Rahm Emanuel: Trump's Foreign Policy, China, Europe's Decline, Immigration & DSA vs Democrats

We are super pleased to have Ron Emmanuel, join us for the all and interview today. He was a senior advisor at Bill Clinton, last president, resigned over zero national debt. And he was a Bahamas chief of staff, mayor of Shaitown,

ambassador to my favorite country to visit Japan under President Biden. He hasn't been into official announcement about his presidential run.

“In 28, nor do I think he's going to make an announcement here,”

but it's been talking a lot about where the country needs to go in a post Trump world, specifically in 2028.

Free Bergen II are going to ask Ron about the most important topics

facing America today, the economy, inflation, employment, surging national debt, never ending wars. The rise of socialism and sadly anti-Semitism, immigration, skilled and legal, and how his positions have evolved over four decades of service to America.

Welcome to the all in interview, Ron Emmanuel. Welcome, Ron. Come here. Yeah. OK, here you go. I didn't know that was the queue.

I was like waiting for a bit, so I felt like an obituary. I was waiting for the last minute to get out. [MUSIC PLAYING] That introduction is the only one that ever starts with Clinton usually.

They start my career in Congress.

And so I give you a lot of kudos for remembering that I started as senior adviser to President Clinton. Well, let's start with that. What did you learn under Clinton and Obama? And these two, what I would say,

the last two sane presidents we seem to have had who are moderates in my mind, on the moderate, slightly left leaning. But these seem to have been two great presidents who are runs that you were involved in.

What did you learn from each of those individuals? They have different skills that, so let's also-- but they had an outlook of the United States in the world. They had an outlook of progressive affirmative view of government.

“I think they, most importantly, which I kind of”

rewind to everybody, you can't have progressive policies

with people think that the government can't run an organized one car parade, not possible. They have to have an affirmative view. And the last time you've had a net positive was under Bill Clinton. And it actually wasn't for the balance budget, obviously,

but actually it shifts when he signs welfare reform. And you can go back and look at the data. But to their skillset, Bill Clinton was a unique person who, in my view, was able to integrate in three-dimensional chess, both policy, politics, and press.

And under the presidency, in a way that Petty Roosevelt had redefined it, he was redefining it for the 21st century. And he really meant what he said being a bridge there. And nobody was better, not just a giving a speech, but taking a policy, being able to communicate to carry people

from where they were to change and may not make change threatening. And then achieve the objectives you wanted. That said, President Obama, in my own view, coming at the end or not the end, but the Iraq War,

et cetera, understood that this was a different president's-- both the end of the way Iraq War, retours the end, and the financial meltdown that we were at a pivotal moment and a transitional moment for America. And I do think, look, every president gets judged,

what's the world you inherited? What is the world you leave behind? And sometimes a harshest critics of both Obama and Clinton come from the left, not the right. And I said, is it the peace where the prosperity

you don't like most? Because I'll address it. Was it the fact that post-breaking, Clinton's economy grew the most, jobs grew the most, and income disparity shrunk the most.

And people were calling it the unipower that no country, both economically politically militarily, had the power that United States had. Now we can get back to what happened there.

“And then I think in the same way, the left criticized”

as Obama for being kind of a tapid. And he hires a country that's near a depression, known as the Great Recession. But it was actually getting close to a depression, saves it from that, transitions from losing 800,000 jobs

to creating 200,000 jobs. And get some America out of two wars. Continues, obviously, the war on terror, but reposition America in the world to be a force for good. And I learned how you, it's not like a to-do kid.

There's no kind of, there's no to-do kid in the drawer of the residue desk, but the merging of policy politics. And I want to say public relations,

- Did Obama export American democracy

as a point of primary policy? And did that lead to this world that we find ourselves in today? Where there is this pullback because a lot of what gets exported.

“ends up being kind of one side of the political spectrum,”

not the other, and now we're kind of seeing this. - What did we do? - I made this point a long time ago. I said it recently at the Aspen Security Conference. So I'm writing my next op-ed on this journal

as a prelude of a curtain razor to the summit by Xi and Trump. I'm labeling it to summit of disruption. Xi's largest export is not auto-selectronics. It's the domestic economic dysfunction of China.

They're crushing everybody

of those countries manufacturing based industrial based

across the world. They have more cases WTO cases than any other country and all of them combine our against China. Chile's steel plan, Indonesia's government plan presils for furnaces.

We are exporting our domestic political and cultural dysfunction. That is the two superpowers are holding the world hostage. One through economic dysfunction. And domestic, I mean,

Xi refuses to deal with the obviously the real estate bubble popping, consumer that's flat on their back. And an industrial base that makes no rational sense. And so they're, I mean, literally, they're all as an example.

They're auto industry is now exporting more cars and their profits are down 20%. - Right. - We, I mean, by through Trump, you can look at what he's doing in Brazil

nine days before the German election meeting with the neo-Nazi Party of the AFD. There was race tensions in Great Britain. We seem to, we want to exacerbate them. We are literally exporting both political and cultural dysfunction

at our home, onto the world. Now, I happen to think this present stylistically likes to punch down and kiss up to Putin and Xi, but that's a stylistic point, but that's what the two superpowers,

they don't seem to have managed their internal. And now they're exporting it on the rest of the world as a dumping around for their domestic problems. I happen to think coming back from Japan, and etc, that rather than have terrorists,

we should have an economic block. So all of us together can withstand China to actually organize not only that economic block, but then kind of other medium in the marketplace.

“That's how we win France and influence enemies.”

- Yeah, is that a different view than the Obama era notion that we should be exporting American culture, American democracy? I think it was the framing. And that then opened the floodgates

to exporting our culture wars. And then our culture wars became this kind of battle around where there's like France, gender, theater, in Africa, and like things like that, right? - I don't need all of this stuff.

- No, I don't think that's what opened the door. Look, David, I think the United States of America like every country has four tools in their national security toolbox. One is military power.

Second is political persuasion.

Third is economic statecraft and fourth is cultural attraction. And you're saying that, I mean, I think America's culture, large, not just Hollywood. The American brand is a cultural attraction

or was, I actually think this president has heard the American brand. Our economic statecraft, our market, our technology, our universities and research, national labs, that is a piece of our economic statecraft,

is a piece of our national security. And our ability, there's a great story of the other day by David Graham, but the United States can get Russia and Ukraine around the table. There is no other world like power.

