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this speaker is not on the program not on the program but I did notice there was a little bit of security here
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today little extra security this is your saxs red meat moment yes all right here
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we go little red meat for Sachs uh please welcome me in joining vice presidential candidate jie
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Vance let your winners ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to the fans and they've just gone crazy
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[Music] with hey guys man good to see you man how you doing time all right see you hey
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guys welcome so Zach is GNA introduce you welcome to the Lions who who's here with us Z well do we do we actually need
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a a big introduction here but I'll I'll give you I'll give a few um those of you
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who are really bad at context clues I'm JD Vance I'm running for vice president and normally he's he's beside
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his wife Usha but now you get that's right she's at like the tarpits or whatever yeah yeah oh yeah we brought a
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three kids out here so she wanted to take and see some fossil stuff so they'll have fun good I'll say a couple
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of things about JD because um he's a friend I think what what I think um really made me want to support JD for
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for Senate and also for the VP position is that I think he represents two you could almost say
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contradictions uh back in 2003 when JD graduated from high school uh you know this was after the Twin Towers had come
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down and we gotten involved in the Iraq War he was gung-ho to go fight America's
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enemies and he enlisted in the Marine Corps and went off uh to serve in in the Middle East eventually he came to
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realize that that war was a mistake and I thought that really represents uh one of the traits
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that we really want in in a vice president or someone next to the president uh which is that he had the
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patriotism and the courage to go serve America but also the wisdom to realize when America shouldn't get involved in a
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war so I want to [Applause] just the the other uh like I said almost contradiction that JD represents is that
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he had worked in the tech industry he had been a a venture capitalist he had been in rooms like this and he
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understands what it takes to make America a more Innovative place at the same time he comes from a part of the
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the Midwest Appalachia that's a very poor part of the country and did not grow up in a privileged uh environment
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at all and he still remembers those people and he represents those people and I think his ability to understand
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both parts of the country makes him uh I'd say a pretty unique political figure so with that let me stop and do you want
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to react to any of that uh well you know first of all thanks to all for having me
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I've been a big fan of the Pod for a while I think my first appearance so it's good to be with you you know I the
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only thing I'll say to that David is I I do think there is a deep connection between the the poverty that I saw
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growing up and the fact that our entire economy is just less Innovative than we pretend that it is and you know I know
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you know Peter teal and Tyler K other folks have talked about this but if you look at the real innovation of the
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American economy it's been in the world of software if you look at where the economy has been most stagnant it's been
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in basically the heavily regulated parts of the economy which is where 90% of the
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people that I represent in the Senate and 80% of the people that I hope to represent as their vice president
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actually make their living run their business and go to work every single day and I think that you know when I think
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about tech one of the things I'd like us to do is broaden the aperture a little bit and think about innovation not just
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in software but innovation in transportation and Logistics and Innovation uh in energy and the whole
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Suite of things because unless our economy is actually technologically Innovative then the stagnant economy is
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is fundamentally like the worst thing and I think a lot of actually America's pathologies right now stem from the fact
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that we feel like we live in a very zero some country because in some ways we do
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right when when when the econom is growing four 5 6% a year then Democrats can kind of get what they want
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Republicans kind can kind of get what they want and it all makes sense if the economy is growing between 0er and 1% a
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year then I think it makes the whole society and our political system a much much much more insane and I think it's
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kind of a subtext of what's been going on in this country for the last 30 years um let me start by going back a little
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bit I think three of us um initially would have been described sort of like you know non-trump people yeah um and in
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different ways and shapes and form we were all V about it because of what was presented to us through the filter of
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the media and we've all gone through an evolution in large part by meeting the person and this is the first time
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actually where a presidential candidate I've known and I've kind of known a vice
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presidental candidate in this case as well get try you know they try to Corner you and paint you in a certain way can
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you just talk about what you realized and the person that you got to know and what it says about what we need to do so
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that we don't get manipulated yeah so first of all when Biden was running against Trump one of the things the
