All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Inauguration Interviews: Trump's Talent, Democratic Rebrand & more with House Whip Emmer, Reps Swalwell & Khanna
Mon, 20 Jan 2025
(0:00) House Whip Tom Emmer on Trump's political talent, the Biden conspiracy, taking back the Democratic party, immigration, the role of Whip (33:53) California Rep. Eric Swalwell on where Democrats went wrong, how to rebrand the party, TikTok ban, and more (1:08:01) California Rep. Ro Khanna on reforming the Democratic party, Bob Iger as LA Mayor, CA Leadership, TikTok ban Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Whip Emmer: https://x.com/GOPMajorityWhip Follow Rep. Swalwell: https://x.com/ericswalwell Follow Rep. Khanna: https://x.com/RoKhanna Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect
All right, everybody, welcome to the all-in inauguration special. We are here in town to celebrate and or commiserate the second term of Donald Trump, depending on where you sit on the political spectrum. And we are extremely lucky to have a partner in Spotify who has given us a box. Yes, we're in a glass box on the street. They really splurged and got a trailer.
It's absolutely fantastic, but we thank them for their hosting us. It's very cool. With me today, of course, my co-hosts, Shamath Palihapitiya and David Friedberg, who is a little under the weather because let's be honest, Friedberg, you've been out there. You and Lex took on the town last night.
I had a good time with Lex Friedberg last night. Let's leave it at that. Let's leave it at that.
Yeah, that sounds great.
It's been a couple nights in a row. I'm pretty beat.
Shamath, you have a very busy social schedule and you've been just bouncing around town with the who's who and taking credit for Donald Trump's victory. How's the victory lap going here? Because you played such a key role here by coming out. And being even more unlikable in our hometown of the Bay Area and supporting Trump. I'm a small bit player. A bit player.
But as you said to me in the car over here, you were the fulcrum that started the boulder that created the wind.
I said none of that. But I think more changes are coming, Jason. Maybe to our home state of California. Let's see.
Let's see. Let's see. Phase two. We're extremely honored to have Tom Emmer here. He is the U.S. representative from the amazing state of Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan, Prince, and the Coen brothers.
And Tim Walz. And Tim Walz. Don't be so enthused.
We're coming in hot already. Well, let's start there. Don't be so enthused. Tom, let's start there. How much of a disaster was the Democratic Party? And when you watched what happened with Biden in all seriousness, Do you think there was a cover up in terms of his mental acuity?
And what do you think of Kamala's job out there not doing podcasts and essentially being anointed and not having a primary? The Democratic Party seems lost.
Crooked. And crooked. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the leadership. I got good friends who are Democrats, so I'm not going to disparage them. But first, Jason, all of you, thank you. It's nice to be on All In. I I've heard everybody's heard about it. Everybody wants to be here. So it's just nice.
And you promised you'd listen to it after this. That's right.
Actually, I listened last week. Sadly, it was about the fires. But the... The way they did this was, if you think about it, ballot access is a big thing. You have to run for months and you have to get delegates and you have to make your case state by state and you have to meet certain requirements to actually end up on the ballot.
how the Democrats are able to remove Joe Biden, literally in a coup, a back room coup, and install Kamala Harris in a matter of hours or days and avoid any convention like real democracy taking place where people are debating their candidates and where they're at. And then to your other question, that's wrong, but your other question was, Joe Biden, was there a coverup?
A cover-up is when you don't see it, when you don't know about it, when you're totally unaware. This wasn't a cover-up. This was a conspiracy. Everybody in this town for four years watched when he came in. He was already diminished and watched him continue to diminish over the course of his term. It was the mainstream media that refused to actually comment on it.
And then it was amazing overnight when he has the debate last year and it's like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. Look at this. And suddenly it was like, they'd never seen it before. This was a conspiracy by a left-wing media that they're littered with people who have a partisan view and they write about it. They create stories about it and they don't tell you the whole story. If you were here.
Let's go down this, pull this thread a little bit more because you said the The Democrats themselves are good people. Some of them, many of them, you know, but then the leadership you said was corrupt. So just can you help us understand who is the leadership? And then how does the corruption play out? What does the corruption look like? Well, remember, I'm on the Republican side.
Yeah, I know. But I can tell you what I watch. What I watch is corruption. There were two times that they literally, whoever they are, it would be the superdelegates. A lot of people would say it's the Obamas. It's the Clintons. It's the, you know, original.
That's the boogeyman for what it's worth that people point to, at least when you're not in D.C. Like if somebody said, who are the leadership leaders?
Elected or otherwise that runs a Democratic Party a lot of people would point to the Obama's and then some of these Super donors is that sort of your perception of how it works it is and the reason I go back as you'll remember Bernie Sanders is marching towards the Democratic nomination and they get to South Carolina and all of a sudden Amy Klobuchar from my state It's just one after another I'm out.
I'm out. I support Joe Biden clearly the Whoever that is, because you're right, we're not in the room to see, is it the Obamas? Is it consultants like Carville or Axelrod or whoever? Who is in that room? But whoever's in that room, they have a plan when it gets to the end. And I never thought Joe Biden was going to be the candidate.
And that's not how the Republican Party operates, because I think some people in the public have this perception that both parties operate that way, that there is a cabal of the most influential and ultimately they end up getting to pick and the other party does the same thing. Is that not the case?
No.
And clearly that wasn't the case with Trump, right?
Yeah, no. I would say that. Watching from the outside, again, we're not on the inside of the Democrat machine, but watching from the outside, that's a top-down process. On the Republican side, that's a bottom-up process. And Donald Trump is the best example of it.
Best example.
Because people in this town, especially in the house where I serve, are like, we got the American people. We have a mandate. And you've got to remind them, yeah, no. No. No, Donald Trump has a mandate. He got 77 million votes. We got a little less than 75 million. So if you're looking at who literally is expanding this party and pulling this party over the line, It's one guy. It's Donald Trump.
Do you view him the party leader? I do. So to your point, this was almost like a Donald Trump hostile takeover of the Republicans. Meaning if you look at the establishment rhetoric of what Republicans stood for, I don't think Trump really cared. He had a point of view and he had his own intellectual agenda and ideology. And to your point, 77 million people said, I go with that.
Do you think that that's possible on the Democratic side as well? Do you think that there's a different ideology that needs to be born there?
I can only tell you the experience I've had with one of my Minnesota colleagues who, I won't name him, but he might have run against the sitting president. We were talking on the House floor one day, and I was complaining to him, or giving him a hard time, I should say, about some of the off-color remarks coming from the squad. And he made a point of telling me... Off-color how?
Well, let's just say there were some anti-Semitic comments all about the Benjamins, this stuff. And there was a censure that was being worked on. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it was public. But the point is, when I was saying, boy, you've had quite a week, he goes, oh, yeah. He says, that's a very small group of people in our party with very large voices.
And my response to him was, OK, well, that might be true, but... then people like you have to stand up and speak up and take my grandfather's Democrat Party back.
Exactly.
And so, no, I think they've got a problem. Identity politics, which they've perfected and been playing for years, it has now come back to bite them. And there's, where is the way out? They don't have a brand. They don't know who they are. They're fighting about things like men participating in women's sports. I mean, It just it isn't resonating with the American people.
So they're going to have to figure that out for the future. But on our side, we're going to have to figure out Donald Trump is the one that pulled this across the line. Here's the problem with the Republican Party for me.
The last 30 years, we've had great people representing us, but the public has been very frustrated because it seems like government and the bureaucrats always get a better deal than the average citizen in this country. We're talking about Main Street.
