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I'm very excited to announce that the
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vice president JD Vance can be with us
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today. The last time that we saw um the
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vice president on stage like this at an
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all-in summit, he wasn't the vice
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president yet. It was about 10 months
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ago at the all-in summit that we did
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last year and uh obviously a lot has
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changed. I think he's been doing a
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phenomenal job and making us all proud
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and uh it's going to be great to catch
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up with him. So with without further
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ado, Vice President JD Vance.
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Guys, how are you? Good to see you, man.
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Good to see you, David.
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Good to see you. What's up, brother? How
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are you? Nice to see you. Good to see
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you. How are you, man? Good to see you.
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How you doing?
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Good.
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So, the last time I did this podcast, I
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think Jason was a huge to me
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because the vice president, you seem to
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be nice to me now, Jason.
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Oh, it's on. Well, okay. Let me get my
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list of topics.
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He was hoping you'd give him a White
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House tour later today, so we'll see how
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this goes. You're you're welcome to have
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a White House tour.
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Really?
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I know a guy.
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I asked David three times.
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I know a guy.
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His his invitation's been lost in the
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mail a few times, but
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Well, no, actually, listen, if we're
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starting it out, um, congratulations on
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a great run.
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Thank you. I appreciate it. It was fun.
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You know, we can differ on some of the
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margins. Um, but I just think all
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Americans appreciate the pace at which,
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especially in the technology industry,
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you're going and the effectiveness. So,
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I just want to congratulate you on that.
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Sincerely,
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I appreciate that.
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Uh, okay. So, let's get into uh some
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topics,
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right?
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Uh immigration.
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When we last talked, you said uh I said,
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"Hey, you're going to deport 20 million
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people all at once. That seems quite
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chaotic." And you said, "No, we're going
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to we're going to do it like a sandwich.
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Take a couple of bites." Uh how's that
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going?
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I think it's going well. I mean, we are
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criticized, interestingly, by some folks
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on the right who want the pace of
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deportations to be higher. And I
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certainly understand that, frankly, and
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share that frustration. The
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counterargument is the courts are trying
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to step stop us at every step of the
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way. And until about a month ago, we
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didn't have the resources for ICE to
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actually get this massive invasion that
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Joe Biden led into our country. We
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didn't have the resources necessary to
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actually process a lot of those people.
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That has changed because of the big
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beautiful bill. We've also gotten some
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court case wins. So, I expect uh that
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the pace of deportations will increase a
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little bit. But importantly, when people
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criticize us and they say, you know,
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sometimes I'll hear this criticism,
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well, the pace of deportations from the
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Trump administration is actually lower
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than it was in the B administration. And
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that's actually a completely fake
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statistic. It's based on the fact that
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if you come into the country illegally
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and then the Biden administration
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processes you and sends you out, that
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counts as a deportation. It counts as an
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illegal immigration and then it counts
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as deportation. So, you have to look at
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the net number, right? If you do plus
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one minus one, I'm not a math expert,
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but I'm pretty sure that's zero. The net
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number is what really matters. And where
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the Trump administration, where we've
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been most wildly successful is that we
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have I think in 2025, we will have the
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first net negative immigration number in
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about 50 or 60 years in the United
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States. And so there has been a major a
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major major shift in immigration policy.
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Now again, I I'm I'm like, you know, me
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and Steven Miller are probably the two
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most hardline people in the entire
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administration when it comes to
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immigration. So there's always more that
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we can do. And like I said, I think that
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there is more that we can do. But if you
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just look fundamentally what people said
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is that if you actually take border
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enforcement seriously, the entire
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economy is going to collapse.