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media tried to do is to say well you know you have these two guys who are a little bit older than average and both
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of them clearly aren't fully with it and I would hear the media talk about Biden
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like this and then talk about Trump like this and it's like guys Donald Trump remembers exactly what I said about him
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n and a half years ago to the minute to the day to the exact line like trust me his memory is 100% there uh even if it
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would be in more more in my interest if it wasn't and you know what what what changed for me I mean two things I mean
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one Chim you just sort of hit on this is a lot of the things the Press said about
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Donald Trump and says about Donald Trump are just straight up Fabrications and so
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if you think the Press is like biased that's one thing but if you think the Press is fundamentally trying to tell
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you the truth even if it's in a bias way and then you realize that like Donald Trump never called white supremacist
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very fine people after Charlottesville a total fabrication of the American Media
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it's like okay what other things am I hearing about Donald Trump that are actually not true right the second thing
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is you know and we talked about this a little bit last night but look if you go back to the date of my or the year of my
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birth which is 1984 there's this chart that's really interesting and it tracks corporate profits the wages of workers
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and the size of government and for pretty much my entire life the wages of workers were stagnant corporate profits
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were going up and the size of government was going up and there was a 4-year period where the wages of workers
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outpace the size of government corporate profits it's the four years that Trump was president and I think that we have
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to like give some credit to where it's due the policies actually work and if you go into the presidency
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saying I don't think Donald Trump's going to be a good president and then lo and behold he's the best president at
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least in a generation it's like okay time to change my mind admit to myself but also to all the people who listen to
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me I was wrong about Donald Trump he was a hell of a good president of course I'm
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running as his running mate I think he'll do it again let's flip it around now what what does it say about him that
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he I mean how's that process of saying JD you said this yes I did I changed my mind I then but then he has to change
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his mind so that says something so talk us about that you know I think the the president one thing I'll say about him
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is the again the media perception of Donald Trump is that he's like this deeply AG grieved guy who holds really
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terrible grudges the actual reality of Donald Trump is that yeah he remembers what you said about him because it's
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like part of the inputs that he takes as he tries to evaluate a human being but most most importantly he's asking like
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what what can you do now how can you help the country now how can you help me as I try to help the country now and I
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think for whatever complicated set of factors he decided that I was the guy who could help him the most um but no I
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mean it's it's it is interesting the perception of him as this guy who holds grudges he selected a guy who was very
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much a Critic of his back in 2015 as his running mate clearly something doesn't make sense and I think that what doesn't
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make sense is this idea that Trump is more motivated by grievance than he is by the public interest he's actually
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much more motivated by the public interest that's the truth that's awesome you're um thanks for coming of course um
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you're going to replace um Mike Pence uh as I hope so yeah as uh GNA be a close election but um if you
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do um Mike Pence um your new boss Trump is a little upset at Mike Pence because Mike Pence refused to uh overturn in the
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election results and um if you were in that same position what would you do would you have overturned
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the election results well I think it's let me take itue with the premise a little bit Jason because I don't think
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the argument was Mike Pence could overturn the election results I think the argument was that Mike Pence could
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have done more whether you agree or disagree Mike Pence could have done more to sort of surface some of the problems
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in the election would you have not certified the El well I I think that what I would have done I mean look I I I
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happen to think that there were issues back in 2020 particularly in Pennsylvania even you know some of the
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courts that refused to throw out certified ballots did say that there were ballots that were cast in an
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illegal way they just refused to actually decertify the election results in Pennsylvania do I think that we could
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have had a much more rational conversation about how to ensure that only legal ballots are cast yes and do I
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think that Mike Pence could have played a better role yes but I again the the the two premises that I take issue one
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is one pence was not asked to overturn the election he couldn't have but two the reason asked to not certify
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it sure so would you have certified it last year for the third again I would have asked the states to submit
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alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an
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election that we have states to be clear I would have asked the states to submit
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alternative slate to that's that's what I would have done again I've said that publicly many times but again Jason the