Our political persuasion, I could do that, is an asset in our national security toolbox. If you wanted to do the reason I laid out in my speech in the Middle East in Israel with 23 state solution, China, Russia, or Europe cannot do that.

Only we can do that. Now, we have a massive political, a military power. Each, I happen to think it's not prepared for the future. That's on both parties. I was also present at them.

“I think we got so enamored with the war on terror.”

We lost sight of the transformation that was happening on the battlefield and the technologies. You can see that in the drone areas, an example, neither I ran or Ukraine have a navy

and they both control waterways near their fronts. Tells you everything you need to know that you're not fighting two wars.

And we got to get ready for that. So to me, this also is a slightly sickness

“of all you guys in media, which is, where do we point the blame?”

I don't think Obama representing our cultural attractions around the globe. I do think America being popular around the globe is a political asset that then you use. Now that America's brand under Trump is in the toilet,

that actually hurts America and it's political power. It's economic state crap and it's military capabilities. Simple. So I don't kind of say, I don't think that we were exporting those cultural things in there for that's where this problem came.

I don't know if that's not how I see the point of origin or what has happened here. Fair enough, can I just ask one thing on China? So China's been historically-- It's your podcast.

You can ask whatever you want, it's whether I answer it. Well, I'm just here for it. Jason, and his pleasure, but-- So you do invite me to keep going. Yeah, that's true for both of us.

OK, well, thanks. Jason's going to have me back.

“OK, so as I look at China, historically it's been”

about this manufacturing base, this energy production capacity. I often reference there on their way to a terawak of electricity production. We're kind of sitting around one, hovering around one, finding it very hard to get to two by 2040.

So China's got this massive amount of energy that they can use to power electrified things. They've got 20 times the manufacturing square footage of the US and much of it is automated. But now with AI and open-sourcing AI,

not only is China kind of dampening the capacity compete in manufacturing, making molecules, making pharmaceuticals, making materials. Now we're seeing them effectively eliminate the capacity to compete in knowledge services and IP.

And this has really been the heart of the US economy, at least for the last 30 years, probably going back even further. But as we shifted to a more kind of global trade oriented economy and we allowed man, you facturing to move to China and elsewhere,

we focused on this kind of knowledge and services base. Do you think that we have a response against China today with how we're positioned economically and what's going on with AI? And this is the thing I worry a lot about in this China US conflict

is we're all still looking at the last 30 years as opposed to thinking about what the next 20 years looked like in a world of kind of AI commoditization of all the things that American economies have been powered by. - One, so let's step back.

The way I see it is we've got G comes to power. And we buy into this win-win stuff that he sell it.

And it was never a win-win.

China wants everybody dependent on China and then independent of you. That is their theory of the case. Our markets are going to be so big and important. You can't do anything about it.

You're going to be dependent your economy on our markets. We're going to leverage that to then destroy, manipulate, and control your sovereignty. And we'll be independent of you. We don't need your market.

We'll have multiple of you give us barley. We're going to have five other people give up. Look at the soybeans case. The United States will cut off your soybeans. We've got Brazil and Argentina's segments.

So they have duplicity of the system. So they have maximum latitude with minimum for us or anybody else.

Second, I take a lesson out of COVID.

And I think this is illustrative of their plan and how we have to get smart. We have to learn from our mistakes. You can't ignore 'em.

“You should look, and I might get back to your software, please.”

But in COVID, gene notices an operation of warp speed that within 12 months, 14, whatever. United States develops a vaccine that has a 90+% efficacy. China takes 18, 19 months. And their efficacy is in the 60%.

And we know, for a fact, that a lot of Chinese leaders were not taking the Chinese vaccine, but they were end up taking quietly Pfizer, Moderna, exactly. And they couldn't export the vaccine.

Nobody in the third world, that's a huge opportunity for America. We squandered it. I'm a political side of the economic side of the cultural side, winning, quote unquote, the global side.

Second, gene makes a decision that will never happen again.

Massively invests in the life sciences. And within five years, China is not just nipping at our heels. The Perry Pissue with the United States in life sciences. A place that the United States outside of a one or two examples in Europe dominated.

Now, again, I'm gonna take a shot at Trump.

And the Republicans face off and allow 15%.

“You're not gonna cut NIH in your way to American leadership.”

There is a pancreatic drunk on the market. It came from NIH funding. And it's actually now looking like you will actually address three or four other cancers. The NIH, the National Science Foundation, the DARPA,

our and America's National Labs and our national universities are crowned jewel. And what do we do it? We have an administration declaring war. And you actually involved in unilateral disarmament.

Now, software and manufacturing. We are dominant in software and in those text basis. It shouldn't think it's either software or manufacturing. It's both. We allowed one to atrophy.

Everybody, we allowed a commercialization of our national security. The business around table, the chamber of commerce.

“Way over influence our national security visa be China.”

When we saw industry by industry, supply chain by supply chain, move off shore. And America, the economy kept getting vulnerable. And that's not everybody. Everybody.

And the other piece of it is, so what we need to do, what's the next 20 years? One, aggregate Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. EU, friends in Latin America and get more friends. Don't clear war on Brazil.

It's a big economy in the region. Make it an economic block. Because standing together makes China isolated. Icelate the isolator. Then use that time of a block, not our unilateral actions,

but in an economic block where we're the dominant player, to organize our research and our capacity to them build up.

“Now, example using the defense industry.”

You guys say it's again, flat-footed, but don't underestimate the United States. New technology, entrepreneurs, venture capital, the DARPA research arm, and the United States ability to deploy, you give us five years

and our capacity of that incredible system.

Will produce, as long as we don't light, let Lockheed, Raytheon, General Dynamics to kill it. And Pentagon to nurture it. But we have to use the time of an economic block to stand up what we have allowed to after-feed,

and then to organize that block to confront China and then China and North Korea and Iran. And Russia, we isolate them. And right now, I got to be honest, the president is isolated in America's vulnerability.

So that's how I look at the next 20. - Yeah, and where do the Middle East nations fit into that equation? Are they part of the block? - Sure.