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Inflation's going to go through the
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roof. Housing costs are going to go
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through the roof. And if you look, while
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there's still a lot more to do,
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inflation has cooled. Housing costs are
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now showing signs of peaking. I think
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according to Zillow, over the past 12
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months, housing costs have gone up8%. Uh
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the previous the Biden administration,
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they basically nearly doubled the cost
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of a mortgage for an average family. So
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there there are a lot of things that
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we're showing work and we're showing
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importantly that it turns out if you put
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your faith in American workers, you can
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build great companies, you can build a
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great economy. You don't have to build
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an entire economy on illegal labor,
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which is what the Democrats told us we
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had to do. So, we're not just doing a
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good job. I think we're also proving out
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the use case and proving out what the
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Trump campaign said that it was going to
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do in the Trump administration.
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And President Trump, I think, um, came
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out and said, "Hey, we maybe should
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appreciate some of these immigrants
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who've been here for 20 years and maybe
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give them a path to citizenship. Maybe
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think about restaurants and farms and
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maybe show some compassion to those
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people." And I think the objection
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perhaps uh that some of us have is the
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the style in which you're doing it a
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little aggressive what happened in LA
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and um you seem to maybe internally in
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uh the administration found a middle
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ground maybe and listen to the other
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side and maybe our opinions on it.
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Well, first the the Trump administration
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obviously is a big group of people with
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a lot of different opinions and we all
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have to talk about this stuff and try to
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come up with the right decision. But the
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the Trump the administration the
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decision maker is of course one man.
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Yeah.
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And while he listens to everybody he's
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ultimately going to make the decisions
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that he thinks are best for the country
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and then we go and execute that after of
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course having a big a big conversation
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around the inner circle. You know what
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what the president has said is number
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one we're not going to do amnesty in
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this country. We're we're actually not
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going to tell people who have come into
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the country illegally that they're
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allowed to break our laws and be
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rewarded for it. We're just not going to
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do that. But there are a whole host of
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other ways when we talk to you know
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agricultural um industries and others
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where they say well you know we really
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need labor. Well there are a whole host
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of ways in which you can try to solve
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those problems. My favorite solution for
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those problems is automation right. Uh I
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actually think there's a lot of evidence
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that the American agricultural economy
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is a little behind the eightball when it
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comes to using technology. There are
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ways where we're talking about
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facilitating the use of automation. So
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we're not going to have amnesty. We also
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recognize that there are a lot of
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industries out there we want to thrive
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and I think the president is trying to
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strike the right balance. And Jason, you
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said something about compassion and I
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think this is really important. I I do
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think that we we we have to make a
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stronger argument here. There's nothing
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discompassionate or there's nothing
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hateful about enforcing your own
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borders. It's a question of do you
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facilitate
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Thank you guys. But do you facilitate
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these Mexican drug cartels, the drug
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trafficking that they're engaging? Of
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course not. the hundreds of thousands.
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I'm not saying you would ever say this,
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but the hundreds of thousands of missing
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children under the Biden administration.
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The fact that some of these young girls
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are being sex traffked by Mexican drug
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cartels. When you enforce the nation's
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border laws, that is the most
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compassionate thing to do both for your
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own people, but also for the people who
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are legally.
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Yeah, I agree on the border.
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Let me uh shift to AI for one second. In
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I think it was February, I want to get
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the date right. Um you went to France
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and then you went to Germany and these
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were two incredibly iconic speeches. one
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on AI and then one at the Munich
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Security Conference. Um, and I think it
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was a in many ways an incredible moment
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where you just started to establish
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American priorities again abroad. Can
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you just go into the strategy of those
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speeches and where they came from and
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just the bigger arc of the first six to
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nine months and what the goals were?
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Yeah. So for the AI summit, the
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president really wanted me to do this
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and of course, you know, happy to go to
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Paris and give a speech and talk about
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American priorities. But there there was
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this big moment we thought we had an
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opportunity to sort of p plant our flag
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and say America is done with the
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overregulating
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with the constant worrying about the
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future. We're going to lean into the
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future. We're going to embrace the
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future and try to make sure America
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dominates in the future. And that's such
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a radical departure from both the
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safetyism of the Biden administration,
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but also frankly the safety of a lot of
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our friends in Europe. And I had been,
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you know, there for about 24 hours. I
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had met with with with Emanuel Mcronone,
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the leader of of France. Had a good
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conversation and and a lot of the other
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people in Europe. And the thing that I
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kind of picked up is that they're so
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terrified about the problems with AI.
