00:01:43.400Let me tell you about Ammo Squared real quick.
00:01:45.360If you're like me and you want to know you have ammo when you need it, and if you've ever gone through that stress of not being able to find ammo,
00:01:53.080maybe it's a certain caliber that's hard to find, and then when COVID happened, you couldn't get anything.
00:01:57.420And when you did find it, you were paying 5, 6, 7x over what you used to pay.
00:02:02.340Well, a lot of people learn from that, and I'm one of them.
00:02:05.220And now I know I've got ammo no matter what.
00:02:25.440My ammo is stored for free as it builds up, and it's shipped with the click of a button.
00:02:30.320Now, what happens if I buy one caliber, and then I get rid of that firearm, and I get a different caliber firearm, and I'm like, I don't need that ammo anymore?
00:02:37.480That's another thing you'll love about Ammo Squared.
00:03:31.040But when you lose the White House, you lose the Senate, and you thought you might be able to pick up the House Democrats, and you don't get that either.
00:03:41.660And the Republicans have a very secure apparatus around you.
00:03:46.840That's a really bad day for Democrats when they go back to Washington.
00:07:58.000So I will never be chairman of foreign relations because I have no seniority on the committee.
00:08:01.760And you're only allowed to accrue seniority on two A's and one B.
00:08:05.600But because I chose Judiciary and Commerce, that's why in this new Senate I will be the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation because I accrued enough seniority that I am now the most senior Republican on the Commerce Committee.
00:08:22.980And by the way, that is a huge damn deal.
00:08:25.900The Commerce Committee has jurisdiction.
00:08:28.220That's what I was going to ask you is people ask, they say, okay, they see chairmanship, and they're like, does that mean more TV time?
00:08:35.300Does that mean that you're a spokesman in a sense for the committee?
00:08:45.000And I'll confess, I didn't fully understand that until – all right, so for the last two years, I've been the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:08:55.080Now, what does it mean to be the ranking member?
00:08:56.640You're the senior Republican, but you're in the minority.
00:09:01.740So the last two years have been enormously consequential, and I'm about to be the chairman of the Commerce Committee because we're in the majority.
00:09:15.120So when you become the ranking member, which I did two years ago of the Commerce Committee, one of the consequences is your budget goes up dramatically.
00:09:23.140So to give a sense, as a senator from a large state, a state like Texas, I had for the first 10 years in the Senate about 65 staff members.
00:09:33.300So I have roughly 30 to 35 in D.C. and 30 to 35 in Texas.
00:09:49.120And then in Texas, I've got regional offices all over the state in the major cities, and I've got constituent service teams in Texas that help 30 million Texans.
00:09:58.140So if you're a veteran and you're dealing with the VA and you've got issues, you call into my constituent service team, and we help veterans.
00:10:06.800We help people whose passports have expired.
00:10:09.320We get people who are, like, getting ready to take a family vacation tomorrow, and they realize, oh, crap, my passport's expired, and we help them get a passport.
00:10:17.520So you, as a senator, and you get a little bit larger budget, a little bit larger staff if you're a large state, and Texas obviously is a large state.
00:10:27.700So for 10 years, I had, like I said, between 60 and 65 staff members.
00:10:33.120When I became the ranking member of the Commerce Committee, my staff expanded by about a third.
00:10:39.860So I have roughly 100 staff members now.
00:10:42.040So I have, I think, 38 staff members on the Commerce Committee.
00:10:45.200So it dramatically changes your effectiveness because, I mean, literally my D.C. staff more than doubled, and what it means is that I've got staff members now for every subcommittee on the Commerce Committee.
00:11:00.020So, for example, I've got on my team a railroad lawyer who is an expert in the law concerning railroads.
00:11:09.820I've got an expert on aviation because, look, the Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over aviation.
00:11:15.560It has jurisdiction over communications.
00:11:22.120It has jurisdiction over just a vast array.
00:11:25.040And I will say it is a force multiplier.
00:11:28.480When you have that team, you're able to engage on, you know, I would say 5X or 10X as many issues.
00:11:39.180Because every other member of the Commerce Committee, when I was on the Commerce Committee for 10 years, I had like one or two staffers that were on commerce.
00:11:46.340If you have one or two staffers versus 38, it just limits how deep you can dive into issues, how many things you can engage in.
00:11:55.260When you've got an expanded team, you can engage in oversight.
00:12:23.960Because it passes every year, it is often basically a Christmas tree where you will get dozens or even hundreds of other bills attached to it that have nothing to do with defense.