- Maybe I would say this. There's three trends going on in the Middle East. Step back from the news of the straight of the most. There's three or four trends that we then aggregate. And one of the reasons I laid out what I laid out in Israel

is a way that would isolate Iran. It would be a good day for Israel's security, a good day for America's leadership, and a good day for American allies in the Middle East. The UAE Bahrain are staying with kind of the United States.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan in that, at first listen. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar look like they're hedging. They know they're relying on America, but they're not gonna be so dependent

that they're vulnerable because of the lack of the leadership and two wars Iran and Iraq. That's one trend. And one of the reasons I mentioned the speech, the India Middle East Europe, economic corridor,

it keeps everybody coming closer to the United States, economically, and also politically on the 23 states.

Second, Iran invested 40 years and 40 billion plus

in the, what Israel described as the octopus, the proxies. Hamas is degraded to defeat, I thought there was a very good article in the Foreign Affairs on this point. Hezbollah is cornered, Damascus, and Syria has been lost. And the Iraqi president seems to be making pretty good,

had way not all the way there, dealing with the militia. That strategy of the proxies is so different. And an example that you have the Lebanese government working with Israel on cornering Hezbollah and degrading it. Syria, a non-assad president, is now talking to Israel

about a security agreement. That would mean Jordan peace, Egypt peace, Syria, security

to some resolution with Israel as a fact, massively different,

strategically different.

“And Syria will be the outlaw of a pipeline from Masra”

to their port for energy around the state of Hamas. These are big opportunities. So when I say, and then you obviously know about semiconductor chips, other pieces of the economic peace. But yes, major players in the Gulf would be part of that

economic block. Let's, before we leave China, talk a little bit about Taiwan. Obviously Trump administration's been talking about, hey, in 2027 or 2029, China plans on invading Taiwan, seizing the fabs, et cetera, you worked under multiple administrations

for strategic ambiguity was the process for China. And yeah, and hey, we support Taiwan and China and just keep a super ambiguous. The next president is probably going to have to actually-- Yeah, actually, let me say this.

We keep the politics ambiguous, but as it relates to using kinetic force to change the status quo, we're not ambiguous. Yeah, unpack it. Well, there's two different parts to the Taiwan, one China policy. That's a political statement.

And then nobody changes the status quo through the use of force. Those are two things. Yeah. And it should be next to someone, so it's just to prove that somebody knows something about the Taiwan act as well as policy.

“Is your thinking Taiwan will at some point block and do a block aid?”

And how would the next president or how should the next president deal with that circumstance? Should we be airlesting, you know, or the equipment in people? Of Taiwan, or should we be engaging in a block aid? This is, I think, the escalation that maybe isn't getting enough attention. And then we'll go back to the Iran.

Right. Well, Jason, let me start here, which is the consequence of the Iran War. China's watching the United States fall down in the straight ahead moves, resources allocated. Their confrontation with Philippines is picked up dramatically.

Their economic, military and political isolation in Japan, much more aggressive. They're doing things around the Saitaku Islands that are much more aggressive. They fired them alive, missile from a submarine, and it around Australia. And all our allies in the region, those are just some of them. I could go on to Vietnam, what they've done, and other things in the Philippines being

the most dramatic in this South China Sea. All they know China is sending a message to all our allies to reach Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam, even. Are they? Look, you're a protector?

No more. And the damage by this administration moving, we're not only resources there, attention, political, one thing I know, you guys didn't ask when it's not that you didn't ask, but when there's a war, the White House becomes a one-ball juggler. This White House is consumed without going on, and they have lost focus on the Indo-Pacific.

It's quite evident, China has picked up their aggression. Our long poll in the Indo-Pacific is Japan. They are under economic pressure, political pressure, military. Yes, we have just come to the benefit of the yen, but we haven't done anything in around the Sankaku Islands.

We haven't done anything as a relates to the economic coercion, China's involvement, or the political battle. China, what do we do? What do we do? Hold on.

So you say, in 2027, I'm like, "I'm looking at today's, you don't get to wait. It's happening now."

And second is, I happen to think the South China Sea.

Everybody talks about the Taiwan, and I'll get to that.

“I think when you look at the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and you look at China's behavior”

and the islands they're creating again out of the show, out of, you know, Scarborough show, etc. They aren't waiting to try to say that the South China Sea, which they lost the core case in 2016, is their backwater. And Philippines is not Taiwan.

It's a country. It's a treaty ally, and it won a 2016 case, and if we don't stand up there, before you get to Taiwan. So this is what it takes up. Number two, or I think we should be projecting some force there or putting some troops

there, some ships there. With our movements, and we have rebelled those bridges. We already have troops there, and we already have resources. We need to double them up and give Philippines a conference, especially given that President Marcos is taking massive risks.

Second, into Taiwan, there are three strategies.

One idea is a quarantine, two is invasion, and three, off of the mainland China's coast,

They got a rock, a butterfly, and a tree, and a fisherman.

That's it. Now, there's three strategies. One is the economic quarantine that just suffocates Taiwan. One is an invasion that tries to end this in 96 hours. And the other one is they take over those three islands and look at the world so you can

start a war over this, and they do their incremental strategy. And if you look at China and their history, they have done all three of those historically with different countries. We have to be prepared for all three. One, they want a 96-hour, not a Ukraine example.

We have to say no, it's going to be 96 days, and have the resources that the pass it is, say, this isn't going to be one and done quick. Two, as early as the quarantine, we have to be able to show both through our resources, which is why the Philippines and the Okinawa Islands, a quarantine can't work, both air naval, otherwise you can't pull it off.

And then third is the little islands off of China, how we have to project where, before,

“etc. because remember, there's a security piece, and there's a deterrence piece, and we need”

to be our deterrence piece is very weak and right now. I want to get your opinion also on Japan, remilitarizing, such as spent some time there, and their role in this, because that seems to be an ally that's quickly important, as well as South Korea. So let's go to Iran right after we sort of sum up what's happening with those two allies

in your estimation and how we should be quarting them, obviously we just backed up the end, and we have a pretty solid relationship with Japan. Look, Japan is the long pole of America's Indo-Pacific policy. You look at the quad, India, Australia, Japan, the United States. You look at the trilateral, the two of them that I worked on between Korea, Japan, the United

States, the United States, Japan, and the Philippines. The one constant is Japan with the United States. Our "Okanawa," our largest military footprint in the world, in a single country, is in Japan. Europe, the biggest by continent, but it's the only place in the world, there is a aircraft here, a permanently based.