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And to be clear, there are problems with
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AI. But if you're so terrified with the
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problems with AI, you don't actually
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embrace the potential, then you're going
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to get the worst of the problems without
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any of the benefits, the upside of it.
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And that's what I think was so broken
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about our administration's um approach
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during the Biden years. And it's what's
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so different about our our actual
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administration here uh during the Trump
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years. So our attitude is yeah, there
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are some consumer protection issues.
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There are some data privacy issues. We
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don't want the AI companies to do what
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the big tech companies did in 2020 and
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2021, which is steal people's data and
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then censor an entire large swath of the
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American people for saying things that
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were said to be conspiracies, but later
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turned out to be true. We're not going
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to do that, but we're also going to
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embrace innovation. We're going to make
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sure that America stays at the the the
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leading edge of the artificial
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intelligence boom. And we think when
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that happens, it's going to create a lot
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of jobs. It's going to create a lot of
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productivity. We talked about
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agriculture. I think it's going to lead
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to a new food revolution where we can
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grow a lot more food on a lot less land.
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There there's just a whole host of
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things that being forward focused on
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technology can bring to this country.
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And that is the story. I think the story
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of American entrepreneurship and
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American economic growth is that when we
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grow through technology and development
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and productivity that enters to the
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benefit of all Americans and makes us
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more powerful and more wealthy. When we
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try to grow our economy, frankly,
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through importing cheap labor, that I
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think is a dead end. We've taken that
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pathway for far too long in this
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country. The Trump administration is
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going to take a different path.
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What about relativism? So, uh, just
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framing up the big open question about
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our relationship with China. There's
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there's trade discussions going on, but
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China this week, it was it was revealed
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or announced has sold off half their
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treasury, US Treasury holdings. Um, as
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you look at the technology uh curve in
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China, the fiscal situation and the
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difference between the two, how much
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should our policy be informed relative
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to China where we sit with China versus
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forget about China, let's just make
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America great and focus on creating jobs
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and moving our industries forward.
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Yeah, it's it's got to be a little bit
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of both. And I you know, it's always
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tough to strike the right balance. I
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mean, look, China is our biggest
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economic competitor in the entire world.
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uh when you look at their technology
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industry, I think it's the only tech
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industry, especially when it comes to
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things like AI where they're even sort
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of knocking on the door of America. Now,
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I still think that we have the best
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hardware. I think that we have the best
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software. I still think that we're the
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most technologically forward economy. Uh
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but our but our, you know, our edge is
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not something we can sort of rest on our
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laurels. So I think it is useful to look
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to the Chinese to benchmark our own
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progress and to say that if we're
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regulating ourselves to death and
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allowing the Chinese to catch up to us.
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That's not something frankly we should
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blame the Chinese for. That's something
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we should blame our own leaders for for
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having stupid policies that allow other
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countries to catch up to America. So
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it's a useful benchmark, but I still
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think fundamentally we have to take the
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attitude of, you know, we want the world
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to be built, I think, on an American
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technology stack, not on a Chinese or
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some other country's technology stack.
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And if you're too focused on the
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relative comparison and not focused
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enough on just building and creating
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great things, I think that it can become
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a little bit of a crutch and a little
00:11:08
bit of a I I don't know, an impediment
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to focusing on your own stuff and doing
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your own thing. And it's why we have a
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great AISAR here and David Sachs. But
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we're we're really focused on how does
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America just do as well as we possibly
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can. Yes, we want to stay ahead of
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China, but we want to stay ahead of
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everybody else because this is America
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and we want it to stay the greatest
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country in the world.
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And related to that, does that mean
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American businesses should be allowed to
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sell into China, participate there as a
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customer market? And if so, in the trade
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negotiations, is there a push for par so
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that American businesses can operate in
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China or elsewhere in the world as
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easily as those companies can operate in
00:11:44
America?
