, though.
00:03:38.460 Because the average American feels safer.
00:03:41.560 Maybe.
00:03:42.180 No, it's not maybe.
00:03:43.260 No, no.
00:03:43.540 It's not.
00:03:43.980 You can't say maybe.
00:03:45.460 Polls show that everybody in America trusts Republicans to protect the border more than Democrats.
00:03:52.500 You live in Puerto Rico.
00:03:54.180 This is pure data that's coming out from people.
00:03:56.060 Well, we'll see.
00:03:56.500 Look, it's not like I like the Democrats.
00:03:58.840 I was probably one of the biggest critics of Biden out there, more so than most Republicans.
00:04:04.800 But, you know, I criticize bad policies regardless of what party is promoting them.
00:04:10.740 You're cherry-picking policy.
00:04:11.740 No, no, I'm, well, no, I just cherry-picking bad policy.
00:04:15.160 No, no, but you can do that.
00:04:17.180 And that's like the—
00:04:17.880 And I mainly focus on economic policy because that's really where my area of expertise is.
00:04:23.020 And so when I see bad economic policy—and look at what the president is advocating.
00:04:28.120 You know, he wants to control credit card interest rates at 10 percent.
00:04:31.600 You know, when Harris talked about price controls on groceries, oh, she's a socialist.
00:04:36.500 But Donald Trump wants to control the price of credit cards, and that's not socialism.
00:04:40.320 And, in fact, if you look at his industrial policy, I mean, he does not want the free market to allocate capital.
00:04:47.340 He wants to pick the winners and losers himself.
00:04:49.840 He wants to decide what companies and what industries should get capital and then use the power of government to direct capital there.
00:04:57.100 I don't know if that's fair on credit cards because what the president did is he came out and floated that.
00:05:00.880 And there was a lot of response, including here from us, that said, wait a minute, do you want to really get in and do that?
00:05:06.700 But it was part of a broader narrative that he was on for that whole week about affordability, that we have to do some things for affordability for the American consumer.
00:05:14.460 Then cut government spending.
00:05:15.440 And then he backed down on the credit card stuff because he got feedback from Jamie Dimon and others like this.
00:05:22.580 But guess what he forced?
00:05:23.780 He forced a dialogue on the subject, and he forced a dialogue on accountability.
00:05:27.900 Now, if you look at all the policies across, I'm a little shocked.
00:05:30.980 I would love to hear you say, you know, on safety and the border, I think he did a good job.
00:05:36.940 My area of expertise is economics.
00:05:38.660 I'm really not happy about it, and I've been very vocal about it.
00:05:42.000 But it's like you've got to be capable of giving the credit on something that's benefiting a lot of Americans.
00:05:47.900 And safety at the border and murders are down.
00:05:50.340 Those are facts.
00:05:51.060 Those are not stats that are going to get revised.
00:05:54.440 But the affordability problem is a function of the big, beautiful bill.
00:05:59.060 I mean, the fact that Donald Trump signed on to a legislation.
00:06:03.460 Affordability started.
00:06:04.380 I've got to stop you.
00:06:05.220 Affordability started by your own words.
00:06:08.020 What happened after COVID when the Biden administration pumped all that money in there and it created an inflationary.
00:06:13.880 But that started under Trump.
00:06:15.140 Trump signed on to all the COVID bailouts and all the stimulus.
00:06:18.600 The Fed slapped interest rates.
00:06:19.820 It was quadrupled under Biden.
00:06:20.600 You've got to be fair with that.
00:06:21.760 But the same thing would have happened under Trump.
00:06:24.160 Had Trump won reelected.
00:06:25.500 Biden was the president.
00:06:26.760 It's not coulda, shoulda.
00:06:27.600 Yes.
00:06:27.760 And that was a lucky break.
00:06:28.200 Biden was the president.
00:06:29.280 That was a lucky break for Trump because now he can blame everything on Biden.
00:06:32.840 Had Trump won, it would have been the same inflation.
00:06:35.720 It was the same policies.
00:06:37.640 Look at what they did with the big, beautiful bill.
00:06:39.560 I don't know.
00:06:39.900 I don't know why you can't balance credit with criticism on certain policies.
00:06:43.220 All they did was they cut taxes on tips.
00:06:45.940 They cut taxes on overtime, cut taxes on Social Security.
00:06:48.620 These are highly inflationary tax cuts.
00:06:50.820 They don't grow the economy.