So militarily there, last five years in a row, number one, direct foreign investor, United States, Japan, last five years in a row, number one, direct investor in the Japan, the United States. So for economic term, you know, I could soft power, or what's called a cultural attraction, you can look at what Japan's done on baseball in the United States between the two countries

sharing a cultural attraction. So I'll just go through it, and Japan now, because the Prime Minister had the audacity to say publicly, which we have tried for 30 years to get a Japanese Prime Minister to say publicly, that a move on Taiwan would be a national security threat.

She says it, China goes crazy, because she said publicly what she never wanted announced

for domestic reasons, they're now under economic coercion, political coercion, and military intimidation.

“You have to get there to be, and it's not just, and I'm not, I'm happy that administrations”

decided to support the Yan and intervention. I think there's a lot of self-interest has released our treasuries and our dollars and the pressure on our treasuries right now, because of the money that we have. But we have to do more, from a military training, from when Russia and China are doing exercises around the Sikaku Islands, that we're just not present for.

Can we go over to Europe for a minute? Do what we're talking about? This is your show, do it over here. Yeah, domestic issues. I do want to talk about domestic issues, particularly the economy and government spending

interaction with the economy. But before we do, there's an argument that Europe is in this kind of state of irreversible decay, and many have indicated points that I think are counter to your kind of characterization of the AFD party and Germany being a neo-Nazi party, that that party is really a response to an open border policy in Europe, an open immigration policy, that many would say has

really drained resources, has diluted culture. Right? Let me say one thing. Yeah, please. This German intelligence agency has the AFD underwatch.

Forget whether I characterize it as a neo-Nazi, you don't want to buy it.

“Well, the US intelligence also had Donald Trump underwatch, right?”

So, I mean, he put a lot of ways, we could paint that out. Yeah, yeah. The lot of ways. Yeah. I'm not trying to be supportive of the party.

I'm trying to indicate that there's a reaction to something going on in Europe. And that there's don't doubt about both of the cultural side and economic side. There's a reaction in Europe like there's here in the United States. And so, what's your view on where Europe is, how immigration played a role and where things are going in Europe?

Look, I think immigration played a role in the same way that I think economic stagnation played

And I think that this is also somewhat as we get as we transition closer to home before

we keep pushing our ranoff and we'll do that. But look, you look at what has happened to incomes where, here in this country, we have a greater share now of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. That has almost two thirds. I think it's 63% of Americans.

Yeah. And so, that has changed our politics and it's changed our cultural landscape. So do I think immigration plays a role? 100% of it does play a role. I also think stagnating incomes when there's greater concentration, not just of wealth, but greater

concentration where the political system is skewed towards that wealth. All of that gets mixed into the stew. There isn't a separate soup dish for immigration. Separate from the dish, incomes, economic growth, GDP, etc.

“In Europe, here's my thing, I think the former Italian prime minister, Droggy, wrote a”

good plan for the EU, is in our interest for a strong robust European-based economies

to be technologically and otherwise, contributors to the Western system. If I'm right about a block, you don't want hangar ons. You want people that are actually rolling. And so I happen to believe Europe is important for America's security, important for our economic prosperity, most importantly, and we want them to be competitive.

I do think they have participated in their own kind of suffocation. Just on this point, Rome, because this idea that Europe is committing suicide is kind of taken form in the political narrative. Do you agree with that? I think Europe has made policy decisions that are not in the best interest of the citizens of Europe.

Okay, so what I use, you said that, I said, "Oh, yeah, I'll move." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I get it. No, different. But what is the answer?

The short answer is yes, you agree. So, let me ask, the policies are arguably leftist policies. They're policies that come from the left, the energy policy that gutted Germany's nuclear power production and made them dependent on Russian energy. Was an insane set of policy decisions.

The idea that you will provide public services and public welfare programs while opening the borders to increase the population for non-productive people to come in and then drain those resources.

“And then there's all the cultural delusions stuff, which I think, but the idea that AFD and other”

parties in Europe are arising out of, yeah, but you're saying, open borders freeburg are a leftist policy for the last 40 years. That's been a Republican policy to let as many people into the country as possible, if you can see the labor. Wait a second.

Yeah. Is the party affiliation of Angela Merkel a mystery to you, David? Right. No, wait a second. You made this broad, broad attack about the left.

Angela Merkel came out of the Christian Democrat, the conservatives. It was right. It was her decision to cut that. Wait a second. You're making a point that is, I apologize, this will be the last time I'm on your show.

Historically wrong. That's fair enough. Okay. You'll see. You'll walk up to tell me I'm wrong.

Well, good. But I see belt. I'm enjoying this right now. It's like third. Look at him.

She's from the CDU.

And when the Syrian, one million people that come out of Syria, she says we can handle this.

That's from the Christian Democratic Union, the conservative, the element, coals party. Number two, after the nuclear facility in Japan has his meltdown, she shuts down the nuclear facilities and makes Germany much more dependent on Russian energy. And we were the ones who warned against it. So don't tell me this is from the left.

You're wrong. There was a lot of anti nuclear rhetoric coming from a lot of time, just to be with that. But who's the chance of it said shut it down? Yeah. Who?

No. Who? Merkel. Merkel. Yes.

What party is she from? The Christian Democrat Union.

“What part of the political landscape left her center?”

Right. Well, nowadays, I would say far, right. But this is correct. This is correct. Now you would probably want to characterize it.

I think the argument now that I've decided to score my Emmanuel points on you. Let me back up. And immigration. And immigration. Yeah.

Yeah.

She opened the borders when she should have been a more thoughtful person.

Look, the one thing we know, I'm going to speak at home about immigration. Look, people don't like this order. They don't like it on the border and they don't like it on the streets of Minneapolis. And you're a responded to the disorder, whether that's in Stockholm, whether that's in Berlin. That it seemed way out of Europe is a very welcoming continent.

But it looked out totally out of control as you saw just this weekend vis-a-vis Morocco. OK. So that's not it's right. But to say that this is left is it's just not accurate. Brussels on the economic front while they were trying to regulate, suffocated innovation,

entrepreneurship, and competitiveness. And they're trying to correct that now. Where I find fault with us and that not else being through the Trump administration is we are exacerbating their tensions when they're trying to deal with it. Germany today is losing, I read a story and I got to remember the number right.

