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okay we are here in Washington DC in front of the White House having spent the afternoon with our friend David Saxs
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our friend Elon Musk and others we are here to learn about the debt the deficit what's going on in DC and we have an
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incredible interview lined up with Scott Bessant Treasury Secretary of the United
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States it was amazing and it's been an amazing afternoon and we're really looking forward to it it was amazing
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well this is the pre the intro to the video it will be amazing it's not the pre let's just What the
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We're going to pretend it's the pre it was amazing it It will be incredible it was incredible but how cool is the White
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House and here's a bell i'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure the bell I cannot even describe to you the day we had running
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around it's incredible running around room to room in the White House one of the best days of my life it was one of
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the best days of my life it was incredible incredible i think this bell is probably pretty important can you
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guys get a shot of this bell i don't know what it is but it's really important yeah the White House the
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people to a one super kind super open super curious i mean did you felt it i You felt accepted yeah I felt But I got
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free soda they have a soda machine where you can make any Coca-Cola flavor you want in the White House it was pretty
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cool i took some uh hummus i wrapped it on Creeper's face i punched him in it was a cool afternoon and uh this is what
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is this the east wing of the White House and we took a walk from the west wing all the way over to the east wing to the
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portico and then we we snuck in well we didn't sneak in we walked in and then we're walking around the east wing we
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went to all of the private rooms i got great photos we'll we'll we'll slice him into this video and then some secret
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service dude comes up and he's like "What are you guys What are you doing here this is the residence of the
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president you have to get the out." He's like "You need to go downstairs now." So
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we got kicked the out but it was an incredible um incredible tour super great yeah anyway we're excited for this
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interview with Scott Bess and hope you enjoy it all right besties i think that was
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another epic discussion people love the interviews i could hear him talk for hours absolutely we crush your questions
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in a minute we are giving people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion what do you guys think that was
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fun pal Well today's a really important day we're joined by the 79th Secretary of
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the Treasury Scott Bessant and this is an opportunity that we wanted to take as part of a longer form way of explaining
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to people not just how the economy works but in a little bit more detail where are we in this moment in time where are
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we with deficits tariffs the budget economic monetary fiscal policy how do we make sure that we all understand the
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plan to make America great again so Scott thank you for joining us good thanks for having me i actually want to
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start with let's go back in the way back machine so South Carolina your father was a real estate developer tell us
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where the passion for finance came from uh well um I don't know where finance in
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particular came from as you mentioned my dad was a real estate developer and he he was kind of boom bus kind of uh guy
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so I think that's where my passion for risk management came from but uh I I was I was very fortunate went to Yale wasn't
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sure what I wanted to do n 1980 when I got there probably you all can imagine this
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but uh there used to be these things called punch cards and we just gone the Yale computer system just gone from
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punch cards to screens i was going to think of being a computer science major maybe a journalist because people
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actually used to read newspapers so punch cards and newspapers from the way back machine uh and I
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um I I got an internship at just for an individual and he taught me the investment business
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really well and I And who was that his name is Jim Rogers he's famous he was George Soros's first partner uh he uh
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had just completed an around the world motorcycle trip and written a book called Investment Biker right and fa
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fascinating guy and um I did the investment business and I thought this is really what I like because it's
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quantitative so I get to use my quantitative skills but you're also constructing a narrative um and it's
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also like human emotions and you were trading equities bonds everything currencies uh well I started out with
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equities and I I did that for several years and then I actually ended up at Soros Fund Management i worked for a
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fellow who's my mentor Stan Draen Miller who's incredible but I I think he's on he's more than 40 years now never a down
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year and you know when you're sitting next to him I think what am I doing all day and notorious for going allin
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several times in his career all in all all in and uh only when he's he's right yes well I but he he is the best at
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changing his mind that's right of anyone I've ever seen so Duck has that famous adage invest then investigate well he he
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has several and and I'm trying to get him to write a book because he has so many of these great things uh maybe you
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will press him um but invest investigate it takes courage to be a pig right right
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so uh and then I I was hooked on markets because again it was everything it was quantitative it was qualitative and it's
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real time you get real- time feedback all the time and you you're could have a long-term view but then you're trying to
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gauge the short term against that and you know I I loved it and uh for 35 years I've got into I did what's called
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macro investing so uh eventually I was trading currencies bonds commodities the equities uh some credit
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and I got to travel around the world meeting leaders and trying to figure out what the next move was in policy i think
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this is important because I've spoken with folks who um trade in macro and a big part of the the role of being a
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macro investor macro trader is really knowing where central bank action is going to be really knowing how
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government bonds are going to move and spending time with economists not just central but around the world and
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learning a little bit about how capital is flowing all over the world is that kind of the right way to describe that
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role of being a macro investor just for folks yeah you know it's it's a lot of it's a lot of that there's another great