00:06:52.260 Government spending, meanwhile, increased.
00:06:54.440 All of the Biden spending was preserved under Trump and increased.
00:06:58.760 See, it's funny.
00:06:59.060 They didn't cut, they had an opportunity to cut some of the Biden spending and they didn't
00:07:03.120 cut any of it.
00:07:03.920 They increased it.
00:07:04.660 Yeah.
00:07:05.020 So, you know, you know, it's crazy.
00:07:06.280 You know, like last week we had this guy on, Jared Moscovitz, who's a liberal.
00:07:10.980 He's a Democrat.
00:07:11.960 He's not a Trump guy.
00:07:13.240 But you know what he was capable of doing?
00:07:15.220 He was capable of saying, these are the things I like that he does.
00:07:18.600 These are the things I'm fully against him.
00:07:20.520 Okay.
00:07:21.340 You lose credibility when it's like, nah, I can't give him credit here or there.
00:07:25.060 For us, I sat there and I said, I don't know if I want to put the 10% credit
00:07:28.460 card limit there, but I like the fact that he called Elizabeth Warren and at least he's
00:07:32.300 willing to reach to the other side of the aisle.
00:07:33.840 And Elizabeth Warren's like, holy shit, he called me.
00:07:36.460 What did he say?
00:07:37.280 He asked me for advice.
00:07:38.720 Really?
00:07:39.220 Well, I'm not going to give him credit for quoting a ridiculous proposal like government
00:07:44.240 fixed price controls.
00:07:45.560 I mean, if he doesn't understand why that's a bad thing.
00:07:47.660 This is the first time in a long time that it's good that somebody is, the Epstein files,
00:07:52.220 what do we call it here?
00:07:53.000 The biggest flipping fumble of this administration, biggest F up on what you did.
00:07:59.880 We're comfortable saying that, but you lose credibility.
00:08:02.980 It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
00:08:05.040 Ask how many millions of people that live by the border are happy.
00:08:08.540 What the hell is going on with the kids are playing outside.
00:08:10.640 Go out and ask how they feel.
00:08:11.800 Go call the people that live in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and San Diego and ask,
00:08:15.280 how do you feel when the kids are playing outside today versus a year and a half ago,
00:08:18.080 two years ago?
00:08:18.640 Ask them.
00:08:19.140 Ask the stories of people that were worried about what the hell is going to happen when
00:08:22.720 my wife's going to work, when my mother's going to work.
00:08:24.880 See what they tell you.
00:08:25.820 Not everything is money.
00:08:27.420 There's a bunch of different things that you got to do.
00:08:29.340 See what it looks like when it works on a World Economic Forum.
00:08:32.120 Everybody stops and is watching this guy speaking and Newsom goes up on stage, who's going to
00:08:36.340 be the candidate that's going to be opposing him on the other side, tries to make fun of
00:08:40.340 his own country that he's representing.
00:08:42.560 Absolutely embarrassing for somebody to go out there and do that.
00:08:44.940 So for me, on the highest stage, I'm proud that he's negotiating on our behalf.
00:08:50.320 I don't ever give somebody a job as an executive when you hire, and I expect 100% of perfect
00:08:58.300 decisions.
00:08:59.020 I don't make 100% perfect decisions when somebody messes into my company.
00:09:03.020 But you're trusting my instinct.
00:09:05.280 And my instinct is if I have somebody in the boardroom that's going to sit there and negotiate
00:09:10.360 on my behalf, I don't think there's anybody in America that would have done a better job
00:09:14.920 of negotiating on our behalf than this guy.
00:09:17.640 What is he negotiating?
00:09:18.640 What are you referring to?
00:09:19.700 What is he negotiating?
00:09:21.580 What is he negotiating?
00:09:22.260 Yeah, what are you actually talking about?
00:09:24.500 Are you not following what's going on?
00:09:26.260 What do you mean what is he negotiating?
00:09:27.080 No, you tell me.
00:09:27.840 What are people listening to and watching and they're seeing others, you know, under every
00:09:34.060 single one of these guys?
00:09:35.920 Are you talking about trade deals that you think he's negotiating?
00:09:38.000 What, so you're saying who's, you're saying Biden negotiated better?
00:09:41.780 You're saying, you know, you're saying Obama negotiated better with Iran?
00:09:44.360 We don't need to negotiate.
00:09:44.860 You think, you think, you think Biden or Obama negotiated better with Venezuela?