“I think it's five to 10,000 manufacturing jobs a month to Chinese pressure.”

That should be an opportunity for us to come in and say, let's work together and confront China not independently, but together. We're not doing that. We're meeting our vice president nine days before election is meeting with the AFD. When there's race problems in Great Britain, we're exacerbating them.

When Maloney is dealing with some stuff domestically, we attack her. What's the story? I'm sorry. That is wrong. Why?

Why does Trump do that? I look. I think this was the strategy in his point. If there is, Jason, I have said this before and I'm going to repeat. This president punches down and kisses up.

He has this fixation about Putin and Xi admiring him as an equal and they think he's a joke. They think he is not there equal.

“America is their superior, but he is not there equal.”

He then takes a Lula in Brazil, merch in, or a Maloney, or a carnie, or a shinebomb. He punches down because he thinks if you're a middle power, I'm going to show how big and bad I am. He is nothing but a bully and nobody is buying it anymore. Everybody is looking at the Emperor wearing no clothes.

Which I guess would be a great point for us. There is no strategy to this. This is all his insecurities. He's just winging. Okay.

So let's do Iran and then go to the United States.

Well, I was feeling good beating up David there for a second.

Well, no. I mean, I was not here. I don't tell you if you showed me, if you showed me Angela Merkel's decisions on a blank sheet of paper, I would say that's a leftist. No, nobody, that's here.

I would say it. I would say it. And I would say, I would say Europe across Europe, there has been almost this like, I don't know, how to describe and what I'm trying to understand is also the psychology versus the foreign influence on the suicidal policy decisions that seem to be wrapped up in what

are prescribed, leftist notions that end up becoming policy actions at scale and maybe specifically, you're talking about immigration. So let's just go right at immigrants. Economic decisions, energy decisions, immigration decisions. So let's talk about that definition of this.

Okay, Ron, let's just tackle one thing at a time. Immigration is a critically important one.

“I think we've gone from too hot, too cold.”

Americans didn't like an open border, as you pointed out, chaos. They also hate the chaos, just according to surveys that ice, dragging people, you know,

out of their homes and taking people who are picking strawberries and, you know, just basically

beating the shit out of Americans. And in some cases, these, I guess we've had four deaths, and they'll be adjudicated over time. But I want to know what your solution is to immigration. We had President Trump on this podcast.

He promised we put a green card on every diploma of every immigrant coming here and then they reneged on that and they've been trying to essentially kick out some of these best and brightest we brought here, which has a negative impact on our ability to build great companies and Silicon Valley, etc. Almost all the great entrepreneurs we have are either immigrants or sons of immigrants, like

my friend David Freiburg here. So tell us what is Ron Emmanuel's plan for immigration post this hot and cold that we've had? Is there like a Goldie lock soon? Yeah. Well, I actually bizarrely, I'm like the last octopus that you could actually get a deal legislatively.

I start with two principles, we're nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. And whatever we do on legal and illegal has to be true to both. Nobody likes people breaking the laws and giving a pass, and I'm included. You're looking at the guy for President Clinton that designed Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Operation Safe Guard in Nagala, Sarasona did this stuff in El Paso.

Tough forters, tough enforcement. There's a thing called the Dignity Act as 23 Republicans, 23 Democrats in the house. It's true to being a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. Is it the bill that Jason would write? No, is it the bill that Ram Emmanuel would write?

No. But does it achieve the goal? Yeah. So everybody else is hiding using rhetoric. I endorsed it.

Now if you were doing politics that they could have read, you would stay away from this and use just pamphlet. But to me, we got to get this problem behind us, so we have a future in front of us. You got 23 Republicans that signed on to certain things around legal and certain things around illegal.

“Does it tilt from the first time when the Democrats were in the majority?”

A little more to the Republican side? Yeah. They're now the majority. Now, could you tilt it back to the original? Yeah.

And you need leadership out of the White House, not just coming on.

There's show of President Trump speaking bablam and never really following through.

Like he did on dreamers. Like he did his own green card on every diploma. Legal immigration, getting the best in the brightest, going back to our China example, all these people that are leading China's life sciences, came out of the United States trained, worked in our life sciences.

We kicked them out, like fools. Okay, so to me, pass the dignity act. Don't mess with it. And again, I want to be clear. It is not the bill I would write if I was sitting down at my keyboard.

Does it accomplish the goal I set out? Is it a true compromise? Yes.

Do we finally do what we have to do at the border, correct?

Does it finally do what we have to do to track the best of the brightest? Yes. And that to me would stop the civil war. What about up to that space system? It seems like all the great high functioning immigration countries in the world have a point-based

system. And even Japan, I just learned on my last trip, a couple of weeks ago, they're going to

“require you have to speak the language fluently to get those jobs.”

And there's so many people who want to go to their right nation. They've kept it pretty tight and they force people to assimilate. So what's your views on assimilation and speaking of the language and point-based system? Well, any lessons there from Japan? I think the best lesson for the United States, if I could.

But there's lessons now, remember, because you're touching something that's also both legal, except it's also historic and cultural. I don't think Japan is a perfect analogy given us an island. I think if you're looking for something analogous, the two countries I would say that we have a lot to learn on to emulate as well as.

It's both Canada that has somewhat of a point system. They're variation, they're signature on it, a Canadian signature, and Denmark. And so if you're asking me and look, Japan has 98%

homogeneous society, it only like 3.7 billion immigrants.

And they think they have an immigration problem. You look at the United States on a kind of quantitative look. It's totally different. So I look at the Canadian system.

“Well, how Canada, because of our system or our dysfunction, is now attracting what you used to be”

the talent that would come to America, the ability to study in America. I actually think the Canadian model, the Danish model, closer to where we get will get best practices and lessons learned. The technique, that's some of that. Now, I'll give you an example.

This is not about immigration, but it's something I spoke about when it came to affordability for higher education. I would let universities, colleges across the United States go up, set a goal. You can go up to 20% foreign students. Today, some of them are six, some are more. I don't care how you divide it between your grad and undergrad.

That's up to you, years. But those students pay full play. They pay full price. It would subsidize our ability to get American students get a three-year BA, rather a four-year saving mom and dad, a year's worth of tuition.