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macro investor called Bruce Ker and he had this saying that he said you know I succeeded because I could imagine a
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different future and believe it could happen so the key is to believe it could happen
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and then manage the risk so you know could you imagine like what would happen if the iron curtain came down what would
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happen i mean you all do it as venture capitalists but like you know how could the world live in a different state okay
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well let's hold that idea and double click for us to 92 it's probably one of the most famous moments where the
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broader world at large metro trading and this is really where you and Duck and Soros basically broke the back of the
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Bank of England and it's really an interesting window into assessing all of these things so can you give us the
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conditions on the ground at that moment and what new reality you saw for England
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and then it would be great from there we'll contrast and compare to America today good so uh it it's a great
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historical example and it also kind of brings in three dimensions so I I was the analyst
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Stan was the portfolio manager and then in a way George was the risk manager okay so I I was running the the UK
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office i was on the ground in the UK and I I had this light bulb go off and you know I thought kind of the fulcrum
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thought or like my differentiated view was that the UK had just had a big housing boom and UK mortgages at that
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time they didn't have long-term mortgages they were all floating rates so if the Bank of England raised rates
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on a Wednesday the your mortgage went up on a Friday yeah uh the UK had hooked into something called the exchange rate
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mechanism they had to balance versus the Deutsch mark they had to stay within a band um I noticed that if they raise or
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I thought if they raised rates to try to stay in the band and protect the currency it would be unsustainable
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because British homeowners would get bankrupted uh Stan's great uh feat of analysis was figuring out that gosh the
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these bands set up this incredible asymmetric bet because I can push them up against one
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side of the band and their mandate is just to push me back to the other side so we just lose two and a half%
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and um you know Stan tells this great story of like telling George Soros oh well you
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know here's what I want to do and he says he told him and George says well how much do you want to do and he said
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probably 100% of the fund and he said Soros gave him this really sour look and he thought that he had said something
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wrong why wouldn't you do three times that deal so uh but anyway it was um we pushed them against the the ban the Bank
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of England the British government uh had to buy this unlimited amount of pounds and they started raising interest rates
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and this was September of 1992 and uh you know eventually they just weren't able to
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sustain the the pressure from the high rates and came out and then the asymmetric riskreward was we made about
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20 something% in a day yeah right and back to what was really Stan's genius is I don't know if either of you play back
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gammon but in back gammon there's the move after the move and so Stan we'd made all that money and we were kind of
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euphoric okay now what because there's going to be the trade after the trade so we made that much in a day but then it
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was actually the trade after the trade and this isn't well publicized I think we made another 20%
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during the rest of the year wow so in that moment what you're really observing is that the real economy is somewhat
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dislocated maybe meaningfully dislocated from the financial economy in your operating and I think you've said this
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now many times and you've basically used the terminology the main street wall street dichotomy
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how do you observe the moment in 2025 the maybe what rhymes with the early 90s or other periods where you've been
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trading actively well look I I I think it goes back to something that's unsustainable is
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unsustainable and um one of the reasons I'm sitting here now is uh about 18 months ago I went to see President Trump
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i'd known the Trump family for 30 years i'd never known the president that well but to tell him that I want to get
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involved in the campaign because I was so alarmed with what the Biden administration was doing with the defic
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debt and deficit endless stimulus endless spending endless spending but endless spending
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when we were in like solid economic territory or not in a war first time first time ever and I I thought it was
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very cynical because I I actually thought well we're going to spend spend spend and then there'll be no choice but
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to raise taxes so you'd go into this equilibrium that you could just never get out of and you become kind of a
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European style social social democracy you know the malaise and you know I I also think that we're very cynical on
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immigration right because if you take kind of the stated number 12 million the president's number 22 million i don't
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know what the truth is kind of lean toward the president but it was oh we're going to let all these people cross the
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border you can't ever make them problem's too big to make them go home but I like to stay in my finance lane so
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the finance lane was we're going to just go to the point of no return and kind of
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inflict these the progressive financial values on the country there'll be no way out very
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meaningful wage suppression in that period and you had an equity market that was incredibly well bid just because the
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money supply was just always there well it was always there and you had these distributional aspects because back to
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your question Wall Street versus Main Street that it was driving me crazy when Vice President Harris said "I'm going to
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fight for the middle class." And she'd eviscerated the middle class or or these policies
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inadvertent intentional had eviscerated the middle class and really the bottom 50% so you we're we're in this uh
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because purchasing power goes down inflation went up well per if you didn't have assets right so uh that's really
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important i think people don't understand this that if you had stocks if you had assets your assets inflated y
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but if you didn't the cost of everything inflated but you didn't have the ability
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to purchase because your wages don't go up yeah and they not not only did inflation go up but if you look uh
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Jason Trinard has this thing I think he calls it the everyman index and um so CPI went up about 22 during the period
