00:00:00
do you go to New York much Uh never I I
00:00:04
closed my house Oh wow I basically uh I
00:00:07
tricked my wife You know how your wife
00:00:09
always wants to uh renovate your house
00:00:12
No idea So my wife that's like my wife
00:00:15
always wants to renovate my house right
00:00:17
Every minute I've been alive my wife has
00:00:19
wanted to renovate parts of my house So
00:00:21
we moved out once a year and a half ago
00:00:23
Uh uh we moved out for a year and a half
00:00:25
about six years ago And she only did
00:00:28
half the house And she still rued the
00:00:30
day that she only did half the house
00:00:31
Really Yeah So that so this so that was
00:00:34
the deal What I did is I uh bought a
00:00:36
house wash and said "You want to
00:00:37
renovate the house?" She said "Yeah." I
00:00:39
said "Great We hired a contractor." Wait
00:00:41
you brought Brett Bear's house No Yeah
00:00:42
that's a beautiful house We can I can
00:00:44
talk about whatever you want By the way
00:00:45
I'm happy to talk about serious things
00:00:47
casual things No let's just do this
00:00:49
Let's roll because he's roll You're
00:00:51
already running right He's on fire
00:00:54
All right besties I think that was
00:00:55
another epic discussion People love the
00:00:58
interviews I could hear him talk for
00:01:00
hours Absolutely Oh he crushed your
00:01:02
questions I made it We are giving people
00:01:03
ground truth data to underwrite your own
00:01:06
opinion What do you guys think That was
00:01:07
fun That was great
00:01:10
Howard thanks for being here Thanks for
00:01:12
joining myself and David Freeberg on the
00:01:14
All-In podcast I want to take a step
00:01:16
back before we talk about today and
00:01:19
instead talk about your friendship with
00:01:22
the president how it started how you
00:01:24
guys got to know each other and walk us
00:01:26
through the moment when you you know
00:01:29
frankly went out on a limb a little bit
00:01:30
stepped up became the campaign finance
00:01:32
chair and then just that evolution So
00:01:35
I've known the president since I was 30
00:01:37
years old So I used to go on the uh call
00:01:41
we call it the charity circuit in New
00:01:43
York Sure So there's basically a charity
00:01:45
party every night when you live in New
00:01:47
York Like the rubber chicken dinner Like
00:01:48
literally the rubber chicken And and uh
00:01:50
so sort of every night you go out and uh
00:01:53
and
00:01:54
so the boss of my company Bernie Caner
00:01:58
he got tired of going right So he didn't
00:02:00
want to go So he would send me with his
00:02:02
wife and I would be her walker You know
00:02:04
I'm the 30-year-old CEO of the company
00:02:07
and I'd take her to the party and uh and
00:02:10
after the party I'd put her in a limo
00:02:12
and she'd go home and DJT would say
00:02:16
"Well let's go out." And so we'd go out
00:02:19
It wasn't planned but he was at the
00:02:21
party He's 45 I'm at the party 30 And we
00:02:24
chase the same girls Okay It's basically
00:02:28
it worked out fine And and by the way
00:02:30
here's the thing about Donald Trump He
00:02:32
was the most famous the most fun Yeah
00:02:37
the most interesting person 30 years ago
00:02:41
33 years ago I mean here's the best
00:02:44
thing He's been on the cover of Time
00:02:46
magazine
00:02:47
59 times No way And then he leans over
00:02:51
to me and he goes "And 20 were good."
00:02:54
Like but who can take that Yeah I mean
00:02:56
who could take like other people when
00:02:57
you have a bad cover of Time magazine
00:03:00
you'd crumple right and be sand on the
00:03:03
floor and said he's like but so Howard
00:03:05
is is it that he's just totally wired to
00:03:09
understand that moment like of being a
00:03:11
public figure or like what is it that's
00:03:14
so unique about what constitutes the
00:03:16
ability to navigate that over 40 years I
00:03:19
think it it it adds energy to him to him
00:03:23
Right So everybody else's energy what
00:03:25
they don't understand is people bring
00:03:27
negative energy to Donald Trump right
00:03:29
And they're just charging his battery
00:03:31
Okay Your energy around him comes to him
00:03:34
So when I come at him with a lot of
00:03:36
energy he comes back with a lot of
00:03:37
energy Right Right It doesn't matter He
00:03:40
never he never steps back He just sort
00:03:42
of takes it like the centrifuge and then
00:03:44
hurls it back at you And he's been that
00:03:46
way always So this is not new This is
00:03:50
just who he is This is who he is So so
00:03:52
those other people who attack him they
00:03:54
think they're attacking him they're
00:03:56
charging his battery They're literally
00:03:58
charging his battery So he comes back
00:04:00
bigger stronger bigger stronger And once
00:04:02
you understand the man the most
00:04:05
intuitive person that you've ever met
00:04:09
Yeah And people say "Well okay so people
00:04:11
who know me I don't suffer fools." And
00:04:13
they have all these derogatorial my left
00:04:16
liberal friends all these derogatory
00:04:18
statements about the guy right And they
00:04:20
know me really well Yeah Right And
00:04:22
they'd say "Well how can you work for
00:04:23
him?" I'd say "How can I work for him?"
00:04:26
The most intuitive person he senses it
00:04:29
He knows it He calls me up and he says
00:04:31
"Panama Canal." That's what he says He
00:04:34
goes "Panama Canal." It just feels wrong
00:04:37
Right And then he sends me on the quest
00:04:39
to go I I didn't do anything I just
00:04:41
start the quest to go look at it Yeah
00:04:43
Right
00:04:44
The mouth that's east is a deep water
00:04:48
port by the Chinese The mouth that's
00:04:51
west is a deep water port by the Chinese
00:04:54
They're building bridges over it So our
00:04:57
ships and our military ships should go
00:04:59
under right in our hemisphere a Chinese
00:05:03
bridge So then I said "Okay let's go
00:05:06
prove it." So I have a a friend of mine
00:05:07
He's owns a big shipping company I said
00:05:09
"Take two iPhones put them on a stand
00:05:13
and just go through the Panama Canal."
00:05:14
You know the Panama Canal they sort of
00:05:16
drag ships through like this And I said
00:05:18
"Just go video both ways." No just video
00:05:21
both ways
00:05:23
70% of every
00:05:25
letter is Chinese Then I'm talking like
00:05:29
the sides of containers ships the stores
00:05:31
like I'm not talking like signage just
00:05:33
just random signage like you're riding
00:05:35
on a road It's all Chinese
00:05:38
And then I do the research and I call
00:05:40
him back and I say the magic words
00:05:42
between me and him I have your path
00:05:46
which is I've done it I've done the
00:05:48
legal work I've done everything Right So
00:05:50
when you start talking about it you have
00:05:52
a foundation It's not just you talking
00:05:54
So people think he's just talking He's
00:05:56
never just talking Yeah He has people
00:05:58
behind him who bring him his
00:06:01
foundational structural outcome And then
00:06:05
what does he do He went and played golf
00:06:06
that afternoon He called me at 7:00 in
00:06:08
the morning He said "What do you got?"
00:06:09
We talked from 7:00 to 8 He went and
00:06:10
played golf right And that afternoon
00:06:13
there's the American flag in the middle
00:06:15
of the Panama Canal in some you know
00:06:18
truth he puts out right And that's the
00:06:20
fun part right So you work for the the
00:06:23
most intuitive guy Yeah Unbelievably
00:06:26
smart unbelievably thoughtful who knows
00:06:28
what he's doing So it's so fun for me
00:06:31
Howard let's just go back one second So
00:06:34
you have this deep relationship with him
00:06:35
You guys are friends
00:06:37
Scott Besson told us the story that
00:06:39
about 18 months ago though he saw all
00:06:42
this data about what was happening under
00:06:44
Biden and he was just so concerned that
00:06:46
these deficits and debts were getting so
00:06:48
out of control he went to the president
00:06:49
and said how can I help can I help
00:06:51
that's a story um but was there a moment
00:06:54
for you that was like rooted in
00:06:56
something other than friendship like was
00:06:58
there something on the ground where you
00:07:00
said hold on a second this is a train
00:07:03
wreck and we need to do this you were
00:07:04
the finance chair for the campaign Well
00:07:06
no I wasn't the fighting chair I was the
00:07:07
transition chair Transition Okay So I
00:07:09
ran transition which we'll talk about
00:07:11
but so let's go through So I'm friends
00:07:13
with him right But I'm building my
00:07:17
business Young guy building my business
00:07:20
And then 911 happens Yeah Okay So I'm
00:07:24
friends with the guy I'm just friends
00:07:25
with the guy But then 911 happens Kind
00:07:28
sweet calls me all the time Just good
00:07:31
human being Nice warm caring good human
00:07:34
being Right But then I'm knocked out So
00:07:37
what do I do next I try to rebuild my
00:07:39
company take care of the families of 911
00:07:42
You know I had I lost 658 people who
00:07:44
work for me And uh and we had a policy
00:07:47
We want to work with people that we like
00:07:50
So when we had an opening we didn't use
00:07:52
head hunters We would say to everybody
00:07:54
at the firm does anybody know anybody
00:07:57
who'd do this job No And so you know
00:08:00
young lady works for me says you know my
00:08:01
best friend is an HR person They have to
00:08:03
have capacity Yeah But once they have
00:08:06
capacity imagine we hire that person
00:08:08
Yeah Now what happens is it's it's not
00:08:10
one big happy family Yeah But people
00:08:13
really really care about the company and
00:08:17
that's our company that's on the top
00:08:19
five floors of the World Trade Center on
00:08:22
911 when the plane hits it Kills
00:08:24
everybody at the office My brother Gary
00:08:26
he dies at 36 My best friend Doug he
00:08:28
dies at 39 Uh I had just turned 40 that
00:08:32
summer I had a party 65 couples It's my
00:08:36
my 40th birthday 40th birthday Yeah
00:08:38
Right 27 people at my party get killed
00:08:41
Jesus My friends These are my friends So
00:08:45
I'm driven to take care of the families
00:08:47
of the people who who died And I commit
00:08:49
25% of all of our profits Uh but the
00:08:52
company's destroyed So we go from making
00:08:54
a million a day I was a rich guy right
00:08:57
What's the definition of a rich guy No
00:08:59
personal debt no corporate debt Ken
00:09:02
Fitzgerald no debt So how do you survive
00:09:05
911 If you don't owe anybody any money
00:09:08
the only money you're losing is is your
00:09:10
money Is your money So we survive and we
00:09:14
take care of our friends families and
00:09:16
then we build the company back up So you
00:09:19
could see like I'm uh I'm a special
00:09:21
guest on the Celebrity Apprentice the
00:09:24
first season of Celebrity Apprentice
00:09:27
Piers Morgan wins Did he fire you No no
00:09:29
I wasn't a contestant I'm a little
00:09:32
beyond being a contestant I was a
00:09:35
special guest I'd come in like if you
00:09:36
see during the auction I'm standing next
00:09:38
to him at the auction you know and I'm
00:09:40
helping him like I'm just his friend
00:09:41
sort of as an extra all along the way
00:09:43
you know every once you kept the
00:09:44
friendship going as you're rebuilding
00:09:47
We're friends all the way but I'm
00:09:48
rebuilding my company Yeah And then so
00:09:50
I'm not interested in politics Okay I
00:09:53
don't do anything in politics because
00:09:54
I'm I got my head down Right We had the
00:09:57
financial crisis Cander children's great
00:09:59
in the financial crisis Had you ever
00:10:01
donated to candidates at all or not Yeah
00:10:03
New York candidates Okay Right New York
00:10:05
C So think about it You're in New York
00:10:07
You try to pick
00:10:09
uh social liberals fiscal conservatives
00:10:13
right If that even exists anymore Right
00:10:15
But they if you're in New York you have
00:10:16
to pick and look I grew up in New York
00:10:18
so I'm socially liberal What else could
00:10:21
I possibly be Yeah So you know so early
00:10:24
when Chuck Schumer was young before he
00:10:26
became what the president now calls a
00:10:28
Palestinian you know you know he you
00:10:30
know I raised him you know I I raised
00:10:33
him money and gave him money Donald
00:10:35
Trump gave him money Same I I did too
00:10:37
Yeah I mean because he was he was uh
00:10:39
that's what he said he was He was social
00:10:41
liberal fiscal conservative and and uh
00:10:43
so I you know we'd all give to those
00:10:45
kind of candidates but mostly
00:10:48
giving to get along right and to be able
00:10:51
to you know ask him a question if you
00:10:52
needed to ask him a question but there
00:10:54
was really no I had no drive right in
00:10:57
that like I said the first four nights I
00:11:00
slept in Washington in the last 20 years
00:11:02
when when Donald Trump was elected I had
00:11:05
never slept here I'd come down visit a
00:11:07
little go home go home What am I staying
00:11:09
here for So he calls me at the end of
00:11:14
October 23 Okay So he's already had his
00:11:17
first term You didn't you didn't support
00:11:19
or get No I was so I gave him money and
00:11:22
I gave Hillary money You gave Hillary
00:11:24
money in the first term Yeah because
00:11:26
Hillary was incredibly helpful to me
00:11:28
post 911 Remember she was a senator
00:11:30
right And New York needed help right And
00:11:33
Hillary was incredibly helpful and I was
00:11:36
driving the team to help New York
00:11:37
rebuild because I had relationships with
00:11:40
a whole bunch of congressmen and they
00:11:43
were going to do nice things Like Bill
00:11:44
Young ran House Appropriations right
00:11:47
Bill Young was my friend right through a
00:11:50
whole variety of things that had to do
00:11:51
with
00:11:53
um I used to go to Bethesda Naval
00:11:56
Hospital and I used to walk around and I
00:12:00
would bring music there for the men who
00:12:03
got hurt from the military who were in
00:12:05
Bethesda Naval Hospital And uh we would
00:12:07
walk around I go with my wife and then I
00:12:09
would engage the young man with music I
00:12:13
give him music and ask him what CDs he
00:12:15
wanted this is when CDs were there and
00:12:16
I'd bring up a Walkman and my wife would
00:12:19
pull the family outside and uh she'd pay
00:12:22
a year of their mortgage and all their
00:12:24
expenses because what people don't
00:12:26
realize is your son loses his leg right
00:12:30
Dad and mom come flying in and they're
00:12:32
going to stay by his bedside What job do
00:12:36
these people have that allows them to be
00:12:39
at their son's world And their world is
00:12:41
falling apart cuz their son lost his leg
00:12:43
So the world is falling apart but at
00:12:45
home their world is falling apart
00:12:47
Falling apart And so my my wife uh would
00:12:49
just just try to figure out how much
00:12:51
money was and just give them a check
00:12:53
Yeah And no no form no nothing Just give
00:12:56
him the money Yeah And and help them So
00:12:59
I would bump into Billy Young and his
00:13:02
wife who were they were just they ran
00:13:05
then defense appropriations and they
00:13:06