Because the foreign students pay full boat and they want to be American brand. So given that they came here to study, they would more likely want to stay and then start building this country economically. As you said, from the technology and other type of companies across the United States, a lot of immigrants and children of immigrants came because of the university system.

And that's that is a political power and persuasion and capacity of the United States

So I kind of look in the short answer as Canon Denmark or the better examples.

The Dignity Act, I don't want to sit here and go through the bill with you and rip it apart. But A, that does it. B, I want to be very clear. If you control the border, you send a signal that people who break the law don't get rewarded. And I, I so angry at our part of my party not only losing control the border,

but the 2020 debate raising your hand and saying I'm going to give health care to people across illegally from a, forget the immigration policy, the value system. You have American families suffocating under health care costs. Not everybody universally covered, but they were significantly well on our way there. And you're talking about free health care to have across the border illegally.

And every level that was foolish by the party. Freyburn, you're up.

“Can Jason, I like you to restore referring to him as David, okay?”

A little more, a little more damage on the problem. We got a sad freeberg. So you said, that's not, that's your problem. I just free, I just freeberg is so insensitive to it. And we've clearly proved that David has a lot of sensitivity on this show.

I am very sensitive.

I am, I can, I always tell people, I'm probably the, the last person to ever get offended by anything.

But Jason always affends me off the bat. So wrong, I will start by just a framing and it's a contention. I'd like you to disagree with that. I disagree. Yeah, that'll, this is the vehicle.

So no matter what I say, you are to disagree, okay? And let's give you a stab was a fact. Angela Merkel came, came out of the CDU. I, I would have stabbed with him, but I could, I consider it into a Merkel leftist. But, well, I mean, it does speak to me.

I think it will accept what defines each of these parties. I mean, you work as a party that the Democrats, you know, in, I think the peak moderate era, that wanted to balance the budget, that wanted the board to be controlled. And that wanted to have, you know, globalism, you know, and now that seems to be half Trump. I mean, it's hard to define these parties anymore, especially with social media.

“So that's why I think actually categories like saying these are leftist policies is actually all wasted and broken.”

But go ahead, David. Yeah. No, because I mean, even in the Trump administration, we're taking equity stakes in companies, which is not a typical free, free market conservative view. But let me just frame this up.

So I would argue that over the last 30 years, where the government spends more to try and make things more accessible to American citizens, the cost of those things goes up in a disproportionate way. The average rate of inflation in the last 30 years has been two and a half percent. But housing's gone up by at least five percent a year on average compounding. Education over six percent health care five and a half percent. And all three of these categories,

or categories where the federal government has launched programs to either subsidize or make available. These categories of services, two people through promises, you're going to all have a home, you're going to have education, you're going to all have health care.

And the more that the government provides three or billion year in housing support,

two hundred billion a year in education, over trillion dollars, two trillion dollars, almost in health care, the more things get more expensive. And so is it really the role of the government to provide these services or get the F out of the way and let the market work? Because in all the places where the government hasn't launched services, hasn't provided support, hasn't provided loans, like technology, energy, food, consumer services. We've seen a net decrease in total cost.

And so deflation actually works when you let markets work. But when the government comes in and tries to rally up markets to provide more to more people, things simply get more expensive. Okay. Tell me where I'm wrong. You're wrong. In the first of all, the GI Bill was a government initiative. Massive increase in housing and home ownership in America. Would you have recommended after World War II for those who served overseas? No GI Bill because the market will take care of

your house needs? It also had an education component. Number two, when you said we don't have a we don't food costs went down and the government wasn't involved. What do you consider

“the agricultural bill that subsidized growing a food in the United States to big aggro?”

Well, I know that bill very well. We could debate that bill if you'd like. No, no. Two, you say we're not involved in energy. Well, we have a tax right off for drilling. We're involved in energy. That's just not true. You can make that case about everything wrong. Like you could say we touch everything. But our total dollar spend, our total dollar spend is what I'm talking about. That's why your analogies are wrong and be that right. Now, I happen to think

public sector. And this balance is trying to win the forces and concentration of both power and

“wealth get too much. And I'm just having open up the Teddy Roosevelt library, etc.”

That was a redefinition of what the government does to come to the aid of those who are most vulnerable, not just vulnerable, but vulnerable to the concentration of power. Now, to housing, there is where the government has messed up. And this is not on the national level. But on the local level, it has made it both when you get things like in San Francisco, like in New York, you have a concentration of an economy that's doing well.

But restrictive laws as it relates to zoning, building, permitting, that drive up costs, not the

only reason, but it contributed a bit significantly contributing factor. Now, I'm not mayor today. But if I was mayor of Chicago, I would say, okay, I'm a put all our zoning laws, all our building laws and all our permitting planning laws. And I'm going to measure them up against Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. You tell me what we have and why they don't have it and why we have it and they don't have it. And if you can't justify it, get it the hell out of here.

“I would also do things because I think the biggest problem we have in housing is first-time home ownership.”

And that is a post financial 2008 meltdown. For whatever reason, the market is going on

on the high end and the low end. And the first-time home ownership is where we are stuck in

since a new construction. And I actually do think that's a place where both the public and private sector together needs to address a problem that has been now around for almost 20 years and the private sector on their own have been fixed. And so I don't agree with your analogies. And I do believe that there's places where the government gets in its own way and there's places in which it should be targeted to incentivize the private sector to address those problems.

Now, that's where I would go and address it there. But I do what you can't say about what you're good. No, I was turning my attention there. Okay. Now look, I spent 8 years in every day every hour working and fixing an education system that was proven. When I was done, Stanford called it the single best fundraiser in there at Stanford, the single best education system of the top 100. We drove by example. We drove our graduation rates from 56 to 83%. We were our reading and

maskors and every one of the elementary levels. I'm doing this by memory so I could be slightly wrong. It's in the report. But we were six months ahead of our peers. And trust me, that is not easy to achieve. Now, I'm going to go to Louisiana at the end of September because it's the only state who's reading and maskors that go out up to pre-COVID level to find out what they're doing. Like I went to Mississippi. On the higher ed, on the elementary level, one is we created

a full day kindergarten free day pre-K. I'm very big believer in early childhood. In the elementary years, three things, universal accountability, not just teachers, parents, principals, and the schools. Two, reboot our teacher education and training. So it's constant, not just one and done, and the teacher training today is really flat. Give the teachers a support so they know what to do on the subjects they're supposed to do. Concentmentally, train them is not and reboot the entire

teacher training program starting in our colleges. Three is braid the resources together. So states and cities can meld it because what happens on the south side or west side of Chicago or what happens in our suburbs or what happens in some of our best schools like Northside and Payton. Just isn't the same students and or students need more resources, but accountability through the system. Now fourth, nobody wants to talk about it. Guess what? You got to be at this every day.