00:12:36.720And it's just a moving vehicle that people attach their bills.
00:12:39.760And that's where the pork – is that where the pork gets pulled in and that's where the abuse gets pulled in or no?
00:12:49.720Pork happens more in an appropriations bill and an omnibus bill, which is doing spending.
00:12:56.080But this is just a vehicle for different bills that are often good and reasonable ideas.
00:13:04.540And different people will attach them to a moving vehicle.
00:13:08.260But the way the Senate operates is any bill that is within the Commerce Committee jurisdiction cannot be attached to the NDAA or to anything else without the sign-off of the chairman, who's been Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington for the last two years, and the sign-off of the ranking member.
00:13:33.860If any other senator has any bill within our jurisdiction that they want to attach to a moving vehicle, they cannot do so without my sign-off.
00:13:44.320That gives an enormous amount of leverage.
00:13:47.420And so the last two years, like I passed a ton of legislation because, frankly, I used that leverage to say, hey, that's great.
00:14:00.020And so it gives you the ability, because you can shut anything down within the jurisdiction of your committee, it gives you the ability to negotiate some major victories for Texas, some major free market victories, some major victories for job creation.
00:14:17.700And so that was a huge shift, and I will say, when you become the chairman, okay, I've only been the incoming chairman for a couple days, so I don't really know.
00:14:30.820I will have much more of an assessment of that six months from now, but I think it is 5x, if not 10x, more consequential.
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00:15:09.760So the question is, for everybody listening, is, okay, what will get done because of this, right?
00:15:17.160This is part of the payoff of the election, getting the Senate to be in the majority with the Republicans.
00:15:22.400So paint the picture for people to understand, not only is this, yes, powerful, but what does this now mean that we can get done that maybe in the last Congress there was no chance in hell of certain things getting done?
00:15:34.920Yeah, so look, my number one priority in the Senate is jobs.
00:15:38.760I'm focused on jobs, jobs, jobs, economic growth.
00:15:47.180If you want jobs, the two most effective levers to produce jobs are tax reform and regulatory reform.
00:15:54.020That every time you reduce taxes, you simplify the tax code, you reduce and repeal job-killing regulations, small businesses expand, and you get more jobs.
00:16:04.600The Commerce Committee, as I said, has jurisdiction over 40% of the U.S. economy.
00:16:10.560So if you care about jobs, there are very few positions in Washington that have greater leverage, greater ability to impact jobs in the state of Texas than chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:16:39.880Because when you move spectrum to the private sector, it creates tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs, and it unleashes tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of investment.
00:16:59.120That is, if you care about jobs opening up spectrum for the private sector and the way the government does it, it has an auction for the spectrum.
00:17:07.900So you free up an area of spectrum, and then you have a public auction, and companies pay billions of dollars to the federal government to acquire a portion of spectrum and then to market something to consumers.
00:17:20.400And so it ends up being a massive area of investment and expansion of jobs.
00:17:28.640Another huge priority for me is artificial intelligence.
00:17:32.400The Democrats want to regulate the hell out of artificial intelligence.
00:17:35.420They want to create essentially a European-style prior approval system where any innovation in AI, you've got to go to the federal government first.
00:17:47.140It's an idea that is almost perfectly designed to ensure that America loses the battle for AI and we fall behind the rest of the world.
00:17:56.360Well, as chairman of the Commerce Committee, I'm not going to let that happen.
00:17:59.300I want to maintain a very light-touch regulatory environment where innovation is driven from the private sector because I think AI – and we'll talk about this more.
00:18:08.620We'll have additional podcasts that go deeper into AI, but I think AI has a potential, and in fact, I think it will be the same sort of transformational technology that the development of the Internet was 25 years ago.
00:18:23.440And in fact, several months ago, I wrote an op-ed with Phil Graham, former senator from Texas, and I did something that would surprise some people, but Phil and I together, we praised a Democrat president.
00:18:36.640So Bill Clinton was president during the really formation of the Internet, and Bill Clinton signed an executive order that was a very light-touch regulatory footprint on the Internet and the growth of it.
00:18:52.300And it allowed private companies to develop and innovate.
00:18:56.740And the consequence of that – so it's actually striking.
00:19:01.560In 1993, the economy of the United States of America was almost exactly the same size as the economy of the European Union.
00:19:27.900Today, the American economy is 50% larger than the EU.
00:19:34.900So we went from essentially 100% to 150%.
00:19:39.440The biggest driver of that is the rise of technology.
00:19:44.140You look at the Internet, virtually every major big tech company in the world is headquartered in the United States and is driving massive job creation.