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Yeah. So, as the president said, it's
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it's a bit of a balance, right? There
00:11:48
are certain critical elements of our
00:11:50
technology stack. There are certain
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critical technologies. We know that some
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Chinese firms engage in IP theft. So, we
00:11:56
don't want to give them our very best
00:11:57
stuff because we're worried a little bit
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that they might steal it. But of course
00:12:01
there are certain industries that we
00:12:03
want to sell into China. We actually
00:12:04
want to broaden American workers access
00:12:07
to the world. And part of our
00:12:09
frustration with China is on the one
00:12:10
hand they steal some of our newest
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technology and on the other hand they
00:12:15
don't let Americanmade products into
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their country. What we want to do is
00:12:18
actually reverse that. We want to sell
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Americanmade products into China but we
00:12:22
don't want to allow them to steal our
00:12:24
critical intellectual property. And we
00:12:26
have to strike that balance in a much
00:12:27
better way than not just the Biden
00:12:29
administration, but better than the the
00:12:30
the the Obama administration and the
00:12:32
Bush administration did, too. But
00:12:34
striking that balance is something I
00:12:35
think the president's very focused on.
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I'm certainly very focused on. And we've
00:12:39
now got a much better approach now than
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we have in a long time in this country.
00:12:42
How do you think it plays out for not
00:12:45
China or the United States, but all of
00:12:48
the other sort of smaller countries when
00:12:50
AI gets to scale? Can how do you think
00:12:53
strategically the chessboard ends up
00:12:55
being organized? Is there a new form of
00:12:58
the United Nations? Is there a new form
00:12:59
of NATO but more productive? Like how do
00:13:02
you think it plays out for the 180th
00:13:04
country in the world when they need
00:13:06
things?
00:13:06
Yeah, it's it's a very interesting
00:13:08
question and I don't want to you know
00:13:09
predict the future too much here. It's
00:13:10
always a fraugh business especially in
00:13:12
politics. But you know what one of the
00:13:14
things that's interesting a foreign
00:13:16
leader came to me relatively recently.
00:13:18
This is actually last week. um small
00:13:20
country but very important country
00:13:21
strategically very good ally of the
00:13:23
United States and basically pitched me
00:13:26
on creating a NATO alternative outside
00:13:30
of Europe but where countries that were
00:13:32
aligned with the United States built on
00:13:34
the same technology stack there was a
00:13:36
shared sort of you know shared access to
00:13:39
technology shared access to certain
00:13:41
weaponry and so forth and he was like we
00:13:43
really want to be part of team America
00:13:45
but there isn't even an existing
00:13:46
infrastructure that would allow us to be
00:13:48
team America And I had never thought
00:13:49
about it in that way. I haven't even
00:13:51
talked to the president yet about it.
00:13:52
But it's interesting that world leaders
00:13:54
are coming and saying this is how we're
00:13:56
thinking about the future. And and the
00:13:58
technology piece of it is a very
00:14:00
critical angle because as you guys
00:14:01
probably appreciate, I assume the
00:14:02
audience appreciates is that you know
00:14:04
sometimes when you build with with
00:14:07
Chinese firms or Chinese technology, it
00:14:10
seems like a pretty good deal, right?
00:14:11
Larry Summers once had this famous quote
00:14:14
that you know when in Africa when
00:14:16
developing countries talk to the United
00:14:18
States and talk to um China. The the
00:14:22
Americans show up with a moral lecture
00:14:23
and the Chinese show up with a bag of
00:14:25
money. Well, you know the bag of money
00:14:26
obviously I prefer that to the moral
00:14:28
lecture. But you realize that bag of
00:14:30
money sometimes comes with debt
00:14:32
servitude. It sometimes comes with a
00:14:34
sort of neoc colonial control of the
00:14:36
host country. What a lot of nations are
00:14:38
realizing is they're not just showing up
00:14:40
with a bag of money and we'd much rather
00:14:42
be on team America, but it does require
00:14:44
much more forward leadership. And you
00:14:46
the B administration I I don't know what
00:14:48
it was, but there was just this
00:14:50
deepseated fear of the future. I'm sure
00:14:53
it was motivated by having a president
00:14:54
who didn't necessarily know where he was
00:14:55
from from day to day, but there was
00:14:57
there was
00:15:00
on the Sorry,
00:15:01
it's over. You won, JD. You won.