00:09:49.120 What do you think they negotiated?
00:09:50.820 What did they do?
00:09:52.160 You're talking about trade deals.
00:09:54.540 I'm not talking trade deals.
00:09:55.840 But the best thing to do is just eliminate our tariffs and bring them to zero.
00:10:00.040 It doesn't matter what the rest of the world does.
00:10:02.340 The best policy is free trade.
00:10:04.320 Allow Americans to freely trade with anyone they want.
00:10:06.920 But there's, there's nothing that needs to negotiate.
00:10:08.960 But the speech that he made at the economic forum backfired.
00:10:13.660 He went out there and claimed that the whole global economy only works because of America.
00:10:18.220 That if it wasn't for America buying everything on credit that the world produces, that the
00:10:23.220 world economy would collapse as if, you know, they would have nothing to do with all their
00:10:27.640 factories if they weren't making the goods available to Americans.
00:10:31.560 America does not drive the global economy.
00:10:34.520 We're the caboose.
00:10:35.380 We get pulled along.
00:10:37.180 The power of the economy is production.
00:10:40.120 It's the world can produce goods.
00:10:42.460 It doesn't need us to consume those goods.
00:10:44.620 They're perfectly capable of consuming their real goods.
00:10:47.160 It doesn't need us to consume those goods.
00:10:48.680 No.
00:10:49.120 Wow.
00:10:49.280 Of course not.
00:10:50.120 Because we're.
00:10:50.640 I'll give you 31 trillion reasons.
00:10:52.080 I am so glad.
00:10:52.700 By the way, I am so glad we invited you today on the podcast.
00:10:56.500 And by the way, Rob, did we invite or did Peter say he's in town to be here?
00:10:59.820 Well, you invited me before.
00:11:01.340 And then you asked me to pay you for a private jet.
00:11:03.260 I said, I'm not paying you for a private jet as if you want to wait till I come by myself.
00:11:06.740 No problem.
00:11:07.400 So.
00:11:07.880 But I am so glad you're here today.
00:11:09.700 I'm so glad you're here today.
00:11:11.260 And a market gets to hear you because you still can't find yourself to give credit to what
00:11:16.640 this guy's done.
00:11:17.500 Well, that's you're on whatever.
00:11:18.580 No, it has nothing to do with, OK, you know, is is the stuff he's done on the border good
00:11:23.960 or bad?
00:11:25.060 The bigger macro stuff overshadows it.
00:11:28.380 And when we end up with a total socialist Democrat in 2028 because of how horrible the
00:11:35.660 economy is, whatever good things were done are going to be erased by that.
00:11:39.860 I mean, the bigger picture is much broader than some of the things that he's done that
00:11:47.000 that are good.
00:11:47.880 And I've given him credit along the way for things that I thought he was right.
00:11:51.800 But the bigger picture stuff, the more important stuff is so wrong.
00:11:55.400 And again, for you to misunderstand the fact, the fact above security and safety.
00:11:59.960 I'm sorry.
00:12:00.640 How safe are we going to be?
00:12:02.340 What is above safety and secure?
00:12:03.840 12 to 15 million people came your last four years.
00:12:07.080 You don't live in America to know what that feels like.
00:12:12.140 You live in Puerto Rico.
00:12:13.540 Puerto Rico is part of America.
00:12:15.480 But it's not the same as living under the border.
00:12:17.960 It's not El Paso.
00:12:18.280 You don't know what the border is.
00:12:19.580 What do you mean?
00:12:20.520 We're a Spanish country.
00:12:21.940 What border do you have?
00:12:23.040 What border do you have?
00:12:24.340 We're an island, but I mean.
00:12:26.380 The average person sat in America last four years saying, what the hell is going on to
00:12:31.040 crime?
00:12:31.800 And you can't sit there and say, what happened to crime?
00:12:34.020 There is, listen, there is nothing we do if we're not safe.
00:12:38.580 Nothing.
00:12:39.120 The brain doesn't work if it's not safe.
00:12:41.100 If I can't breathe, I don't think about how the stock market is doing.
00:12:44.760 If I can't have oxygen right now, I don't say, hey, I'm about to die.
00:12:48.460 Can you tell me what Bitcoin's at?
00:12:49.980 Where's gold at?
00:12:50.580 Because I don't give a shit about oxygen.
00:12:52.240 We're safe for the first time in many years.