00:19:51.860Now, big tech also has abuses, and I focused on that a lot.
00:19:54.940That's going to be a big focus of the Commerce Committee as well.
00:19:56.900But that job creation, that wealth creation, that innovation is hugely consequential.
00:20:03.180What Biden did, he entered an EO, an executive order on AI, that basically modeled what the European Union did.
00:20:11.940It was a heavy-handed government prior approval mechanism that I think if that stayed the law, it would cede leadership to the rest of the world,
00:20:22.600and we would fall behind China and the rest of the world in the development of AI.
00:20:26.740I think that would be catastrophic because AI is going to be every bit as transformative a technology as the Internet was, and I want America to lead that battle.
00:20:36.620And so that is a big, big consequence for the Commerce Committee.
00:20:41.560Two other areas I'll mention that are going to be huge priorities.
00:21:51.720I can decide what bills get marked up and what bills don't.
00:21:55.000And it gives you the ability to drive an agenda that is just qualitatively different.
00:21:59.860That's going to be a very interesting topic, especially my ears perk up as a former college athlete, because there does have to be a happy medium.
00:24:01.700When I get angry, I tweet in all caps because there was a list that was put out, and this list was such a joke because it had so many things that were wrong.
00:24:27.480There was a lot of them that were accurate, but that was like Captain Obvious accuracy.
00:24:31.400Like, of course, this person was going to vote for this one, X, Y, and Z.
00:24:35.080But the list itself, when you got down to it, was a list that I think was just put out there to rile up and anger conservatives feeling like, oh, they're already getting screwed after this election day.
00:24:46.860And they're not listening to conservative voters.
00:24:49.400They're not listening to MAGA supporters.
00:24:50.940They're not listening to Trump supporters.
00:24:52.700And at the end of the day, it was a lie.
00:29:16.660I know, I know some of the senators, some of the senators chose to say who they were voting for, but I'd say at least half the senators, I have no idea how they voted.
00:29:23.920They didn't say, they haven't publicly said.
00:29:25.940And, and there is a dynamic when you're dealing with a small enough group of people that you've got to, after the election, you've got to turn around and work not just with whoever won, but whoever lost.
00:29:37.400So I think that's some of the history.
00:29:39.580It's always, to the best of my knowledge, it has always been a secret ballot.
00:29:45.320And, and because of that dynamic and the other Senate leadership votes are, are secret ballot as well.
00:29:52.040And, and look, two years ago in 2022, we had the first contested leadership ballot, uh, in, in 16 years.
00:30:02.900And, and two years ago, Rick Scott challenged Mitch McConnell and I was the point of the spear.
00:30:09.380So the, the beginning of that battle two years ago, the very first thing that happened is I stood up and I made a motion to delay the election for a month.
00:30:20.080So we were voting, by the way, we did a great show on this.
00:30:24.460It's all coming back to me now that you can go back and listen to, because I think if I'm not mistaken, we did it like at two in the morning, um, after the voting had taken place.
00:30:33.680And you'd come out and told this story.
00:30:35.360I would encourage everybody, if you want to go back and listen to this episode, like you said, it's like two years ago.
00:30:40.740And it was a, it was a big fight then.
00:30:42.580And like you said, you were the one leading that, uh, the tip of the spear on it.
00:30:48.160It is always the week after the election.
00:30:50.560Now, by the way, Republican leadership does that because the people who vote are the senators who will be the senators for the next two years.
00:30:58.300So the brand new baby senators who were just elected, they vote.
00:31:02.100The senators who are retiring or leaving the Senate, they don't vote.
00:31:05.680Um, and, and part of the reason they do that is because they want the brand new baby senators not to know what they're doing, to be just in their basement office, not to know where the men's room is.
00:31:20.140And, and they don't want newly elected senators to rock the boat.
00:31:23.700It's, it's designed, it's actually a pretty cynical thing.
00:31:26.920It's designed not to, not to challenge the status quo.
00:31:30.240So two years ago, I made a motion, look, 2022 should have been a fantastic election for Republicans.
00:35:15.960You know, Thune and I, you know, used to – he works out every morning in the gym, and he's very fit.
00:35:26.760I would work out at the same time he was, and it was kind of embarrassing because he would lift a lot more weight than I could lift, and he would be like pumping iron.
00:35:34.800And it's sort of humbling to watch Thune because he's just – you know, he's a man in his early 60s who's in really good shape.
00:35:43.120Look, Thune – I was not surprised Thune won because he's very well-liked by his colleagues.