We're not talking about Silicon Valley, which has its own Main Street, but I'm talking about just good old Main Street, USA, where it's rural country. It's people who are just trying to live their lives. They feel like their government hasn't been listening to them for years. This is what's on the Tea Party. This is why we've had this over and over. And Donald Trump, you got to give him credit.
This energy was out there and he actually grabbed it. And he showed us what it looked like when he ran in 16 and got elected.
Well, he took the time to understand it.
Or he just innately has an ability to read people better than I've ever seen. Yeah.
I mean, I think he is a generational retail politician.
A generational? I think he's a one in 150 year leader. Yeah. Yeah.
Freeberg, you have a lot of thoughts on fiscal responsibility and have been banging the drum on the national debt. Tom, you also have a passion for fiscal responsibility. Maybe you have some thoughts on that, Freeberg?
Or maybe you can tell us your point of view on how much of an impact Doge can have. I don't know if you've talked.
And what you think reconciliation is going to look like. I mean, this is going to be a very gnarly conversation. pitch battle here. How do we get $2 trillion out of the United States budget?
Why are you stopping at two? Exactly. Why are you stopping at two?
Well, actually, let's ask that question. Is two even possible? And if so, how do you think you can get $2 trillion out of it?
So I'd rather, let's do it two ways. I'd rather look at what could we put on the table? And we do this privately. So you won't get me to say, What it is, where it is. But I'll tell you, there's a list that we've sat down with that reaches somewhere between five and seven trillion. A year? Over the next 10 years. Okay. That's what that two trillion would be over the next 10 years. Okay.
I mean, listen, if you're- A bunch of seven point.
Yeah.
And the goal is, first, we've got to balance the budget. You've got to quit bleeding $1.5 to $2 trillion every year.
It's like, oh, it's another trillion.
Yeah. Whatever. You've got to balance. Second thing you've got to do is start to bend the curve down. We've got the greatest economy in the world. It hasn't been performing where it could. I think with Donald Trump, we can put it in place where it can. You can see those revenues start to go up again. And if you have this so you're controlling it, you could pay that.
You could pay that down rather quickly. I mean, if you're talking in terms of a decade.
This requires sacrifice and it requires representatives from each city and each state to then go to their constituents and say, hey, we fought to get you X, Y and Z, and you're only going to get X and Y.
Be careful. Some tell you they fight, but they're not really fighting. This thing is going to happen because of Donald Trump. I think I leave it to Mike Johnson. He's the speaker. He will make these decisions. I'm not. I'm the whip. Whatever you tell me, my job is to make sure we get it done. And that's what we'll do. But I think you're going to see a two-track process.
Mike Johnson for reconciliation has set a deadline. He wants to vote on a budget resolution by the first week of February. Why is that important? The budget resolution you have to have before you can even move forward with reconciliation. That's usually pre-negotiated with the Senate. So if we can keep with that aggressive timeline, you'll have that back to the House sometime in February.
Once you have that, that allows your 12 subcommittees to get their allotment and start to build out their 12 appropriations subcommittees, build out their budgets. Jason Smith, our Ways and Means Chair, believes we can have that process done by the end of March.
Mike, again, our speaker, in this very aggressive timeline, if that's possible, he would like to vote on it in the House in the first two weeks of April. This includes the tax permanency extensions, et cetera, from the Trump tax cuts back in 2017. If we're able to keep to that schedule, then you could realistically have a reconciliation bill to President Trump's desk by Memorial Weekend.
Let's just talk about the other long-term challenge and your point of view on the solution. What's going to happen to Social Security by 2030, 2032, 2033? Where is this headed?
Well, I think people are going to have to innovate. And I think you've got to honor the promises that have been made.
There are many different things out there that are being looked at, like a voluntary program that people in a certain range, and this is above my pay grade, a certain age range, like, I don't know, 18, whatever it is, that are just coming into this system, that it would give them a choice. They would have a choice to stay in Social Security as we know it or to pursue a private route that will have
Federal parameters, so you can't just be putting it into a retirement account, taking it out. It would serve the same purpose.
Like Australia's system, the super system.
Obviously. And then it would grow the private side.
And sorry, is that ultimately necessary? We need to change Social Security. And when do we have to change it by? And now that the election is over, because every politician is scared to talk about Social Security because everyone's got an election coming up. Are we going to hear something different this time around?
Or is it always going to be the kick the can down the road with Social Security and whatever? It's just such a golden goose. No one can talk about it. No one can touch it.
Donald Trump was elected for three reasons. One, to fix our economic woes, the inflation that's killed people, get energy moving again, seal the southern border and create peace and stability around the globe. If we perform and I'm going to change that because that's not really my attitude. when we perform, you start to build credibility with the American public.
Then and only then can you start talking about, because nobody believes us, right? So, and the media plays games. They try to pit us against each other with these different ideas. The key is you have to honor the promises that have been made to Americans since Social Security was created. And then you have to look forward.
And again, we've said we're not going to touch Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That was the president who said that. I got that. But there are some efficiency things, reforms that you can do around these programs that actually will make them not only more viable financially, but more efficient.
Should Americans be able to trade cryptocurrency freely without regulations? Or do you think those regulations are in place for a good reason?
You're talking, so you remember Animal House with the evil and the good on the shoulders? I had that last night and the evil won. Well, I got the Libertarian and the Republican with a small R on either one.
Libertarian always wins for me.
Well, and it used to for me. But I realized that I was a Republican with a small R when I was doing a radio show with an anarchist for several months. And all he ever said was... Shut her down. She's pumping mud. And it's like, no, I must be a Republican. The libertarian says absolutely.
The Republican with a small r, I think the key is going to be we have the greatest financial system markets here in the United States, in the world. We have an existing legacy two-tier banking system. It needs to come into the 21st century. The beauty of crypto to me is not just that it's crypto.
One, it's going to help us if Congress does its job, if we put some parameters up, market structure, give people rules of the road so they know what they can and can't do and who's going to be having responsibility for oversight. We can protect the existing two-tier legacy system and allow it time to move into the 21st century.
I think the key is, and this is why the central bankers are so worried, this is so disruptive and potentially destructive. that they're scared to death. It's not just losing their power.
They're afraid that this decentralization is going to somehow send finance back to the... I suppose they're also concerned that consumers, maybe who are not super sophisticated or new to it, might lose their money.
And yesterday, Trump launched a $30 billion coin, which we refer to on the internet as a coin or a meme coin. Are you troubled by him doing something like that? Was that a wise decision on his part?
I don't know. Time will tell about that. He seems to make some pretty good decisions. They've done well for him.
Well, you've got to work on the regulations for that.
We do.
If he can do that, can we all just do it? You could have done it too. Well, the SEC previously would have actually gone after you for taking money from retail investors.
Ding dong, the witch is dead. Now we're going to be moving forward with a new SEC.
Got it. Okay.
So YOLO? What's that? YOLO? YOLO.
You only live once.
Just go for it. My staff gives me a hard time because I don't know all those cute quips.
Yeah. But you're cool with it. You're cool with doing a coin 24 hours per coin.
I have no problem. Did you see the meme that said Barron apparently had his dad's phone last night and made a billion dollars?
So funny. I love the barren mediums. They're my favorite.
They call them the Lisan al-Gaib, which if you watch Dune, is like he's the savior that's sent in Dune to basically save all of us.
It's definitely going to be an interesting four years.
Right now, Jason is about to implode, Congressman.
What you're seeing is him melting down inside. Jason has a big negative bias against these coins.
No, no, no. I have a bias against stealing from unsuspecting people.