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important part is we would have had a big debate and it doesn't necessarily mean the results would have been any
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different different but we at least would have had the debate in Pennsylvania and Georgia about how to
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better have a rational election system where legal ballots are cast and again I I you know look I have no personal
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problem with Mike Pence I've never really talked to him um but I think that the idea that the reason Mike Pence
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isn't on board with Donald Trump is over the election of 2020 that's the other thing I want to take issue with Jason
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because I think in reality that if Donald Trump wanted to start a nuclear war with Russia Mike Pence would be at
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the front of the line endorsing him right now and fundamentally the reason the old guard of the Republican party
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hates Donald Trump it's not because of January the 6 2021 whatever your views on it it's because Donald Trump doesn't
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think that we should start stupid Wars in foreign countries and that's why they all hate
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him can I I have a fall on that let me continue my line of questioning then I'll give it to you because I want to
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hear JD's since he's here I've heard yours many times um so uh how many how many followups how many follows are you
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going to have about January 6 we 2 minutes talking about I want to hear David especially if he gets me out of
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answering so I think we've you've had like three follow-ups on on J first of all freeberg
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you never got a chance to ask your question I want to talk about let's let's talk about January 6 for the next
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45 minutes I'm sure the most important thing going on in the country right now can we talk about policy for a minute
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that'd be great okay I'd love that I I'll just I'll just reflect back on your comment about government growth compared
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to wage growth compared to corporate profits there's only so much Capital it gets sucked up somewhere right there's
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competing interests that suck Su it up the government is a competing interest that sucks up Capital fundamentally the
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government has been successful in sucking up capital and ultimately the government has been proven time and
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again to be the least efficient way to grow the economy of allocating capital allocators or labor and um Trump has
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made this commentary that Elon who's going to be here later today should come in and help rightsize the government
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you've now you've now spent a few years as a senator this is my most distressing
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issue right of all the panic attacks I have that Jason teases me about it's government spending the debt level and
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ultimately you reach a Tipping Point I believe in democracies where the government is
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spending uh most more people are dependent on the government than are not and that ultimately leads to a very bad
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outcome for democracy that's how I feel and So based on what you've seen as a senator now for the last few years and
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based on the commentary that Elon where where would you go in you know cut where
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where's the most kind of efficiency gaining opportunity that we can kind of execute against without needing to go
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and negotiate with Congress what's the opportunity ahead for the executive branch to rightsize government to make
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things more efficient to hold things accountable to improve the way that the government is functioning which I think
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ultimately leads to better economic growth and opportunity for Innovation because Capital flows to the right
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places so I agree with you and let me just say let me say two things and I'll try to answer briefly because I know
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there are a lot of topics that we can get through so so number one is one of the things that our government should do
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obviously I think it should be doing less than it currently does but what it does I want it to do well
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and most importantly I want the critical social welfare functions of our government to go to the people who
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actually deserve to be here so as United State Senator I have asked multiple staff members I've asked officials in
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various government departments if you take the give or take 25 million illegal aliens that are here in this country
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right now how much money do we spend on illegal aliens every single year in this
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country and I've gotten estimates that range between a100 billion a year to $600 billion a year and where does that
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money come from well it comes from Healthcare benefits even though illegal aliens aren't entitled to section 8
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housing their children are entitled to section 8 housing there's also a lot of Social Security fraud a lot of Medicare
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fraud so one thing that we could save a lot of money on is actually focusing our
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national interest on American citizens people who deserve to be here we'd save a lot of money that way that'd be a huge
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7.3 trillion budget what do you estimate that impact to be well again and I'm trying to do that scene in the movie
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Dave they go in and they just like line up like nope no or like no pulled everything off the board if you call it
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a $ 1.7 trillion deficit right uh again it's between $100 billion to $600 billion depending on how you cut the
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numbers now the the other thing about that just to answer your question about efficiency is I think the government
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procurement process especially in military equipment is really broken uh if you go back to Eisenhower's warning
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about the military industrial complex I mean I I was a seed investor in andil I imagine you guys have some andil people