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but the everyman index was up over 30 35% because the the bottom 25% the bottom 50% of wage earners have have a
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different basket than we do and it inflated much faster% used car prices around car insurance car insurance rent
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groceries and you like not not only is it unfair but it's just unstable and great civil civil issues societal issues
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and so yes but sorry as you guys got into looking at this I and I remembering and talking about this in the
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summer of 23 I think it was or 23 yeah and what was the point of view on what should have been done at that point in
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time and then how much farther did it go how much longer did it last well I I think what happened the the Democrats
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will tell you that the big spending bills were needed for rescue yeah and I would say in March of 21 the economy
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didn't need rescue was already in recovery right so these were rescue size packages and even Larry Summers I
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remember there was a great debate between Larry Summers and Paul Krugman and Summers I think said "Look this is
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at least 900 billion a trillion too much." And the Federal Reserve was ve summer of 23 22 Federal Reserve was very
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slow off the mark and you know we we ended up and you know again imagine top 10% has assets stock market is flying
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you're in the bottom 50% you have no assets but you have debt yes so you credit cards are up u mortgages
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impossible to buy a house house prices had gone through the roof due to COVID so it really did like end the American
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dream and but we we've been suffering these distributional effects scott what what is the American dream today do you
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think uh look I I think the American dream is what it what it's always been but after World War II I think 90% of
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American families uh the the children made more than the parents now now I think it's 50/50 but you know it's to to
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own a home it's financial security it's to uh some some level of comfort it's purpose in your work it's the to be able
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to support your family uh to be able to have choices to not have to work two two
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jobs i I made a remark at the Economic Club of New York last week two weeks ago and Mike Pence decided he was going to
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troll me and because I said the American dream is not built on cheap goods right
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and he said "Well yes it is." And you know I I just say "Vice President Pence this let them eat flat screens economic
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policy that doesn't is isn't what people want they we they don't want the bobbles
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from China it's like the old they want progression people want progression i I mean I remember reading um there's a uh
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I think Jonathan height had some work on this a long time ago where happiness is
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measured by your change in net worth or income per year it doesn't matter what your absolute levels are by all these
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socioeconomic kind of surveys that they do that feeling like you're having some progression in life is what folks are
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looking for and I wonder whether solving for that we created a system and I I I'd
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love your point out your your your read on this that we said everyone should own
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a home that's the American dream and in order to do that people put most of their net worth into a home 60% I think
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of middle class net worth is tied up in their in a single asset and then in order to get them to feel like they're
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progressing we've created a system of loans and a system of kind of economic and fiscal policy that ultimately drives
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the value of the home up every year now we're kind of in an unsustainable housing bubble can most people can't
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even afford to buy a home what did we get wrong there and how does that affect what the American dream should look like
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going forward well I I think a lot of it is scarcity because what what you're talking about is like out in San
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Francisco super tight zoning laws so there there's scarcity for home if if you think like Ivy League education all
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of a sudden you gave all these people access to Ivy League educations you brought in international students but
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the the number of degrees awarded at Harvard Dale Princeton probably hasn't changed very much since the 1950s so you
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you created just this demand for scarce things which leads to this anxiety um but you you you
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also created I think a sense of hopelessness through cuz if you're I can't access I will never get I will
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never be able to pay down my student loan i will never be able to afford a home i can never see my income growing
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to give me access there yeah a and um so is that is that a dereg solution is that the Well I think the first the
00:20:01
first part of it is it's a data problem because in order for the government I mean the one thing that struck me about
00:20:09
I think this Trump 2.0 administration is I think you have a better beat on the fact that this data is not as reliable
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as other administrations would say they were in order to do whatever it is they wanted to do anyway so it's sort of like
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let me just find the data that justifies what my action is um and part of why you
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can't I think tell this story is do you trust the GDP numbers do you trust non-farm payrolls do you think these are
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reliable enough for you to act on behalf of the United States no look that they're subject to big revisions o over
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time and I thought one of the big mistakes the Biden administration made and thank goodness they made it was they
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refused to they went with the numbers not what the American people were feeling they said "No it's a vibe
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session and you really don't understand how good you have it this has happened this has happened." When when in
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reality I was on Meet the Press yesterday and there's something that said "Well the American people don't
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believe Donald Trump's doing enough on the economy." And I told the host I said "You know the one thing I'm not going to
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answer is that they don't know what they're talking about i have to have respect for how they feel and then we
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need to go back and look at what is causing this anxiety so you that's what that's what we're going to do so let's
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peel the onion back what do you think is causing this anxiety where are the levers that maybe the federal government
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can control in releasing some of the pressure and what are more market functions that just need to clear up
00:21:46
some of these dis Well look I I think there we we're we're trying to do three things and I I think you may have talked
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about it last week week before the the three legs on the stool three legs in the stool and and from from the outside
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that you intuited that very well i I would do just a little refinement on that that's what I was going to ask you
00:22:11