were there just being good human beings
00:13:08
And so we became friends And he said to
00:13:10
me once he said 'Is there anything I
00:13:12
could ever do to help you I'm like look
00:13:14
you run you're like a congressman from
00:13:17
Florida who does defense appropriations
00:13:19
And I'm like a Jewish guy from New York
00:13:21
who's in finance If there ever were two
00:13:23
skews that we're never going to meet
00:13:24
this is two ships going like right we
00:13:27
got nothing So I said to him look we're
00:13:29
just going to be friends right We're
00:13:31
never going to do anything And then he
00:13:32
runs House Appropriations And so when
00:13:34
New York needs money to rebuild after
00:13:37
911 they go see Bill Young to try to get
00:13:40
a bill passed And he said "How can you
00:13:42
come see me without Howard?" Yeah You
00:13:44
know this is post 911 So I'm running New
00:13:48
York And Hillary does a really nice job
00:13:50
Okay For New York Yeah And I told I told
00:13:54
uh DJT I call him DJT because I've known
00:13:56
him for always I said I told
00:13:59
him that I can't forget Yeah I'm just
00:14:02
not the person who's gonna forget Of
00:14:03
course I gave him money right But I give
00:14:06
it and and by the way he still tortures
00:14:08
me for it So like and you know what the
00:14:10
best part is A good friend does Yes
00:14:12
Right You know what the point is See
00:14:14
other people would would you know sort
00:14:16
of curl back Yeah Right So here right
00:14:19
after he gets elected okay here's a
00:14:21
story for you So right after he gets
00:14:22
elected he has a dinner in New York
00:14:24
right So he invites me to the dinner in
00:14:26
New York cuz I'm his friend And then
00:14:28
while he's giving his talk to his first
00:14:30
dinner in New York he goes "Wait wait
00:14:33
Hillary's supporter and he points at me
00:14:36
right?" So I stand up I go "Hey
00:14:38
everyone." And I sit down You know he's
00:14:40
just sassing me okay Cuz I gave him tons
00:14:43
of dough He knows I love him and it's
00:14:44
fine Okay So we're 2023 So we're
00:14:49
2023 and he calls me and he says "Will
00:14:54
you help me?" Yeah
00:14:55
And I had not thought politics Now I I
00:14:58
gave him money in 2020 re-election Yeah
00:15:01
Probably gave him 10 million bucks I
00:15:02
raised him 15 million bucks So I I was
00:15:05
you know once I I'm on a side the whole
00:15:07
way through I'm raising him money in 17
00:15:09
18 19 20 While he's president I'm
00:15:11
totally on his side Yeah And I'm But I'm
00:15:14
just his friend I'm not engaged Yeah
00:15:16
Okay Because I'm still rebuilding my
00:15:18
life Yeah Okay And then 2023 calls me
00:15:22
says "Will you help
00:15:24
me?" And I actually thought about it
00:15:28
like and that was the first time I
00:15:30
really thought politics And then I said
00:15:35
"Yes." And I gave him 10 million bucks
00:15:37
right then and there And then I started
00:15:40
talking to him I started going on the
00:15:41
campaign trail I started doing research
00:15:44
I started doing knowledge I wanted I
00:15:45
talked to him about everything I talked
00:15:47
to him all the time about everything Did
00:15:48
you love it Cuz our our friend Sachs we
00:15:52
were talking at dinner last night He
00:15:54
seems to love it Like there's nothing
00:15:56
not to love As Donald Trump says this is
00:15:59
a thousand Super Bowls right For him and
00:16:02
for me it's only a hundred Super Bowls
00:16:05
I mean if if you're dedicated to America
00:16:10
and you're willing to wear America's
00:16:11
clothing and to stop worrying about
00:16:14
yourself and only care about America
00:16:15
Yeah and have no objective post Yeah the
00:16:20
president hates when these people have
00:16:21
like they raise money post from people
00:16:23
they've met in here So I'm never going
00:16:25
to work again Okay I'm never going to
00:16:26
work This is all I care about I'm just
00:16:28
going to help America So he asked me to
00:16:30
help him and I start thinking about it I
00:16:32
start studying everything and I read
00:16:34
everything and I read everything about
00:16:35
the White House and I read everything
00:16:37
about everything I can possibly read
00:16:39
because I'm I'm just that way And uh and
00:16:43
then I start helping him Yeah Right And
00:16:45
I went to learn how he picked the judges
00:16:48
right and the Supreme Court and why it
00:16:50
didn't And and uh I'm just very detailed
00:16:54
And so I started studying what
00:16:56
transition is right Right And I started
00:17:00
studying it and I started studying
00:17:02
tariffs cuz he wanted to talk about
00:17:04
tariffs And he's always thought the
00:17:06
trade deficit was wrong and basically a
00:17:08
ripoff of America And I started studying
00:17:09
everything about it Yeah And so he and I
00:17:12
would talk about it and we knew
00:17:13
everything about it And then he picked
00:17:15
me to run Transition Okay So we're going
00:17:17
to talk about terrorists in a sec but so
00:17:18
double click into Transition What did
00:17:20
you find that was so interesting Like
00:17:23
what's I'll give you an example So
00:17:24
there's a book called The Gatekeepers
00:17:27
that was written that people gave me "Oh
00:17:28
you should read this book." And it's
00:17:30
about chiefs of staff Okay And basically
00:17:33
there's another way to call it It's
00:17:34
called The Jerks right Because what they
00:17:37
do imagine you're the gatekeeper Yeah
00:17:40
You're the gatekeeper of what Yeah of
00:17:42
the man who was elected president of the
00:17:44
United States of America that he needs
00:17:45
the gates kept from him And if you
00:17:48
listen to Nixon tapes you hear him
00:17:50
scheming to try to learn anything
00:17:52
because what happens is the chief of
00:17:54
staff everybody reports to the chief of
00:17:56
staff and the chief of staff reports to
00:17:57
you So you can't get on Air Force One
00:18:00
without asking the chief of staff You
00:18:02
can't get a document unless you have the
00:18:03
chief of staff No one can come see you
00:18:06
unless you have the chief of staff And
00:18:07
if they take your phone away you know
00:18:09
what you are You're imprisoned And
00:18:12
that's the gatekeepers So I said to
00:18:14
Donald Trump I said "Look you fired
00:18:16
Ryance Prieous who was your chief of
00:18:18
staff Then you fired John Kelly as the
00:18:19
chief of staff Then you fired Mick
00:18:20
Mulaney as chief of staff Then you would
00:18:22
have fired Meadows but you didn't get a
00:18:24
chance cuz you cuz the the the the next
00:18:27
election So I said "Why don't you fire
00:18:30
the job
00:18:32
What you need is a chief of staff who's
00:18:35
actually your chief of staff not who's
00:18:37
the gatekeeper." Right Right And so that
00:18:39
was an example of how I changed it And
00:18:43
so Susie Wilds is perfect for Donald
00:18:46
Trump You know why She lets him be him
00:18:51
John Kelly took away his phone right So
00:18:54
he couldn't communicate with anybody
00:18:56
Whereas Susie embraces who he is helped
00:18:59
him get elected ran a great campaign
00:19:02
She's perfect for him in this role And
00:19:06
so that's what I brought So I brought
00:19:09
like an an understanding of him right
00:19:12
And an understanding of the role right
00:19:14
Right And that's why I convinced your
00:19:16
friend David Sax Every time he said "I
00:19:18
can't do it." Yeah I would call him and
00:19:20
say "It's an emergency It's emergency I
00:19:21
need to see." You'd fly and go "What is
00:19:22
it?" I go "You need to join the
00:19:24
administration." He goes "That's what
00:19:25
the emergency was." I go "Of course."
00:19:28
And was And Howard was that when you
00:19:30
conceived originally Doge in that
00:19:33
initial Was that during the transition
00:19:35
All right So Doge yeah we should talk
00:19:36
about Doge and tariffs Okay so Doge
00:19:38
comes it's it's
00:19:41
October of
00:19:44
uh before the election Okay Early
00:19:46
October October 2024 October 2024 Yeah
00:19:50
Like the beginning Yeah of October 2024
00:19:53
And I called the president and I said "I
00:19:55
need uh I need to spend an hour with you
00:19:58
because I have my big ideas." Yeah Right
00:20:00
So he gives me he says "Look I'm not
00:20:03
sure what to do October 7th right Why
00:20:06
Why don't we figure out what I should be
00:20:07
doing October 7th So we decided we're
00:20:09
going to go out to the Oell which is uh
00:20:12
uh a super religious uh hedic Jewish um
00:20:17
Messiah You know the the people who wear
00:20:19
black hats think he's the Messiah And
00:20:20
they have a crypt for him where you
00:20:21
write a note and you put a note in All
00:20:24
right And
00:20:25
so we agreed we'd go out to that uh to
00:20:29
that grave site and we'd probably win
00:20:33
60,000 of those kind of voters which is
00:20:36
pretty cool for a day And then we drove
00:20:38
there and back together the two of us So
00:20:40
I had an hour and a half just he and me
00:20:42
talking And I said I want to balance the
00:20:45
budget in the United States of America
00:20:48
And I this is the way we're going to do
00:20:49
it We no one's ever checked the just
00:20:52
under four trillion dollars of
00:20:53
entitlements Every politician thinks
00:20:55
what you have to do is you have to take
00:20:56
the retirement age from 65 and make it a
00:20:59
70 right And you have to do this and
00:21:01
this and this and this because they
00:21:02
never think about the money Totally But
00:21:04
people like us totally would say what's
00:21:07
the first thing you do What's the value
00:21:09
I'm getting for my money Totally right
00:21:11
And what you find is if nobody ever like
00:21:14
as in ever like I could say the word
00:21:17
ever 12
00:21:19
times has looked at where the money goes
00:21:22
Totally And so there's not even a
00:21:24
process to get it back when you send it
00:21:26
to the wrong person You just send
00:21:28
another one out Yeah Like think about it
00:21:30
You just Well I sent it accidentally or
00:21:32
accidentally Notice how it's accidental
00:21:34
It's always accidentally sent to the
00:21:35
wrong person Really You wouldn't ever
00:21:36
say the 5.9 million people who work for
00:21:38
the government there could be some
00:21:39
crooks in there right No no no It's all
00:21:42
accidental What a load of nonsense this
00:21:44
is There's some percentage of this But
00:21:48
you would say
00:21:50
and you would say no just zero base it
00:21:51
and let's figure out where it's got to
00:21:53
be 25% Yeah we'd all say if it's never
00:21:55
been checked how could it not be 25% How
00:21:57
could it not be And the answer is that's
00:21:59
a trillion dollars a year right Okay So
00:22:01
I said I think we're going to cut a
00:22:03
trillion dollars a year in expense and
00:22:06
then I think we can through tariffs and
00:22:08
other means we're going to get revenues
00:22:09
have a trillion dollars incremental
00:22:12
revenue incremental revenue and we're
00:22:14
going to balance the budget but all but
00:22:15
sorry let me just ask one question how
00:22:17
do the tax cut to the extension of the
00:22:18
tax cuts there they're there is zero
00:22:20
basis that means where I was yesterday
00:22:22
and where I am tomorrow like oh it's a
00:22:23
tax cut no it's not it's the exact same
00:22:25
thing as yesterday as today to say
00:22:28
continuing yesterday tomorrow is like
00:22:30
silly So let me ask you let me ask you
00:22:32
on tariffs Having studied it yourself
00:22:35
When there's higher tariffs people
00:22:38
purchase less things cost more No we'll
00:22:41
talk about tariffs Let's let's just
00:22:42
finish Let's just finish uh Doge So I'm
00:22:45
in the car with him right And I said
00:22:47
"We're going to balance the budget." And
00:22:48
I said "I have one favor to ask of you
00:22:52
If we can balance the budget for you
00:22:55
will you agree to wave all income tax I
00:22:58
see for every person who makes less than
00:23:00
$150,000 a year for the United States of
00:23:03
America which by the way is about 85% of
00:23:05
America Right Right And the reason you
00:23:08
want to work for Donald Trump is he
00:23:10
looks at me he goes
00:23:13
"Sure." You realize the president of
00:23:15
United States said "If you balance the
00:23:17
budget sure." And he's not lying He's
00:23:20
not kidding He's like "Yeah that seems
00:23:22
that seems like a great idea." Right
00:23:24
Right And so and then I tell him "Okay
00:23:27
I'm going to go recruit Elon because
00:23:29
Elon's allin." Yeah Right He's already
00:23:32
said he's all in He's already said he's
00:23:34
going to Pennsylvania Yes Right So I
00:23:36
call Elon and I don't know Elon
00:23:39
I don't know But he's perfect for this
00:23:41
So I use my superpower which is I call
00:23:43
everybody else I know who knows him and
00:23:45
they arrange and I'm texting with him
00:23:47
and he agrees to meet me on October 14th
00:23:50
So I fly down to Brownsville Texas Uh
00:23:54
he's going to catch the rocket on
00:23:56
October 14th Right So that's what he
00:23:57
invites me down for the rocket catch
00:23:59
That's right Having nothing he's not
00:24:00
inviting me for the rocket catch He's
00:24:01
just inviting me down that that's a good
00:24:03
day for me to meet him So I fly down I
00:24:05
see the rocket catch which is awesome
00:24:06
Yeah Awesome Awesome Awesome Awesome And
00:24:09
then I expect to meet him By the way
00:24:10
very pivotal day in the in the campaign
00:24:13
If you remember Biden sort of didn't pay
00:24:15
as much attention to it Trump was pretty
00:24:17
engaged Elon was supportive of Trump So
00:24:18
when he actually caught the rocket the
00:24:21
media was almost like frozen waiting for
00:24:23
it to fail and it didn't fail and it
00:24:25
worked and it was just incredible I was
00:24:27
waiting for Elon Okay So I flew down to
00:24:30
see Elon and uh with with my uh with my
00:24:33
son and uh so we watched the rocket
00:24:37
right And then they say "Okay he's gonna
00:24:38
go hang out with his engineers and party
00:24:40
with them." Seems reasonable It's like
00:24:42
an hour hour and a half And then he just
00:24:44
goes dark
00:24:46
You're still waiting I'm just sitting
00:24:48
there waiting And then they take me and
00:24:50
I go to like a the equivalent of a
00:24:51
Margaritavville you know where you have
00:24:53
like a a basket and you can get
00:24:55
quesadillas and get and you get a Diet
00:24:57
Coke in a in a in a red sort of plastic
00:25:00
thing that's about this tall It's like
00:25:01
got 4,000 ounces of Diet Coke in it that
00:25:04
comes with this big But now to his
00:25:06
credit he sends me all the executives
00:25:08
from SpaceX are hanging with me but he's
00:25:11
dark And what happened is he took a nap
00:25:14
He was up all night doing the
00:25:16
engineering and he went to sleep So then
00:25:18
when he finally wakes up so I'm just
00:25:20
sitting there like you know doing the
00:25:22
like I don't know him really So I'm just
00:25:23
doing the thumb twiddle I'm going okay
00:25:26
you know this guy's got a couple I'm
00:25:28
hoping he sees me right So then he wakes
00:25:30
up He says "Come to my
00:25:32
house right I'll see you in my house."