Meanwhile, you want every retail investor to have access to buy startups because that'll benefit you. But when it comes to coins, you're like, oh, no one should be able to do that. I'll address that.
I think there should be a sophisticated investor test where people learn. about things like diversification. They learn who owns 80% of the coins that have just been dumped on retail and under what circumstance they can sell them. And, you know, there is a legitimate issue here that foreign adversaries could just buy these coins and influence the president.
I think that's a real concern that people should have. So you can diminish it.
No, no, you're absolutely right. It's actually a real issue. I actually agree with you. Like securities regulations require And when you do an IPO, you file an S-1 and you disclose who owns the shares. And it has to go on a regulated exchange so you know who the buyers of the shares are. So I do actually think your framework is pretty reasonable. I thought you were just mocking me.
Well, I do mock you generally. Let's go to the next one then. No, no, I do think that's right.
You brought up the border. Steve Bannon says... Huh? I did? You did. You said the border was one of the main reasons why... Oh, yeah, yeah.
In his mandate. Yeah.
So let's talk about that part of the mandate that you brought up.
Steve Bannon says... He's doing a great job today as moderator. Is he?
I think he's the only one that's left. They knock you down and then they build you up.
It's all good. I'm not paying attention to them. I'm paying attention to you. This is called management. Steve Bannon said he wants all 15 out day one. So what's going on? Steve Miller says America is for Americans and Americans only. Do you believe 15 million people should be dragged out of this country day one like Steve Bannon and Steve Miller?
I think we should. So New York Times, of all outlets, had a poll that said it's like 80% believe that criminals, terrorists, people who have committed bad offenses should be the hell out of here. Yeah, easy one to have consensus on, yeah. No, but then it starts to drop down, which is the next one is, oh, I forget what the second one is.
55%?
55% according to a New York Times poll.
What do you think that'll do to the economy? You brought up inflation. We have to tame that. We have 4% unemployment, the lowest of our lifetimes.
Can I just tell you, agricultural labor costs have climbed by probably 3x in the last four or five years. And there's not enough labor to address kind of agricultural production needs in this country, particularly in specialty crops because it's the world I work in.
How are we going to kind of address both the kind of economic demand for labor in this country and address this kind of immigration challenge?
You don't fix your labor problem with illegal labor. immigration. You fix it by fixing your immigration system and making sure that it's working the way it's supposed to. By the way, I come from the state of Minnesota. The two primary drivers of our state's private economy are manufacturing an ag.
I mean, I've got huge operations of families that have bound together as a co-op that they literally have to bring in foreign workers and they built a village housing, they have teachers, but there's the solution. This idea, and I come from Minnesota, which is why you made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The argument is, oh, illegals, people who are here illegally and their advocates are bracing for Trump's arrival. And then they write an article that says, if they remove all these people, our economy is going to tank. Stop it. You've got laws for a reason. You've got to enforce the laws that are on the books and if they don't work.
This is why we passed the strongest border bill in 20 years with 222 members in the last Congress, which Chuck Schumer never looked at. They wanted to say that Trump killed the bipartisan bill. You realize the House bill did five things. Finish the wall, reform the parole process, reform asylum, end catch and release, and restore remain in Mexico. Those were the five pillars.
That so-called bipartisan bill actually codified catch and release. Said that if you don't have emergency authority on the border until you have 5,000 plus one coming across a day.
That's the answer. We seem to have...
you know pretty solid consensus here and in the country criminals who are basically committing two crimes whatever crime they committed here and come across the border illegally they have no standing they go but you seem to be um punting and not answering the question of should the 14.5 million other people be dragged out of the country in year one so maybe you can answer that one as a journalist i i'm telling you right now trump trump was elected to get this what do you think though you were from a state where that's going to be highly unpopular
I don't think you should be here if you're illegal. So all $15 million got to go in year one. I don't think you should be here if you're illegal. Now, you're painting with a pretty broad brush. We don't know what specific situations.
I'm using what Steve Bannon and Steve Miller have said. So I'm just quoting their words.
Again, I think the goal is to make sure- How would it be possible- J.D.
Vance came on our show and he said, hey, you got to do the first thing first and then the second thing second.
It's not all going to happen on day one, but yeah, it's going to be- Well, I'm trying to interpret that, but you're not being straight, so- Well, actually, I resent that. I am being straight.
I will tell you straight- No, I just want to know if- I think there's a lot of Americans who want to know if 15 million people are literally going to be dragged out. This is a big question for the American people. Are you going to drag 15 million people out of the country or not?
Because Stephen Miller, who seems to be a big part of this administration, and Steve Bannon, who was the architect of the previous administration, say that's actually going to happen. People are actually nervous about that.
This is when we need Sachs here to check you, to fact check you on whether those guys have said that.
And the problem is you're using terms like dragged them out. No, I mean, they're going to start with the worst of the worst in JD's answer. You start with those because you know that this is going to have an emotional aspect to it. And guess what? If you start doing it the way you're supposed to do it, I'm going to suggest to you that a lot of them are going to leave voluntarily.
And then if we fix the system that we have. Then we can start to restore this.
By the way, that's already happening because I've heard from a lot of agricultural leaders. They're seeing labor depart the country right now in anticipation of the administrative change. And a lot of labor is very scared of what's happening. They don't want to be caught. They just came here for work. These are individuals who came to this country to work.
They are employed, whether legally or illegally, to do work that's in demand in this country. And they're worried they're going to go to jail, so they're leaving. And that there's a massive outflux right now, particularly in rural areas, there's a massive outflux right now of labor that's really critical to a lot of those farming economies.
And a lot of people in the agricultural sector are very nervous about what's about to happen. impact. But let me ask you another question.
Do you think, and align with Elon's point of view and some of the stuff that's been promoted, that there's a big push by the Democrats to keep the borders open to create more voting Democrats in this country, that that's a big reason or rationale for the alternative of having illegal immigration and converting everyone to legal?
I think it's more basic than that. I do think there's a political element to it. States like Minnesota, where the traditional educated what entrepreneur is leaving, they're being replaced with, in many cases, with illegals, right? Because we are a sanctuary state. So they come into Minnesota, whether they vote or not, there is a big argument that, yes, many of them are.
But I think the bigger issue is how Congress is divided up. You're losing. You're hollowing out whether you're Illinois or you're New York. You're hollowing out your state. They bring illegals in, and incredibly, our census calculates them in the numbers.
That doesn't make sense.
No, so you've got these blue states that are completely mismanaged.
That's the gerrymandering cartel just to try to ruin the course.
Yeah, I guess that's a longer conversation, and we probably need to wrap up in a minute. I never understood how that works.
I have a totally different question, something more fun. The job of whip was totally romanticized after House of Cards. Is that Roman?
You got to kill people?
Well, no, because you had Spacey in this really famous scene calling the whip and saying, when I was whipped, my job was to whip the votes. And then he was screaming into the phone, whip the votes. And I just remember this thinking, now that seems like a really cool job.
His nickname is Chairman Dictator. He was voted like number one commentator by Xi Jinping in the...
Chinese Communist Party in the first year of this podcast. I have a lot of important people to look up to me, yes. But just the job of whip, is it as enjoyable as it sounds?
So everybody likes to say to me, you've got the worst job in Washington, D.C. I think the speaker has the worst job in Washington, D.C. That guy can be having a great day and he's got all kinds of people that are just throwing sandwiches at him all the time. The majority leader does a calendar, manages the floor, works with the chairs. Great job. The whip?