00:35:57.080He's not – he's – everyone likes him.
00:35:59.580It's just – I mentioned before the Senate is a little bit like a junior high.
00:36:05.640You know, Thune would win the class president election.
00:36:09.800It's – and a lot of it is the kind of small little personal dynamics that play out on that.
00:36:16.120But as I said, I was not surprised Thune won.
00:36:18.320I will say a lot of the Trump world was freaking out saying, oh, Thune hates Donald Trump, and he's going to oppose everything Trump wants to do.
00:36:27.000I think those concerns were overstated.
00:36:30.360Listen, John Thune is majority leader, and every senator is excited that we have a Republican White House, Republican Senate, Republican House, and we are really focused on delivering results and delivering on our promises to the voters.
00:36:46.300And so I think Thune, as leader, is going to focus on working very closely with President Trump to confirm his cabinet appointments, to move forward.
00:36:57.180Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Senate is going to be a rubber stamp for 100 percent of everything that comes from the White House.
00:37:05.440And it's not the Senate's job to be a rubber stamp for everything that comes from the White House.
00:37:09.900Because under the Constitution, the Senate is supposed to have a role, a role of nominations, advice and consent, a role of check and balance.
00:37:18.800But I can tell you the sort of folks – and I had multiple calls from Trump's team very worried, okay, is Thune going to fight us in everything we're doing?
00:37:28.780And I was like, okay, no, I – so today I had an hour-long meeting with Thune as the new majority leader and with all the committee chairs.
00:37:41.780And the entire meeting was talking about, okay, how are we going to move forward with tax reform, with extending the Trump tax cuts, with regulatory reform, with unleashing energy, with securing the border?
00:37:56.280How are we going to move the legislative agenda so we can deliver big, big wins in the next year?
00:38:04.800And that was the focus from Thune and every committee chairman.
00:38:25.780And I love that you explained it the way that you did because there were so many people that had questions and want to know how it went down and what happened.
00:38:32.760And I hope that answered a lot of those questions.
00:38:35.540If you've got a daughter, if you've got a granddaughter, you've got a son, a grandson, maybe they're 18, but they're not 21.
00:38:43.020Maybe they're at school right now, and they can't have a firearm.
00:38:46.360But you want to know they can protect themselves.
00:38:48.460Maybe you have a wife or a mother-in-law or a sister-in-law, and you say, I want them to be able to have something to protect themselves more than just pepper spray.
00:38:56.660Well, maybe they don't feel comfortable carrying a firearm yet, or maybe they can't carry a firearm where they work.
00:39:03.200That is where a company comes in that can help you tremendously.
00:41:14.040A Texas man was arrested on Thursday after he attempted to support ISIS and plan a terrorist attack on American soil,
00:41:24.640and all of this happened in Houston, Texas.
00:41:28.180It's a 28-year-old by the name of Anas Saeed,
00:41:31.820and he was searching for ways to commit violent acts on behalf of the Islamic State in Houston.
00:41:37.320He's been charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group.
00:41:42.800He was arrested at his apartment complex, and he said while in custody, he admitted to researching how to conduct an attack on local military recruiting centers.
00:41:56.600He offered his home as a sanctuary for ISIS operatives.
00:41:59.860He bragged that he would commit a 9-11-style attack if he had the resources, and he was attempting to produce ISIS propaganda.
00:42:07.280And this is a very dangerous world, and I will say it has gotten only more dangerous after four years of weakness from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the White House.
00:42:20.800I am glad that this alleged terrorist was arrested, that a terrorist attack was stopped,
00:42:26.940and I think it is critically important going forward that we be vigorous.
00:42:32.680We've talked a lot of this podcast about my belief that we are at a greater risk of a major terrorist attack today than we've been any time since 9-11.
00:42:43.960And this arrest this week just underscores that risk.
00:42:47.240Yeah, and this is the reason why it was such an election-year issue.
00:42:51.500And again, this is good news that the person was caught, but it's also concerning to see this happening after an Afghan man in Oklahoma plotted an Election Day terror attack in the U.S.
00:43:01.520on behalf of ISIS, the Justice Department saying that as well.
00:43:04.480So we're seeing more of these headlines.
00:43:06.640Let's hope we keep getting them before they're able to act.
00:43:09.580Don't forget we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:43:12.100Hit that subscribe or auto-download button so you do not miss an episode.
00:43:17.220And also, grab my podcast on those in-between days, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:43:21.740I'll keep you updated on the latest breaking news there as well.
00:43:24.680And the senator and I will see you back here on Saturday for our Week in Review.