00:25:34
So his house is 1,200 feet It's got the
00:25:36
furniture in it that I had when I
00:25:37
graduated from college Yeah Right Okay
00:25:39
I'm not kidding I'm not kidding It's
00:25:41
1,200 feet and it's got the furniture
00:25:44
plastic chairs and Okay
00:25:47
So I say
00:25:50
um we're going to balance the budget I
00:25:52
need to cut a trillion He's like I'm in
00:25:56
He says "I think we should cut 80% of
00:25:59
the federal government because the
00:26:01
essential employees if the government
00:26:03
shut down essential employees are
00:26:05
450,000." Yeah Okay And there's 5.9
00:26:07
million people who work for the
00:26:08
government How can 450,000 be essential
00:26:11
and there's 5.9 million So he says "Like
00:26:13
Twitter I think we should cut 80%." Yeah
00:26:15
And I say "I know how to cut 50." And he
00:26:19
says "I want to cut 80." I said "I know
00:26:21
how to do 50." He goes "Are you with me
00:26:23
or against me?" I go "I know how to
00:26:26
legally do it What do you have?" And my
00:26:29
son says it was like two alpha dogs just
00:26:31
like fighting with each other for the
00:26:32
first half hour And then and then um so
00:26:36
then X comes in right And then he's got
00:26:39
to walk X he's got to walk his son X out
00:26:41
So he walks his son X out And I'm
00:26:43
thinking maybe the meeting's over right
00:26:45
Because we've been together a half hour
00:26:47
40 minutes and maybe it's over because
00:26:48
he got up and he walked out He comes
00:26:50
back and he sits down He goes "Har this
00:26:51
meeting is right." That's what he says
00:26:54
this meeting and we sit down and we map
00:26:57
out the plan I tell them what a gratus
00:26:59
vendor is Yeah Because I designed cuz I
00:27:02
was not going to go into the government
00:27:03
I was doing transition What is a gratus
00:27:05
vendor A gratus vendor is uh is a an
00:27:09
approved vendor for the United States of
00:27:10
America that gives product to the
00:27:13
government Doesn't sell it Okay So
00:27:16
therefore I don't have to go through the
00:27:17
whole process of becoming a proper
00:27:19
vendor because you're giving it to us
00:27:22
And then if you give it to article
00:27:25
two which is the president's stuff then
00:27:27
the president can accept
00:27:29
it right Because it's give Sorry how
00:27:32
what's an example of this Like just to
00:27:34
make I write some software You write
00:27:35
some software I write some software for
00:27:37
the commerce department to do a better
00:27:39
job of XYZ Mhm You just give it to me
00:27:43
and then I do QA on it and I can take it
00:27:45
If you sell it to me for $1 we go into
00:27:48
government hell right The whole
00:27:49
rigomearole right But if you give it to
00:27:51
me right And then I set up you know so I
00:27:55
said I'm calling it
00:27:56
Doge and I registered the name Doge You
00:27:59
said that of course And were you
00:28:01
familiar with Dogecoin and Elon It's
00:28:04
Elon So what happens is in
00:28:08
in the Defense Production Act in World
00:28:11
War II yes In order to get all the great
00:28:13
executives Yes of America to help with
00:28:16
production They named everything after
00:28:18
jazz singers or the things that of the
00:28:21
people who were on the committee that it
00:28:23
would make them laugh and smile Okay
00:28:25
Right So I picked Doge so he would laugh
00:28:29
and he said get the f out of here Like
00:28:31
when I said we're going to name it Doge
00:28:33
the Department of Government Efficiency
00:28:34
which I didn't think of It was on the
00:28:36
internet sort of floating around in June
00:28:38
Yes Right But I literally registered it
00:28:41
right as the department of government
00:28:42
efficiency like make it a real thing as
00:28:45
a gratus vendor and I said this is how
00:28:48
I've done it for me Yes So that I can
00:28:50
run Caner Fitzgerald you can run SpaceX
00:28:54
right You you're not you don't have to
00:28:55
sign the conflict form and all this
00:28:57
stuff because you're not working for the
00:28:59
government You're just giving stuff to
00:29:01
the government You are literally giving
00:29:03
of yourself right But you're not looking
00:29:05
for anything You're not taking any money
00:29:07
You're not owning anything You're not
00:29:09
doing anything You're not on that side
00:29:10
of the wall You're on this side you're
00:29:12
outside Yeah Right And so we we had fun
00:29:17
We talked for two hours And then on my
00:29:20
Twitter feed I took a picture of me and
00:29:23
Elon outside and I put up "Welcome to
00:29:26
Doge We are going to rip the waste out
00:29:29
of our $6.5 trillion
00:29:31
uh government and balance the budget We
00:29:33
must elect Donald J Trump president."
00:29:35
Yeah Right and and I posted that with my
00:29:38
I probably at the time had 25,000
00:29:40
viewers and I got 45 million views Wow
00:29:44
Right So it was me and Eli Yeah And that
00:29:46
was the beginning of Doge Yeah Right
00:29:48
Then I ran transition which is so for
00:29:51
the
00:29:52
transition we had I had a room in Maraga
00:29:55
Yeah Okay Big conference table in the
00:29:57
middle Four 85in screens on one side and
00:30:01
mirror four 85in screens on the other
00:30:03
side so that you and I could talk to
00:30:04
each other So the president sat across
00:30:06
from me Yeah Elon sat Oh and then I'll
00:30:08
tell you one other story about Elon So
00:30:10
he wins the election President wins the
00:30:12
election He accepts it like Wednesday at
00:30:14
2:00 in the morning right Elon's not on
00:30:18
stage If you see I'm on stage Elon's way
00:30:20
in the back of the room There's a
00:30:21
thousand people in the room 2,000 people
00:30:23
He's way in the back He he goes home
00:30:26
Thursday afternoon I call I'm doing a
00:30:28
dry run of the launch of my transition
00:30:32
right And the president is superstitious
00:30:34
He's never had one conversation with me
00:30:36
about transition He totally trusts me He
00:30:40
wins the election Now he's got a look
00:30:43
you know I said on Jess he hasn't talked
00:30:45
to you ahead of time about who he about
00:30:47
one job about one thing So until the
00:30:50
election because he's superstitious like
00:30:53
don't waste your time Don't jinx it
00:30:55
right Just go win You got to go win So
00:30:58
what happens is he
00:31:00
So I'm I'm doing a dry run So I call
00:31:03
Elon and I said 'Where are you?' He goes
00:31:05
'What do you mean I'm in Austin Texas or
00:31:07
whatever I go what are you doing I mean
00:31:10
what is the point of you spending three
00:31:15
weeks living in Pennsylvania helping the
00:31:17
guy get elected if you're not going to
00:31:19
help him pick the cabinet Like come on
00:31:22
Right Because the way President Trump
00:31:25
works he makes decisions by orchestra
00:31:29
He likes lots of views and opinions He
00:31:33
likes them And anybody who says "Oh the
00:31:35
last person who sees him gets them."
00:31:37
That's because they don't know him at
00:31:38
all Right Right The answer is it's an
00:31:41
orchestra Right And I would say "Okay
00:31:44
I'm the first violin." You know at the
00:31:46
time I would say I was you know I would
00:31:47
describe myself as second violin Yeah
00:31:49
Right So this is an orchestra So the
00:31:51
president's not going to make a decision
00:31:52
with me and him alone Yeah No No He's
00:31:55
gonna have So he So it went like this
00:31:57
president sitting across from me right
00:31:59
at the conference table Elon to his left
00:32:02
Suzie to his right right JD to my left
00:32:06
Linda McMahon who was my co-chair right
00:32:09
But she wrote all those EOS that he did
00:32:11
That was she was responsible for and I
00:32:13
was responsible for personnel but she
00:32:15
was with me for personnel So she's
00:32:16
sitting to my right JD sitting to my
00:32:18
left Don Jr right Steven Miller any and
00:32:22
and he there was always 12 people in the
00:32:24
room They were never like me and him
00:32:26
hushed in the corner doing this and that
00:32:27
Never And what we would do is I would
00:32:30
put eight candidates on one screen Right
00:32:33
Right And then big candidate on each
00:32:35
screen Most beautiful AI picture of
00:32:37
you've ever seen Right And people would
00:32:39
walk in and go "Where'd you get that
00:32:40
photo?" I'm like "What do you think I
00:32:42
did I took three of your photos." I've
00:32:43
heard secondhand stories of this room
00:32:45
during the transition that there you
00:32:46
walk in and everyone's photo is up on
00:32:48
the screen Everybody's on the room And
00:32:49
so that's a candidate for a role And
00:32:51
then you guys would debate it And so
00:32:52
what happened was a big picture of the
00:32:53
person Yeah they're they're key
00:32:55
highlights of the resume not boring
00:32:57
their education right And then you would
00:33:00
click a button and you'd see them
00:33:02
speaking 20 seconds at a time four of
00:33:05
them right So it's about 80 seconds and
00:33:08
you're not speaking about the job Just
00:33:10
like how do you present Totally And what
00:33:12
you can see is his whole cabinet can
00:33:15
talk Totally All of them Totally because
00:33:18
he picked them knowing I need you to be
00:33:20
able to talk to be able to present our
00:33:21
ideas and our concepts out there and
00:33:23
that's key to him and what I would the
00:33:25
way I would joke to people is say how do
00:33:26
you do it I go watch pitch so you throw
00:33:29
him a curveball he wouldn't swing you
00:33:32
throw him fast ball he wouldn't swing
00:33:33
you throw him a slider he hits the ball
00:33:34
hits it to my glove I go here you go you
00:33:36
go well how do you know that I go
00:33:38
because I know the guy for 33 years I
00:33:40
know what he wants and he loved the
00:33:42
process and you know what happened you
00:33:44
saw what happened right first A eight
00:33:48
candidates 12 jobs national security
00:33:51
Okay He says "What do you want?" I go
00:33:52
"Eight to four." I put up eight
00:33:55
candidates I recruited everybody I had
00:33:58
150 of the best Republicans in the
00:34:00
United States of America They each gave
00:34:02
me five people who then gave me 10
00:34:04
people I had thousands of people to pick
00:34:06
from The whole government was set up to
00:34:09
pick from And then we picked candidates
00:34:11
I had eight for every job Yeah Eight
00:34:13
Eight Eight Eight 8 to four That's
00:34:16
Friday Sunday comes in 4 to 2 in the
00:34:20
morning I fly everybody in for the two I
00:34:23
prep them We go in and meet them Two to
00:34:26
one Final interview Give him the job Wow
00:34:30
Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang Monday T Monday
00:34:33
We're done with national security Okay
00:34:36
Now we're rolling on And it just pounds
00:34:38
out Why Because he had every candidate
00:34:40
Everybody knew it Everybody was prepped
00:34:42
Everybody was aware Everybody was done
00:34:44
You know that's why I had to beat the
00:34:45
heck out of David Saxs because I needed
00:34:47
David Sachs to be in the government I
00:34:49
recruited David I pounded on David You
00:34:52
can ask David right I beat him and beat
00:34:54
him and beat him until he finally said
00:34:56
"Okay I'm going to do it." Right And I
00:34:58
did that for everybody Yeah Right And I
00:35:00
made sure he had the greatest choices
00:35:03
And then every once in a while he would
00:35:04
call me at night and say "Throw this guy
00:35:06
in Throw this guy in Throw this guy in."
00:35:07
We did a vet on everybody But I didn't
00:35:10
take out anything negative I am not a
00:35:11
negative person You can tell I'm
00:35:13
positive So why would I discuss anything
00:35:17
negative about any candidate
00:35:19
until I get picked There was no game
00:35:21
theory A lot of people speculated there
00:35:22
was game theory that we'll put a mix of
00:35:24
people that will assume some won't make
00:35:26
it out of committee and then we'll end
00:35:28
up with the ones that we do want
00:35:30
Everyone was the number one choice Only
00:35:31
one Only one Only one And that was Matt
00:35:34
Matt Yeah What happened what happened
00:35:36
with Matt Howard How did that process He
00:35:39
he was tortured by his attorney general
00:35:42
in the first term and we were not going
00:35:44
to have that ever again Right So we
00:35:47
needed strong backbone strong capacity
00:35:50
of which Matt Gates has it Yeah And I
00:35:53
know Matt Gates and he has it Right But
00:35:55
we did not know what that vet was going
00:35:57
to say from that report from Congress So
00:36:00
here was the idea We fight for him and
00:36:03
we fight for him to get through and then
00:36:05
we read the report The report's not bad
00:36:07
Remember the president's been tortured
00:36:09
by people blaming him for stuff that
00:36:11
never happened Oh 30 years ago he raped
00:36:13
this woman in the in the dressing room
00:36:15
of Bloomingdales I mean what a load of
00:36:17
crap right It's just not true None of
00:36:20
it's true It's ridiculous So he he comes
00:36:23
at this saying I know you're going to
00:36:25
get tortured with ridiculous right So
00:36:28
then he says if it's if it's ridiculous
00:36:31
then we support Matt and if it's not we
00:36:34
have Pam right here right now So that
00:36:36
was lined up so that everybody knows
00:36:38
it's right here right now And it's 3D
00:36:41
chess So we read it Pam Okay It's like
00:36:44
Pam in a hundth of a second right And
00:36:46
Pam is a rockar And you could argue
00:36:49
that you would say "Well why didn't you
00:36:51
pick her first?" You know what He's the
00:36:53
president He plays 3D chess He did it
00:36:57
his way And you know what But there was
00:36:59
no candidate up there Yeah Who wasn't
00:37:02
right Yeah Right And we could talk about
00:37:04
all the detail and how we thought about
00:37:06
it what it went But it was so thoughtful
00:37:09
so intuitive and so right And what does
00:37:12
it produce The greatest cabinet ever The
00:37:16
most capable thoughtful best able to
00:37:18
communicate I mean it's so fun to be in
00:37:21
a room with these people because these
00:37:23
are worldclass people the best ever in
00:37:25
government We shouldn't betray
00:37:26
confidence but I mean we were in a room
00:37:28
earlier this week with several of them
00:37:30
and everyone had a moment to speak
00:37:33
It was unbelievable I mean look every
00:37:37
single one of them you're like could
00:37:39
have been a leader of the country Like
00:37:40
they're all great That's the point He
00:37:42
picked He picked greatness Now I was the
00:37:44
recruiter So I was a recruiter and chief
00:37:46
but I can understand why now by the way
00:37:48
Well but think about it If you take
00:37:50
someone like me Yeah and you say "Just
00:37:52
be a head hunter." Yeah I swear to you I
00:37:54
can be the greatest head hunter ever to
00:37:56
live Because think about it What's the
00:37:58
odds of saying "Okay Howard your whole
00:38:00
job is just be a head hunter Find the
00:38:02
best guys I promise you I'll be really
00:38:04
good Okay Can we go back to Doge So you
00:38:06
talked about the Gatus vendors Maybe
00:38:08
there's other stuff that you can do with
00:38:10
executive action the president can do
00:38:13
with Doge etc Can we talk about
00:38:15
congressional budgets How how do we
00:38:17
actually balance a budget without
00:38:20
bringing Congress along And is the plan
00:38:22
to bring Congress along I've asked this
00:38:23
of Bessant I've asked this several times
00:38:25
since we've been here And it's the thing
00:38:26
that gives me the most heartache and the
00:38:28
most headache is I worry about whether
00:38:30
this actually gets there given
00:38:33
congressional interests I think
00:38:37
Congress works with something called
00:38:40
scoring Yeah Right That that if it comes
00:38:43
from their pen it counts If it doesn't
00:38:46
come from their pen it doesn't count But
00:38:49
the fact is money always counts It just
00:38:53
doesn't count for their scoring But
00:38:56
their scoring is only part of the game
00:38:58
right The outcome of the game is what
00:39:01
matters to me Elon our cabinet and
00:39:05
Donald Trump Okay The outcome of the
00:39:08
game And I'm telling you the outcome of
00:39:10
the game by me and Elon Now a funny part
00:39:13
of it is so I invite Elon to Madison
00:39:16
Square Garden He doesn't want to leave
00:39:18
Pennsylvania right Because he you know
00:39:20
Elon he's committed to Pennsylvania Yeah
00:39:22
So I convince him he's got to come and
00:39:24
we have a plan I'm going to say to him
00:39:27
so I everyone else gets introduced by
00:39:29
the voice of God I'm the only one who
00:39:31
introduces Elon So Elon comes on stage
00:39:34
with me There's the two of us on stage
00:39:36
in Madison Square Garden The only time
00:39:37
the two of us are on stage I'm the
00:39:39
fourth speaker He's the third from the
00:39:41
end JD is second from the end And Donald
00:39:43
Trump is last Okay So he's supposed to
00:39:47
say when I I say to him "How much are
00:39:51
you going to cut?" The deal was he's
00:39:53
going to cut $1 trillion And then he's
00:39:56
supposed to say "And how much are you
00:39:57
going to earn?" And I'm supposed to say
00:39:59
"1 $1 trillion." And then we're supposed
00:40:00
to say "Together we're going to balance
00:40:02
budget United States of America." That's
00:40:03
that's the little sort of thing So I ask
00:40:06
Elon "How much you going to cut?"