You don't get to do anything those guys want to do unless we can actually get it across the floor. And the world has changed. I know they elected me because they thought my personality is very direct. I am from Minnesota.
Well, I get the sense that you're incredibly effective. You could whip the votes.
But you just got to be honest and you got to respect everybody. And it's a different world because we probably have 40% of our members who will vote for whatever Mike Johnson says we're going to put on the floor. But we got 60%. And this is what's been changing, I think, over the last couple of decades. It keeps getting larger. They didn't come here. to follow somebody, they came here to lead.
To represent their people. And they need to be involved in the process. And what I tell them all the time, I don't care if you like each other, I don't care if you despise one another, I don't care if you socialize together, or the second you walk out of here, you run to two polar opposite places. When you're here, the American people elected Donald Trump, and we have the benefit of a majority.
See, you're whipping the votes.
But that's what it is. And I tell them, you've got to get over yourself. We're going to let everybody participate in the process. We're going to take all of your ideas. We put the more centrist part of our majority and the more right wing part of our party together. And that list of savings cuts, offsets I was talking about, we privately run that through small groups.
one at a time so that they can talk to each other so that if you come from a ruby red district down south and I come from a you know swingy swingy district in New York we can have a conversation about why I can and can't do something and why you will and won't do something and at the end of the day This is how you're successful. Everybody wants to be involved.
It's hard only from the aspect that you can't afford to leave anyone behind.
Last question. Last week was pretty prolific in terms of the Senate confirmation hearings that started. I think we're still waiting to figure out when Bobby is going to come up. Do you see any pushback? Who do you think... Who might not make it?
Who might not make it? I think everybody's making it. I think anybody that listens to you guys or anything that interview where they start bringing this up, we got to remind people, this has been the left's playbook since Robert Bork.
Yeah.
They started it with Robert Bork. They took him out of his Supreme Court appointment. They did it to Clarence Thomas. They really did it to Kavanaugh. And look at this. Now they've moved it to cabinet picks. Right. And Pete Hegseth is a great example. None of us is perfect. But all of that was anonymous.
And I think once it started going through the process and somebody asked me this question a few weeks ago, I said, yeah, they're starting with Pete. Pete's going to get, he's going to get through the process. They'll move on to Tulsi. Then they'll move on to Bobby Kennedy Jr. Those will probably be their three biggest ones that they'll attack.
I mean, my my perspective on this is that, to your point, in the absence of somebody being compromised, it's not an ideological difference that should stop cabinet picks on either side. Whoever is the president should get to pick their team, put the team on the field. That's the mandate he was given by the people. And then the people get to vote.
It's supposed to be an advisory capacity, right? I mean, yeah, it is.
It is. But the beauty of what Donald Trump is doing. You can't fix what's broken with people that broke it. He's going outside of this God-forsaken place and bringing people in that have completely new ideas, whether you like them or not. Come on, folks. Let's see what this does. We've been doing the same thing now for years.
Which, by the way, is what happened 250 years ago when this Congress was started.
Okay, wait, Congressman, last question.
Okay, this is the last question. Congressman, last question. Give us the... Give us the... Give us the last one.
...redux and opinion. You said you listened to the fire episode that we did.
Yeah.
But just general, from the outside in, as a Minnesotan looking at California, just diagnose what's going on there.
It's more complicated than the right and the left want to make it seem. But there definitely is a problem. It's not just limited to California. It's across this country with not managing our resources the way we should. We had this problem in northern Minnesota probably 20 years ago, 25 years ago. We had a blowdown in the BWCA, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. You had all those trees laying down.
They were kindling. And I think our governor at the time, Jesse Ventura, said he was going to go in there and he was going to log it so we could protect the citizens and their property and we could actually make use of these trees that have been destroyed in the storm. The federal government told him he couldn't do it. And of course, we've had fires, right? California, this is tragic.
My brother-in-law sent me a picture. He lives in Woodland Hills. He sent me a picture of flames at the end of his cul-de-sac above the palm trees.
That's where my parents live. They probably live a couple blocks from each other.
In Woodland Hills.
The fire stopped two blocks from their house.
Yeah. That's the picture he took. Did the winds just take?
No, so the Ventura County line comes up to right there. Yeah. And the fire department didn't. And Cal Fire and Fire Department are incredible. They stopped it from entering the neighborhood. That's amazing. It was amazing. Yeah.
I don't know how his house is still standing based on the picture he sent.
Thomas has been amazing. You fit right in here. I appreciate the honesty and candidness. And we'd love to have you back anytime.
I appreciate the conflict. I love that.
Well, I mean, the American people have this is why we love Jacob.
He got he got motivated. We went to a Spotify dinner last night and they were talking about journalism. He's like, I'm a journalist. I'll show you guys.
I think it's a really important conversation. And, you know, the one thing I'm a little concerned with is just some clarity. Because Trump has an ability to say things in a bold way, in an effervescent way. And then, you know, sometimes these things actually affect people and they want a little more clarity.
Well, and the whip has to find clarity amongst 219 people.
Yeah. Good luck with that job. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. You guys are fine. Thanks.
Okay, everybody, welcome back to the All In podcast. We're here for the inauguration of Donald Trump in his second term, and we're delighted to have Eric Swalwell with us today. He is obviously the House representative from California in the Democratic Party. East Bay?
East Bay.
East Bay?
East Bay, yeah.
You guys got shellacked. this time around. It wasn't great. It wasn't good. What are the lessons that the Democratic Party can take from this? I will insert myself into this a little bit. I'm a moderate who's voted Democrat two out of three times. I was absolutely really disappointed.
I'll just leave it at that, that you didn't have a speed run primary, that Biden was put up when he was clearly in cognitive decline. And I'm absolutely disgusted by the Democratic Party's hatred of successful entrepreneurs in this country. You've kind of lost me as somebody who voted two out of three times. Why has the Democratic Party
left me, somebody who, you know, two out of three times would vote Democrat. And now you hate, as a party, entrepreneurship, winning, and you seem to hate democracy and you won't even have a primary.
Jesus Christ. Don't hate democracy.
No, but this is my perception.
And I think a lot of Democrats feel this way. And we could just lose you. Silicon Valley Democrats. You lost a lot of folks. You lost a lot of folks.
Like a lot of them.
No, I mean, this is across the board. There's a lot of middle-of-the-road folks. Yeah.
We... We need a story that connects with everyday Americans. I think when you look at a lot of the policies that we believe in, and you look at polling and focus groups, people will be like, oh yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that. But our story right now, I don't think we know who we are and who we're fighting for.
Now, so it is to me exciting that we can go through this reset and renovation to find that story That connects. I'm a blue collar kid. I was raised by a cop and a mom who had six different jobs. I was the first of my family to go to college. I like to think you were raised by two Republicans. Yeah, I was. They were. They are. Were and are two Republicans.
And I've got three little brothers who are cops. And I grew up in Dublin, California. Everyone called it Scrublin' until we invested there and we saw success.
What was your ideological change growing up in a Republican household of cops, essentially? Yeah.
uh to becoming a you know you're a bit of a democratic poster boy well that's that's only because i've gone after donald trump but if you look i ran against the most liberal member of congress pete stark um i have been a pretty independent vote in congress and i root for success of entrepreneurs
and business and want to connect that success to the people who work hard at those businesses so everyone does well. And I think if we're just perceived as rooting against success overall and vilify people who are successful, then no one can be successful if that's the case.
Did you agree with Biden's framing as he was leaving about this tech oligarchy?
It's only an oligarchy if working class folks don't benefit from it. So if that's what it becomes, then that's a problem. What I want to see, and I think what you all are rooting for, is that anyone, if you work hard, work your ass off, you should do better for yourself and dream bigger for your kids. And I think we have an opportunity to do that.