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here today um great lucky here great yeah great great chat you know one of the things that that company as as I as
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you know I haven't talked to to the guys about the details of their business in the LA in the last few years but one of
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the things that they founded the company on was the idea that the procurement process was broken and that is
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definitely true in the you know we do way too much cost plus procurement and way too little actual spurring of
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innovation and what it ends up meaning is that our equipment isn't as good as it should be and we end up spending a
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lot more money than we should be I actually do think you could cut the American defense budget and make our
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country stronger but you would have to make the procurement process much more efficient now that's a big thing to
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tackle but that's what we're in this business do you pass legislation to do that I don't know that you have to pass
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legislation but you really as a president and vice president you have to be willing to take on some very powerful
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defense contractors and that's something that I know president Trump and I very much want to do and how would you like
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your role as vice president to be cast differentially from how other vice presidents have have operated what would
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your role as an individual be just speaking about I want to do all of the good things and none of the bad things
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that's my goal as as vice president that's so the ribbon cuttings of the new federal like I mean look I mean
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obviously joking but the the reality is that I I want to be a second set of eyes
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and ears for the president's agenda right one of the things that was true and he will tell you this the first time
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he was he was President of the United States is there were people in government there were people in his own
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Administration that he was a newcomer to politics he didn't fully trust everybody
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who was around him we want to build a team who's actually aligned on the agenda because agree or disagree with
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Donald Trump on a specific policy issue assuming the American people make him the next president pres and I think that
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they will that is the next president and his policy determinations should dictate
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the executive administration of government if they don't we don't have a real democracy and by the way just not
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to weigh back into January 6 territory like what is a bigger threat to American democracy is it that we had a big fight
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about some of the uh some of the certification in January the 6 and of course you had some riers at the capital
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or is it that for example The Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't obey the president of the United States on Troop
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redeployment in Syria which actually happened during Trump's Administration like if we're going to talk about
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threats to democracy we need the government to be responsive to the American people's elected president if
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you don't have that you don't have a real democracy how [Applause] much a lot of this if you design it in
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one way has to go through Congress which as we know is sclerotic and mayic nothing can happen and then the other
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path is for you guys to go ham a little bit and say okay what can we do with executive order have you had a chance to
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discuss if you win repositioning the focus as basically that what is the totality of everything
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that we can do from the White House from the oval and then getting all of these and the other thing that we should talk
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about at some point is like it's like a Avengers movie now at this point you Bobby Kennedy Elon Trump so
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but I don't the Justice League the Justice League I I don't know which character in that Justice League I am no
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but but the point is like you know have you had that discussion about like all right folks let's not wait for Congress
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and get a plan ready starting day one of all the stuff that can happen through EOS or how are you thinking about this
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well at a high level certainly you know I'm I'm one of the co-chairs of the transition team there are a few others
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of us who are working on it you to sort of think about I mean look the way the founders set up our government whether
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you like it or not there are certain things especially when it comes to budget and Appropriations you just have
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to go through Congress right you fundamentally have to now I I do think that the Congress is willing to work
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with us at least you know the first couple of years of an Administration you can largely get the budgetary and
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Appropriations things that you need but there's a lot that you can do through EO
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and by the way in a lot of ways I think the enlargement of the president at the expense of Congress is a bad thing but
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fundamentally there is a lot that happens in our government purely through executive orders through EOS and yes
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we're thinking very deliberatively about all the things that you could do through
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EOS on day one or in the early parts of the administration and again not to make
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this too partisan but one of the ways that that um that Biden and Harris opened up the American southern border
00:19:03
was through executive orders right it was an executive order that suspended deportations an executive order that
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ended the remain of Mexico policy so you can screw up a lot through EOS you can also fix a lot through EOS which is
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certainly Something That We're focused on let me um uh go in a different direction just in the last couple of