00:40:09
And he because he said he said two
00:40:11
trillion Well because we're in front of
00:40:13
22,000 people and the place is erupting
00:40:15
He says two trillion and then I'm
00:40:17
sitting there
00:40:18
going and I'm like I think I said
00:40:22
allighty then or something like that you
00:40:24
know like what was I supposed to say you
00:40:26
know so later when he walks back to a
00:40:28
trillion no you were you were caught off
00:40:30
guard but I mean it's quite how much you
00:40:31
going to earn No cuz he said two
00:40:33
trillion I got it all don't worry like
00:40:35
like I said all righty then and that was
00:40:37
that So then I walked off stage and you
00:40:39
know he said two trillion so like what
00:40:41
am I going to say But the answer was
00:40:43
always right that 25% of the waste for
00:40:47
an abuse is a trillion dollars right And
00:40:49
he's got to cut and find the waste for
00:40:52
an abuse of a trillion dollars Okay Okay
00:40:54
And that my job is to raise $1 trillion
00:40:59
of exogenous new revenues new revenue
00:41:01
for the government And we Right I'm
00:41:03
telling you I've been here now two
00:41:04
months Yeah Right I am more confident
00:41:08
it's going to happen and more excited
00:41:10
Tell us how it happened Well hold on a
00:41:11
second So Howard let's let's finish this
00:41:13
and then we'll move to tariffs and
00:41:14
revenue generation So there's a lot of
00:41:16
domestic terrorism Is that the response
00:41:19
to try to slow down the expense side of
00:41:22
the house Is it is it basically to put
00:41:24
fear into people that are trying to find
00:41:27
this waste and fraud Is that is that
00:41:28
what that is The burning of the
00:41:31
dealerships The If you're I I describe
00:41:34
it to people this way Let's say Social
00:41:37
Security didn't send out their checks
00:41:40
this month My mother-in-law who's
00:41:44
94 she wouldn't call and complain Mhm
00:41:47
She just wouldn't She'd think something
00:41:48
got messed up and she'll get it next
00:41:50
month Yeah Mhm A
00:41:53
fraudster
00:41:55
always makes the loudest noise screaming
00:41:58
yelling and complaining And if all the
00:42:01
guys who did PayPal like Elon knows this
00:42:03
by heart right Anybody who's been in the
00:42:06
payment system and the process system
00:42:07
knows the easiest way to find the
00:42:10
fraudster is to stop payments and listen
00:42:12
Yeah Cuz whoever screams is the one
00:42:14
stealing Yeah Cuz my mother-in-law is
00:42:16
not calling I mean come on Your mother
00:42:18
80 year olds 90 year olds they trust the
00:42:20
government They trust Okay maybe it got
00:42:21
screwed up Big deal They're not going to
00:42:23
call and scream at someone But someone
00:42:26
who's stealing always does So what
00:42:28
happens is we need to get to so the
00:42:32
people who are getting that free money
00:42:34
stealing the money inappropriately
00:42:36
getting the money have an inside person
00:42:38
who's routing the money They are going
00:42:40
to yell and scream But real America
00:42:45
is going to be rewarded because here's
00:42:47
the key benefit of the doubt Not one
00:42:49
penny should stop going to we're the
00:42:52
richest country on earth Yeah Here's the
00:42:54
way I say it I said "We have we have a
00:42:57
$6.5 trillion budget We have $4.5
00:42:59
trillion of revenues." Yeah Okay We lose
00:43:02
$2 trillion a year We have a $29
00:43:04
trillion GDP
00:43:06
right Which people don't understand and
00:43:08
which I'll explain a little bit And we
00:43:09
have 36 trillion in debt Yeah What
00:43:12
number didn't I say to a business person
00:43:15
What's our balance sheet worth Right
00:43:16
Right I say 500 trillion Right The
00:43:19
president says a quadrillion But at 500
00:43:21
trillion or
00:43:23
quadrillion 36 trillion we're rich We
00:43:27
don't have to take one penny from
00:43:29
someone who deserves social security Not
00:43:31
one penny for someone who deserves
00:43:32
Medicaid Medicare What we have to do is
00:43:34
stop sending money to someone who's not
00:43:37
hurt who's on disability for 50 years
00:43:40
It's ridiculous And they have another
00:43:42
job And do we have to monetize our
00:43:43
assets
00:43:44
We We need to be smart That's all we
00:43:48
need to be And I'm going to tell you
00:43:50
things that are just smart They're not
00:43:53
oh my god there's the most brilliant
00:43:55
thing ever This is just smart There are
00:43:58
so many smart things we can do Like you
00:44:00
know we'll talk about the post office
00:44:02
right Think about this The post office
00:44:03
has 625,000 people who work there and
00:44:05
they go to your house every day You know
00:44:07
what the census does The census hires
00:44:10
625,000 people trains them teaches them
00:44:12
has interviews 2 million people trains
00:44:14
and teaches them hires cars How about
00:44:16
this You're genius That's pretty smart
00:44:18
Howard Right Okay Like obvious right But
00:44:21
here's what it is I'll tell you what I'm
00:44:23
going to I'm really good at pattern
00:44:24
recognition Okay Here's one like tell me
00:44:27
625 of one and I can point out 625 of
00:44:30
another This is the genius I bring to
00:44:31
the government Seriously this is this is
00:44:33
core fun By the way you're responsible
00:44:35
for all the core data collection as well
00:44:37
aren't you Isn't commerce responsible
00:44:38
for generating a lot of the GDP for
00:44:40
economic Oh that's I get to talk about
00:44:42
GDP and how I'm going to how I'm going
00:44:43
to clean up the nonsense is in GDP You
00:44:46
know I can explain that if you make a
00:44:47
tank and someone buys a tank that is GDP
00:44:50
Yeah But a thousand people thinking
00:44:52
about buying a tank right who take your
00:44:54
tax money and I give it to them and they
00:44:56
go I wonder should we buy a tank or not
00:44:57
That's not GDP right You're saying
00:44:59
government spending should not be
00:45:00
counted in GDP No government spending to
00:45:02
buy a tank right should be right
00:45:04
Government spending that's nonproductive
00:45:07
Non-productive This is so important I
00:45:09
don't think I don't think a lot of
00:45:10
people realize this How how much of GDP
00:45:13
is nonproductive government spending How
00:45:16
about we do one thing Yeah
00:45:19
G DP D means domestic P is prod domestic
00:45:24
production It's not consumption Right If
00:45:27
I go out and buy a Toyota right Right
00:45:31
That's not GDP
00:45:34
Right If I buy a Chevy that's made in
00:45:35
America that's a D Right So people think
00:45:38
it's like a consumption model right
00:45:42
That's not it And you could check
00:45:44
another one is is there's gross domestic
00:45:46
income right That's also good So by the
00:45:48
way they're about they grow about the
00:45:50
same rate It's it's kind of fun So the
00:45:53
key for me is to take out the part that
00:45:55
if I cut
00:45:57
nonproductive a million government
00:46:00
employees who are nonproductive meaning
00:46:02
they don't make tanks Right Right If I
00:46:04
take that out it's going to look like
00:46:06
our GDP declined But you'd say "But what
00:46:08
really happened?" No Our expenses went
00:46:11
down This is so important by the way
00:46:13
because people talk about a recession
00:46:15
and a lot of people create a lot of red
00:46:17
lights and alarm bells about we're going
00:46:19
to go into a recession if we cut all
00:46:21
this spending But the followon effect of
00:46:24
cutting nonproductive spending is that
00:46:26
the workforce and those dollars flow
00:46:29
into more productive parts of the
00:46:31
economy where we make more things we
00:46:32
create more jobs we create higher wages
00:46:34
And that's the theory that you guys are
00:46:36
trying to execute against I don't think
00:46:38
a lot of people in the general public
00:46:40
fully understand that is so important to
00:46:42
kind of explain and get across here Okay
00:46:45
If we put three people behind
00:46:47
us and they sat behind us and they did
00:46:50
nothing and each of us gave them
00:46:52
$125,000 just like this Here you go And
00:46:55
they just sat there right What is that
00:46:58
right That's not GDP That's actually me
00:47:02
taking my money and giving it to them We
00:47:04
produced nothing We've no purpose of the
00:47:07
earth It was my money The income however
00:47:10
I earned my income was mine and I just
00:47:12
gave it to them They didn't really earn
00:47:13
income It's really a transfer pricing
00:47:15
model that is currently considered in
00:47:19
GDP and it's nonsense So if I stopped
00:47:22
paying them okay right What would I do
00:47:25
The first thing you'd say is well then
00:47:27
why am I paying so much tax Bang Okay So
00:47:30
now we're in the concept of where Howard
00:47:32
do you have an intuition on what the
00:47:33
actual GDP number is I'm sure you if you
00:47:36
take out non-productive spending Yeah
00:47:38
But I I'm not going to talk about it
00:47:39
until we release it because that's the
00:47:41
proper way to do stuff Got it Right But
00:47:43
and I'm going to break that out I think
00:47:45
it's 25% and I'm going to break it out
00:47:47
and I'm going to break it out for the
00:47:48
last 20 years and what you're going to
00:47:50
see 15% every time the quarter just
00:47:55
before an election All the government
00:47:58
spending happens right then and there
00:48:00
And all of a sudden you have this jump
00:48:01
in GDP right Total lie right Total lie
00:48:06
They basically they just take all this
00:48:07
money and they jack it into the quarter
00:48:09
so that we have that and you'll see it
00:48:11
It goes Whoop And then they can what do
00:48:14
you think the first quarter is Whammo or
00:48:16
the second quarter is whammo Why Because
00:48:18
you pre-spent it Right Right Right And
00:48:20
then you have this whole and it's it's
00:48:23
gross Yeah Okay That's the only way to
00:48:25
us You're like really But it's so
00:48:28
manipulated Let me ask and the answer is
00:48:31
I mean and to your point the the the
00:48:33
game that's being played is we're going
00:48:34
to take taxpayer dollars that people
00:48:37
don't understand once you give it to the
00:48:39
government We're going to create these
00:48:41
waves of fake growth that try to tip
00:48:45
elections so that then the grift and the
00:48:48
waste and all the fraud can then
00:48:50
continue for as many years until the jig
00:48:52
gets replayed over and over again And it
00:48:54
seems like the buck is stopping with you
00:48:55
guys because you've exposed it It's
00:48:58
going to and that's the idea The idea is
00:49:00
to
00:49:00
take a trillion of waste fraud and abuse
00:49:04
out Yeah and then make a trillion from
00:49:07
having other people um resetting global
00:49:11
trade and once you understand global
00:49:14
trade and how it makes sense and where
00:49:16
it came from Yeah Can you explain that
00:49:18
to us Sorry Before before we get there I
00:49:19
want to ask one last question on on on
00:49:21
the cuts Can we speak in um do we need
00:49:25
to speak in a more empathetic way
00:49:28
because that trillion dollars of
00:49:30
spending flows into someone's pocket
00:49:32
some percentage of that pays people a
00:49:34
salary and they live on that income And
00:49:37
I think a lot of the Okay I think this
00:49:39
is important for you to highlight
00:49:40
because a lot of people are reacting to
00:49:42
Elon and Doge and the budget cuts saying
00:49:45
you're destroying jobs You're taking
00:49:47
money away from people that need their
00:49:48
jobs Why are you why rich people are
00:49:50
taking away I'm going to give you a sad
00:49:51
example And so like help us understand
00:49:53
are people going to lose their jobs I'm
00:49:55
going to give you a sad example We all
00:49:57
remember during the co there was the PPP
00:50:00
money Yeah Remember that Yeah Totally So
00:50:02
it was
00:50:03
proven that 200 billion of the 1.2
00:50:07
trillion was going to Chinese
00:50:11
fraud gangs What Why that proven You
00:50:14
just make up a company right You know
00:50:17
Joe's Delhi Yeah You make it up Joe's
00:50:21
Deli right Say you're in trouble File
00:50:23
and they sent you money Yeah So why
00:50:25
wouldn't Chinese gangs do that Come on
00:50:27
So we show not we but people showed the
00:50:31
government those people that money and
00:50:33
instead of stopping they said yeah but
00:50:35
we can't stop because there are real
00:50:38
people who need the money And so what
00:50:41
happens is because there's no no one's
00:50:43
ever been
00:50:44
fired ever for sending money to the
00:50:47
wrong
00:50:48
place People send it on purpose I'm not
00:50:51
saying everybody sends it on purpose I'm
00:50:52
saying there are some people who send it
00:50:54
on purpose some people who are complete
00:50:56
morons and and an enormous number of
00:50:59
people who work for the government who
00:51:00
are awesome I mean amazing people right
00:51:04
But what
00:51:05
percentage Okay if there's 5.9 million
00:51:08
people who work for the government
00:51:09
you're like "Wow that's like so many and
00:51:13
we're paying them all And how many do
00:51:15
you really need?" I mean if the answer
00:51:16
is 2 million wow And we could talk about
00:51:20
how we understand it and how we're going
00:51:23
to retrain society for the AI industrial
00:51:27
revolution is coming which is going to
00:51:28
create the greatest set of jobs and
00:51:30
greatest set of growth ever Ever Okay
00:51:32
But that but then and we can talk about
00:51:33
that But the key is stop sending money
00:51:38
to the wrong place so we can make sure
00:51:40
we can always defend sending money to
00:51:44
the right place I would never allow if I
00:51:49
can stand it to not pay somebody who
00:51:52
retired at 65 their benefits I find it
00:51:56
disgusting when we're the richest
00:51:58
country in the world and some politician
00:52:00
says to in order to save Social Security
00:52:02
rather than getting rid of the waste
00:52:04
fraud and abuse we should move it to 70
00:52:06
Yeah How about How about No How about
00:52:09
we're rich enough to give people the
00:52:12
benefit of the bargain Yeah Mhm of being
00:52:14
a great American but let's put great
00:52:17
people in charge That's really well said
00:52:20
I think that that's really well said
00:52:21
Okay let's put a pin in let's put a pin
00:52:22
in this because so let's Howard explain
00:52:26
to us global trade as you understand it
00:52:28
and then the context of tariffs and
00:52:32
maybe historically and what role they
00:52:34
played now So I I remind people that on
00:52:39
the earth there was the dark ages So the
00:52:41