00:12:55.540 That's very important to the average American making $60,000, not to guys like us worth hundreds
00:13:01.240 of millions of dollars.
00:13:02.240 To us, we're going to be safe no matter what.
00:13:04.340 For me, it's if the average guy doesn't feel safe, that's got a wife, husband, kids that
00:13:08.520 are willing to go out and play in a regular public park, what the hell does America look
00:13:12.520 like?
00:13:13.300 I mean, you've got to give a little bit of credit what this guy's done for America
00:13:16.000 to be this safe.
00:13:16.680 This is what the average person looks at first.
00:13:18.940 It's not about where he gets credit.
00:13:20.240 And then comes everything else.
00:13:21.000 Look, if on the broader scheme of things, if I think the policies are wrong and we're headed
00:13:26.860 for an economic crisis that are going to get blamed on the Republican Party, they're
00:13:31.820 going to get blamed on capitalism.
00:13:33.320 They're going to get blamed on everything that people believe that Trump stands for.
00:13:37.320 But he doesn't.
00:13:38.660 And the problems predate Trump.
00:13:41.160 I mean, Trump was part of it when he was president during his first term.
00:13:44.460 But we have been kicking the can down the road for multiple administrations of both parties.
00:13:49.860 Everybody makes the problems worse and everybody hopes that it doesn't collapse on their watch.
00:13:54.900 Well, we're in very grave danger of it blowing up now under Trump's watch.
00:14:01.660 And the things that he's done that are positive are going to disappear beneath that problem.
00:14:07.060 Why, though?
00:14:08.060 Why, though?
00:14:08.940 Why?
00:14:09.340 Because when you're looking at a massive collapse in the dollar and consumer prices soaring like
00:14:16.460 we've never seen before in this country, when you're looking at widespread shortages and
00:14:21.140 empty shelves and rolling blackouts because the dollar has collapsed and we can no longer
00:14:26.180 afford to import all the goods that the rest of the world produces.
00:14:29.120 And when there's an economic boom that's taking place outside the United States in the emerging
00:14:34.020 markets because the world is no longer burdened with having to support the U.S. economy,
00:14:39.240 when the world can now consume what it produces and invest its savings domestically instead of
00:14:45.520 loaning its costs.
00:14:46.040 Explain to me why all these countries and companies said they're going to invest trillions of dollars
00:14:50.100 in America.
00:14:50.720 They said that because Donald Trump wants to hear that.
00:14:53.080 That's what you tell Donald Trump.
00:14:55.840 But wait a minute.
00:14:56.400 How come we've never seen that before?
00:14:58.360 What do you mean?
00:14:59.600 No, no.
00:14:59.940 This gets back to the whole reversal of Main Street versus Wall Street because when you
00:15:04.060 think about it, what has been the losers versus winners since the China productivity miracle?
00:15:09.840 What did we do?
00:15:10.560 We sent jobs and factories to China.
00:15:13.180 We brought consumer goods in here.
00:15:15.380 We sent them the dollars.
00:15:17.060 They take the dollars.
00:15:18.160 They reinvest them in our markets.
00:15:19.440 And that was the cycle that has broken down.
00:15:21.340 I think part of why we're seeing these companies that are moving to invest, and there's a couple
00:15:25.620 different CEO surveys that have come out and said exactly what you said, Patrick, which
00:15:28.900 is there's not only is it increasing, but the number of global CEOs looking to spend their
00:15:34.680 most, the biggest chunk of their global CapEx dollar in America.
00:15:38.100 America, if you are going to reverse the trade flows of the last 50 years, you have to reverse
00:15:45.120 the physical flows.
00:15:46.140 In other words, you need to bring some of the capacity back here.
00:15:49.760 You need to.
00:15:51.200 And yes, that's inflationary, and that's just going to be part of the price of admission.
00:15:55.440 Maybe some of that will be offset with productivity with AI.
00:15:57.740 Who knows?
00:15:58.180 I don't know.
00:15:59.880 But ultimately, I think that it's a hugely bullish thing for the U.S., and I think that's
00:16:05.900 part of the reason why you're seeing these companies say, all right, Trump came out and
00:16:10.500 said the old deal's off.
00:16:11.580 In every way, shape, or form, globalism's dead as it's been defined.
00:16:16.380 We heard that over and over.