yeah just tell me where I was right and wrong but the you were adjacent to everything okay so uh on on one uh we
00:22:19
are trying to bring down this massive federal debt cut the spending and but in a controlled way because you can't do it
00:22:29
all at once i I don't like to repeat private conversations with the president but I'll repeat this one because I think
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it's very the it really illustrates where his head was at first time I went to SE into seam saw him at Mara Largo
00:22:44
and walk in the door and said "Scott how are we going to get these debt and deficits down without causing a
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recession?" Fantastic and that's exactly where we are now how are we going to get
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the debt and deficits down not cause a recession and I said "Sir um when you win you didn't get us here we're going
00:23:06
to set a goal by 2028 we want to get back to the long-term average we're going to deflate it slowly and long-term
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average being about 3% deficit to GDP about three three and a half% deficit to GDP and you know like I keep saying the
00:23:23
US we don't have a revenue problem we have a spending problem because we are averaging right about 18% revenue and
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I'm talking about federal government federal government only we're at about 18% and Biden administration blew it out
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blew the spending out to 25 normally it's about 21 21 and a half we have the 2% inflation nominal GDP it take real
00:23:54
GDP is 18 so we get nominal GDP 3.8 and it all works out yeah and it was very I had uh one of the heads of one of the
00:24:03
Singapore sovereign wealth funds here last week guess what Singapore spends the in terms of spending to GDP deficit
00:24:12
3% uh they they have no deficit but they they spend 18% 18% 18% and he said you know he said we have a lot in common
00:24:21
with the Trump administration we like small government we don't like immigration illegal immigration and we
00:24:28
like personal safety which I thought was very interesting sorry so let me just um
00:24:32
understand so deflating government spending is key but the big challenge has been that we have now accumulated 30
00:24:40
some odd trillion dollars nearly of debt and the interest on that debt has started to grow we now have to pay $1.2
00:24:50
trillion in interest payments per year so that starts to consume more of the spending budget that we have at the
00:24:57
federal level which means we can spend less on the rest of the federal government's programs meaning you have
00:25:04
to cut a lot more than you otherwise would have which is what makes it so difficult and so painful is it realistic
00:25:10
that you can get Congress to act in the way that Congress needs to act to get to
00:25:16
the level that we need to get to given the high interest payments and the high debt level that we have yeah and w with
00:25:22
this Republican Congress uh and look I I I'm I'm not sure what a deficit hawk is
00:25:28
but I I think I I would qualify as one and uh a lot of the Republicans I actually have to coax him you can't do
00:25:36
this all at once i I was with the one of the congressional budget committees two
00:25:42
weeks ago and you know they really want to cut this fast and I said you do realize every 300 billion we cut is
00:25:50
about a percent of GDP so you you could so we we are trying to land the plane right uh well
00:26:00
and the plan uh because that that's really what I'd like to talk about today i think there are three plans here but
00:26:07
plan one we're going to delever the government via the spending uh we are also going to shed excess labor from the
00:26:17
government so on that side and then on the other side we're going we're going to deregulate the financial system the
00:26:25
regulated financial systems really been what I call a regulatory corset for a long time and as we deregulate that then
00:26:35
the private sector can relever so government deleveraging private sector releveraging and the employment or
00:26:44
the folks who lost their government jobs will be picked up by the more productive
00:26:50
but this sorry this is really important and I think this is the most critical thing i'm really glad we got the chance
00:26:54
to talk today because I hear so much about the conversation on any one of these topics independent of the others
00:27:01
and there's a relationship between them that I think is critical to understand on how this administration is aiming to
00:27:07
drive an economic recovery that is not inflationary is sustainable and also will allow people to have the American
00:27:15
dream in a way that they can't have access to today yeah and the so part of fixing the affordability crisis is what
00:27:24
can and we we come back and talk about it if you want but what where can we get prices down you know like e eggs are
00:27:30
easy or but the the other side of getting prices down is getting real wages up so on
00:27:39
getting real wages for working people up it goes back to the main street versus Wall Street and the the second plan is
00:27:49
to the reorder the international trading system and bring manufacturing jobs back
00:27:56
to the US and you have reinvigorate the the middle class because again through tariffs well to to use
00:28:06
tariffs that we're needed to bring other countries uh into line and to create an
00:28:13
economic incentive to onshore for some industries and some supply chains well so there there's tariffs then I think
00:28:22
there are three other things we can do which are the centerpiece of the administration we can have the low and
00:28:29
predictable taxes we can substantially uh slash regulations because regulations are the equivalent of that'll drive
00:28:38
investment dollars private investment dollars and predictability in regulations uh and then uh cheap energy
00:28:46
right and sorry what what is the relationship between the tax cuts and um the getting to 3% three and a half%
00:28:55
deficit as a percent of GDP especially because the CR unfortunately gave folks a get out of jail free card because we
00:29:03
kept the you know $2 trillion cap for the next alone uh yes uh but you got to have we we I I I been in this building i
00:29:15
think this is my seventh week president Trump been back at the White House for eight weeks so you actually do need time
00:29:23
so what a lot of people who weren't happy about the CR but shutting down the government wouldn't have been productive
00:29:30
either politically or economically so sorry does does um tax cuts get made up with tariffs or does tax cuts get made
00:29:38
up with cutting government spending well tax cuts will so tax cuts and deregulation will uh change the growth
00:29:48
traje uh if trend line has been 1.8 eight if you can move the growth to three or
00:29:56
above right then you really change their trajectory and if you can um keep expenses flat or do the unthinkable and
00:30:05
cut expenses then you can really So this is important so sorry government revenue
00:30:10
as a percent of GDP can go lower if you have lower expenses and a faster growing
00:30:16
economy yes I think that's like really important for folks to understand that relationship and so in isolation tax
00:30:23
cuts might reduce revenue but when done with reduced government spending and deregulation and a reordered
00:30:29
international trade model you theoretically will accelerate economic growth in this country increase
00:30:34
government revenue overall even with a lower tax rate that's kind of a theory right and and you know I'll I'll tell
00:30:40
you shame on me i I was in the investment business 35 years i I talk very confidently that CBO scoring says
00:30:48
this and it turns out I I didn't know you know what about CBO scoring like when you're on this side of the wall you
00:30:54
realize how crazy it is it's crazy so So just quite a gameable system it's a Yeah
00:30:58
it it's very gameable and one of the most gameable parts of it is in normal CBO scoring that so we we're calling
00:31:08
we're saying that we want to renew the tax cuts right we're actually just renewing the current
00:31:14
tax regime right that but somehow a after they expire then they go back to the old rate
00:31:24
spending never changes like spending never has to get renewed and I think when when I look and think about a
00:31:30
mental model and how does systems work how do they break down one of the things that has caused this spending bulge is
00:31:38
this idea that you never had to rescore spending oh it's nuts and the incentive model is when you have a constituency
00:31:47
that you represent as an elected representative that's earning from that spending they're telling you "If you
00:31:53
want to get reelected make sure my earnings stay and get me more." And then every year you've got a set of elected
00:31:59
representatives whose you know primary objective in a democratic system is to go in and get more money for their
00:32:05
constituents how do we solve that fundamental problem how do you think about that well you got to deal with a
00:32:10
second do you actually think that that's true do you think that most politicians
00:32:13
are here to just get money for their Good question yeah yeah i mean it's it's OPM it's other people's money but they