“This is a 20-year project, not a two-year project. That's what Mississippi and Louisiana showed us.”

High school, fundamental reform, elementary, stay with the fundamentals. High school, we grow 50% of our kids, which was our goal. We're graduating with college credit on high school day. I said a goal is if I decided to do this, a hundred percent of our kids will graduate

community colleges of which are 1200. Second, we're the only school district in America that

“set this up and I'm making it a national requirement. Nobody graduates against a high school diploma”

without a showing a letter of acceptance from a college, a community college, a branch of the armed forces or a vocational school. Every child, not just Jason David and Roms, has a plan, they know where they're walking to when they're walking on graduation day. Universal post-tieschool education, we hired a huge amount of college careers in the city of Chicago, but we accomplished

98 percent compliance with it. Third, take eight billion dollars, you're wasting on detention centers

at the ice and modernize our community college systems. Both the campuses, the curriculum, and the relevancy it has to the industries in and around. Finally, fifth, higher education. 20% foreign students, they're allowed up to two identified 10% of the stuff that you do pay for in complying with the federal government. You keep a hundred percent of those dollars. Three, if a child graduates with 20 college credits from high school, that child is open to a three-year

BA, not a four-year, saving mom and dad, the equivalent of a full year of tuition. Oxford and Cambridge do three-year BA's. Second, if your income is below 200,000, you're going to go to college for free. Four, or third, finally, in that area, if your income is above 200,000,

“each year doesn't go above inflation. That's what I would do on education.”

Get kids, minimum four years of ideally three, in universal pre-K, return to the fundamentals, stay at it, bring accountability, and standards back into the school system, revamp our high school years into college career, not just diploma driven. With two to three examples, the best one I also did, first and only school district, first city to do it. You got to be average at high school, we made community college free. The goal here is to take the high school years

when you lose students and the community colleges and mail them, so kids are graduating high school,

with college credit, the period for the next step in their life. 80 percent of all the jobs

require some education, minimum of two years post high school, and we've done nothing to revamp our high school years since Teddy Roosevelt. That's kind of top to bottom. Yeah, and in no child,

“no student of any income or background is left out of that. You want to go to college and it”

be an engineer, great. You want to be a nurse, you want to be a carpenter. As you pour more of these dollars into the community college as into the federal student loan program, the administrative staff continues to blow. We've seen administrative staff grow from 10 percent to 60 percent in the last 30 years. As they've had no limits on spending because the federal student loan program doesn't provide a criteria that says if your tuition cost too much, if your school isn't that good,

et cetera, et cetera, we restrict your access to this loan program. The loan program is so unrestricted. Yeah, but that it provides a fuel for the fire. Okay, for cost, that is for college. That's right. Okay, I just sat there and told you, okay, great. Now let me ask you, you haven't addressed the fact that 50 percent of our kids care read at grade level. You want to talk to me about it? Oh, no, no, wait a second. Wait a second, David. The way you

ask that question, tell me where your priorities are. Your priorities, okay, I want to talk about student loan. Higher education. Higher education. I'm not talking about the job. I'm not talking about how you get the higher education. Well, I get, you're not talking about it, but there's a lot of parents sitting around the kitchen table talking about it. I'm a co-host, co-host in higher education. That's it. That's all I'm talking about. I just gave you a plan. Ask anybody that gets on your

show. I just gave you a plan on how to control costs. None of it dealt with the student loan program. It dealt with the fact that we cut a lot of noses off despite our face by not letting foreign students come in and pay full price, which are squeezing our colleges. You get up to 20 percent. You decide how you want to do it. You can identify 10 percent of the savings that you

comply with federal government. You keep a hundred percent of the costs, but here's what you're

going to do different. Okay, wait a second. I get the, this is the answer part to the question platform. Yeah. Okay. You want to get to college. Re-vamp what goes on in none of the elementary years, but the high school years. You don't when kids drop out of college, David. Third grade. That's when they start dropping out. And when you have 50 percent of your kids not reading a grade level, college costs is not your problem. We're going to compete against China with 50 percent

of our kids not reading. I'm sorry. That's not how you beat a country that's three times your size.

It's drop out of college in third grade, David. I'm not talking about dropping out of college. I'm talking about how much we spend on administrative bullshit and colleges and how much we've allowed it to inflate and that ultimately leads to a cost and an accessibility problem to higher education ROM because it gets to be 30, 40, 60, 80,000 dollars a year for a kid to go to school. Two things. You are

talking about costs. That is a problem. To me, the problem is that we've given up on 50 percent of our

kids giving up. Okay. That's the first statement. It's the first time. Okay. What you identified is a problem. How am I identifying the problem? Number two, in my view. I have spent more time on the subject of education as I wanted to be an early childhood educator when I went to college and I took a system that William Bennett called the single worst in America to wear a shawndrier to stand for called at the single best of the top 100 and it took everything

on my soul to get it there. We need to take the high school years, let alone the standards and accountability in the elementary years and revamp them. As in the three things I talked about, they fit together. Be average, community colleges free. Fifty percent, which I was said is a goal

is a hundred, half the graduate with college credit under the belt. And third, nobody gets a diploma

that doesn't tell us what they're doing next. College, community college, branch of the Armed Forces Replication School. I'm not just about college. You're 500 to 600,000 electricians short just for data centers. Broadband 150,000. You can't build some Marines because we don't have pipe fitters and plumbers. Okay, so you want to be a pipe fitter? Great. You want to be a physician? Great. You want to be a physical therapist? Great. Have an education system that actually reflects the

economy and skills that we need. Yeah, that's a good point. And my concern, Ron, comes from the

“hospital. You make a lot of great points and you make some that I disagree with, but that's what we're all about.”