00:16:17.480 Okay, then we're going to be more regionalist, and that means the United States is sort of
00:16:25.320 in the position of Europe after World War II, except we didn't get our factories bombed
00:16:29.800 out.
00:16:30.140 We got them shipped overseas by a trade deal.
00:16:33.180 What were growth rates in Europe after World War II from 1945 to 65?
00:16:37.420 They exploded higher.
00:16:39.000 Why did we?
00:16:41.060 This exporting of jobs going overseas, who started it?
00:16:44.680 Nixon.
00:16:44.960 Clinton, I mean, it was a 40-year trend, right?
00:16:49.860 When you really tie back to what triggered it, once the United States went off the gold
00:16:55.840 standard in 71, it triggered a set of incentives that basically, once we made the dollar, once
00:17:03.620 the dollar became the reserve currency rather than gold, we suddenly had to run the deficits
00:17:08.780 to supply the world the dollars, and to do that, we had to offshore this stuff to create
00:17:14.120 the deficits to supply the dollars.
00:17:16.200 And it sort of, look, it sort of worked for a time.
00:17:19.400 Nixon doing that.
00:17:20.060 We weren't exactly winning the Cold War in 1971.
00:17:22.300 No.
00:17:22.540 And so when we did that, that was a huge trump card that Kissinger played.
00:17:26.500 It was a case of, hey, the Soviets are beating us in a lot of ways.
00:17:31.460 They've got way more oil, way more materials.
00:17:34.000 But by playing that card and setting up the petrodollar, we were able to print dollars for
00:17:38.640 oil and commodities, which is easier than lifting it out of ground than the Soviets were
00:17:42.640 doing.
00:17:43.180 We win the Cold War.
00:17:44.360 In a perfect world, when the Berlin Wall came down in 89, we would have sat down, had another
00:17:49.520 monetary conference in 89, like a Bretton Woods, and said, okay, Berlin Wall comes down, and
00:17:55.320 here's the new world order.
00:17:56.620 We're going to meet, and we're going to say, here's what the monetary system is going to
00:17:59.700 look like.
00:18:00.040 Here's the new multinational organizations, or maybe we just continue them, right?
00:18:03.620 The IMF, WTU, so whatever we were, you know, UN, et cetera.
00:18:07.020 But we didn't do that.
00:18:08.360 Instead, in 89, we decided to pursue a unipolar moment in history, which is now clearly ending.
00:18:14.660 And it's in our interest to end it, by the way, because it has hollowed us out too much
00:18:20.000 in the direction.
00:18:20.820 But we now are completely dependent on that.
00:18:23.400 This is the question I've got, Peter.
00:18:23.420 I'm sorry.
00:18:23.900 Let me, let me, and I'm going to come to you.
00:18:26.540 My concern is the following.
00:18:28.120 Okay.
00:18:29.040 If I was in the White House when Nixon was, would we have gone off the gold standard?
00:18:34.020 I don't know.
00:18:34.980 Was that a good decision?
00:18:36.440 I don't know.
00:18:36.900 I'm 60% no.
00:18:38.120 Wasn't a good decision.
00:18:39.060 40%, I don't know, right?
00:18:40.820 But the triangular diplomacy, that we kind of look at it and say, guys, Soviet, if these
00:18:47.860 guys keep getting stronger, let's help China.
00:18:49.700 China moved up, whatever.
00:18:50.680 We helped them from number 10, number 11, number nine, to now number two.
00:18:54.740 And without, and now Russia has got a smaller GDP than Canada.
00:18:58.440 Canada's at 2.3.
00:18:59.920 I think Russia's at 2.1.
00:19:01.980 Some number like that.
00:19:02.800 So we destroyed.
00:19:03.780 I mean, essentially, we kind of brought them down and put them in their place.
00:19:06.500 But then we built China.
00:19:08.080 Now, finally, a guy comes in and is like, listen, guys, I'm sorry.
00:19:11.160 All these deals you guys have had with the previous presidents, we got to shake things
00:19:15.580 up.
00:19:16.040 That's a massive shakeup.
00:19:17.720 By the way, you know what's hard about that massive shakeup?
00:19:20.900 You know what's the chance of succeeding?
00:19:23.820 Do you know what's the chance of Trump succeeding with this massive shakeup?
00:19:27.240 It's not great.
00:19:27.680 It's not, it's not.
00:19:28.520 You know what my, what's your opinion?
00:19:29.760 What the, what the, I'll, I'll write my number down.
00:19:32.280 Hang on.