00:15:04
We still get to have a little fun with a
00:15:05
couple. It's okay. But look, but there
00:15:08
was just this really weird fear of the
00:15:10
future that I think is totally absent in
00:15:12
the Trump administration. It makes our
00:15:14
politics much better.
00:15:15
Are you comfortable with a multi-olar
00:15:17
world or do you still think that there
00:15:19
should be American primacy on a global
00:15:20
stage?
00:15:21
I I mean I I I I think it's an abstract
00:15:23
question that's interesting, but
00:15:25
fundamentally in some ways the world is
00:15:27
going to be multipolar in the sense that
00:15:29
there are different Yeah, we want
00:15:30
regional allies to step up. I mean,
00:15:32
you've heard the president say this
00:15:33
before. you know, we we'd love a Middle
00:15:35
East where we have to spend a little bit
00:15:36
less time and a little bit less money
00:15:38
and our regional allies, both, you know,
00:15:40
Israeli and Arabs, step up in a bigger
00:15:42
way. We'd like to see that, of course,
00:15:43
in Europe. And I think one of the big
00:15:45
accomplishments of the president in the
00:15:47
first term, something that the media
00:15:48
still doesn't give him enough credit
00:15:49
for, is he actually got NATO to step up
00:15:52
and make major security commitments
00:15:54
about their own sector of the world.
00:15:56
Now, that's sometimes interpreted as,
00:15:58
well, America doesn't like Europe
00:15:59
anymore. No, we like Europe so much that
00:16:02
we want Europe to step up and take a
00:16:04
little bit more self-control of its own
00:16:06
continent. Of course, we're going to be
00:16:07
their friends and of course we're going
00:16:08
to work with them, but we we definitely
00:16:10
see a world where some of our regional
00:16:12
allies step up a little bit more. I
00:16:14
think that's a good thing. Of course,
00:16:16
they're going to be ali allied with the
00:16:18
United States, aligned with the United
00:16:19
States in important ways. But other
00:16:21
countries taking a bigger
00:16:24
a bigger role in their own self-defense
00:16:26
and in their own region. That's
00:16:28
fundamentally a good thing for America.
00:16:29
It also feels, I think, more fair to the
00:16:31
American people when the president is
00:16:33
able to negotiate the rare earth deal
00:16:36
with Ukraine and say, "Hey, if you want
00:16:37
weapons, that's fine, but it's on a loan
00:16:38
lease. You got to pay for them. They're
00:16:40
not free." Um, I think one of your great
00:16:41
strengths is your empathy for the
00:16:43
working men and women of this country.
00:16:45
And uh one of the big discussions we're
00:16:47
having in our industry, which will fall
00:16:49
on your plate, um in your career is
00:16:52
going to be job displacement. So I'm
00:16:54
wondering how the administration thinks
00:16:56
about that. For every self-driving car
00:16:58
we put on the road, that's four drivers
00:16:59
who are going to have their jobs
00:17:01
retired. They'll be displaced. For every
00:17:03
Optimus robot or humanoid robot that
00:17:06
eventually makes it into a factory,
00:17:07
that'll be five or six factory jobs. Uh
00:17:10
you spoke about the agricultural jobs as
00:17:12
well. So how do you think about that
00:17:15
automation and the pace at which it's
00:17:17
going to happen? Because if you ask
00:17:19
anybody in technology, none of us have
00:17:21
the answer of how quickly this will
00:17:22
happen. We are optimistic of course, but
00:17:25
there could be displacement. If there is
00:17:27
displacement, who's responsible? The
00:17:28
administration, the technologists who
00:17:30
cause it, the free market, nobody. And
00:17:32
we'll just let the chips fall where they
00:17:34
may. What do you think, JD?