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days um Dick Cheney endorsed KLA Harris for president and that endorsement was warmly embraced by by KLA Harris and the
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Democrats the same people called him a war criminal like three years ago yeah well yeah I'm old enough to remember
00:19:35
back in 2008 uh Obama first beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary because he had opposed the Iraq War and
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she had supported it and then he got elected president the United States and the whole country seemed to recognize
00:19:47
that the Iraq War had been a disaster it destabilized Middle East it you know I don't need to go through all the
00:19:52
litanies of of horribles that that happened from it but there seems to be a widespread recognition and like you're
00:19:58
saying Di was kind of demonized as this um like the Darth Vader Prince of Darkness type figure which I think
00:20:05
basically was right I mean he was the principal architect of of the Iraq War and now I find myself agreeing with
00:20:10
everything the Democrats said in 2008 about right total coincidence on a separate track a few weeks ago we had
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Bobby Kennedy endorse uh Donald Trump so you now have a dynamic where the bush Republicans are now Harris Democrats and
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the Kennedy Democrats are now Trump Republicans clearly something big is happening in our politics here can you
00:20:34
explain this realignment how do you see it yeah I mean look uh one way think about it is that we traded Dick Cheney
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for Bobby Kennedy and that's an upgrade I'll take every single day right look I mean one way of
00:20:49
understanding is you have to ask yourself who is benefited and who is harmed from the last 30 years of the
00:20:55
bipartisan consistence in this country right so um you want to talk about a manufacturing policy that I think
00:21:00
promoted the offshoring of millions of good American manufacturing jobs and in the in the process by the way made made
00:21:06
us less self-reliant as a country uh that really benefited people like Dick Cheney and kamla Harris and their donors
00:21:13
it didn't benefit the people that I serve in the state of Ohio okay uh if you ask yourself who actually went off
00:21:18
and fought these ridiculous Wars it was very often working in Middle Class kids in communities like mine it wasn't the
00:21:24
family of our current leadership class by and large though of course they're exception
00:21:29
and you go through each of these issues and what you find is increasingly Republicans are the party of working in
00:21:34
Middle Class people you know Bobby Kennedy has talked about this a lot and I think he puts it better than I ever
00:21:39
could but that you know you go back even 30 years ago and Approximately 80% of the counties that represent sorry 80% of
00:21:47
the wealth in American counties went in places that voted Republican and about 20% of the wealth went to places that
00:21:54
voted Democrat now it's 70% of the wealth goes for Democrat and about 30% of the wealth goes for republicans and
00:22:01
you saw this in a big way I mean just one illustration is I believe that in 2012 Wall Street which I think Wall
00:22:07
Street fundamentally has been the main beneficiary of globalization of of a lot of the policies that I I pushed back
00:22:12
against and criticize over the last 30 years Wall Street went 3 to one for Romney over Obama in 2012 I believe they
00:22:19
went 4 to one for um for Clinton over Trump in 2016 and then like nine to one for Biden over Trump in 201 20 so there
00:22:29
was a massive shift in who makes up these parties wealthy people direct their money to Democrats is what incre
00:22:35
increasingly wealthy people direct their money to Democrats working in Middle Class People direct their money to
00:22:40
Republicans why do you think that is j i i i again because I think their policies
00:22:43
have benefited look the the the unip party the kamla harrises and Dick Cheney their parties have benefited a certain
00:22:50
group of people those people are increasingly Democrats uh Donald Trump has been pushing back against that
00:22:55
consensus in his party in his policies I think benefit the majority of the country so increasingly I think the
00:23:00
working middle class heart of the country is going for Republicans like another another spin on this cuz I know
00:23:05
we're you know focused on Tech in this conference is Big Tech has become increasingly pro-democrat little Tech
00:23:11
has become increasingly Pro Republican right so if you're an upstart if you're in crypto if you're if you're like a
00:23:16
small AI company I think you're much more likely to be pro- Republican if you're a monopolist in big Tech I mean
00:23:22
look at Facebook Google how they're how they're how they're putting their resources it's much much more Pro
00:23:28
Democrats so there are a lot of different spins on it but fundamentally I think the people who've benefited from
00:23:33
the American decline are becoming Democrats the people who have suffered from it and are pushing back against it
00:23:39
their Republicans I have a followup question on that JD which is um you were a venture capitalist uh for a period and
00:23:46
Lena Khan has essentially taken m&a off the table um you well know that if we can't get those singles and doubles in
00:23:53
the industry um it kind of freezes the industry and we have a problem with returns which then is having creating a
00:24:00
a secondary order problem where we can't get LPS to put more money into funds because we're not getting those returns
00:24:06
what's the proper way to look at m&a because you're you want to break up big Tech from what I understand and you have
00:24:12
a major problem with big Tech you mentioned little Tech what's the proper m&a architecture you know to to balance
00:24:21
those two uh goals there yeah so this is obviously very complicated like Jason you probably understand this better than
00:24:26
I do but as as Somebody by the way who's defended Lena Khan against some of her critics from the right I think what Lena
00:24:33
Khan fundamentally gets correct is that big Tech really is a threat it's a threat to free speech it's increasing
00:24:39
oligarchic it controls too much of what we're allowed to say and also it controls a lot of the ways in which
00:24:44
capital gets invested in these various ecosystems but where I think Len lenon goes wrong is that you're exactly right
00:24:51
like you need the singles and doubles you need sometimes a medium-sized company to buy a smaller company for 300
00:24:58
millon right that liquidates Founders that gives the Venture fund some money to go
00:25:02
back into the system and I think that you know not I don't know her super well but my basic read on Lena is that she is
00:25:09
so anti-monopoly as sort of a baseline bias and anti that becomes anti-g and acquisition as a baseline bias that
00:25:17
Google buying YouTube is a much much different thing from a$2 billion market cap Healthcare company buying a $500
00:25:23
million Market healthare company and I think that we have to sort of draw a very big distinction between little
00:25:28
little Tech and big Tech and look I'm going to keep on making that argument both in public and private to Lena and
00:25:33
hopefully she comes around to rvw a little bit because I do think some of her ideas on big Tech are right I think
00:25:37
a good place for us to Pivot would be the border and just talking about this issue more from first principles when
00:25:43