00:32:21
Danny DeVito had that movie yeah but but you you would regard that as being a good politician like you brought home
00:32:27
the bacon for for your district that because the the CR a lot of people didn't like
00:32:35
it but one of the things that a lot of people didn't like there were no earmarks in it like how dare they
00:32:40
totally the Christmas tree bill that kind of shows up at the 11th hour where everyone gets a little bit yeah can you
00:32:46
talk about So we talked about this deregulation as this one very important lever right so how do we add 50 100
00:32:53
basis points of growth back in we're going to do it through deregulation how do you undo the
00:32:58
financial corset as you said what are the what are the sort of three or four big ideas that you'd like to affect yep
00:33:04
so um we are reexamining all all the bank regulations and why why are they there why why do
00:33:15
banks have to I can't remember it's five or 7% to hold treasury bills what are the regulations why do I I had a whole
00:33:23
group of community bankers or small banks here last week and why do they have to hold the same amount of capital
00:33:32
that JP Morgan and Wells Fargo and City hold when they don't have the complexity
00:33:39
they don't have why do the regulators one one of these small bankers said "Well you know Bank America does it this
00:33:47
way." Well Bank America has a trillion dollars in deposits yeah this was $183 million
00:33:54
but when you look at the regulatory overhang of some of these things Basel 1 Basel 2 you have all of these frameworks
00:33:59
and then as a result all these organizations that are running around trying to help you administer this
00:34:05
complexity all it does is just lower economic activity in the end well and and but it's I know you all talk about
00:34:11
incentives a lot back to incentives what's a regul regulator's incentive just to keep like keep tightening the
00:34:20
corset they don't care about growth they they don't care about the uh common sense turn off turn off every risk it's
00:34:30
their job if you had to create a metric then to say okay here's how we're going to measure this undoing of the financial
00:34:35
corset is it sort of the lending velocity by private lenders so that the private releveraging can occur is that a
00:34:43
good way to think about or is rates a way to think about it well it it doesn't have to be rates but if if we do all the
00:34:49
things I was just talking about if we deregulate if we have cheap energy the I if we shed excess labor from the
00:34:57
government if we get government spending down then rates inflation should come down rates should come down yeah uh but
00:35:06
the on the question of how are we going to measure it i I don't have any problem
00:35:12
with private credit yeah like I I actually think it's exciting the dynamic it's dynamic it meets the business where
00:35:18
it is yeah i agree and the the strength of the US financial system is the depth and now the breadth but you you could
00:35:26
see that what's happened that so much lending is being pushed outside the regulated banking
00:35:33
system that tells you it's overregulated yeah right so now um once we so one test will be
00:35:43
how has bank lending especially small regional small banks community banks that come undone and you these small
00:35:52
banks the small banks and community banks they're 70% of a loans they're 40% of small business loans and that that's
00:36:00
one of the reasons Main Street's been stifled so can you talk about then how you will work with the Fed in sort
00:36:08
of the change of all of this financial you need to and do you need to work with Congress too to make these changes and
00:36:14
also just generally maybe your thoughts on just the Fed in this process of helper foe like where where do they
00:36:21
stand well the the Fed I 100% support the Fed's autonomy in monetary policy yeah i don't agree with
00:36:31
it all the time but right that how it is it's how it is it's how it is and um so and and I've said I won't
00:36:42
comment on perspective policy i can talk about their mistakes in the past which have been numerous but I I think like
00:36:49
like with with with any system as as it expands beyond sort of the core uh I I actually think that some of the things
00:37:00
they've done in regulation some of the things they've done kind of climate and DEI some of the things may maybe even
00:37:07
non-standard monetary policy uh threatens their independence and I want them to stay strong robust and
00:37:15
independent on monetary policy on regulation i I think that they have they have been much too harsh on especially
00:37:26
the smaller smaller banks medium banks u so there are three main bank regulators
00:37:32
there's the Fed off office of control of the currency OC and the FDIC and then there other regulators the
00:37:41
SEC CFTC but the banking regulators at the federal level are those three here at Treasury we have something called
00:37:51
FSOC and financial stability oversight council and um I chair that and via that the president's working group uh which
00:38:03
is another convening mechanism that I I plan to just keep pushing for you know safe sound and smart deregulation like
00:38:14
why are we doing this why are we doing that and you again that there's a capital charge to banks for buying
00:38:21
treasury bills totally so I I actually think there's a chance that if we take it's it's called the supplementary
00:38:28
leverage ratio if we take that away it's it becomes a binding constraint on banks
00:38:34
we might actually pull Treasury bill yields down by 30 to 70 basis points every basis point is a billion dollars a
00:38:45
year can we talk about that for a second so I think and I' I've said this for a year
00:38:51
probably but the one of the biggest mistakes that I think Janet Yellen affected was this continued issuance of
00:39:00
money on the short end of the curve to finance these deficits which gives you you inherit an incredibly difficult
00:39:08
challenge i think over the next nine months I think there's like nine or 10 trillion that has to get refinanced do
00:39:13
you want to talk about that yeah look I I I thought that it that when rates were low you're supposed to
00:39:20
term out rates exactly and in instead the the Treasury for the past few years has pulled rates in and I think part of
00:39:30
that was to keep rates lower that they they changed the issuance schedule when rates move back up towards 5% i I um
00:39:42
have maintained that policy but I'm maintaining it because let's go back to David's
00:39:50
question of when when are you going when are we going to see the results from this the getting the government spending
00:39:58
under control and I don't think the markets recognize it yet like like you know again if we do they don't they're
00:40:04
not sure what to believe i mean we hear this commentary a lot like what do you really what we people there's just a lot
00:40:10
of uncertainty there's a big spectrum of opinions there yeah like like the the central value tendency you're right the
00:40:18
central value tendency like what's the center of it because the the range of outcomes is so so broad and you know
00:40:27
like we know we know there's a problem there we know there's waste fraud and abuse quantify it quantify it so I I
00:40:35
think as we are more able to quantify it we will get credit for it so let me go back so outside of waste fraud and
00:40:43
abuse as it's termed I want to go back to the question I asked earlier how much do does this administration need
00:40:50
Congress to act to get to 3 to 3 12% deficit to GDP and how what's your read on the Congress and how willing and able
00:41:01
they are to take the action that's needed here yeah I I I think there are a lot of headlines especially after the CR
00:41:08
about the Democrats being in disarray and media like media likes to write about disarray
00:41:14
i I think the under or untold story here is Republicans have for a change actually been very disciplined that and
00:41:23
I think a lot of that President Trump is kind of shephering the party shephering the
00:41:30
movement because imagine he said "Oh that Mike Johnson will never get reconciliation instructions out of he's
00:41:41
got such a slim majority." Well he did it he did it yeah that he'll never be able to pass a clean CR he did it he did
00:41:50
it so let's see what happens with the budget so we need Congress to be our partners on the budget they're very
00:41:58
engaged the House and the Senate that everybody recognizes that if we don't get this done it's going to be the
00:42:04
biggest it's past fail it's the biggest tax hike in history where does Doge come
00:42:10
in well Doge that's the the cost cutting and it's the first time we've really ever
00:42:18
had business people looking at it the this Clinton Gore Commission that we hear a lot of like or hear a lot about i
00:42:25
I think it was a bunch of business school professors and but here you've got real CEOs you got Lutnik you got
00:42:32
Bergam you got Elon i mean this cabinet is stock full of experienced operators that can go in and identify where
00:42:40
there's an opportunity for saving the taxpayers money and still getting the results well it's that and we we had
00:42:47
this crypto council meeting the other day and I was sitting as looking it was myself Secretary Lutnik and Kelly