00:17:35
Well, a a couple of thoughts on this. So
00:17:37
f first of all, I am a little bit more
00:17:40
optimistic about automation. And I if if
00:17:44
you look at some of the doom narratives
00:17:46
about automation, you know, the robots
00:17:48
are coming to take all of our jobs. If
00:17:50
the robots were coming to take all of
00:17:52
our jobs, you would see labor
00:17:53
productivity skyrocketing in this
00:17:55
country, but you actually see labor
00:17:56
productivity flatlining. And what that
00:17:58
means actually is that our country is
00:18:01
underexed in technology and not
00:18:03
overindexed in technology. Maybe we're
00:18:04
overindexed in software, but we're
00:18:07
underindexed in the real kind of
00:18:08
technology that boosts productivity. So,
00:18:10
I'm not saying there won't be job
00:18:12
displacement, but I always think of the
00:18:13
example of the bank teller. And in the
00:18:15
1970s, when the ATM machine, the
00:18:17
automated teller machine was created,
00:18:19
there was a whole host of articles about
00:18:21
how this would destroy a ton of middle
00:18:23
class jobs in the banking sector. What
00:18:25
actually happened is we have more bank
00:18:28
tellers now than we did in the 1970s.
00:18:30
they do slightly different jobs and
00:18:32
they're more productive and they earn
00:18:33
higher wages, but I think that's the
00:18:35
story of technology. Productivity is
00:18:37
fundamentally good. Now, now there is a
00:18:39
a displacement that I worry about and I
00:18:41
I you know I was frankly not even aware
00:18:42
this was an issue until a couple of
00:18:44
weeks ago and I'm trying to dig into it
00:18:45
a little bit which is where on the one
00:18:47
hand you see some Silicon Valley
00:18:50
technology firms especially the big
00:18:51
firms say that they are desperate for
00:18:53
workers that they can't find for work
00:18:55
workers that they have to use you know
00:18:57
overseas visa programs to find workers
00:18:59
and yet at the same time the college
00:19:02
educated employment rate for STEM
00:19:04
graduates in this country seems to be
00:19:05
declining. Yep.
00:19:06
Well, wait a second. If you're not
00:19:09
hiring American workers coming out of
00:19:11
colleges for these jobs, then how can
00:19:13
you say that you have a a massive
00:19:16
shortage in these jobs? And by the way,
00:19:17
you see some big tech companies where
00:19:19
they'll lay off 9,000 workers and then
00:19:22
they'll apply for a bunch of overseas
00:19:24
visas. And I I sort of wonder that
00:19:27
doesn't totally make sense to me. The
00:19:28
math doesn't that that displacement and
00:19:30
that math worries me a bit. And what the
00:19:31
president has said, he said very
00:19:33
clearly, we want the very best and the
00:19:35
brightest to make America their home. We
00:19:36
want them to build great companies and
00:19:38
so forth. But I don't want companies to
00:19:42
fire 9,000 American workers and then to
00:19:45
go and say we can't find workers here in
00:19:47
America. That's a story.
00:19:48
What did Microsoft say when you uh
00:19:50
brought that up with Microsoft?
00:19:52
I have I I it's
00:19:54
Have you talked to them about it?
00:19:55
I have I have not. I just became aware
00:19:56
of this a couple weeks ago. Somebody
00:19:58
sent me an article about this and they
00:20:00
said, "Well, you know," and it maybe it
00:20:01
was Microsoft
00:20:02
that fired, I think, 9,000 people. And
00:20:05
then I was like, "Wait a second."