And as I zoom out, I mean, I look at our $7 trillion spent in the federal government, five trillion a year in revenue. We're 2 trillion short. We've got 40 trillion a debt, 30 years at five percent. That's 2 trillion a year in interest expense. We have to figure out a way to reconcile the fiscal condition of the federal government to have a future for our kids. And so for me, everything comes down to this like cost model. And I'm like, we're spending money that we're inflating cost.

And it doesn't make sense to do it. So I have this, like, and by the way, Ron, this was something that Trump promised he would do with Doge and other cuts. And it was, it was all, it was all stake oil salesmen. Look, I don't accept redistribution and I don't accept the corruption. You can't have capitals and my economic freedom with corruption as a as a grounding principle. It's against the rule of law, which is key to capitalism and economic freedom. And redistribution

“doesn't solve anything as it relates to growth. I believe in five things that are essential”

to grow the economy and grow incomes. And so people that are no longer living, take the paycheck to paycheck. One, everything we've just talked about on education and training from pre-K to BA. Two, the dignity act, as I said, as it relates to immigration. Three, modernize our energy system, vis-a-vis, Texas is the best example in the United States. And I said that. Three, four, 10% levy on all predictive markets and online support gaming. And it has to go to the NIH,

National Science Foundation and DARPA, double our dollars into research. Fifth, a tax code that does not reward wealth preservation, but wealth creation. This tax code is an abomination as it relates to economic freedom. Control the overall spending for the next five years so can't grow and start making some tough choices within the system. I told you, you don't support it. I would not spend

$38 billion on detention centers, nobody wants. I would take aid of it as a starting point and modernize

the 1,200 community colleges throughout the country that are the economic backbone of across Wisconsin, Spartanburg, South Carolina. Go down the list. I've seen it firsthand because we did it in our community colleges, the world bank called it the best college career program in America. That to me is what we should be doing. And we're going to make some tough choices. I don't believe in sending ice agents out with $50,000 bonuses when I'd rather give a bonus to signing up to be a

“carpenter electrician. That's more important to America's future than some mass man running around”

the streets of Minneapolis. What's the politics of this? How do you get Congress to come along? Because

We are going to do the right thing. We are going to get ourselves out of the deficit. We are going to make things economically viable for the United States for people are going to advance. Everyone's got great ideas. But when push comes to shove, representatives of their district or of their state end up saying, "I'm going to give more to my people in order to get reelected and the budget goes

“up and up and up." Here's the thing with his unfortunate about American politics.”

As a person that coined the term, "Never allow a good crisis to go to waste."

It's the opportunity to do a big thing. Look, I believe the surplus created sloppyness that Bill Clinton left. We try to fight two wars with two tax cuts. Really stupid. Never been done in an American industry. And that's the beginning of a wild. We went from a surplus that Alan Greenspan described would be a whole danger to America because of the 10-year treasury note to running $38 trillion a deficit from a surplus to that. Because it was reckless.

We fought Iraq and Afghanistan with two tax cuts. Never tried in an American history. And it proved to be stupid. Now, that crisis is coming due. And it's going to force some really tough things on the system. And no, and we cannot have, while also AI's hovering,

“a further concentration of wealth to a very few. Can't happen because you can't get to the”

fiscal sensibility you want, just talking about cutting. Not just because of politics, because it's not right. And it won't work. So we're going to have to actually deal with the revenue side as well as the spending side. I gave you a cap, but we have a tax code that everybody on this show me included are rewarded for preserving wealth passing it out. There was a story the other day in the Wall Street Journal six weeks ago. Retreats are being organized to help kids figure out

how to handle their inheritance. You have got to be kidding me. And we have a tax code that favors that. You get you are the idiot. If you don't take advantage of actually preserving your wealth and passing it on for one generation or another. And you all know this, we all know it. The step up basis is a way to avoid to all taxes. When everybody else is working for a living and can't make monthly pay bills. So it's going to hit everybody. And you're going to make some changes.

One thing I was as most capitalists, not concerned, was minimum wage because I just thought well, the free market will work that out. And then after watching it raise in cities in the United States and what's going on in New Zealand and the Nordic countries, all of the studies now show when you go to 12 to $20 an hour. There's no difference. It doesn't cause any economic hardship for those companies. And it doesn't cause unemployment or automation. So what you're taking on the federal

minimum wage being raised three things. I worked with Bill Clinton when we raised it when Nancy Pelosi and I helped make her speaker. There was a last time when his raise was seven a quarter when I was mayor, I raised it. I'm a big believer not only raising the minimum wage, I would raise it and have it go up each year as we did in Chicago, coupled with a very generous earned income tax credit.

“That's what makes work pay. So a minimum wage with a very robust earned income tax credit,”

which I would, if I was, you know, waiting a magic wand, I would take the earned income tax credit,

the per child tax deduction, and do a single family credit. So it's all in one second.

I think we should talk about the DSA before we wrap. You know, last weekend in Chicago, the DSA held a convention. You're not Democrats. You're a separate party. I'll see you in November. You're living, you're literally beating Democrats. Forget about, not interested in. I spent my whole life Bill Clinton replacing George Bush, Barack Obama competing against John McCain, whipping 31 districts from redic congressmen to blue cars heard so Nancy Pelosi be

a speaker. I am not into turning a blue district, midnight blue. It doesn't do anything for a minimum wage. It doesn't do anything for universal precake. It doesn't do anything to give

10 million children who didn't have healthcare healthcare. So I'm not impressed. You are a separate

party. You're the Democratic Socialist of America. I'll see you in November on the ballot. You had a party convention. You are not in a Democrat. And there was a person the other day in Tometsville's party and Tometsville's column who just a Democrat part of the DSA network who said they're not interested in beating Republicans. Well, now I appreciate the honesty. I am. I think Donald Trump is an existential crisis. You think Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or

difference. We have fundamental policy difference. And we have a fundamental political difference.

Go to your own party. Stay there. I'll see you in November. There you have folks over and

“out with Roman manual. We will have you back in the coming months and years. I believe David”

was this has been amazing. And we got to get you on with your mop and sacks next. Thank you so much.

Thanks, guys. I'm doing all of you. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion.

“Talks of hours. Absolutely. We crush your questions. Amen. We are getting people”

around to his data. And I'm under right here on it. What do you want to say? That was fun.