00:19:32.840 I'll write my number down.
00:19:33.720 I want to hear your thoughts.
00:19:34.640 Okay.
00:19:34.840 What do you think is the percentage of him being able to succeed?
00:19:37.460 Conceding that success might look different for you and me.
00:19:40.280 This shift is so monumental.
00:19:42.320 The shift of it going well, I would say it's under 50%.
00:19:46.700 I'm at 5%.
00:19:48.200 Yeah.
00:19:48.640 It's so hard.
00:19:49.720 It's very hard.
00:19:50.320 To do that.
00:19:50.740 But you know what the problem is for me?
00:19:52.900 So what do we do?
00:19:53.660 Don't do it.
00:19:54.300 Don't try it.
00:19:54.820 Well, and it's what you always have to look at what the other, what's the other side
00:19:57.820 if we don't do it, right?
00:19:58.760 You always want to, if we don't do it, we know what, where we're going, right?
00:20:02.880 Admiral Michael Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2011, has this
00:20:06.580 fascinating quote.
00:20:07.420 He said, the biggest threat to America is not our debt.
00:20:10.060 It's not weapons of mass destruction.
00:20:11.560 It's not terrorism.
00:20:12.340 It's not bioweapons.
00:20:14.340 It is, excuse me.
00:20:17.080 It's not bioweapons.
00:20:17.900 It's not terrorism.
00:20:18.720 It's our debt.
00:20:19.380 He said, we are borrowing money from China to build weapons to face down China using
00:20:25.140 components made in China.
00:20:27.200 The U.S. military for the last 15 years has been saying as loudly as they could, we cannot
00:20:34.600 source our own military without Chinese goods.
00:20:38.620 You are not a sovereign nation.
00:20:40.060 If you do not have a defense industrial base, you are not a sovereign nation.
00:20:43.700 It simply hasn't been marked to market yet.
00:20:45.860 And that started to be marked to market in COVID.
00:20:48.020 Remembering COVID, we're like, oh, we need all this PPE and mass.
00:20:51.080 And people look around and go, oh, it's all made in China.
00:20:53.880 And then in 2022, same kind of dynamic.
00:20:56.540 The head of the U.N. came out in, or excuse me, of NATO, Mark Rudy, came out in 2025, early
00:21:03.720 last year, said the Russians, with their small GDP, are outproducing the entirety of NATO,
00:21:08.780 including America, four to one.
00:21:10.960 Why?
00:21:11.500 Because they have an industrial base and we do not have a sufficient industrial base.
00:21:15.020 And so this is one of these national security questions.
00:21:18.440 This is last year.
00:21:19.040 What's that?
00:21:19.820 This is last year.
00:21:20.300 He said it last year.
00:21:21.040 Yeah, they got a little bit of a labor manufacturing balance because of the five-year Ukraine war,
00:21:26.340 too.
00:21:26.780 Yeah.
00:21:26.960 Oh, and they are, they, the.
00:21:29.580 You can't measure their percent of investment on defense right now because they have a hot
00:21:33.700 complex.
00:21:33.920 No, no, no, this is, no, this is, this is not, no, no, no, no, this isn't, this isn't percentage
00:21:37.340 goods.
00:21:37.800 This is total goods.
00:21:38.760 How many do the Russians produce?
00:21:40.140 How many do the Americans produce?
00:21:41.580 The Russians outproduce four more times of stuff, absolute numbers than the U.S. and the U.S.
00:21:47.520 can't produce it.
00:21:48.480 And we can't produce it without the Chinese.
00:21:50.080 So part of what we're watching Trump, I think the why is so important.
00:21:53.660 Anytime you're watching someone, anyone do anything, especially a Donald Trump.
00:21:57.860 And I think Donald Trump's why in doing this is the U.S. military's why in doing this, which
00:22:02.460 is if we go down this path, the U.S., the Chinese will make 100 percent of the U.S. military
00:22:08.220 in 100, in 10 years, in five years.
00:22:11.080 And at that point, the United States is no longer a sovereign country.
00:22:15.380 Full stop.
00:22:16.100 End of discussion.
00:22:16.940 What do you hear so often when people say, well, ultimately, the U.S. military backs the
00:22:20.080 dollar?
00:22:20.500 Well, if the Chinese make the military that backs the dollar, what do we have?
00:22:24.740 We have zero.