00:42:54
Laughler everybody was a market person like forget business like we and but with Doge
00:43:03
that I am completely aligned with what Elon's doing and everyone says "Well do you
00:43:10
have to do it so fast you have to do it." I I like I said I've only been in in this business for 7 weeks i've only
00:43:17
been in DC for 8 weeks but the thing I can tell you is if you don't move fast the vested interest will weigh you down
00:43:26
like the the the quicksand will come up or the claws get the claw yeah everybody's got lobbyists everybody's
00:43:35
got I mean think about it within a 10 10 mile radius of here 25% of the GDP of the US pulsates through here pulsates
00:43:46
every day and everybody wants to just skim a little i I said to uh e Elon and we were in a meeting and I said "You
00:43:55
know people are mad at you cuz you're moving their cheese." And he goes "It's not their cheese it's the American
00:44:00
people's cheese." 100% every dollar spent goes into someone's pocket and that person's going to fight tooth and
00:44:06
nail to get that dollar to keep flowing into their pocket and it's a it's a it's
00:44:10
a very like there is no winning in Elon's role there's every single time he takes action there are people that are
00:44:17
going to come after him that are going to come after the administration there's no situ and and obviously gets recast
00:44:24
reclassified in the media as being something different but there's nothing but downside as you make these changes
00:44:31
to individual organizations that participate and then it takes a while for the flow of that money to find its
00:44:38
way or those individuals to find their way back into the productive private economy that's where I think there's a
00:44:42
big gap and a big challenge in the perception of the actions that are going on with the changes right now is
00:44:48
everyone sees the cuts but they don't see the benefits and that's nine months 12 months 15 months down the road and
00:44:53
that's a really hard thing to reconcile for most yeah and I I'd say there are a couple of things too is one like
00:45:00
everyone's hearing cuts and they think they're government services that's right that's right and they're not i I keep
00:45:07
saying it's the Department of Government efficiency not government extinction not
00:45:13
government elimination and can we make it run much better with fewer people with fewer costs and you I don't want to
00:45:23
demonize any of these federal employees cuz I tell you in this building I've been so impressed with the quality of
00:45:29
the the people i I would have hired them in my private firm they are great public
00:45:34
servants i need you to stay for the weekend and I need a 25page memo in 72 hours that super high quality i I
00:45:42
actually think what when when all this is done there there will have been two big
00:45:49
savings one will been on these contractors sure which totally we were just talking about this we were with
00:45:55
Elon just now with an incredible stat he said I'm not going to name the firm so that I don't want to but he said this
00:46:01
one organization gets 98% of their revenue from it was in the newspaper so we can say it it's booze Allen
00:46:08
we were talking about this and then but then we were going through the numbers on the other firms and it's just the
00:46:12
whole thing what kind of risk management is that by the way yeah yeah but but it
00:46:16
tells you that that they didn't manage the risk that's right tells you how entrenched
00:46:23
they believe they were and how good it is for them and how good it is you're absolutely right and and the way the way
00:46:29
the grift works you can only have six-month contracts but there are people who have had 40 six-month contracts
00:46:36
incredible like they've been in situ for 20 years incredible and it's this whole
00:46:42
I'm so happy there is transparency and visibility into this if for nothing else the administration providing this level
00:46:50
of insight and data I think is so important for taxpayers and individuals in this country to see to recognize and
00:46:57
importantly to understand just how much of this grift is going on it's frightening and I'm glad that it's like
00:47:03
being addressed and and the American people can see if they want it so this is what I was going to ask you let's
00:47:08
just say that some somehow the Borg slows this whole thing down you know what people say is that
00:47:16
the conventionalism well then the only place to look will be things like entitlements
00:47:21
good question yeah do you do you think that that's true well I I I think that now that the cat's out of
00:47:31
the bag that the American people are are not going to stay with this is that you
00:47:37
may maybe again here may maybe in the Northeast Corridor um there's some push back but when I've seen the polling data
00:47:47
and the rest of the country does not want this to stop and this administration's not gonna stop yeah
00:47:55
the courts they're trying to throw sand in the gears with the courts and how some judge can say "Oh all these workers
00:48:02
have to come back in." And but I I also think we've moved really quickly now i think when we start putting out some of
00:48:12
the ane anecdotes and the the messages and talk about what's happening like I I'll talk about it i I'll be talking
00:48:21
about it soon but there there's one very large department that everybody deals with on April 15th that their help desk
00:48:29
is fully staffed 24/7 365 days a year they have the same number of people on Christmas Eve as they have on April 14th
00:48:40
wow this is this this by the way is something that I've seen being a lightning rod theoretically every dollar
00:48:45
you spend on the IRS you get $3 back or whatever it is that's not necessarily true like I just want to be clear that
00:48:52
there's you can still get all your tax revenue at the federal level but you don't need to waste well look I I mean
00:48:58
I'd be the ultimate chump if I said "Oh we're going to cut spending." Yeah but I
00:49:03
also cut revenues with with the IRS which Treasury controls my my three goals are very simple revenue
00:49:12
enhancement privacy and customer service totally you know there's a there's a body of knowledge that says if we just
00:49:19
fed in and by the way four or five of these companies can do this now if we just fed in this entire federal tax code
00:49:26
into these AI models what you can give to Americans is a very guaranteed resolute ability to file taxes with the
00:49:34
assurance that there is no waste fraud and abuse and now all of a sudden you take this incredible weight off of
00:49:40
people's shoulders um you know sometimes it is said that you get audited for almost political reasons it seems like
00:49:47
you know uh people that not almost we have a big we we we had a big announcement on Tuesday and we brought
00:49:57
in the 200 Biden whistleblowers who they uh have a lot to say about who gets audited who doesn't they're going to be
00:50:05
sitting in this building working on IRS the matters and understanding exactly how these audits get triggered how these
00:50:15
political witch hunts happen and trying to the change the ethos of the building and again
00:50:25
99% of the people at the IRS are good people it's just like all these other agencies where they're they're bad folks
00:50:32
but to your point this is where technology can create um very reliable guard rails for the American citizen
00:50:40
where it's like okay well if this model says I owe $1,000 in tax this is it i'm not trying to change anything i've fed
00:50:47
it all the software first and you just know let me go back to entitlements um I talked last week on our podcast
00:50:56
about social security mhm social Security has a $2.7 trillion balance which is just a basically a Treasury
00:51:04
bond that's owed that they can't trade out of should Social Security have invested in the S&P or invested in
00:51:10
equities and why don't we turn Social Security into a sovereign wealth fund and invest it for the benefit of all
00:51:16
Americans going forward yeah I I I think there there's the optimal then there's the
00:51:24
possible george W bush tried to privatize social security and you I I saw your your numbers listened to your
00:51:32
numbers going way back 1971 1971 and with 15 16 trillion that we'd have I I don't know what the numbers are since W
00:51:42
tried it they'd be substantial we we wouldn't be thinking about a problem in a few years but I think now you got to
00:51:52
play the hand you're dealt i think we are dealt the social security uh hand and I think maybe we could re-engineer
00:52:00
it if we could create the sovereign wealth fund and have that on the other side there are a lot of philanthropists
00:52:07
who are looking at baby bonds so if you can create a some kind of an investment account for newborns then that would run
00:52:19
on a parallel track to social security so that would be compounding the other thing would be a safety net yeah but
00:52:28
it's still sitting in treasuries on the other side y and that's where there's an
00:52:31
opportunity not just to drive up returns but participate in the American economy
00:52:36
and give all Americans today the ability to know that they have some participation in the American economy
00:52:41