President Trump came on the podcast we talked about hey maybe really talented people we should recruit them to our
00:25:50
country and give them green cards um but very quickly um your group walked that back a bit it's such a political hot
00:25:58
potato and it doesn't seem to me that it needs to be but you spent a lot of time
00:26:01
in government now why can't politicians just do what 80% of the country wants which is allow very talented people into
00:26:10
the country close the border and make it like a a more point-based system like Canada Australia and everybody else like
00:26:18
why is this so weaponized by both of your parties well I think the reason why it's so difficult right now and I mean
00:26:25
look generally I agree that okay we're going to let some immigrants in we want them to be high Talent high quality
00:26:31
people you don't want to let a large number of illegal aliens in obviously that you know that that is that's
00:26:36
president Trump's view but I I think that the reason why it's so broken down right now is because you have 25 million
00:26:41
illegal aliens in this country and you like you can't fix what I would call the minor or sort of less important
00:26:48
immigration question until you fix the real problem and part of that goes back by the way to the way in which the
00:26:54
system got broken in the first place so Ronald Reagan of course great governor of California
00:26:58
a great president but Reagan did in 1986 a massive amnesty program where in some
00:27:04
ways he was trying to do exactly what you're talking about fix the problem of people who are already here make sure
00:27:09
that our immigration system is more proskill but also close down the border and what happened is we got all the
00:27:15
amnesty but we didn't get the closing down of the border and so in order to do anything I think meaningful on
00:27:21
immigration policy meaning legal immigration policy you've got to close down the border and establish some basic
00:27:27
order and and we go back to First principles here I I think that people who are generally I mean look this is
00:27:32
I'm sure a very diverse crowd and I'm sure there are a lot of immigrants In This Crowd legal immigrants uh hopefully
00:27:38
um I'm married to the daughter I'm married to the daughter of legal immigrants to this country and I of
00:27:43
course love not just my wife but the whole extended family I do think they've they brought a lot areal immigrants yeah
00:27:49
um and but but but here's the thing when you allow 25 million people into this country it breaks down the entire social
00:27:57
compact right so think about this okay you're down on your luck you lost your job you get unemployment insurance
00:28:02
you're really down on your luck you need food assistance from the federal government I believe as a conservative
00:28:08
that part of being in the same American Family whether your family's been here for a generation or 10 Generations is
00:28:14
that we support people who are down on the luck we don't want a cradle to grave welfare state but we want to support
00:28:19
people we don't want kids who are dying because of starvation because of no fault of their own we want to promote
00:28:25
some basic fairness and we want to help people out when times get tough but you can't do that if you extend that
00:28:32
generosity to tens of millions of people who can't even be here in in the first place and I think that what what kamla
00:28:38
Harris has done at the border it's not just bad economically it's not just bad for Public Safety she has eroded the
00:28:44
very foundation of the social contract in this country and we talk about division in our politics and kamla has
00:28:50
this ridiculous slogan we're not going back the reason why politics is so divided is because she has turned
00:28:56
American citizens against one another while she's placed theit the the interest of illegal aliens above
00:29:02
American citizens you want to turn the page and get back to Common American citizenship stop putting illegal aliens
00:29:08
to the front of the line of American citizens is the motivation do you do you believe the
00:29:17
motivation is endless empathy or is it as simple as we want new Democratic voters or is there a kind of not
00:29:29
publicly spoken about economic argument about bringing wages down having economic growth having new buyers in the
00:29:35
economy that there's some benefit despite the1 to 600 billion and I'll add another one guilt yeah it's the endless
00:29:42
empathy aspect yeah yeah I mean empathy is different than guilt it's all of these things right I mean so so let me
00:29:47
tell you a brief story and this goes back to my my changing my mind on Donald Trump I was probably it's probably 2017
00:29:53
2018 I was at a business conference and I happened to be seated next to one of the largest Hotel chain CEOs in America
00:29:59
and my wife was there and we talk about this as the Monopoly story because the guy is just going off maybe it had too
00:30:05
much to drink he's going off about how Donald Trump's immigration policies have for had forced him to raise the wages of
00:30:11
his workers and I was like oh that's an interesting fact like explain more about
00:30:15
this sir please I W understand and he said well because we can hire a lot of immigrants and frankly we can hire a lot
00:30:21
of legal immigrants under the table and we can't do that because there are fewer
00:30:25
legal immigrants so we have to pay our American citizen workers more money and I'm like oh that sounds pretty good
00:30:30
actually isn't that like what we want is for people to be earning higher wages for doing a good job so there's
00:30:36
definitely an economic piece of it but I also think I mean look this is this is chilled out a little bit partially
00:30:42
because we're in election year if KLA Harris won I think it would come back with a vengeance but think about all
00:30:46
these like ridiculous land acknowledgements right where people say well you know I want to acknowledge that
00:30:51
this be belonged to like this tribe before I was here and if you genuinely think that you have to acknowledge a
00:30:59
Native American tribe from 300 years ago then one attitude that comes along with
00:31:03
this is why can I control it all who comes into the country right I have no right there's this basic I think this is
00:31:09
the empathy it's the guilt it's sort of all these things but all structural Norms degrade exactly I I have no right
00:31:15
to say who comes into my community and I think again it's it's deranged but I think that's part of it I think the
00:31:21
economic piece of it is part of it it's certainly a vote argument I mean Democrats will say this of course
00:31:25
Republicans are accused of racism for just repeating what Democrats have said when somebody like Chuck Schumer says
00:31:32
well you know we're going to have an emerging Democratic majority because we're going to have all these new
00:31:36
immigrants and all the old Americans well they're going to vote for Republicans but we're going to replace
00:31:41
them with a bunch of new people who vote for Democrats it's like that's pretty sick but again if you call it out you're
00:31:46
somehow a racist even though Chuck Schumer is himself calling it out as if it were a good thing so I just want to
00:31:51
ask on a different topic now thank you for talking about the Border um can I just have one final on this topic okay
00:31:57
goad is um your plan is to deport tens of millions of these people tell us how that will happen practically how are you
00:32:05
going to take million of people put them in cuffs drag them out while people have
00:32:08
their cell phones out recording this or is that just Trump being Trump well Jason
00:32:14
it's I like it you like the balance in the podcast yeah I do I do though In fairness JD told me JD told me