The president, the president-elect has an opportunity to make that happen. And where he tries to do that, he'll find a partner in me. But do we have this branding issue? Yes. No, I think that's... What is the branding issue? Yeah, let's unpack the branding issue.
The wokeism? Is it the judgmentalism? Is it the sanctimonious pandering? Is it the moral grandstanding?
You have to be perfect and pure is what the perception is right now. But nobody's perfect. No, no, no. That's the perception of people who like... Like we're all riddled with errors and faults. Of course, we're not perfect and pure. But I think the perception is that to be a Democrat, you have to check all these purity boxes and then you can be a part of the party.
And right now, the Republican Party is like, I think, the exact opposite. It's like, do you like Donald Trump? Great. Come to the party. And so.
By the way, they're even like, if you don't like Trump, can we get you on these three policies? And you can still come to Peter Thiel's party. I have never been more courted by a political party than Trump's. And I have never been more hated than I've been by the Democratic Party.
Well, that's wrong. And it should make people feel that way.
Chamath feels that way, I think. He was a major donor. You guys are talking about having... You guys are saying you should have a Joe Rogan equivalent. You had Joe Rogan.
He's a Democrat.
You fumbled it.
He had Bernie Sanders on. You wanted to have Hillary. You guys fumbled it.
You guys had Elon Musk. You fumbled it. Yeah.
We'll see if the party fumbled it. Maybe you can comment on it.
Well, you represent the party. Let's talk about rebuilding. And we have an opportunity to rebuild now. And so on, for example, the Department of Government Efficiency, like we should root for government to be more efficient and we should try and enable that. But like if... That effort goes into an area where it's going to cut Social Security or cut Medicare.
Then I think you'll see us be guardians against that. But like most small businesses think it's pretty hard to start a small business. And then once you do, you don't have the resources that bigger businesses do. And they see regulations as what gets in the way.
So we should. Try and knock what's happening in the party. Like what what are you guys doing? Or is it just Headless as an organization who runs a Democratic?
Well, I would say in the house right now Hakeem Jeffries has been pretty effective at uniting us and even in the last Congress you saw something that you've never seen before in any Congress in our country any Parliament in the world, which is the minority party and delivered the majority votes on every vote of consequence.
So keeping the government open, lifting the debt ceiling, which the incoming president now supports, which we welcome that, and we would love to get rid of it, by the way. You know, the funding of, even the funding, you know, to Israel, that, that... move forward because Democrats were unified on that front.
So I think Hakeem has shown himself as like a practical negotiator and someone who can work with Speaker Johnson.
But I think the other fair commentary is he's young and he's inexperienced. What I mean by leadership is...
who who is the elder statesman that can help push and cajole and influence the democratic party to find a more solid ground i think one of i think one of our best thought leaders is mark cuban i think he's mark cuban mark cuban yeah he he's very influential uh he has a lot of relationships with my colleagues uh and myself he has business experience but i think he's also not lost touch of like what regular people
care about. And I thought he was an effective surrogate for Kamala being out there on the trail. But I, I go to Mark on a lot of stuff. And I think he understands where most people are.
How did Kamala get selected?
How did she get selected? So she was vice president, and the runway was about 100 days. And we can go through the different scenarios. I don't think any of them were good. And as you said, if your premise is that President Biden should not have run for reelection, making that decision that close to the election, I don't know if any candidate would have done it.
Should there have been a speed primary, like J.K. Hall?
We could go through 100 scenarios. There are a bunch of great candidates. I still think all of them would have probably been set up to fail. It's too short of a runway.
In your interactions with the president, did you say to yourself, gosh, what's going on here?
I didn't, and my colleagues and I, I don't think we interacted with him that often. And we kind of, you know, we started his presidency in COVID. And so the Joe Biden that I knew when I was in a baby, you know, child in the Congress in 2013 was very engaged and, you know, loved meeting with Congress and the meetings would go an hour over the time allotted.
And it was kind of that Bill Clinton charm offensive that he could put on. And I will just tell you, like the first two years with the COVID restrictions that we had, we didn't see that because we, you know, we would have remote meetings with the White House. And so they hit him. They hit him. I don't know. I know where we are now. The reports are he was gatekept.
Like I said, I'm focused on the future. Let's talk about the future.
Let's talk about Doge.
Hold on. Before we talk to Doge, Eric, you were on the House Intelligence Committee. Let's talk about TikTok. Done and dusted.
What...
What do you think?
Might be back tomorrow. Might.
Might not. Yeah. You're in the room when these things happen. There are these off the record, I guess, intelligence briefings that happen. And this was a 9-0 unanimous Supreme Court decision. It was an overwhelming majority in Congress. Can you just help us understand what needs to happen for something like those two events to happen? Just be general.
You don't have to say specifically, obviously, and disclose anything that you know. But we're just trying to understand how does something, when it's such a rancorous Congress, which can't seem to agree on anything, or a Supreme Court, which tends to be 5-4 on every issue, finds a 9-0 and a supermajority in Congress, Can you just help us understand?
So the Supreme Court was not saying whether we should ban or not ban TikTok. They were saying that Congress voted, President signed, and there's no way around this ban. So I think they were just following the law. I voted against the ban. I think China is the place where you...
And the problems that I have with TikTok as a father of like three little kids are the problems that I have with Meta and the problems that I have with, yeah, all social.
So you don't view it as a security risk for the United States.
And I look to Jim Himes, who is the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, the ranking member. He's in what's called the gang of eight. He has the most exquisite access to intelligence. And Jim voted against the ban. And I thought, you know what? If this guy is not seeing anything on the national security level.
There was an off the record or confidential briefing to the House Intelligence Committee. So you think in that meeting there was nothing that was very meaningful that was disclosed about TikTok?
Nothing that I had seen. Is it owned by the Chinese government? Absolutely. But is there a national security risk? I have not seen that.
Hold on a second, though. I mean, if the Chinese government owns 100 million plus American phones, their location data, access to their microphones, access to their cameras, how is that not a security risk? I mean, that seems incredibly naive to say that. I want to build on what Jason was saying.
We know that there are security vulnerabilities, for example, in WhatsApp. It's riddled with stuff. So, you know, you could send a PDF before, then you could send an image. Now you can just send a message and you can root your phone. The difference is WhatsApp is owned by an American citizen. Which is to say, all these apps are compromised.
It's just that the TikTok is owned by a Chinese owner who is out of the reach of the United States government.
Is that fair or unfair to you? It is out of the reach of the United States government. But what I will say is... Most of what we buy as far as what's in our basket at Walmart has a Chinese component that could make us very much at risk. What's in our basket doesn't have a microphone or your GPS.
A lot of it does. Have you seen a lot of stuff you buy? Drones? Chinese-made drones? There's a whole website now that breaks down modern consumer electronics from China that actually…
have these hacking devices built into them I don't know if you've seen this yeah I don't know I mean like you'll buy like a USB charger that's like eight bucks on Teemu or something and it's inside it's got like an IP address and it actually finds Wi-Fi it connects and it transmits yeah this is incredibly dangerous and like there's so many and I bought this like
cheap drone for like christmas someone uh for like anyway one of my little nephews brought it and i'm like dude this thing is like 149 bucks and i looked it up online it's like got camera connects to your wi-fi and then asked for access to your phone and i'm like i'm not doing that like yeah i tweeted this a few months ago i don't think tick tock's the issue the usbc charging cables exactly yeah those can be hijacked yeah they're rooted the charging cables
Yes, this is more reason to ban it. This is not speculative. No, but I don't think TikTok is a problem.
