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


Transcript

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.