dark ages meant that the world knew how
00:52:44
to read and then because of religious
00:52:46
and other actions they burned all the
00:52:49
books Yeah Right And literally the earth
00:52:52
stopped learning how to read for 500
00:52:55
years or 400 years We didn't know how to
00:52:56
read And we knew how to read before So
00:52:58
how could you forget So America was
00:53:03
built on tariffs with no income tax No
00:53:07
income tax till
00:53:10
1913 None Greatest richest country in
00:53:13
the world So when Donald Trump says make
00:53:16
America great again what he's talking
00:53:19
about is from
00:53:21
1880 to 1913 when the country had so
00:53:25
much money that we had blue ribbon
00:53:27
commissions which you guys would have
00:53:28
been on Yeah Right To try to figure out
00:53:30
how to spend the money Right Right And
00:53:32
no income tax Then we put in the income
00:53:34
tax in 1913 Why Because we're entering
00:53:37
World War I Yeah And don't we all need
00:53:39
to contribute to protect democracy and
00:53:41
to protect our way of life Right Then
00:53:44
what happens is the world goes into
00:53:47
chaos We come out of
00:53:49
chaos right And then we're starting to
00:53:51
think of what do we do What do we do And
00:53:54
then 1929 the stock market crashes right
00:53:57
1933 we start to say oh oh god we forgot
00:54:01
we need to do tariffs
00:54:04
1933 how can you do tariffs when the
00:54:07
markets crash The world's in going into
00:54:09
depression and you're going to do
00:54:10
tariffs in 1933 You can't charge the
00:54:12
rest of the world money unless the rest
00:54:13
of the world's okay That's right So it
00:54:16
was too little too late right So then we
00:54:20
come out of World War II It's
00:54:22
1945 We need to rebuild the world Okay
00:54:26
So we decide we're going to take our
00:54:28
tariffs
00:54:30
down and we'll let them here's the key
00:54:33
we'll let them have tariffs be up and we
00:54:35
will export the power
00:54:38
of our economy to let them rebuild and
00:54:42
we'll let them rebuild and that's what
00:54:44
happens So 1945 we have the Marshall
00:54:46
Plan right And we do it in Japan of
00:54:49
course because they need to be rebuilt
00:54:50
What's the difference right So they need
00:54:52
to be rebuilt And then what happens We
00:54:53
have the 50s and we have the Korean War
00:54:56
So we let them rebuild which means low
00:54:58
tariffs here high tariffs there Low
00:55:00
tariffs here high tariffs there Then we
00:55:02
have the Vietnam war right So now all of
00:55:05
a sudden we have all of Southeast Asia
00:55:07
low tariffs here high tariffs there You
00:55:10
know what the best example I can give
00:55:11
you to make it crystal clear
00:55:14
Kuwait We spend what almost hundred
00:55:18
billion dollars freeing Kuwait Mhm Right
00:55:21
You know who has the highest tariffs
00:55:23
against the United States of America The
00:55:25
number one country with the highest
00:55:27
tariffs against the United States of
00:55:29
America
00:55:31
Kuwait And you think what That's it But
00:55:35
here's what it is If you go back to this
00:55:38
understanding the way America
00:55:41
thinks you need to be rebuilt You were
00:55:43
just destroyed right all their oils were
00:55:45
You remember red The guy's name was Red
00:55:48
something and he was the guy who capped
00:55:50
all the there were fires in all the the
00:55:52
the oil wells and he capped them all and
00:55:55
it was
00:55:56
amazing So we let them put up high
00:55:59
tariffs But you know what the problem is
00:56:02
Then we forget right And we let it go
00:56:04
Yeah So Donald Trump comes in and says
00:56:06
it's got to stop Okay So that's an
00:56:07
incredible context now for tariffs It's
00:56:09
like it was a long-term strategy that
00:56:12
essentially says "Okay great There's
00:56:14
rebuilding to be done sort of almost out
00:56:17
of the large s of America We're going to
00:56:19
enable that to happen So we'll lower
00:56:21
tariffs here and we'll support the high
00:56:23
tariff regimes over there We let it
00:56:25
happen We let it happen on purpose But
00:56:27
it's an incredible thing you're also
00:56:28
saying though which is that it's
00:56:29
inexurably linked to this repetitive
00:56:32
machinery of war because those create
00:56:35
these boundary conditions over and over
00:56:37
again Always where there's so much
00:56:39
destruction abroad that America then
00:56:41
feels compelled to have to do this
00:56:43
Correct That's exactly That's exactly
00:56:45
right So what happens is and then you
00:56:47
say to yourself okay I get the 40s I get
00:56:50
the 50s I get the 70s right But 80s 90s
00:56:56
2000 2010 What time out 20 So Donald
00:57:02
Trump gets elected
00:57:03
2016 Who understands
00:57:06
this Okay let me give you a hint Donald
00:57:09
J Trump Who else
00:57:12
Nobody Nobody Yeah Right You'd say "Wow
00:57:15
he understand." And how long's he been
00:57:17
talking about it 40 years Why Because in
00:57:20
the 80s he's saying "What are you
00:57:22
doing?" Well let me give you the
00:57:24
economist's counter which and then you
00:57:26
can respond to it which is tariffs on
00:57:29
imports in the United States will
00:57:32
ultimately pass to the consumer higher
00:57:34
prices inflationary So the things that
00:57:37
our consumers that our citizens are
00:57:39
buying gets more expensive and as a
00:57:41
result they buy less and it's
00:57:42
recessionary It shrinks the economy it
00:57:44
shrinks spending it shrinks uh
00:57:46
consumption Can you kind of respond to
00:57:48
the you know that's the the typical
00:57:50
economist refrain on this independent
00:57:53
and maybe they're isolating the
00:57:55
imbalance
00:57:57
Okay
00:57:59
India has a 50%
00:58:02
tariff on average
00:58:07
50 We have on
00:58:10
average
00:58:12
four
00:58:14
Okay I would say to the person who said
00:58:16
that can I ask you a question What are
00:58:19
you talking about They're 50 and four
00:58:21
Here's what you're talking about when
00:58:24
we're all equal and everything is free
00:58:27
and fair If you raise tariffs and they
00:58:29
raise tariffs isn't it bad for society
00:58:32
The answer is of course it is But
00:58:36
there's two
00:58:38
differences Number
00:58:40
one let's do human beings first before
00:58:45
we go to the math Let's go to human
00:58:47
beings Once upon a time we had an auto
00:58:50
industry in Detroit
00:58:54
Okay And in Ohio but Detroit then some
00:58:58
genius named Bill Clinton signs the
00:59:02
North American Free Trade Agreement or
00:59:06
corporations You can screw Americans and
00:59:09
go get cheap labor in Mexico and break
00:59:11
the unions by going to Canada Now if you
00:59:14
were a General Motors I'd say it's like
00:59:18
my birthday Yeah But if you're a
00:59:22
worker who comes from Michigan or Ohio
00:59:27
they just
00:59:28
signed you know what they signed Worst
00:59:31
statistic I'm going to tell you today
00:59:33
Average life expectancy of high school
00:59:37
educated workforce So by the way United
00:59:39
States of America 23 is high school
00:59:41
educated one-third is college educated
00:59:44
The difference today of average life
00:59:47
expectancy between those two categories
00:59:49
is seven years Sevenyear average life
00:59:52
expectancy It's not the air It's not the
00:59:55
food It's not the medicine It's
00:59:59
despair My grandfather worked in the
01:00:01
auto factory My father worked in the
01:00:03
autoactory I have a good life I'm going
01:00:06
to do Friday night lights and football I
01:00:08
mean it's gonna it's going to be a good
01:00:09
life I have a good middle class life I'm
01:00:11
a member of the United Auto Workers Life
01:00:13
is going to be good The factory moves to
01:00:16
Mexico and I am just screwed because the
01:00:20
government of the United States of
01:00:21
America had a didn't care about
01:00:23
industrial policy and didn't protect me
01:00:25
at all and let cheap labor in Mexico I'm
01:00:28
sure the Mexican people got went from $4
01:00:30
an hour to $5 an hour and they're
01:00:31
kicking it But I destroyed
01:00:35
you And
01:00:37
that is
01:00:39
incredible failure of industrial policy
01:00:43
which nobody wants to talk about But you
01:00:45
talk about it at average life expectancy
01:00:47
And you're talking about it about
01:00:49
reassuring and building the life for the
01:00:53
people who are America That's why you
01:00:56
elect Donald Trump president you elect
01:00:57
him because I didn't spend one minute
01:01:02
doing politics until he asked me to help
01:01:05
him But when he asked me to help him I
01:01:07
started spending time with him When did
01:01:09
I learn this And who taught me
01:01:13
this The president of the United States
01:01:16
This is not me teaching him You
01:01:19
understand This is him teaching me And
01:01:21
you can see him talking about it in the
01:01:23
80s Right Right He's been talking about
01:01:26
this for and what it does is it means
01:01:28
reshore So number one we have to care
01:01:31
about human beings That's a globalist
01:01:34
view Yes If I take my production and
01:01:37
move it to Mexico it's better for me Mr
01:01:40
Corporation Okay But it's not better for
01:01:43
me Mr US citizen of the United States of
01:01:46
America who's working at a car plant
01:01:48
That's bad news for him Okay And that's
01:01:51
number one And now let's go to number
01:01:54
two which is the math of it all If we
01:01:58
say free and fair trade I want to remind
01:02:02
you there ain't no such thing There is
01:02:05
no country in this world that is free
01:02:10
trade Zero And we are the lowest and the
01:02:16
dumbest because everybody else is higher
01:02:19
and more protective Yeah So they protect
01:02:21
their farmers Here I I'm sitting at the
01:02:24
dinner Modi comes to town and I say to
01:02:27
him when Donald Trump we have dinner and
01:02:29
after the nicities Donald says "Go ahead
01:02:31
Go ahead Howard." And I said "You have
01:02:33
1.4 billion people and you brag to us
01:02:36
how amazing your economy is Why won't
01:02:38
you buy a bushel of our
01:02:41
corn We'll buy a bushel of our corn so
01:02:44
our farmers can't go to him but his of
01:02:47
course can come at us right Why is that
01:02:50
okay?" You know and we can go into all
01:02:52
the stuff that oh I mean I don't even
01:02:54
want to go into it because if I had
01:02:55
another hour I could retell you stories
01:02:57
that are fun with that but just address
01:02:59
the pricing inflation that arises from
01:03:01
tariffs Talk to the average person who
01:03:04
says the cost of a toy at Walmart just
01:03:06
went up by 50%
01:03:09
Inflation comes from printing more money
01:03:14
Okay Let's say the United States of
01:03:16
America had $1 trillion That's all we
01:03:18
had That's it No more Okay And I want to
01:03:23
buy a bottle of water and you want to
01:03:24
buy a bottle of water One came from
01:03:26
America and the other one came from
01:03:29
Fiji right Then and I tariff Fiji then
01:03:33
that water is a dollar and a quarter and
01:03:35
this water's a dollar Yeah that's not
01:03:37
inflation That means that one's more
01:03:39
expensive but I can choose to buy this
01:03:41
one Right Okay So you're right This toy
01:03:44
might be more expensive and that toy is
01:03:45
not I get it But that's not inflation
01:03:48
Here's inflation Snap my fingers Now we
01:03:50
have 2 trillion right That water is a
01:03:54
$150 That water is a dollar and a
01:03:55
quarter Yeah Everything's more expensive
01:03:57
That's inflation Okay So inflation
01:03:59
without tariffs is everything's a buck
01:04:01
and a quarter Now what inflation with
01:04:03
tariffs is a buck and a quarter right
01:04:05
And a buck 50 And so you have to
01:04:08
understand
01:04:09
inflation doesn't come from tariffs
01:04:12
Certain products If I put a tariff on a
01:04:16
mango right We we can't grow mangoes in
01:04:19
America The we just can't grow a mango
01:04:22
If you put a tariff on a mango the mango
01:04:25
would be more expensive Yes Okay But if
01:04:29
the president chose to put a tariff on a
01:04:32
mango then the mango is more expensive
01:04:34
That's just becomes a consumption tax
01:04:37
It's like a sales tax Yes Right It's a
01:04:39
sales tax It's a consumption tax If I
01:04:41
want to buy a mango it costs more money
01:04:42
And you can offset that with a reduction
01:04:43
in but that's so then that's just like
01:04:46
another version of income tax How do you
01:04:48
how do you Okay So the idea is to not do
01:04:51
that Yeah That's the idea The idea is to
01:04:54
is to choose things that are going to
01:04:58
reshore Yeah Exactly Come here This is
01:05:00
so important Hire my people Yeah Bring
01:05:02
it home Yeah And by the way I want to
01:05:05
just speak as an entrepreneur I see the
01:05:07
economic incentive when I see the price
01:05:09
for certain things go higher because you
01:05:12
have to import and pay a tariff I'm like
01:05:14
why don't we make that here We should be
01:05:16
doing that And there's going to be a lot
01:05:17
of that kind of entrepreneurial
01:05:19
opportunity that will arise from making
01:05:22
things And it this is just how the
01:05:23
markets work Someone will say two
01:05:25
trillion so far I mean he's been in
01:05:28
office right like seven weeks eight
01:05:30
weeks Yeah.$2 $2 trillion dollar of
01:05:34
committed domestic production coming
01:05:37
back because of his tariffs TMC saying
01:05:41
I'll build uh you know semiconductor
01:05:43
wafers Yeah Um you know everything we do
01:05:47
they're going to build it here That word
01:05:48
is never coming Yeah Yeah Unless the
01:05:50
tariff So what happens is you bring it
01:05:52
here you create the jobs here and then
01:05:55
they avoid the tariff And by the way
01:05:58
those jobs are better paying and they're
01:05:59
more productive than the government
01:06:01
funded What do you what do you want to
01:06:02
do about like the the narrow set of
01:06:04
products that are more high value than
01:06:07
the mango that maybe can't be made here
01:06:09
or at least can't be made here in the
01:06:11
next 5 to 10 years So TSMC can make
01:06:14
chips I think that's great ASML who
01:06:16
makes the extremely complicated
01:06:19
lithography machines as an example can't
01:06:22
necessarily do that for another five or
01:06:23
six years here So there's these narrow
01:06:25
cases where tariffs can exploit a market
01:06:29
or perturb a market where there is no
01:06:32
multi- vendor solution right But that's
01:06:34
still critical How do you think about
01:06:36
that set of stuff You know the the
01:06:39
beauty of putting Donald Trump in the
01:06:40
White House is it's it's it's giant