rather than having their retirement funds being sitting as a loan to the federal government for spending which I
00:52:47
think could be a big dramatic change i don't know if they need to be independent but I I I would I think it's
00:52:52
a it's a real opportunity for us are you are you excited by the idea of the sovereign wealth fund i I am and I'm
00:52:59
excited by the idea like this is pres President Trump everything he does isn't in a straight line but I guarantee he
00:53:09
has a destination in mind and the idea that he's going to be the first president in generations who is going to
00:53:20
he wants to create assets for the American people not just debt yeah yeah so he wants to take the debt down and
00:53:26
then this idea of assets there was a lot of talk about this economic deal we're going to do with Ukraine that would have
00:53:33
gone in the sovereign wealth fund right yeah government has big stake in Fanny May and Freddy Mack
00:53:42
when it comes out of conservatorship where does that go where where does that go
00:53:47
as you mentioned Doug Doug Bergam did great work when he was governor of North Dakota north Dakota
00:53:55
has the equivalent of two state sovereign wealth funds and for I don't know are they 7 8 900,000 people i think
00:54:03
they had $25 billion right and Alaska permanent the Alaska permanent but all all that's from the natural resource
00:54:11
money going in so to the extent we start the other day when the sovereign wealth fund was announced President
00:54:19
Trump surprised me in the oval and said "Could you make a few remarks?" And I said "Well we're we're going to we're
00:54:24
going to mo we're going to mobilize the asset side of the balance sheet." And all the gold books said he's going to re
00:54:29
he's going to revalue the gold i I can say today we're not revaling the gold but what we are going to do is Doug
00:54:36
Bergam at Interior every other department head is looking for the assets that we can mobilize so if if we
00:54:45
have energy leases federal government own back to the housing shortage federal government owns a lot of land in
00:54:52
downtown urban areas can we or in suburban adjacent things in in Nevada and Utah can we use that land yeah do
00:55:01
you see a wave of privatizations as a way to sort of both pay down the deficits and debts and also just to that
00:55:07
that's important to me like why put in a sovereign wealth fund versus pay down the debt help help kind of do the
00:55:13
finance math for us on Oh could you think you get a higher return right well anything anything that beats our
00:55:19
current return our current interest rate yeah i mean not not that I'm keeping score not that I watch it closely but
00:55:26
the 10-year Treasury today is 428 428 yeah so um it's responding well can can we can can we do better Yeah than four
00:55:35
can we do better than 428 and I think with this group and this cabinet and if we can put in right right now we're
00:55:43
working on the the study group for the sovereign wealth fund and we want to do best practices we're talking to people
00:55:50
around the world we're talking to investment people uh we're talking to uh a lot of the other big sovereign uh
00:55:58
funds and we're going to do best practices and we want this to be a legacy event totally dan Lo made this
00:56:05
comment that the Australian superanuation they've got 30 managers and they have as much in their on their
00:56:11
balance sheet today in their fund than Social Security does about $3 trillion and they have 7% of our population yeah
00:56:19
no it's incredible it's incredible it's incredible and I was with one of the Middle Eastern funds and you know I said
00:56:26
something about oil revenue we haven't had an an injection into the fund in 20 years why was this such a miss for
00:56:34
America what happened in the United States was that we took every excess dollar we had and we invested it in the
00:56:40
future we bought in we built infrastructure what happened that kept us out of this model where others were
00:56:46
so successful and clearly have now gotten ahead of us and their their people have a greater kind of safety net
00:56:53
than we do yeah i I I think it it was just this idea of it it was supposed to be a safety net not some kind of
00:57:01
prosperity ramp the old age and survivors disability insurance fund that's what it's called
00:57:07
right under social security you uh you've mentioned cheap energy as a critical part of this holistic program I
00:57:14
think three times now where do we make mistakes in that path where energy gets out of control what what do we need to
00:57:22
do to make sure that energy actually the the incremental cost of the electron basically goes to zero well I I think
00:57:29
the biggest challenge we're having right now is trying to get private sector to lock in for some things that might not
00:57:39
have a payoff for 5 10 years and how do we avoid student body left student body right with administrations coming and
00:57:47
going so we're we're trying we're we're working on well this is an incredibly nuanced and I think an important point
00:57:53
because we have this very vibrant as you know tax equity and transferability market that allows a lot of these
00:58:00
organizations to make these five and 10 year investment cases and you know for all the issues with the IRA of which
00:58:06
there are many I think the one narrow aspect that it did was um it calmed the markets about the future of those
00:58:14
specific ITC credits and transferability and And it's a critical thing because there was a report you probably saw it
00:58:20
but you know FK said 90 plus% of our incremental electrons as of December were from sources that were
00:58:29
leveraging these ITC credits and that transferability so to your point we have this very delicate balancing act of
00:58:34
making sure we but but there there's the the tax side but then the regulatory side with with fossil it's tougher
00:58:43
because it crosses a lot of state lines there's a lot more permitting right a lot less permitting for solar farms
00:58:50
for wind for geothermal yeah and nuclear uh nuclear is going to be a big part of it but it it's not
00:58:57
going to happen tomorrow we got to fix the supply chain and the regulatory well we got to fix the supply chain we got to
00:59:04
fix the regulatory um I we've got to decide which model are we going to go with and you know I I'm
00:59:13
told that you you two probably know more about nuclear than I do but he loves it
00:59:19
i hate it okay well no I don't hate it i mean I I like I like nuclear i just think it's 10 years away he's a loser
00:59:24
don't listen to him yeah he doesn't really It's just not an investable thing for the
00:59:28
next but it's important because the question is when it becomes one that's when we know we've fixed the problem but
00:59:34
but but to to the point that it's not investable that's where the government needs to step absolutely i 100% agree
00:59:41
with you like we that's where we have to bridge to to the technology we have to do the time arbitrage and also I'm told
00:59:51
especially with the smaller plants that you that you need to cluster them and you got to find somebody who wants to
00:59:59
cluster them and all that and um let me ask you one more question as we kind of get to the end but uh what's been the
01:00:06
most surprising thing for you in this role since you've um since you've been in office uh the national security
01:00:11
aspect that I I would say 40 50% of my day uh Treasury does a lot of national security work whe whether it's cifhious
01:00:22
in terms of uh foreigners who want to buy US assets whether it's sanctions whether it's OFAC anti-money laundering
01:00:34
we we've just designated the Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations we President Trump over
01:00:43
the weekend launched a very aggressive strike on missile strike on the Houthi assets well underneath that we had
01:00:54
already been working for several weeks on their bank accounts i see so or anyone who is adjacent to them the
01:01:01
Iranians supply the Houthis with the their ecosystem previous to my getting here uh
01:01:12
Treasury had disrupted the ecosystem so much that uh the Iranians used to hand them cash now they're just handing them
01:01:19
here take take this oil tanker and try to sell it right so like there there is the ability to to break that down when
01:01:27
you go home and you're talking to your kids you're talking to your husband and you're
01:01:32
like "This was so cool." There must be these moments where you're like "This was so cool do you have any anecdotes
01:01:40
that you you're comfortable sharing where you're just like this is like I can't believe I'm doing this job uh well
01:01:45
uh there have been several but a a good example my family was actually there because after the inauguration I I asked
01:01:54
President Trump may I bring my family in say hello get a photo and we're we're sitting in the oval so it's myself my
01:02:02
11year-old daughter uh my spouse 15-year-old son and the President Trump's having a great conversation with
01:02:11
them and and then he said "Oh Scott while you're here let me call in these other two people and we need to discuss
01:02:19
this." So they actually got to see government being done live so you there there's that um I I you know I I have to
01:02:31
say I I think the the moment with um President Trump Vice President Vance President Zalinski was kind of a once in