I guess my point is like, yeah, TikTok's not a problem. You want to ban everything that's made in China? That's great. You'll destroy the economy. Exactly.
Yeah, but one thing has 100 million people in an algorithm that could influence people's perception that Hamas is being harassed by the Israelis. They literally can change how Americans, especially young ones, perceive the world. Even if they're not doing it currently, do you not see how obvious it is that they can use it nefariously?
That's a censorship point of view, which is government has a role in controlling.
I guess I'm the only one of the four of us that doesn't want to ban speech. No, I'm with you.
I want either reciprocity, where we can put our apps in China, or I want it gone and divested to America.
Now you're making a different case. Now you're saying it's like reciprocity as opposed to controlling. First you were saying it's security. Then you're saying it's like controlling our point of view. Now you're saying reciprocity. Those aren't the same thing. Security risk likely lies everywhere. On security? On controlling the point of view of stuff.
I think you guys have to separate, look, TikTok, there are three things in TikTok, okay? There's the content and the content creators. That's one thing. Then there is a network effect. And then there is the vessel, which is the app, okay? Which is the code. My very specific point of view is the content creators and the network effect can easily be replicated in other places.
The vessel itself is corrupt. And I think if you can't technically see that, it's probably because you're not steeped enough in the technology.
Dude, the Intelligence Committee doesn't technically see that. Oh, no, they've seen it. Clearly, they're not agreeing with you.
They've been caught tracking journalists.
You've got a guy in the Intelligence Committee here telling you. Well, but I also looked at... the small business owners who use that as a platform. I understand how you just, the buckets that you just created. People depend on it. And more people, what I was telling the White House was more people watch President Biden's State of the Union address on TikTok than anywhere else.
And President Biden had just gone on TikTok right before this.
But that you're speaking to is the content and the network.
Sure, no, I get it. So my point is,
across Meta or across X, my preference would be X, you can replicate the network effect and you can create a mechanism for those content creators who are already on those platforms anyway to shift. My point is the vessel itself is easily rooted. I told this to President Trump when we were sitting down. I was like, that phone microphone on that iPhone can get turned on remotely.
You can choose what state actor wants to do it, but I will bet you, dollars to donuts, it is inconceivable to me that the NSA did not find that capability. And the reason is not because TikTok is bad or good. The reason is all of these apps are rooted. The only difference is that most of these apps are controlled by American citizens, which gives us a control mechanism, and this app is not.
I mean, I think Donald Trump is going to allow TikTok.
Well, he got a $50 million donation from Jeff Yass.
That, and I think he also recognized. Super PAC, 50 million. Yes, and I think the reason he cares is because he knows a lot of his followers are on there. And for whatever reason, they have not chosen to go to X. You know what else is very popular exported from China? Fentanyl. Yeah, and we should probably ban that too.
I mean the fact that it's popular should not be why we are doing that's why I think you're framing What I'm saying is you it's addictive and it's back in the tube and then so you're you're gonna take away a platform That is people widely used on it.
Yeah by Americans It's a week is not week is chosen to go to those other ones and I just don't think we ban things in America I think this is the Chinese Communist Party if you if you actually
They spy on their own citizens.
If you're just think about this for a second. If your business depended on you using TikTok, how would you feel about the TikTok? And you're not well seen.
I have sympathy for them. You guys have to assume that if it is true that the CCP uses the Chinese version of TikTok as a mechanism to surveil their own people, the idea that for an extra few units of resources they wouldn't spy on the most important, powerful nation in the world, to me seems pretty illogical and dumb. They would do it.
And separately, it's not to say that President Trump is using TikTok per se or important people, but it is true that when you have enough people use an app, And those people come into contact with other people. Like, look what happens today. How do you exchange contact information with an iPhone? You touch one another, right? There's an NFC capability to pass code from one to the other.
I mean, I just think it's really naive, guys, for us to not assume that technology is very deterministic. There are so many good things that happen. But there are people that are paid to find every single edge and to push it because the stakes are high. And I just think that this is an assumption that we have to live with.
I'm just very cautious when it comes to bans. That's fair.
That's an ideological thing.
And I generally agree with you. Because, Chamath, where this goes is you're like, well, I don't want to import Korean cars because they've got electronics that are connected to the Internet in every Korean car. Now the Koreans can spy on where we are.
I mean, you can very quickly see how this can open up a floodgate of banning because foreign adversaries could take advantage of us, which is exactly including including. banning chip imports, including banning router imports. You could very quickly make this a whole- It's happened with routers.
It's literally the number one thing we've done with routers in the West because it was too dangerous. Literally already happened with telecom equipment.
We're going to go down a very nasty place.
No, we're going down an intelligent route, which is to not give access to all of the personal information of the sons and daughters of representatives of military experts to the Chinese Communist Party.
There is a reason why Huawei is banned in America. Yes. Security vulnerabilities were found. They don't have our best interests. And all of a sudden you think it stopped there? China gave up and said, okay, let's go watch the dance videos now. It's great. Let the Americans dance.
By the way, it does seem a little crazy to me. Isn't the US revenue after TikTok for ByteDance like 5%?
If it wasn't for the Chinese government, they would have divested it. I think it's a $30 or $40 billion. And they would give up their golden share.
The US is $30 or $40 billion.
Let's move on to the border. Yeah.
Wait, wait, Doge. We're going to do Doge. Okay. Let's do Doge. Okay. Tell us your point of view on Elon Vivant coming in, what they're going to do, what's good about it, what you really don't think is good about it. Do you have concerns? Yeah.
I do think it's funny that a committee about efficiency has two people running it. But I think it just cut itself in half if Vivek's running for governor. So that is their first success, I guess, to cut the size of the committee.
But they've got a lot of people that they've recruited.
No, I got it. As I said, knock yourself out. If you want to make it easier for small businesses to start a business, if you want to save money and fraud.
Federal employees not showing up to the office.
Yeah. Look, my staff shows up and we benefit from people being in the office. We show a lot of flexibility for people who have family issues, kind of on a case by case basis. And people with disabilities have more access to work. But I generally, I see the benefits of having everybody at the office. And we were one of the first offices to come back.
on the Hill during COVID because I saw the benefit of that. And if they can draw a straight line between benefiting our constituents and people being in the office, I'm open minded.
Eric, tell us about how you think this reconciliation bill, the budget, it's going to be a very knockout, drag out kind of a process. We're going to hit the debt ceiling tomorrow. And so you guys are going to be back to work right away. What do you expect?
What I'm going to be asking my constituents, you know, as tax cuts are proposed and regulations, you know, potentially are cut is, you know, what did you get out of this and what have you lost? Because if it's just as I said, it's just kind of a a broligarchy that benefits and you don't benefit. then I won't support it.
But if you can draw the line and say, you know, this business getting this benefit or this corporate tax rate going down means that, you know, you're going to do better and dream bigger, I can be for it. And so that's what I'm going to be looking at.
Do you think generally that governments should generally just have less tax receipts and be forced to spend less to be more ingenious and less over-reliant on overpowering things with money?
Yes. And frankly, a lot of that starts with the Department of Defense. I mean, look at where the cost drivers are in government. But that means you need to have alliances in the world, right? If you're going to reduce what you spend on defense, you better strengthen your partnerships.
Some people on the Republican side, so I think it's a wonderful point. Some people on the Republican side say this is why energy is so important for us, because when we have resource independence, it actually allows us to forge and recast many of our relationships abroad that then create a very different security envelope.