01:06:43
three-dimensional chess Yeah Okay So we
01:06:47
all have Stockholm syndrome for the
01:06:50
Internal Revenue Service
01:06:52
We think we like the Internal Revenue
01:06:54
Service and we don't say it but when we
01:06:57
say we're going to charge a tariff and
01:07:01
other countries who lean on us who rely
01:07:05
on us who bleed on us who can't live
01:07:08
without the oxygen that is our economy
01:07:11
Cuz remember the thing about our economy
01:07:13
is while we have a $29 trillion GDP we
01:07:18
are the
01:07:19
consumer of 20 trillion Yeah Right And
01:07:22
this is the key thing We buy everybody's
01:07:26
stuff So who's more important The let's
01:07:29
say they have an economy that produces
01:07:32
stuff and we have an economy that buys
01:07:35
stuff Yeah The customer is always right
01:07:37
We all know the customer is always right
01:07:39
because if no one buys it they can't
01:07:42
produce it right So everybody needs our
01:07:45
economy when now I mean to the fact that
01:07:48
China consumes less than 10 trillion and
01:07:52
primarily tries to figure out how to
01:07:54
sell it to itself Yeah Right So they
01:07:56
don't buy anybody else's stuff Right So
01:07:58
we are the world's consumer We're the
01:08:01
world's customer Right Right So that's
01:08:04
point number one So we want them to come
01:08:08
here and if they can't come
01:08:10
here what if you
01:08:12
pass Okay Now let's say there was a 20%
01:08:16
tariff and in order to sell his goods he
01:08:19
knows he can raise the price 10% but he
01:08:21
can't really sell it raise it 20 So he
01:08:23
eats 10 and the price goes up 10 Let's
01:08:26
just say that 20 goes into the coffers
01:08:30
of the United States of America from the
01:08:32
president of the United States who said
01:08:33
we're going to balance the budget and
01:08:35
then his goal is to drive down income
01:08:37
tax United States of America including
01:08:39
waving tax So what has he said so far
01:08:43
with that in his pocket knowing that
01:08:45
this is what we're going to try to do
01:08:47
What does he announce No tax on tips no
01:08:50
tax on overtime no tax on social
01:08:52
security Why is he saying those things
01:08:54
Right because he knows that he's got
01:08:57
Elon's going to cut and Howard's going
01:08:59
to raise and he's going to have the
01:09:01
tools to deliver on his promise
01:09:05
more money for folks to spend and
01:09:07
they'll have more money to spend right
01:09:08
so if you if you actually get the
01:09:10
external revenue service right which of
01:09:14
course I named you know I named it but
01:09:16
you know but you know what the funny
01:09:17
part
01:09:18
is I came up with the name I wrote a
01:09:22
truth right and I sent it to to DJT and
01:09:25
I wrote this is my huge idea you know
01:09:27
with one of those things that goes like
01:09:28
this Yeah You know on the like my huge
01:09:31
idea
01:09:32
right And because it's the external
01:09:35
revenue service but
01:09:38
it only matters because I work for him
01:09:41
Mhm Because if I worked for Joe Biden or
01:09:43
anybody else they wouldn't care at all
01:09:46
So the fact that he loves a great idea
01:09:48
the minute you say it and it becomes his
01:09:50
idea My idea is
01:09:53
useless A good idea in his hands Okay So
01:09:56
speaking of all the value in the world
01:09:58
So the external revenue service if it if
01:10:00
we went back to make America great again
01:10:03
Yeah Which is pre-1913 which is let them
01:10:06
pay you don't pay And what that means is
01:10:09
let them pay try to wave balance the
01:10:11
budget Try to wave tax on everybody who
01:10:13
makes less than 150,000 Yeah Right And
01:10:16
look what you did for America Holy moly
01:10:19
Look what you by the way
01:10:21
labor costs come smashing down because
01:10:24
it's taxree Yeah So if their earnings
01:10:27
are taxfree right Then they're happy to
01:10:30
work because they get the money right So
01:10:32
what happens is cost of labor comes down
01:10:35
because we're run correctly as a
01:10:37
government This is what I'm trying to do
01:10:39
Speaking of potentially great ideas can
01:10:41
you tell us about the Trump card Sure So
01:10:44
whose idea was that And how did that
01:10:46
come about John
01:10:49
Pollson had a call with Donald Trump and
01:10:52
was talking to Donald Trump and was
01:10:54
kicking around the idea of we should
01:10:57
sell right Why do we give away visas We
01:10:59
should sell them And they're talking
01:11:01
about it Uh Donald Trump calls me gets
01:11:03
me on the phone right We all talk about
01:11:06
it right And then we go from there And
01:11:09
then my job is to figure out like I
01:11:11
always figure out how to do it What's
01:11:14
the path Let's go figure it out Of
01:11:16
course about two weeks from today it
01:11:20
goes out Okay Elon's building me the
01:11:23
software right now Yeah Right And then
01:11:26
out it goes And by the way uh yesterday
01:11:28
I sold a thousand Oh you did I got a
01:11:31
poly market I created on how many are
01:11:33
you guys going to sell this year So yeah
01:11:35
Curious to see how many That's fantastic
01:11:36
Do you want to tell people just the
01:11:37
rough terms Okay Yeah So if you're a US
01:11:41
citizen you pay global tax Yeah Okay So
01:11:46
you're not going to bring in outsiders
01:11:48
going to come in to pay global tax So if
01:11:51
you have a green card which used to be a
01:11:53
green card now gold card you're a
01:11:55
permanent resident of America You can be
01:11:59
a citizen but you don't have to be And
01:12:01
none of them are going to choose to be
01:12:03
What they're going to do is they're
01:12:04
going to have the right to be in America
01:12:07
They'd be pay $5 million and they have
01:12:09
the right to be an American They have
01:12:11
the right to be an American as long as
01:12:14
they're good As long as they're good
01:12:15
people and they're vetted and they're
01:12:17
vetted and they can't break the law We
01:12:19
could always take it away if they're
01:12:20
like evil or mean or bad or something
01:12:22
Not mean but you know if they do
01:12:24
something horrible you could take it
01:12:25
away right But but the idea is if if I
01:12:30
was not American and I lived in any
01:12:32
other country I would buy six One for me
01:12:36
one for my wife and my four kids because
01:12:37
God forbid something happens I I want to
01:12:40
be able to go to America and I want to
01:12:41
have the right to go to the airport to
01:12:43
go to America and them to say hello Mr
01:12:45
Lutnik Hello Mr Lennox and the Latin
01:12:47
family Welcome home Right That's what I
01:12:50
want to hear I don't want to hear I
01:12:51
can't come here when there's a you know
01:12:54
a a horrible war a horrible whatever
01:12:56
right I want to be able to go home right
01:12:59
And once I'm
01:13:02
home I might as well build a business
01:13:05
Yeah So you have the most productive
01:13:07
people in the world going to start
01:13:09
spending time here They're going to have
01:13:11
a family office They're going to hire
01:13:13
some people and you're not going to tax
01:13:14
their external worldwide income I only
01:13:17
tax the money they make in America which
01:13:18
is what we do now But their global
01:13:20
income stays out and they pay 5 million
01:13:23
And how many people do you think there
01:13:24
are that could qualify in the world How
01:13:26
many There are 37 million people in the
01:13:28
world who are capable of buying the card
01:13:30
in case you were wondering 37 million
01:13:32
That's a lot more than Chad GPT told me
01:13:34
Who are capable of buying Who are
01:13:36
capable of buying it Now I'm not saying
01:13:38
they will but they're capable of buying
01:13:40
How many do you think he'll sell Uh the
01:13:43
president thinks we can sell a million
01:13:46
So five trillion trillion dollars I
01:13:48
think a million is reasonable I mean
01:13:50
look as as an outsider who came in and
01:13:52
got his green card and then got his
01:13:54
citizenship and now pay global tax every
01:13:56
which way known to man if this were
01:13:59
available 15 years ago after the
01:14:01
Facebook IPO that's what I would have
01:14:02
done It would have been much better for
01:14:03
me theoretically Now I'm happy I'm happy
01:14:05
to pay the tax So the idea So the idea
01:14:07
is um and it's going to go fast Meaning
01:14:10
you apply right We take your money and
01:14:15
you know the way computers work now they
01:14:17
have these cool things like these
01:14:18
computer things They're amazing You like
01:14:20
you know you put stuff in and they
01:14:21
actually check everything It's It's
01:14:22
fantastic I don't You don't even have to
01:14:24
plug them in anymore It's amazing Like
01:14:26
they get them they get the information
01:14:28
through the air I mean you could do a
01:14:31
better vet Yeah Than anybody in
01:14:34
government has ever done it before in
01:14:36
one second right Better than they've
01:14:38
ever done it before So I'll I mean I'll
01:14:40
tell you a quick story Monday night Elon
01:14:42
was telling us about this Nean Sachs And
01:14:45
one of the things he was saying is he's
01:14:46
been helping you build this site these
01:14:47
builders But one of the most difficult
01:14:49
parts of it is it turns out like all of
01:14:51
the CPB infrastructure to do all these
01:14:53
checks it's like a lot of cobalt
01:14:55
mainframes and the amount of technology
01:14:58
that has to get rewritten And so this is
01:15:00
a question big opportunity It's
01:15:02
incredible that the most advanced nation
01:15:04
in the
01:15:05
world deployed systems in 1970 which at
01:15:09
the time probably felt very cutting edge
01:15:11
to everybody in the room at the time but
01:15:13
to your point has not evolved in the
01:15:15
last 50 years It's always there's always
01:15:18
a reason okay and the reason is it's a
01:15:22
great reason which is that uh in the
01:15:25
mid70s we changed the way government
01:15:27
accounts for software we we took a
01:15:30
10-year contract and you have to take
01:15:32
the contract up front So if I if I'm
01:15:35
signing a contract with you for 10 years
01:15:37
a million a year I have to take it
01:15:38
against my budget for 10 million So I'm
01:15:40
not doing it See I'm only here for four
01:15:43
years So what happens is when was the
01:15:46
last time we bought software 1975
01:15:49
Where
01:15:51
Everywhere Yeah Why Cuz it's illogical
01:15:54
Now what I'm doing is I'm saying okay I
01:15:56
got to collect tariffs right So I go to
01:16:00
one of the great software companies of
01:16:02
the earth and I say I want you to give
01:16:05
me you're going to build for me for
01:16:07
America You're going to build the
01:16:09
greatest customs processing ever We're
01:16:13
going to take a photograph It's going to
01:16:14
know what it is It's going to go through
01:16:16
AI It's going to know what it is It's
01:16:17
going to know what the tariff is It's
01:16:18
going to determine the percentage It's
01:16:20
going to know the weight So when you
01:16:21
weigh the thing plus the package you'll
01:16:22
know what it weighs You don't even have
01:16:23
to open it It'll weigh exactly the right
01:16:25
amount And you'll do this and that And
01:16:27
these are all things that I know and all
01:16:28
things I could figure out Cuz you know
01:16:31
the way gold works like gold bar is
01:16:32
about 40 pounds You know the way I know
01:16:34
that gold bar is they weigh it and they
01:16:36
weigh out 13 digits of decimals
01:16:39
So basically if you touch the thing it's
01:16:40
not going to be 13 digits of decimals So
01:16:42
you have a perfect scale and you weigh
01:16:44
it and that's like the code Yeah Right
01:16:46
Because you can't touch if you touch it
01:16:48
you'll change the and you can't get it
01:16:50
right out 13 digits It's just not
01:16:52
possible So that's we do with stuff You
01:16:55
know what it weighs right Three t-shirts
01:16:58
on a if you send in the same three
01:17:00
t-shirts they always weigh the same But
01:17:02
what's incredible is you're convincing
01:17:04
these companies to basically like do
01:17:05
right for America and build this
01:17:07
software for you You think that's going
01:17:08
to be a movement throughout the
01:17:09
government or is that here's the idea I
01:17:11
say "Build it for me for free." Yeah I
01:17:14
put it in for free
01:17:16
I don't know what other countries in the
01:17:17
world you think going to buy now Right
01:17:20
If it works for us well remember you
01:17:22
have to you have to connect to me Yeah
01:17:24
So every country is going to buy right
01:17:27
And it's a great business model Right
01:17:28
Right If the greatest customer in the
01:17:30
world says they'll take it Yeah life's
01:17:34
good right So what should the greatest
01:17:36
customer in the world get I don't know a
01:17:37
good deal Yeah Right And you got a guy
01:17:39
like me there You know everybody else is
01:17:41
like Howard you have to change how
01:17:43
government operates if you're going to
01:17:44
scale that You can't go negotiate every
01:17:46
contract out there for every department
01:17:48
I mean it's not that hard when you say
01:17:49
it free You know free is like not that
01:17:51
hard I mean you Yes it is And then what
01:17:54
I do is I get the head of that
01:17:57
technology company Yeah Because I then I
01:17:59
use my superpower which is my friendship
01:18:01
with Donald Trump and then I go in the
01:18:02
Oval Office and we call him together
01:18:04
right And we call the CEO together and
01:18:05
make him promise the president Promising
01:18:07
Howard is like really nice right
01:18:10
Promising DJT that's something else
01:18:13
entirely So I get these guys to promise
01:18:16
Donald Trump that they'll build it right
01:18:18
now Let's see him reag Yeah it ain't
01:18:20
going to happen So you know when you get
01:18:22
Elon to say "I'm going to build it for
01:18:23
you." And he says it in front of the
01:18:25
president like how great is that You got
01:18:28
like the greatest technologist the
01:18:29
richest guy in the world He says "I'll
01:18:30
build it for you." You're like "Thank
01:18:33
God." Right And then I get you know I go
01:18:36
to the heads of Google and Microsoft and
01:18:40
Amazon They're
01:18:42
all for America building for us right
01:18:47
For free right To make America better
01:18:50
because they are great American
01:18:52
companies And in exchange for that we're
01:18:53
going to help them through all sorts of
01:18:55
things that are towards fairness Just
01:18:58
towards fairness because I you can't get
01:19:00
me to do something outside the world of
01:19:02