00:22:26.100 Yeah, you have to recognize, though, the fact that we relied on the dollar's reserve currency
00:22:31.820 status for decades, that allowed us to hollow out our manufacturing base and supplant it
00:22:39.680 with this service sector consumer credit-based economy that is harmful.
00:22:44.360 But we've been living beyond our means for decades as a result of this.
00:22:49.220 And yes, the sooner it ends, the better, because the longer it takes, the worse it's going to
00:22:55.380 be when we have to be confronted by reality.
00:22:58.680 But that is what is about to happen, not on our terms, on the world's terms.
00:23:04.660 They are going to move away from the U.S. dollar.
00:23:06.960 It's not going to be the reserve currency.
00:23:08.820 And so all of these, what you look at as virtuous things are going to reverse.
00:23:14.580 But the only way that we can prepare for a world where the dollar is no longer the reserve
00:23:20.900 currency and we cannot live beyond our means is to start now dramatically shrinking the
00:23:27.600 size of our government, which is incompatible with the economy that we need to build.
00:23:35.320 We need massive cuts to government spending.
00:23:37.620 Instead, we've had increase in government spending.
00:23:39.540 We need dramatic increases in personal savings, which means we need much higher interest rates
00:23:44.700 to encourage that so we can finance the investment.
00:23:47.940 And we actually need to get a handle on our debt.
00:23:50.880 I think we need to restructure it.
00:23:52.400 I think we actually need an organized default because we now have so much debt that we have
00:23:58.540 built up that if interest rates were allowed to rise to a level that would actually encourage
00:24:03.660 savings, the government would have to default anyway.
00:24:05.980 There is no way that we could service the debt that we have at the interest rates that
00:24:11.140 we need and that we will have in a post-U.S. dollar reserve currency world.
00:24:15.560 Because if Americans can only borrow to the extent that we save, we have very little savings
00:24:21.120 and everybody has massive debt.
00:24:22.780 So we have to have very high interest rates in this country, but we can't afford them.
00:24:26.920 And also, you know, you can't build products from strip malls.
00:24:30.980 We have a country that is built now to distribute imports.
00:24:34.840 Our biggest employers are like FedEx and UPS and Walmart and Amazon, right?
00:24:43.180 We don't build the stuff that we transport and that we consume.
00:24:48.200 And to do that is going to require significant investment in building factories and reconstituting
00:24:55.040 supply chains, in training workers.
00:24:57.500 This is a monumental task.
00:24:59.340 And everything we're doing right now is in the wrong direction.
00:25:02.260 I got it.
00:25:02.780 I got it.
00:25:03.220 I got it.
00:25:03.560 Okay, Rob, do you want to pull up the news that just came up with El Paso, why the reason
00:25:07.260 took place?
00:25:08.140 Did you guys see this or no?
00:25:09.120 No.
00:25:09.580 Did you get an alert?
00:25:11.020 Apparently, El Paso, the reason why they shut down the airport was because there were
00:25:17.660 drones flown over cartel drones.
00:25:21.920 And allegedly for that, Sky's Ryan International Airport would close several hours.
00:25:25.460 Wednesday, go a little bit low, Rob.
00:25:27.360 The FAA on Wednesday morning abruptly closed temporarily.
00:25:32.020 There's no threat to commercial aviation.
00:25:33.600 The agency said in a statement, all flights will resume as normal.
00:25:36.780 New York Times Wednesday reported that the shutdown was due to military testing of counter-uncrewed
00:25:42.180 aircraft technology at Fort Bliss.
00:25:44.640 Moments later, U.S. transportation, Sean Duffy acted swiftly to address a cartel drone in
00:25:50.400 insertion, adding that the threat has been neutralized.
00:25:56.100 Speaking at a news press conference, Wednesday reported Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso
00:26:00.560 and a U.S. representative, said Duffy's explanation does not align with the information that we
00:26:04.820 in Congress have been told.
00:26:06.380 Mexican President Sheinbaum has disputed the reason for shutdown, saying the country's
00:26:10.500 government has no knowledge of such insertion per the time.
00:26:15.100 So that's kind of the reports of both sides.
00:26:17.960 We still don't have a clue what the hell is going on.
00:26:20.400 Okay, Army seems to be fretting about their flights tomorrow.
00:26:22.840 Okay, there you go.
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00:27:15.380 Take care.
00:27:15.860 Talk to you more.
00:27:23.480 Thank you.
00:27:24.840 Thank you.