00:32:28
ask the hard questions please I want to address them head on you did say that nothing's I think Jason should be on the
00:32:33
left and David should be on my right appropriately where am I he's been pulling me to the right I'll it's funny
00:32:40
he didn't have any of these hard questions for Reed Hoffman I don't know why SX Jason wait do you want me to leave
00:32:49
the left and go to the right I'm on the left right now but I could go right okay yeah I guess it
00:32:55
depends on perspective my perspective here but you know Jason if if the if the VC
00:33:00
thing doesn't work out you'd make a great panelist at CNN so back but I um no I by the way I love this and I like I
00:33:11
I genuinely think like this is what a person who wants to be your Vice President should actually do is answer
00:33:16
some tough question I do give you credit for that that you will face the hard question so back to the question tell me
00:33:21
about dragging millions of people out of the country Jason here here's why I find
00:33:24
this question a little off and I will answer it but it's like somebody who comes to me and
00:33:30
I'm like eating my lunch and they say look that sandwich is 10 times the size of your mouth how are you possibly going
00:33:35
to eat that whole sandwich and it's like well I'm going to take a first bite and
00:33:39
then I'm going to take a second bite and I'm going to take a third bite and eventually the problem's going to be
00:33:43
look you start out with the million people who are what we call criminal migrants people who have committed
00:33:49
violent crimes in some form or another get them out of our country yes handcuff those people and force them out of the
00:33:54
country but you also do other things simultaneously first of all you stop the bleeding right you undo KLA Harris's
00:34:01
policies that open the southern Border in the first place I've got a piece of legislation in the United States Senate
00:34:06
uh that we've got a lot of colleagues who have signed up for it which would tax remittances right because we know a
00:34:11
lot of people are earning money and then sending it back to Central America where
00:34:15
wherever they came from if you end that practice then you have a lot of people who go backck willingly I think you
00:34:19
ought to make it harder for people to hire illegal labor as opposed to American citizens you tick through these
00:34:25
things and I do think that you know that's the sandwich approach to this is you try to take it one step at a time
00:34:31
but the most important thing and I think the deportation Focus again it is important because we're eventually we
00:34:37
are going to deport people but the most important thing is to stop the bleeding you've got to stop the millions of
00:34:43
people flowing across the southern border every single year it happened because of KLA Harris's policies it's
00:34:48
going to stop when Donald Trump is President let me ask a national security question
00:34:53
yeah there's a lot of videos elon's gone down there Bobby Kennedy has gone down there you've gone down there sure and
00:35:00
the interdictions are not necessarily coming from countries in Central and South America anymore they're coming
00:35:05
from places in you know near around near Asia and a lot of places that you wouldn't normally think people coming
00:35:11
from Middle East Etc from a national security perspective what do we think is happening yeah why is that happening
00:35:18
yeah so well part of the reason it's happening is it's not Hondurans necessarily
00:35:23
it's it's Iranians it's it's people from you know all over Asia Africa look if if you look at
00:35:30
this that is the open door right so if you want to come to this country that is the open door and God knows why some of
00:35:35
them want to be here I mean you know given what's going on in the Middle East I do worry about military age males from
00:35:40
Iran coming into this country through the American southern border um but you know I actually asked a border patrol
00:35:46
agent about this uh on one of my visits and you know great guy was actually kind
00:35:52
of heartbroken because he signed up to protect his country and he's a relatively recent immigrant I could tell
00:35:57
that that by his accent this guy's like very nervous and very heartbroken about the fact that he can't do his job and he
00:36:02
told me this story and I you know I feel like an idiot in hindsight because he's
00:36:06
like we we have a guy who came in here I asked the guy like you why do you think
00:36:09
this guy's Iranian and he said well because he came through and he said that he was Mexican and I was like well
00:36:15
couldn't he have been Mexican he said well he didn't speak Spanish like oh that's a tell you knowy Mexico legal
00:36:20
alien doesn't speak Spanish that's that's probably a pretty significant tell but it it's it's happening because
00:36:25
this is what KLA Harris has done she's created this massive Gap in our national security and people are taking advantage
00:36:31
of it it's really not that surprising J let me just ask you um one more foreign policy question um on China so there's a
00:36:38
balancing act with China but the rhetoric is that's our enemy there's going to be a cold war the CH the the
00:36:45
the the structural relationship that the United States has with China is a very kind of codependent relationship they
00:36:52
buy our bonds I guess they're selling them off now uh we we buy a lot of product from them it allows us to go
00:36:57
into a Walmart and get you know $40 scooters for our kids or $20 scooters for our kids the technology industry is
00:37:05
deeply dependent on a supply chain coming from China there's a great commercial interdependency with China
00:37:10
they have historically been a very important partner to the United States in our economic prosperity and I know
00:37:16
the argument about hollowing out the middle class and so on because of moving everything offshore to China but you how
00:37:22
do we rip that Band-Aid off and not cause massive problems with INF how do we not um you know Drive the cost
00:37:31
of everything up by taring things that are coming in from China what's the the way forward with China is it necessarily
00:37:38
A deeply kind of divisive cold war or is there a path here that allows us to maintain a balanced trading relationship
00:37:46
and and kind of a peaceful transition with with China as they continue to to build up their kind of capabilities
00:37:52
economically and um with energy which I think is one of the biggest drivers for their success well so so there's a lot
00:37:57
there and let me try to sort of take a few pieces of it cuz I know we're relatively short on time so so number
00:38:02
one is the energy piece of it's is very important part of the way that you reshore American manufacturing is that
00:38:06
you open up American Energy it matters for crypto it matters for AI you've got to open up American energy or you're
00:38:12
never going to have whether it's the next generation of manufactured goods or the past Generations you've got to open
00:38:17
up American Energy okay that's number one number two is look I I don't want to go to war with China I think it would be
00:38:22
hugely destructive but I do think that we have to reshore more American manufacturing and you one of the weird
00:38:28
things about China if you think about past eras of developing nations right so go back to like when the UK was the most
00:38:35
advanced economy in the world and America was a developing Nation well one of the things that happened is that like
00:38:40
Capital was flowing from the UK into the United States right from the developed into the developing Nation what's really
00:38:47