00:20:07
Record profits, record market cap,
00:20:09
and but also saying they're they're
00:20:11
desperate for workers. So, I have not
00:20:12
yet had that conversation with
00:20:13
Microsoft. In my defense, I just found
00:20:14
out
00:20:16
a four-year college degree the wrong
00:20:18
answer. So the this is this is really
00:20:21
important because like so much of our
00:20:23
system the American dream sorry to cut
00:20:25
your mouth off but just a follow on to
00:20:26
this like has been degraded by this idea
00:20:28
that everyone should get a college
00:20:30
degree then they end up with $100,000 of
00:20:31
debt and they can't get enough of an
00:20:34
income to get themselves out of that
00:20:35
debt. What's the right solution in this
00:20:38
evolution in the workforce and this
00:20:39
evolution under this uh this AI
00:20:42
transition that we're experiencing?
00:20:44
Yeah. So one I I agree with that though
00:20:45
I think it's it's a slightly different
00:20:47
question right you can believe that you
00:20:49
want American firms to hire American
00:20:51
college graduates but then also wonder
00:20:53
if the college education system we have
00:20:55
in this in this country is broken and I
00:20:57
certainly think that it is. I mean, you
00:20:58
know, one, I I really, you know, when I
00:21:02
went to I went to Ohio State for
00:21:03
undergrad and then Yale Law School. When
00:21:06
I was at Yale, I guess this is 2010 to
00:21:07
2013, I felt like it was a very
00:21:10
leftleaning place, but it was still
00:21:13
fundamentally a place where you could
00:21:14
debate ideas, where you wouldn't be
00:21:16
penalized for stepping outside of the
00:21:18
orthodoxy. When I talk to college kids,
00:21:20
when I talk to 21-year-olds at some of
00:21:22
these universities, some of them feel
00:21:24
like they're living in like a North
00:21:26
Korean totalitarian style dictatorship
00:21:29
where the social unemployment cost of
00:21:31
saying anything outside of the Overton
00:21:33
window is so severe. That's not a useful
00:21:36
social institution. Like I want colleges
00:21:38
to promote free thinking, even dangerous
00:21:41
ideas. You know, challenge those ideas.
00:21:43
Maybe some of them are wrongs, maybe
00:21:44
some of them are right. But if you as a
00:21:46
college are actually promoting social
00:21:50
conventional thinking, then you're not
00:21:52
serving your fundamental purpose. And I
00:21:54
think the entire university system in
00:21:55
this country is broken because of that
00:21:57
fact.
00:21:58
I want to go back to building great
00:22:00
companies for a second. Um, America, I
00:22:04
think sometimes we lost our footing over
00:22:05
the last 20 years because we weren't
00:22:08
able to think strategically outside the
00:22:10
lenses of just the United States. And
00:22:11
what I mean specifically is if you look
00:22:13
in China, they were able to pick eight
00:22:15
or nine industries and say we need to
00:22:17
have national champions because they are
00:22:19
just so fundamentally critical to
00:22:20
national security, population health,
00:22:23
economic vibrancy, etc. I think it was a
00:22:26
couple weeks ago and Jim Latinsky is
00:22:27
going to come on later, but we did a
00:22:29
version of that deal where the DoD
00:22:31
partnered with an American company who
00:22:33
has a mine in America. We're going to
00:22:35
bring these rare earths. We're going to
00:22:36
manufacture them here. We're going to do
00:22:37
the entire supply chain here. Do you
00:22:40
think that that's a one-off thing or how
00:22:42
do you see the public private
00:22:44
partnership in that gray area in the
00:22:46
middle evolve when we think about these
00:22:48
strategic priorities like AI?