So I chair the Rare Earth Minerals Caucus for this reason. And it probably surprises people that a Bay Area Democrat wants to get the U.S. back into mining. And that's because we're getting our ass kicked by China on this, on not just the mining but the processing and the magnetizing. But we do have allies who have these resources. So we can do it in the United States.
There's a mountain pass where they're doing it with almost 100% recycled water so you don't have the acid pond issue. But you also have countries that you could have these partnerships.
So I helped fund Jim to get that thing off the ground. Yeah, I've been out there. And going.
It's an incredible thing.
But even he will tell you.
Doing these kinds of projects in America today is almost next to impossible and the reason he was able to do it I mean he has support from folks like you which are forward-thinking But the reason was because it had already largely been built right and he said if he had tried to get it permitted Sure, and it's just a question, you know less money for the government less regulation It almost seems like sometimes if the Republicans say yay the Democrats say no and if the Democrats said yay the Republicans would say nay and
But if you ask everybody privately, everybody agrees the government should have less. And to your point, business people should just have more of a wide berth to actually go and work.
And then be held to account, as I said, if the wealth is only concentrated at the top. Right.
So your issue is, guys, just make sure we can point to people at every part of the economic spectra. But that's a very reasonable thing to say, what you're saying.
Well, I hope that's how we govern in this next year. But it doesn't come out that way.
Well, I think this is a key point, that what you lead with and what you talk about and what you make a priority, that will be people's perception of your focus. And the perception that I have as somebody who again has voted Democrat two out of three elections, is that you're focused on and talking about things like DEI, things like having trans kids get surgery, and no parent agrees with this.
Nobody agrees with this. They're banning it around the world. And you guys lead with that. That shows a lack of prioritization that is palatable to the voting populace. What they want is effective leadership.
And when you look at what happened in Southern California, it is the height of arrogance that they're working on things like DEI and saying, this is important when the reservoir is not filled, when they're not clearing brush. And you have to make trade-offs in the world. And you guys don't seem to be able to communicate that. It's incredibly frustrating for me. You can hear it in my voice.
that you can't say, you know what? We care about nature. We care about the trees. But you can't have trees on the floor around homes in a fire zone.
Oh, no, hold on. You said floor. You didn't say ground. So no, I'm going to just not listen to you.
Or we can't get minerals that we're going to be dependent on China for minerals. We need those minerals. We cannot be dependent on foreign adversaries to make important weapon systems, to make important things like electric vehicles. And you guys are concerned about the cranes and trans kids being able to get surgery that nobody wants. That's the problem with the party.
need a better story and i don't stop focusing on those weird things that story with the concerns people have with dei although i would argue now the new dei is don eric and ivanka and people probably won't like that approach to it uh either but that you floating the trot you're trying yeah i'm not sure but okay we need a better story and i look forward to being the first time
I mean, there's a long tradition in these parties of the kids being grifters hunter. Everybody's getting in on it. Um, but let's, let's close on the borders.
Hold on. Before we do that, I just want to ask you about, um, should the United States spend, spend $200 billion to acquire Greenland from Denmark?
I don't give a if he tries to acquire, I just want the cost of eggs to go down. That's what my constituents are promising. Knock yourself out. Go get Greenland.
Mineral rights, security aspects.
Of course, there's benefits there. But I want to know, you said you're going to lower the cost of eggs. Eggs are pretty expensive. How are you going to do that? And if you can tell me that spending $200 billion to get Greenland is going to help lower our costs, great. But I think people want to see costs come down.
I have a question about today. I just want to actually go back in time. today, are there any of President Trump's nominees that really give you agita? And if so, who and why?
And who's inspiring?
Give some credit if there's something inspiring. Who do you like? Give us one that inspires you and give us one that you're like... I think Rubio's going to do a great job as Secretary of State.
I think he's... Has the gravitas and the experience to do it. And I want to see that happen. Kash Patel is the one that I think could destroy the president's agenda.
Can you say more?
Well, what I see, and I may be a little bit biased because the guy wrote a book. He listed 100 enemies. I'm not in that 100. I'm actually in the preamble. He starts it with, of course, Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell are the most dangerous people. Well, you were part of the House Russian investigation.
But I do believe if the president focuses on going after his enemies, he's going to lose the ability to bring order to the border. to get the most violent undocumented immigrants out of the country and make people feel safe in communities where they don't feel safe.
What do you think about Jason's comment? Do you think that we should systematically work through a process to deport 15 million illegals?
I think you should focus on violent offenders. Yeah, no brainer. Serious, sexual, violent. So let's say you get that done in six months.
What do you do after that?
Well, you also need order at the border, right? And I support surging resources to bring that. But 40% of my constituents were born outside the United States. We are the eighth wealthiest district in the country. No thanks to me. I'm not contributing to that wealth. There is a straight line between those immigrants and that wealth.
And so if we can find a way to address shortages in the workforce, in agriculture, hospitality, food and beverage, of course we see it in biotech and tech. I think we can have the best in the world. I'll just leave you with this. A foreign minister in Asia said to me in the past year, he said, Eric, he said, you know, the population of the United States is 3 billion people.
And I looked at him and I said, no, you mean it's like 300 plus million. I thought he misspoke. He said, no. He said, there are 3 billion people in the world who would give up everything to come to the United States. And he said, if you get it right, he said, you can pick the best. That's right.
Absolutely recruitment as opposed to immigration better framework.
Yes, go back. Please you mentioned this the house Russia investigation created a lot of yeah Talking points on both sides that I think are still lingering and in the spirit of sort of putting it to bed Any regrets about that whole process I Was there anything substantive that came out of it ultimately?
Or was it the beginning of this more politically directed kind of action reaction, which is now why people are afraid about what happens?
Russia had a preferred candidate and they did a lot to try and get that guy to win. I think he could have. And I think he may regret that in a lot of his trolling, he made himself look guiltier when he probably could have shown us that the concerns we had weren't there. But I don't I'm not going to dwell on that. I'm not going to.
you know, focus on the fact that he was impeached twice and sent a mob that, you know, could have killed many of the people in the capital with me on January 6th. I'm going to focus on if he wants to bring order to the border, make our community safer and raise wages and lower costs. I'm going to work. What I meant, what I meant. I think that's a great message.
You and Adam work backwards from an outcome. Or do you think you and Adam actually just followed the facts and.
Was a Alameda County prosecutor in the same office Earl Warren, you know worked in and we were trained that it's not about wins and losses It's just about doing justice and I approached it just trying to follow the phone when you were watching some of the other Things that happened post all of this.
Yeah, like what's happening in New York and whatnot What were your thoughts for as a prosecutor on? The legal veracity of some of the things that were going on to to Trump leading into this election
a lot of people around him went to jail and it felt like, well, if Michael Cohen went to jail, like why the is this guy not being held to account? Like Michael Cohen went to jail for being a part of that hush money settlement. So again, just being a blue collar kid who resents people who think that their position entitles them to be better than regular folks.
I just wanted everyone to be treated the same. And so That's the way I was raised. My dad lost his job as a cop when he wouldn't essentially get bribed. He wouldn't allow a bribe from a mayor to influence him. Well, that's amazing. That was my earliest experience. We were in a small town in Iowa, and he was the police chief. The mayor very publicly tried to corrupt him, and he wouldn't do it.
So my earliest... Memory is that he was willing to lose his job to do the right thing, but you're saying something very important Which is everybody should be treated the same.