fairness But I tell you what if it's
01:19:04
unfair I'll be on your side as hard and
01:19:08
as positive as I possibly can be Talk to
01:19:10
us about some of the hot button markets
01:19:12
that you're going to have to navigate
01:19:14
You know you are in charge of export
01:19:15
controls which is a very important thing
01:19:18
in AI We don't allow export licenses for
01:19:22
the most advanced NVIDIA chips We don't
01:19:25
want training necessarily to be done
01:19:27
outside of the United States We're okay
01:19:29
with inference happening outside the
01:19:30
United States in certain conditions
01:19:32
Maybe just talk about that for a second
01:19:34
How like how do you how are you going to
01:19:35
navigate AI How do you think about that
01:19:37
from your seat All right So I I'll give
01:19:38
you an example that's sort of live right
01:19:41
now Yeah Right So we have DeepSeek we
01:19:44
have Quinn we have DOBA Yeah Right And
01:19:48
and I don't think we should be having
01:19:52
apps in America And I don't think we
01:19:54
should have their website in America
01:19:55
because they all go back home Okay But
01:19:58
it's open source And I want our American
01:20:01
companies including college students to
01:20:04
be able to download it and build on it
01:20:06
Right But I want to make sure that
01:20:08
there's no part of it that says send it
01:20:10
home to Dada Right Or or store now and
01:20:14
analyze later Right Right So I need that
01:20:16
out So what I want to do is I'm going to
01:20:19
embrace what you guys know You guys are
01:20:22
used to product evaluations Yeah So
01:20:24
let's do security val Exactly Right and
01:20:27
say your industry and you can't let it
01:20:29
get overwhelm overrun by Chinese because
01:20:32
what happens is if there's a policy
01:20:35
right all of a sudden a 100,000 people
01:20:36
from China come in and they say they're
01:20:38
John John Smith and and and Todd
01:20:41
Peterson right But they're not and then
01:20:44
you think the vote is this way Yeah And
01:20:46
it's easily manipulated So we have to be
01:20:48
very careful But my first
01:20:51
instinct is to lean on and that and
01:20:54
that's why I see it's important to have
01:20:56
David Saxs as my partner right Someone
01:20:59
who knows it and and someone who can
01:21:01
live and breathe the industry right And
01:21:04
so what we're going to have is we're
01:21:05
going to have security
01:21:06
evaluation and say if the security
01:21:08
evaluation model says that this is a
01:21:11
good model then people can download it
01:21:14
Yeah but
01:21:16
it's smell like what we're good at I
01:21:19
don't want to create like oh this is
01:21:21
what I don't want to do I want us to do
01:21:25
it but I've got to figure out the right
01:21:27
way to do that right And that's
01:21:29
important Articulate the standards
01:21:31
articulate sort of the concept and then
01:21:33
let a lot of these private market actors
01:21:35
kind of help fill in the gaps and
01:21:37
compete The only thing I I think I
01:21:39
really need to do and that's with
01:21:43
regulatory is postquantum cryptography
01:21:46
Yeah Okay I I think that is vital to us
01:21:49
That's right Yeah Right That that you
01:21:51
know as I would bet this happens during
01:21:54
this administration He bets post I I
01:21:57
know I'm gonna put it out because you
01:21:59
know we all have passwords right For
01:22:01
those who are watching who don't know
01:22:02
this Our passwords called asymmetric
01:22:04
right Yours is different than mine right
01:22:06
That's the
01:22:07
key and cryptography is just the
01:22:10
computing So asymmetric key cryptography
01:22:12
you have your password I have mine and
01:22:14
they're the key That's right Right
01:22:16
Obviously the central hub has our key
01:22:18
Duh Okay A a quantum computer we know
01:22:22
can break all of them in a nancond Like
01:22:25
all of them in the whole world including
01:22:27
the CIA all of them RSA 2048 all of them
01:22:30
can get broken in a nancond by a quantum
01:22:32
computer Yeah So the defense of it is
01:22:35
called postquantum cryptography right We
01:22:38
know how to do it and we'll come out
01:22:40
with a rule that says America's got to
01:22:42
protect itself New standards And by the
01:22:44
way there are because every once in a
01:22:45
while you need to have a new standard
01:22:46
that says it's coming We know what it is
01:22:49
Please God go put it in because we need
01:22:52
to have it in We need America to deliver
01:22:54
Great segue Let's let's sort of segue
01:22:56
now to a couple things that we can
01:22:58
enjoin together in this concept Crypto
01:23:01
obviously Bitcoin You guys announced the
01:23:03
strategic Bitcoin reserve but broadly
01:23:06
speaking you also announced sort of this
01:23:08
idea of the sovereign wealth fund Can we
01:23:10
talk about that sort of what is the what
01:23:11
is the vision behind that How do you
01:23:13
want that to be executed How do you
01:23:14
think it should be run What assets are
01:23:16
on the table What assets and strategies
01:23:19
may should never be on the table How are
01:23:21
you thinking about it The greatest
01:23:23
customer in the
01:23:25
world the United States government the
01:23:27
most powerful the greatest customer buys
01:23:30
stuff We walk in we're gonna buy here's
01:23:33
the example I like to use we're gonna
01:23:35
buy two billion COVID vaccines
01:23:40
When we buy it FISA and Madna stocks are
01:23:43
going to triple They're going to triple
01:23:45
because then we say everyone's got to
01:23:47
have this
01:23:49
vaccine If I were after Jared Kushner
01:23:53
negotiated the best deal he could if
01:23:55
Howard Lutnik walked in the room Howard
01:23:56
Lutenic would say "What do you think 20%
01:23:59
warrants Right 20% warrants right Right
01:24:03
What So we'd make $50 billion off of who
01:24:06
Nobody We didn't take from anybody We
01:24:09
didn't do Okay The shareholders of Fizer
01:24:11
who we've just tripled them with our
01:24:13
order Right now how many of my customers
01:24:16
in my life have required that from me
01:24:20
All of them All of them Like this isn't
01:24:22
like oh Howard this is the greatest new
01:24:24
idea ever This is just business proper
01:24:27
So I don't
01:24:29
view risk of the sovereign wealth fund I
01:24:33
view the first couple of years of the
01:24:35
sovereign wealth fund or Scott Bessant
01:24:37
and I making money Monday Tuesday
01:24:41
Wednesday Thursday and Friday Say well
01:24:43
but you can't invest and lose Don't you
01:24:45
lose money No Why Well if I have big
01:24:49
daddy of the United States of America
01:24:51
behind me right And I'll give you I'll
01:24:54
give you an example We buy
01:24:57
missiles
01:24:59
episodically Launch a missile buy a
01:25:02
missile Launch a missile buy some
01:25:04
missiles Right The people who sell us
01:25:07
missiles have bad quarterly earnings or
01:25:10
good quarterly earnings but they're
01:25:11
episodic Yeah Here we go I will sign a
01:25:16
contract with
01:25:17
you 10-year contract cancel it at the
01:25:20
end of five years to buy X amount of
01:25:22
missiles and I'll pay you quarterly
01:25:26
Then they can take that contract they
01:25:28
can go finance it their financing costs
01:25:31
go their earnings are steady and their
01:25:33
multiple improves and their stock
01:25:35
doubles up Yeah And I say in exchange
01:25:38
for that reasonable thought how about a
01:25:42
little warrants right Give me stock Just
01:25:44
for people that don't understand give me
01:25:45
some stock Give me a little bit of your
01:25:46
stock But but don't give me some stock
01:25:48
Just give me the upside If I if I help
01:25:50
your stock go up just a little bit I I
01:25:51
get to share it And you know what I do
01:25:53
Wipe my beak a little bit And then I
01:25:54
take the money Yeah For the United
01:25:56
States of America and I put it into the
01:25:59
social security system in the United
01:26:00
States of America Okay So why have And
01:26:02
then all of a sudden right So the social
01:26:04
security system says it's 4 trillion in
01:26:06
the hole Yeah Okay If we cut the waste
01:26:08
for abuse out it becomes uh 1.5 trillion
01:26:12
And by the way Frank Biznano the
01:26:14
greatest executive the greatest payments
01:26:17
executive ever to join the US government
01:26:20
is about to get confirmed and take over
01:26:22
the social security system Okay Frank
01:26:24
ran Fiserve $120
01:26:27
billion public payments company And when
01:26:30
Donald Trump asked him in his interview
01:26:32
can you handle social security It's 1.3
01:26:33
trillion a year He goes well see I I
01:26:36
handle 500 billion a day So uh
01:26:39
Wednesday right And he goes my whole
01:26:41
life I my whole life all I worry about
01:26:43
is getting rid of waste fraud abuse
01:26:44
That's all I care about every single day
01:26:46
$5 $2 $1 He goes "This is going to be
01:26:49
the most fun I've ever had." Yeah I mean
01:26:51
this Yeah Like this is a Donald Trump
01:26:53
administration This is something that's
01:26:54
another planet Now of course I recruit
01:26:56
Frank and you know I get to have my
01:26:58
piece in the game But if we get rid of a
01:27:01
couple hundred billion then it's only a
01:27:03
trillion four in the hole We make a
01:27:05
trillion four Yeah That baby's that baby
01:27:08
is finished forever Is the sovereign
01:27:11
wealth fund a balance sheet for social
01:27:14
security Does social security become
01:27:16
more than what it is today Does it over
01:27:18
time offer bigger greater benefits And
01:27:21
is it basically a pool that holds
01:27:23
equities Historically and we talked
01:27:25
about this on our show it's only ever
01:27:27
held treasuries but it's really kind of
01:27:28
a fake treasury It's got 2.7 trillion
01:27:31
today but if we bought the S&P in 1971
01:27:34
when we went off the gold standard with
01:27:36
the cash flows that have come in and
01:27:37
gone out of social security we'd have a
01:27:39
$15 trillion interest in the S&P today
01:27:41
But you'd have that that would have had
01:27:43
you have Donald Trump be the president
01:27:44
the whole time which was not a thing
01:27:45
right Okay But is that is that the
01:27:47
objective is that the sovereign wealth
01:27:48
fund is basically for the benefit of
01:27:50
retirees in this country and it becomes
01:27:52
like a sovereign wealth fund that we
01:27:54
have a $36 trillion budget deficit I
01:27:58
mean debt debt Yeah To the United States
01:27:59
of America and we we have a budget
01:28:01
deficit of two trillion So Donald Trump
01:28:03
wants to knock down the two trillion
01:28:04
Yeah And then he's focused on the 36
01:28:06
trillion of which the social security is
01:28:08
part of it Yeah So how he allocates it
01:28:11
He was elected president of the United
01:28:13
States I was not Yeah Okay I like the
01:28:15
social security idea because it's really
01:28:16
easy to explain to people and sell to
01:28:19
people and so they understand it But the
01:28:21
fact is that it's the same money if I
01:28:24
put it in social security or I put it on
01:28:26
the debt of the United States of America
01:28:28
And I'm going to let Donald Trump make
01:28:29
that decision You know why Because it's
01:28:30
all he's like and none of it's not mine
01:28:33
So he will decide that Okay And he will
01:28:36
play it his way But but Scott Bessant
01:28:38
and I will make more than a trillion
01:28:41
dollars for the United States of America
01:28:44
during our term which is pretty darn
01:28:46
cool right And we'll use that and if
01:28:48
that reduces our
01:28:50
debt right But that's not the policy of
01:28:53
how we're going to balance the budget
01:28:54
We're going to balance the
01:28:56
budget Trump
01:28:58
card tariffs getting rid of scams I'll
01:29:02
give you a scam example Every boat
01:29:04
you've ever seen like every single
01:29:07
cruise
01:29:08
ship super tanker container ship you've
01:29:13
never seen an American flag ever In fact
01:29:17
you ever think about the flag you've
01:29:19
actually seen All of you would say "I
01:29:21
have no idea what that flag is." Like
01:29:23
why is it some flag I never heard of
01:29:25
Liberia is number one And you go what No
01:29:29
one even knows where Liberia is Because
01:29:31
the answer is it's a flag of convenience
01:29:33
They sell the flag for like 10 grand
01:29:35
Like they literally here you can have a
01:29:36
flag and you pay no tax So what happens
01:29:39
is a cruise ship in the United States of
01:29:41
America picks up American passengers
01:29:43
goes in the Caribbean comes back to
01:29:45
America and treats the port as an
01:29:48
expense and all the profits are made in
01:29:50
the Caribbean where it pays no tax
01:29:52
That's what I call a tax scam Yeah I
01:29:55
mean it's unfair to America We're going
01:29:57
to fix that in America We're going to
01:30:00
try to fix a whole bunch of these tax
01:30:02
scams Ireland is my favorite The country
01:30:05
of Ireland last year had a $60 billion
01:30:10
budget surplus So we lose$2 trillion and
01:30:14
they make 60 He'd say Ireland what do
01:30:18
they do Oh they have all of our IP for
01:30:22
our great tech all the tech companies
01:30:23
All our great tech companies and great
01:30:25
pharma companies And pharma Yeah They
01:30:26
all put it there because it's low tax
01:30:28
and they don't pay us They pay them So
01:30:31
that's got to end So when those things
01:30:33
end
01:30:36
tariffs trump card getting rid of tax
01:30:39
scams to get fair tax that's my
01:30:43
trillion Elon's got to do his trillion
01:30:46
So whenever I see him getting off the
01:30:48
rails he and I go out and we have a
01:30:50
strong conversation together that you've
01:30:52
got to do your trillion So you got to
01:30:55
focus not on small potatoes right Big
01:30:58
big big big big I need you to do your
01:31:01
side of the trillion Now as it turns out
01:31:03
I'm going to do more than a trillion cuz
01:31:05
I'm me Elon's probably going to do more
01:31:08
than a trillion because he's him And
01:31:10
then what we're going to do is going to
01:31:13
our objective is to smash down the
01:31:15
Internal Revenue Service and change
01:31:17
America And then imagine America This is
01:31:20
just an imagination moment okay We have
01:31:24
a balanced budget in the United States
01:31:25
We're starting to knock down the the
01:31:28
deficit of America We can cut
01:31:32
tax and we have a gold card a Trump card
01:31:36
that you can come to America Which
01:31:39
entrepreneur have you ever met who
01:31:42
wouldn't buy one Yeah and wouldn't start
01:31:44
building businesses when they think the
01:31:46