01:02:41
a-lifetime thing in the Oval Office i hope it's once in a lifetime and they um but you know I I was sitting there kind
01:02:49
of in the front row of history i I vice president Secretary Rubio myself on the sofa and watching President
01:02:59
Zullinsky do what I thought was the the biggest diplomatic own goal in history yeah yeah i think you said it very well
01:03:07
in in TV afterwards it really really was based on and you you said because you were there you tried to negotiate with
01:03:13
him in Kev it was a very escalated I think you use the word escalated or high high decibel conversation high decel yes
01:03:21
yeah so but it kind of my my job for 35 years was to be outside the room try to put my ear to
01:03:30
the door maybe lift myself over the transom figure out what the leaders needed to do were going to do and then
01:03:38
how it would affect the markets and now it it's fantastic and amazing and stimulating and a little scary being the
01:03:49
person in the room who has to what should we do what can we do how's it going to affect the markets
01:03:56
how's it going to affect the real economy that what what's it going to do to working people in America so how do
01:04:03
we fix affordability um we're just going to have to go through and where where's the problem
01:04:11
what's the solution in terms of like are are the insurance markets broken right what can
01:04:20
we do there there's been no in I I've been involved in the house building business there's been no technological
01:04:28
change in house building in 50 years maybe 60 some of the building codes go all the way back to the Chicago fire
01:04:35
right so what can we do that the way we categorize housing it's stickuilt or modular mhm is there something in the
01:04:47
middle prefab because the more that comes out of a factory the more that is standardized that neighborhoods from DC
01:04:57
from DC to Bethesda to PTOAC to like you could be in contiguous neighborhoods and
01:05:05
if they're different municipalities they'd all have different building codes not zoning building yeah and why is that
01:05:12
like it they're adjacent why do the houses have to be so is there some kind of window guidance that the federal
01:05:20
government can give in terms of the more that comes out of the factory the cheaper it'll be the faster we can make
01:05:27
it things like that is there pressure that you could apply or influence you can apply one of the things you
01:05:32
mentioned earlier was just you know take San Francisco there's an artificial constraint that's created by the zoning
01:05:39
paradigm and it's not clear how you unlock that you know maybe is it up to private citizens to sort of like have
01:05:45
regime change at the local level um but how do we sort of unclog that part of it
01:05:51
to marry up with this kind of stuff because it would be great if you could just build up in many places yeah well I
01:05:56
I I think there are a lot of things where you can look around and find what's interesting that some what's something
01:06:05
that's interesting that's being done somewhere so I I lived in Greenwich Connecticut for a while may maybe the
01:06:11
richest suburb in America there's a ton of multifamily there very expensive very
01:06:17
nice multifamily there's some affordable housing but Greenwich is not all 10 acres and a horse farm
01:06:29
the state of Connecticut has put in a I guess it's a law that every municipality
01:06:37
has to allocate 10% of vacant land to multifamily and if the zoning board won't give you a hearing you as a
01:06:47
developer you as a nonprofit for housing can go over the top and go to Hartford and then Hartford will give you the
01:06:58
authority well no no town wants the state doing on their behalf so now the towns negotiate yeah so like I I think
01:07:08
that there are a lot of things that that can be done again on on insurance is there something that I I've been
01:07:17
thinking about is there something the federal government could do for California where we come in
01:07:23
everyone's paying homeowners insurance then there's reinsurance on top of that then I think the California reinsurance
01:07:31
companies called Fair on top of that so it's a well it's a separate plan but yeah yeah but but it it's it's a you're
01:07:39
stack you're stacking it so is there something we could do where you put another layer of private money in there
01:07:47
and then the federal government is the fifth risk trunch right but if the federal government comes in can we
01:07:55
mandate down here proper hygiene changes in the building code well changes in the
01:08:01
building code changes in brush cutting right and material choices yeah right right yeah makes sense great so I I
01:08:09
think there's a lot if we And obviously energy I mean just getting back to affordability right energy costs come
01:08:14
down i took the words out of my mouth no no no no but I mean energy costs are energy costs but then there's also the
01:08:22
for food the transportation cost of getting it to the to the grocery store everything that that's made out of
01:08:29
petroleum products so I I think we we can do that and um you know I think there's a lot to do
01:08:38
and it shouldn't be too hard so we're actually we should probably be announcing it in about 10 days we're
01:08:45
going to have an affordabil affordability zar but it's going to be someone with a lot of experience in
01:08:51
supply chains figuring out what are a lot of the quick fixes we can do because back to the question
01:09:01
what really has people anxious inflation for now is actually pretty quiet in and
01:09:12
um but the affordability has gotten so away from everyone that how can we bring that down
01:09:21
yeah good for all our friends at home who talk a lot about the conversation about climate change and carbon-f free i
01:09:31
think one of the things that I always point out to people is the cheapest way of driving energy production in this
01:09:37
country is that there's a low carbon or carbon-f free alternative that's out there that's actually cheaper than
01:09:42
standing up new new plants um and there's an acceleration i don't know how much this administration thinks about
01:09:48
that relationship but it seems to me like if we can unlock energy production costs come down and this economy
01:09:54
transitions well it transitions and I think it's also not being dogmatic like I I I saw what the Biden
01:10:01
administration did with EVs i I have an EV i can't wait for it to come off lease
01:10:06
and but also have a hybrid and I think I fill it up maybe three times a year totally but this administration had a
01:10:14
jihad on hybrids because there it it they didn't pass the purity test so they were picking winners and losers in a way
01:10:22
that a lot of us were left scratching our heads yep and cheap I think cheap energy solves a lot of problems i I I
01:10:29
think it'll a and uh cheap energy is energy security too 100% cuz that that's why Europe's kind of over a
01:10:39
barrel literally and it's a it's why the Russian war machine hasn't again literally run out of gas and to the
01:10:48
extent that we believe we're in an existential arms race for technical supremacy it's really on one dimension
01:10:54
which is AI and that is so needy of energy so if we don't pull all of these issues together and
01:11:02
realize that we need to basically take the incremental cost to zero whatever we do we need to create the incentives and
01:11:07
package it all together i mean we can't we can't compete manufacturing as without energy without we certainly
01:11:12
can't compete without energy yep yeah i mean we're we're we're not going to crush labor like China and some other
01:11:19
countries have done so we got to crush the energy price right exactly right and when you're in the Oval what are the
01:11:24
truths and misconceptions of the president meaning on the outside and what people know or don't know oh how
01:11:31
about this i we we had a lot of um foreign leaders come in and I I knew someone in in the in one of their
01:11:43
entouragees i won't tell you which one but afterwards he comes up to me he goes "Holy crap." He goes "He's really smart
01:11:50
president Trump has perfect recollection because he was talking about something that had happened in that country 30
01:11:56
years ago and he said and he really So the President Trump listens he is judicious he is just taking it all in he
01:12:05
likes to see how people react um it it's just incredible executive skills uh yeah and the other thing too
01:12:17
that he he's tough but I went in and I showed him we were talking about something the other day and I said "Well
01:12:24
you know this is going to cause some layoffs." He goes "Well let let's try to fix it." Yeah yeah let's try to fix it
01:12:32
so I I always say he really regards himself as the mayor of America right 330 million people he wants to be
01:12:40
personable to everyone and he cares deeply about all of them and he doesn't care whether you're Elon Musk or the the
01:12:49
guy cutting the rose garden but you're his constituent great well Scott thank you so much for
01:12:56
taking the time this has been a wonderful a pleasure and we really appreciate the insight yeah and thanks
01:13:01
for the service and thanks for doing the role good thanks appreciate it thanks [Music]
01:13:11
thanks i'm going all in