weird about China is that it's like Americans borrow money from Chinese peasants to then buy the things the
00:38:54
Chinese peasants are making for us right so it's not just the the goods flow that's jacked up it's the capital flows
00:39:00
that are jacked up and I really think that the next you know Donald Trump is going to be the next president of United
00:39:05
States and this is something we're going to have to figure out is that you need to balance both the capital and the
00:39:09
goods flows okay I'm not saying we're going to have absolutely no trade with China but right now the relationship is
00:39:16
fundamentally that the Chinese have figured out they can create a massively powerful producer Society while America
00:39:23
becomes a weaker weaker consumerist society that is the broken nature of the relationship and I think rebalancing is
00:39:29
the right way to think about it but we have got to do it and I think we're way way behind the you maybe final question
00:39:34
but you said something which I thought was incredibly well said so I just want to repeat it when us growth is 1 and 2%
00:39:40
everybody's fighting exactly but when us growth is 4 to 5% everybody prospers yeah can you walk us through just how
00:39:46
you think about how we get that extra two or 300 basis points of growth and where you need to have less regulation
00:39:52
so that you can have more entrepreneurship or more regulation to kind of constrain folks how do you think
00:39:57
for that energy sector yeah I mean I I I really do think that we have to recognize that we have massively
00:40:06
overregulation Transportation over-regulated energy over-regulated home construction uh I don't know that
00:40:12
it's I don't know how easy it is to get another 300 bips of growth but I think you can get a lot more growth whether
00:40:18
it's 300 or 150 just by massively reducing the amount of regulatory burden in the real economy and again I I'm an
00:40:25
optimist I'm fundamentally an optimist on both you know crypto blockchain web 3 stuff but also on AI and you know the
00:40:34
way out of this may very well be to radically open up the way the technological innovation drives things
00:40:41
in the United States and and just on this point about China uh I don't know how much time we're we have I'll try to
00:40:47
be quick about this one of the things that Bob lik you need okay more about you all right well I'm a politician so
00:40:53
uh Buckle in we're going to be here for three hours L but um one of the real conceits of the 30
00:41:01
years of globalization that I think was really really deranged and hindsight very wrong Bob leiser who is Trump's
00:41:06
trade representative talks a lot about this is we had this conceit that we could separate the manufacturer of
00:41:12
things from the design of things right so if you get an iPhone right now and you get it out of the box you will see
00:41:17
that it says designed in Cupertino California of course the implication is that it's manufactured in chinen or
00:41:23
wherever they're manufacturing iPhones these days that that the idea that the iPhone designed in Cupertino is
00:41:29
increasingly no longer even true right it's something that we lie to ourselves about because the people who are doing
00:41:34
all the manufacturing of the hardware of the iPhone are getting much better at design and Innovation and part of the
00:41:40
reason why I care so much about this manufacturing thing is whether it's antibiotics for example why why haven't
00:41:45
why hasn't America invented an antibiotic in 30 years it probably has something to do with the manufacturer of
00:41:49
antibiotics has done almost entirely in very lowcost manufacturing areas you can
00:41:54
go through a whole host of goods like this but if you want to build a high tech High Dynamic growth economy you
00:42:02
have to have some native manufacturing and some self-reliance and so these two things are very related and I think it's
00:42:10
a big part of getting back to four or 5% growth is accepting that yes we're going
00:42:14
to have trade but we can't let everybody make all of our stuff SX yeah let me a question for you yeah
00:42:20
well I want to I want to wrap this up because I think we're we're basically at Time by um by just observing that both
00:42:28
Donald Trump and JD Vance have been on this podcast and it's not because I'm a crazy right-winger it's because we
00:42:35
invited them just because not just because um it's it's because we invited them and
00:42:42
they accepted we have similarly invited KLA Harris and Tim Waltz to and before that but he
00:42:53
forgot so we're We're still wai he said yes forgot he lost the he lost the zoom link so we we want to re to be on this
00:43:03
call yeah we want to re extend the invitation yes to KLA Harris and Tim Waltz you're welcome to come on the
00:43:10
podcast at any time and the format will be similar yeah and I just want to say JD I think your answers were fantastic
00:43:16
here today and I I really do appreciate you coming on and answering these questions very thoughtfully and you know
00:43:22
from my perspective when I heard that you were announced as the VP I thought well this is great a young person um
00:43:28
who's got a lot of experience in venture capital and Building Things in the world
00:43:33
and somebody who comes from humble beginnings like the four of us um and believes that a meritocracy where people
00:43:39
work hard and get reward for it so you check all my boxes in that way and I really think I feel much better you know
00:43:47
have my issues with your boss but um when you talk about you know the bite-size you know steps to it you know
00:43:56
I think one frame work to look at your relationship with Trump is he says things you know at the top of the the
00:44:01
highest vibration we're going to deport 20 million people and then you have a very practical approach 60% tffs makes
00:44:06
no sense but hey we've got to rebalance this and so I really do like your measured approach to this and I think
00:44:11
that you're a great counterbalance and I think we understand why he picked it I I
00:44:14
want to say one thing um thanks and this is not really related to anything except that you are not
00:44:26
supposed to be here that's exactly right yeah and that is really inspiring to other people who were not supposed to be
00:44:33
here thank you well yeah I appr and if you haven't read JD's book I read your book long before all of this and I just
00:44:40
want to say your book was so inspiring and I I have recommended it long before today to you know literally hundreds of
00:44:47
people it's a fantastic read if you haven't read it well and by the way available wherever books are
00:44:53
sold you're like Jak out exactly do you have an affiliate 529 account for the kids let I just just just two things
00:45:03
first of all Jason I I appreciate what you said but I also just want to defend uh my my running mate here because I
00:45:09
think that again the media doesn't often tell you the truth about Donald Trump Donald Trump cares more about the
00:45:14
details of public policy than almost anyone I've ever met in public life that's actually real he thinks about how
00:45:20
this stuff affects the real economy and Real Americans so if you're on the fence
00:45:25
whether you like what I said or dislike what I said I just encourage you listen to what he actually says because I think
00:45:30
that you'll become a believer that he can make the country great again as he promises uh but but but separate from
00:45:36
that I just want to say this is such an important conversation and you guys hold
00:45:41
and host important conversations every single day we should do more of it as a country but I'm glad to participate
00:45:46
today God bless everyone thank you ladies and gentlemen JD [Music] Vince that's great
00:45:55
[Applause]