tax rate here is going to come down and
01:31:48
eventually it's going to come down to
01:31:49
20% and eventually it's going to come
01:31:50
down to 15% You won't be able to find a
01:31:53
plot of land in America You know what I
01:31:54
predict will happen I predict the just
01:31:56
like in the medallion industry for taxi
01:31:58
cabs there'll be a financing industry
01:31:59
that'll build up around these uh these
01:32:01
gold cards or these trump cards that
01:32:03
great entrepreneurs great executives
01:32:05
will be able to finance their purchase
01:32:07
along with someone getting venture
01:32:09
capital interest or equity interest in
01:32:10
their business But I'm going to we're
01:32:12
going to take that money We're gonna we
01:32:14
so we'll sell them every year Yeah Right
01:32:16
So they'll knock down our budget deficit
01:32:19
and then eventually Right If if Donald
01:32:22
Trump is right and ultimately we can
01:32:24
sell 7 million cards Mhm You realize
01:32:26
there is no debt in America No debt in
01:32:28
America is a trillion dollars a year in
01:32:30
debt coverage Right Trillion dollars a
01:32:33
year in debt coverage You know what that
01:32:34
changes That changes the Internal
01:32:36
Revenue Service You you start to rethink
01:32:39
and I just want to remind you right We
01:32:42
are the richest country on earth Our
01:32:45
balance sheet is 500 trillion I give you
01:32:47
an example What's the court system of
01:32:48
America worth Right Right What's it
01:32:51
worth Well how can Nvidia be worth three
01:32:53
trillion without a court system that
01:32:55
protects it Right There's no such thing
01:32:57
So just our everything about us the
01:33:01
infrastructure is awesome And you know
01:33:03
what happens We we we actually like we
01:33:05
get beaten upon and we actually believe
01:33:07
it Yeah You could ask Doug Bergam about
01:33:09
how undervalued a lot of our real estate
01:33:10
is in this country and the potential for
01:33:12
it We think about Biden closed 635
01:33:16
million acres This is this is electing
01:33:19
Joe Biden head of Saudi Arabia and he
01:33:22
closes the oil wells Yeah And all of a
01:33:25
sudden Saudi Arabia falls off the face
01:33:27
of the earth broke Like what are we
01:33:29
doing Like we care about Americans Yeah
01:33:34
Let's make Americans lives great Howard
01:33:37
we want clean water We want clean air
01:33:40
Okay We do it better than everybody else
01:33:42
But if we don't Here's the one like the
01:33:44
hypocrisy right We won't mine lithium in
01:33:47
America to make a battery Yeah But so we
01:33:50
so the Australians mine it with coal and
01:33:52
it's messy because they do it like you
01:33:54
know they do it messy By the way we
01:33:56
breathe the air in 3.4 days but who's
01:33:58
counting right Then we take it we put it
01:34:00
on a truck We take put the truck and put
01:34:02
it in a super tanker We drive this super
01:34:04
tanker that pollutes the living heck out
01:34:05
of the world across 12,000 miles of
01:34:08
ocean puts it in a truck and gives it to
01:34:11
Elon to make an electric car Why don't
01:34:15
we mine the lithium in Nevada right And
01:34:20
by the way we'd mine it
01:34:21
cleaner right And by the way it's not
01:34:24
just lithium Almost anything that we
01:34:26
could possibly conceive of needing over
01:34:27
the next couple of decades exists in the
01:34:29
continental United States We just have
01:34:32
had no incentive or no structure
01:34:34
regulatory wise that enables the
01:34:36
development of it which is this is we
01:34:39
need to care for us make America you
01:34:42
know America first How about there's
01:34:45
another way to say well maintaining
01:34:46
clean environmental first Well
01:34:48
maintaining environmental standards Yeah
01:34:50
Don't look we're never going to do
01:34:53
something that's not like a hundred
01:34:55
times cleaner than everybody else cuz we
01:34:58
care about clean water and clean air
01:35:00
There's none of us who don't care about
01:35:01
clean water and clean air but you know
01:35:04
like someone gives you a pill and says
01:35:07
"This will save you." And then you look
01:35:09
at the statistic and it saves one in a
01:35:12
million people and you'd say "Uh why am
01:35:14
I taking this pill?" You say "Well it'll
01:35:16
it could save your life." You'd say
01:35:17
"Yeah but it's like one in a million."
01:35:19
Right That's not logical Right That's
01:35:23
the point You know there's a regulation
01:35:26
That's the right thing Yeah And there's
01:35:29
a regulation that's that's the one ina
01:35:32
million pill Like why do we give a baby
01:35:34
a baby a hepatitis B vaccine Do you
01:35:38
realize we have a brand new
01:35:40
baby and we hold it up and we give it a
01:35:42
hepatitis B vaccine You realize the only
01:35:44
way you get hepatitis B was is from
01:35:47
unprotected
01:35:48
uh sex or a needle Like why are we
01:35:52
giving them to a baby Like why And you
01:35:55
know what it is You know what the answer
01:35:57
is corruption that someone in the
01:36:00
government got paid to put that in the
01:36:03
rules and because there's no
01:36:05
justification There's no I haven't met a
01:36:08
medical doctor who says hepatitis B
01:36:10
vaccines on brand new babies make sense
01:36:12
because by the way you know what the
01:36:14
worst part is They only last 10 years
01:36:16
You need a booster in 10 years So the
01:36:18
baby's going to be 10 We've got to
01:36:21
really be fair to ourselves and be fair
01:36:25
to Americans And I think we can be And I
01:36:28
think that's why I'm so excited That's
01:36:30
why our cabinet is so excited That's why
01:36:32
it's so much fun to work for Donald
01:36:34
Trump
01:36:35
Because I am just speaking from his
01:36:39
playbook right Because if you had met me
01:36:42
before he said "Will you help me?" And
01:36:45
he went out to dinner with me and said
01:36:46
"So tell me about government." I'd say
01:36:49
"Uh government You mean I pay them
01:36:52
taxes?" Like that's it Are you having
01:36:53
the time of your life the most fun ever
01:36:56
because I have every
01:36:59
idea either gets blown up or shot
01:37:02
down Okay Meaning I come up with lots of
01:37:05
ideas and he says "Nah too complex." And
01:37:09
you know what That's fine Yeah But when
01:37:11
I come up with the external revenue
01:37:13
service and he says "Great idea." And
01:37:14
then he speaks of it in his inaugural
01:37:16
address right It's his idea Yeah Because
01:37:20
I can't do anything with it Howard last
01:37:22
question as we wrap Tell us about your
01:37:24
family your kids how do they think about
01:37:26
all of this Your son's running caner now
01:37:28
How's that going Just give us the lay of
01:37:30
the land How how's the Lutnik family All
01:37:33
right So I have I have the best wife
01:37:35
I've been married 30 years Uh she lets
01:37:37
me be me and she's gorgeous spectacular
01:37:41
I love my girl Um she agreed I mean
01:37:44
imagine this I'm not I'm not joining the
01:37:47
government I'm not joining the
01:37:48
government I'm doing this Doge thing
01:37:50
with Elon I'm not joining I'm not
01:37:51
joining Honey we got to move Like honey
01:37:54
we got to move two weeks after election
01:37:56
day I'm like we're moving And uh we're
01:37:58
going to in five weeks we're going to
01:37:59
live in Washington okay And like so the
01:38:02
fact that that wasn't unsettling would
01:38:04
be the understatement of a lifetime But
01:38:06
she's been the most supportive and
01:38:08
fantastic I have four kids Uh my oldest
01:38:11
son about to turn 29 I was taking him to
01:38:13
kindergarten so that's why I'm alive My
01:38:16
second son Brandon I dropped him off in
01:38:17
nursing school and then took my oldest
01:38:19
son to kindergarten
01:38:20
Um so the two oldest boys are running
01:38:23
caner now until I Deb asked Is it going
01:38:26
well
01:38:27
I don't know Oh you of course you're not
01:38:30
supposed to know you It's kind of fun I
01:38:33
would love to talk to them about it You
01:38:35
have no idea but I'm not allowed Like I
01:38:37
I literally am not allowed And you know
01:38:39
we all know the phones Yeah So since the
01:38:42
phone's always with me and I assume the
01:38:44
phone is listening You know ever since
01:38:45
we couldn't take our battery out of our
01:38:47
phone you know the phone is listening So
01:38:49
you know I'm not No So I never talked to
01:38:51
my son So uh I'm sure they're happy but
01:38:54
I don't know how it's going Guys if
01:38:55
you're listening he's doing great as you
01:38:57
can tell but and then my my daughter is
01:39:00
going to go to med school Yeah And she's
01:39:02
on a gap year now And my youngest son
01:39:05
also on a gap year now and he's going to
01:39:07
uh start Duke in the fall right So I
01:39:10
have the best kids
01:39:12
uh my kids have lived with me and they
01:39:15
lived with this kind of energy and this
01:39:17
positive sort of momentum and and my
01:39:20
wife being just a spectacular mom just
01:39:22
keeping them what we taught our kids
01:39:24
which is a fun one is
01:39:27
uh I taught him two things uh I would
01:39:30
sit down with my kids and say how great
01:39:31
is your life and this is only maybe
01:39:34
something that people like we can say
01:39:36
but I'm talking to my kids I say how
01:39:37
great is your life they go great cuz
01:39:40
they came home and they Hey I got a bad
01:39:42
grade Teacher doesn't like me It's a
01:39:46
classic line right Yeah And I said well
01:39:48
how good's your life
01:39:50
Really good I go could it be be any
01:39:52
better No Well do you realize your
01:39:55
teacher has given up her whole life Yeah
01:39:59
And she makes how much money Yeah And
01:40:01
she's given her whole life to teach you
01:40:03
Yeah So can I ask you a question Is it
01:40:06
her job to like you or is it your job
01:40:09
for her to like you
01:40:11
who's failing in what you just
01:40:14
said right It's your job to have her
01:40:18
like you So when she says raise your
01:40:20
hand raise your hand Right And the other
01:40:22
thing is do me a favor color inside the
01:40:24
lines Okay In high school if she says
01:40:27
this guy is orange the answer to the
01:40:28
test is orange When you get to college
01:40:31
you can argue with the professor all you
01:40:33
want High school color inside the lines
01:40:35
Give the teacher what she wants Make
01:40:37
sure she loves you and you're getting a
01:40:40
good grade That's the rules of life Yeah
01:40:43
And my wife beat that into my children
01:40:46
so that they would have it in their
01:40:48
souls in their moral character Yeah Of
01:40:51
someone who's fighting for you needs to
01:40:54
have your love and respect back If you
01:40:57
take them for granted if you treat them
01:41:00
badly if you treat them like "Oh aren't
01:41:02
I so great?" Then you deserve what you
01:41:05
get And my wife has taught that moral
01:41:07
fiber into my children and it it resides
01:41:11
in them And the other thing my kids have
01:41:13
is they have empathy which is a very
01:41:16
unusual thing for young people And it's
01:41:19
because they're they were raised with
01:41:22
their father crying every day I cried
01:41:26
every day until October
01:41:30
21st 2004
01:41:33
Wow
01:41:35
every day because I thought of someone I
01:41:37
hadn't thought of you know or someone
01:41:39
would say 658 people died and I I just
01:41:41
there was you can't process all of that
01:41:44
death Yeah Without crying And and the
01:41:47
only reason I remember is cuz as I fell
01:41:49
asleep I told my wife that I didn't cry
01:41:50
today and she wrote it down
01:41:53
That's the only reason I remember So um
01:41:56
my kids are are fantastic They've been
01:41:58
incredibly supportive and uh and my
01:42:02
wife's the best and she lives with me in
01:42:04
Washington We bought Brett Bear's house
01:42:06
so I have a nice house big enough for my
01:42:08
ego to expand Very important Tomorrow
01:42:11
hasn't found one that big yet to look at
01:42:13
Howard
01:42:15
you're an incredible American Thank you
01:42:17
very much for everything This was really
01:42:19
fun in coming to talk Honestly this is
01:42:21
this has been one of my I mean my
01:42:23
favorite conversation we've had
01:42:25
Absolutely I mean like he's like this
01:42:26
all the time I mean not
01:42:28
just like we have dinner at like
01:42:31
Nicasha's house who's a good friend of
01:42:32
ours runs Paul Altera Networks and
01:42:34
Howard's like you just push the button
01:42:35
and you can just sit and just listen You
01:42:37
can listen to him for hours By the way I
01:42:38
will say I'll echo the point you made
01:42:40
earlier I think every member of this
01:42:42
cabinet is an incredible storyteller I
01:42:44
mean you're like on another level but
01:42:45
like the storytelling I think is what's
01:42:47
so powerful about this cabinet and this
01:42:49
administration And I think it's going to
01:42:51
take some time to get the message out
01:42:53
But man is are there incredible
01:42:55
ambassadors to do so with they are so
01:42:58
capable Yeah Each of them is so capable
01:43:00
so thoughtful I mean I I am honored to
01:43:05
be on this cabinet with them But we all
01:43:08
get to work for Donald Trump who can
01:43:11
intuitively tell you "Go fix eggs." Yeah
01:43:14
Yeah And then Brooke goes fix eggs and
01:43:15
eggs are down like 40% And Brooke fixes
01:43:19
eggs I mean how awesome is that Right
01:43:22
And gas is down 40 cents right And he's
01:43:25
only just begun if we get if we get the
01:43:27
Constitution pipeline in New York passed
01:43:30
And I sat with him while Donald Trump
01:43:32
lectured Governor Hokll on the
01:43:36
unbelievable oil in fracking that they
01:43:39
have in New York and the wealth that New
01:43:41
York could have if they unleashed it but
01:43:44
they refused to unleash it So he's going
01:43:46
to force the Constitution pipeline which
01:43:48
by the way will drop gas on the east
01:43:50
coast of the United States of America in
01:43:52
half M I mean this is and that's you
01:43:56
know then you got that's Chris Wright
01:43:58
that's Doug Bergam you got Brook Rollins
01:44:00
I mean you could just go you know Scott
01:44:02
Bessant you know so thoughtful and
01:44:03
elegant I mean he's he just step by step
01:44:06
by step and you have really the most fun
01:44:10
cabinet working for the most intuitive
01:44:12
smartest guy to ever sit behind the
01:44:14
Resolute desk and we're going to make
01:44:16
America great again not as a slogan but
01:44:21
we're going to balance the budget we're
01:44:23
going change America Thank you Howard
01:44:24
Thanks
01:44:27
[Music]
01:44:31
Howard I'm going all in