00:22:50
Yeah. So Shabbath, if you think about
00:22:51
the great era of American economic
00:22:53
dominance, right? It's the 40s, it's the
00:22:54
' 50s, it's the 60s, it's when we were
00:22:56
so far ahead of the rest of the world
00:22:58
that, you know, e economically it just
00:23:01
felt like nobody could possibly catch up
00:23:03
to us. And back in that area era, one of
00:23:06
the great things that worked was true
00:23:08
public private partnerships where we let
00:23:10
the free market, we let private
00:23:12
industries do what private industries
00:23:13
were really good at. But we had a
00:23:15
discrete goal in public policy and we
00:23:17
tried to facilitate it. Right? There
00:23:18
were certain basic research things that
00:23:20
didn't make sense in a um in a private
00:23:23
sector context, but maybe they made
00:23:24
sense for the country overall. There are
00:23:26
certain, you know, weapon systems that
00:23:27
maybe weren't profitable. We were going
00:23:29
to make them profitable because they
00:23:30
were important for American national
00:23:32
security. Of course, the entire moon
00:23:33
landing is a story of a great public
00:23:36
private partnership that produced a
00:23:37
whole host of great technological
00:23:39
development and economic benefit
00:23:41
downstream. I I I I do think that we're
00:23:44
taking a very discreet view of certain
00:23:46
industries, of certain core
00:23:47
technologies, certain core weapons
00:23:49
systems, and saying the United States is
00:23:51
not going to allow our industrial base,
00:23:53
our technology base to atrophy anymore.
00:23:56
You've seen some stuff out of that. I
00:23:58
mean, we're only six months into this
00:23:59
thing, and I think we've done a hell of
00:24:00
a job. I'm obviously biased, but we
00:24:02
we're only six months into this. You're
00:24:03
going to see a lot more over the next
00:24:04
three and a half years.
00:24:05
You've been working with uh as we wrap
00:24:07
here. I know you're very busy. Um you've
00:24:09
been working with David for the last 6
00:24:10
months at the White House. Take us into
00:24:13
uh you know the cafeteria, the messaul,
00:24:15
you and Sachs and Trump. Do you have do
00:24:17
you have a recollection of a great Sax
00:24:20
story behind the scenes with the
00:24:22
president yourself maybe going
00:24:24
downstairs getting like a little Mickey
00:24:25
De's or something? I know you're a fan.
00:24:28
Well, okay. I I I have one David Sach
00:24:31
story. I was actually in the Navy mess,
00:24:32
which is sort of the cafeteria and the
00:24:34
White House. And we're sitting down
00:24:35
there and we're eating lunch and uh some
00:24:38
some young kid, I don't I I don't know
00:24:39
if it was a White House intern or
00:24:41
somebody walks over, they see David Sax,
00:24:43
oh, David Sachs. And they were so
00:24:44
impressed and they look at me and they
00:24:45
go, "Oh, shit."
00:24:50
Also impressive.
00:24:51
Yeah. And so like, oh, there's there's
00:24:53
the vice president. So, you know, even
00:24:55
even for the vice president of the
00:24:57
United States, we're all just shadows
00:24:58
and this is not famous.
00:25:00
You can always, you know, start a
00:25:02
podcast.
00:25:05
That's where you get real fame is
00:25:06
podcast.
00:25:07
It's it's crazy how many people watch
00:25:08
these things.
00:25:10
It is. It is. It's definitely crazy. And
00:25:12
JD, we are uh rooting for you. We
00:25:14
appreciate your service. you've been
00:25:15
working very hard and uh we really
00:25:17
appreciate how open you are to having
00:25:19
these discussions full contact uh and
00:25:22
being um just really supportive of our
00:25:25
industries and that was something uh we
00:25:27
didn't have uh in the Biden
00:25:28
administration uh not to make it
00:25:30
political but we didn't have a seat at
00:25:32
the table and now we have David Sachs in
00:25:34
the White House. So this is a real
00:25:35
turnaround and and we really appreciate
00:25:37
you um
00:25:38
and what you've done I think you have
00:25:39
done an incredible job
00:25:41
as a vice president. I don't think you
00:25:44
go back in history like the last 10 15
00:25:47
who's had as many icon iconic moments as
00:25:50
you have had. It's really incredible.
00:25:52
So thank you.
00:25:53
Appreciate you guys. Appreciate. Good to
00:25:55
see you guys.
00:25:57
Good
00:25:57
stuff.
00:25:58
Thank you. Thank you.