So correct if no one's one of your kids were charged with a misdemeanor Would you hope that it was just prosecuted as a misdemeanor or do you think that? Folks that may not like Eric Swalwell figure out a way to now make it a felon the former. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, I
As I said, I'm going into this open-minded to what we can do. I'm just saying, into this new year, open-minded, not focused on the past, on what we can do to make the country succeed.
Yeah. And on the border issue, I think that's the one where y'all could maybe get some consensus and some clarity because it really does seem to be creating an underlying tension in the country as to what's going to happen.
And you can't do anything on the workforce issues until the public believes you've secured the border. That's just that's rational or not.
How much of that was why you think Kamala lost was just her not taking ownership of the border?
I just think she was attached to an incumbent party. Incumbent parties worldwide are just getting pounded and there wasn't much that was going to change where this thing was going.
What's happening in California? Give us the grade on Gavin Newsom and Karen Baxter.
Which Republican will be the next governor of California?
Well, they don't have their shit together either, by the way, the Republican Party in California. Look, I was in the Palisades on Monday. I have 10 friends who lost everything. I was with a woman who stood on top of a pile of ashes that was her house looking for any memento for her family. And it's awful. And I'll...
I will also be open minded as to what we could have done to prevent it, to prevent it, why resources that should have been there weren't there. And as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, make sure that we're better prepared next time. And if there is accountability that should have that should come to be part of that. But like there's fires are still burning right now.
And so I don't want to be that mean where it's like, you know, the guy that like last week I was a hostage expert. This week I'm a wildfire expert. That's us. Yeah. Yeah. My job is to look at, you know, what we could have done, who should be held accountable. But with the fire still burning and families, you know, living with friends and relatives right now, I don't want to hop.
I don't want to give this a hot take yet.
Yeah, fair enough. Thank you. All right, everybody. Eric, we really appreciate your candidness.
That was awesome.
Good luck rebuilding the party.
Thank you. Well done.
Thanks. Awesome. Great job, bud. All right. Welcome back to the All In podcast at the inauguration of Donald Trump, our 47th president. And we're really delighted to have friend of the pod, Ro Khanna, back on the program. He is the U.S. representative for California's 17th district, a.k.a. our hometown, Silicon Valley. How are you, Ro?
Honored to be back on. You made it big time, huh? You're now like in D.C., inauguration. Jason's a Republican now. Did you know that? No, I remain a moderate. Jason, I'm holding onto you as the Democrat in Silicon Valley. I'm a moderate.
I've always been a moderate. I like to vote for what I believe is the most qualified person. This time around, I was what they call in your business a double hater. Let's get right into that with the Democratic Party. You guys got shellacked. The candidate who you put up didn't go through a primary, the previous candidate. seem to be in cognitive decline. We can all agree.
And it feels like a bit of a mess in the party. What is going to happen to the Democratic Party going forward? Is there a voice saying this is the plan or is it a little Game of Thrones right now? We're all wondering, where are the Democrats? It feels like you went dark. Is that a strategy to just sort of let Trump have his moment and then come back and be adversarial or state a new platform?
What's going on inside the Democratic Party?
I think crises are times for reform and renewal. And the reality is that this was a huge blow to the establishment of the party. People wanted a more competitive process. They want new voices. They want a new generation of leadership. And now that's going to emerge. And so you're seeing it happening in California with Dan Lurie winning in San Francisco for mayor, Matt Mahan winning in San Jose.
You're seeing new people in Congress emerging, new governors emerging. And so I think that there's going to be a lot of reflection. One of the things I've said is the Democrats need to spend as much time understanding why many Americans voted for Donald Trump as we do criticizing Donald Trump. And I think you're starting to see that happen.
What do you think the new platform will be?
If you had to think of, you know, things to remove from the platform and things to prioritize in the platform, if you were in charge or Dean Phillips, friend of the pot as well, there are some people who feel, you know, there's more important issues than the ones that maybe you've been focused on, that you, the Democratic Party, has been focused on for this last election cycle. So...
Maybe give us two or three ideas of what you would add to the agenda and two or three things that you might say, hey, this isn't a priority for Americans anymore.
I think the whole thing has to be about prioritizing the economy, the economic independence of Americans. How are we going to have economic renewal, economic growth in a stagnant working and middle classes? And then let's argue our different visions.
Donald Trump says that the way he's going to turn around Johnstown and Youngstown and Downriver, Michigan is just with a large tax cuts and deregulation. Our view has gotta be that it has to involve technology leaders, business leaders, but also strategic government investments to be able to build new industry there, to be able to credential new folks there, to be able to build a workforce.
But we have to offer a compelling economic vision. And then an economic vision so people aren't dependent on the denials of private health insurance and so that they have child care. But I think whoever wins the argument that there's going to lead America in the 21st century on the economy and on economic independence is going to win.
You're saying government investment. in building new businesses, building new industries is necessary to achieve that vision. That's a better alternative. What is the historical kind of examples where policies or government was going to go start new investments, start fundamentally supporting new businesses being built that's worked successfully and work better than free markets?
Like the Republican argument is the free market is more efficient. The free market works better. Let capital and capitalists find where the capital is best applied. It'll be more efficiently utilized versus government making the decision about where capital should go. It's typically lower ROI, very often negative ROI, and doesn't actually create sustainable economic growth.
I think it has to be government investment that's market sustainable. But you look at Hamilton, you look at Lincoln, and you look at FDR. That is, in my view, what built America.
Infrastructure.
Well, it's infrastructure, but it's also manufacturing. I mean, I have a bill to build new steel plants in Johnstown, in Ohio. Now, you need the private sector. You need Cleveland Cliffs. You need a private steel company. But if we're going to finance that, the scaling of that, the federal government has to have some role.
And what we ended up having in free market economics is China last week, $1 trillion trade surplus. Now we are at almost a trillion dollar trade deficit. You know the economics well. So that's financed with a capital account surplus. That means all that money is coming into the Wall Street. Wall Street's doing really well.
The finance sector is doing really well, but it's hollowed out our manufacturing base. It's hollowed out our industrial base. That is free market economics gone too far.
That's globalization is what some of the non-Neo-Con Republicans would say is that global trade versus cut off some of the global trade, create a tariff program with China and we'll reignite manufacturing. That's kind of a counter policy argument. But to your point, it's a different point of view that uses different set of data to make the case.
And I'd agree with some of the strategic tariffs. I just don't think that's going to be enough for us to have pill factories here, have the steel factories, aluminum factories to revitalize these areas and to look at what is the investment.
You think we need government programs?
I think we need government partnering with the private sector and on the reg.
So, you know, do you feel and does the party feel that there should be no deregulatory effort in the United States to unleash kind of, you know, economic investment and growth or like this?
This whole point is, you know, it just feels wrong to me to say, like, we don't want the right like shouldn't be a thing that we're always cutting back things, bureaucracy, bureaucratic red tape that we've created to unleash. I mean, even Gavin Newsom is making this claim now in California with respect to the rebuilding.
I think you need effective government. I think execution matters. And I think there's fair criticisms to say that the execution of the Chips and Science Act, which I helped write, or the IRA wasn't enough. I mean, the money didn't get out fast enough. The bureaucracy in permitting was slow. And if there are ways to make government procurement more competitive, That is good.
I mean, why is it that five primes are dominating the defense procurement system? So Michael Bloomberg had a plan, which I think seems pretty reasonable, have 15 percent of Department of Defense spending for startups and innovative technology as opposed to just going for the five primes. That's regulatory reform. But we also have to look at the fundamental, why is Intel not succeeding?
We asked Pat Gelsinger, who was asked to leave in Intel, and I said, was it the permitting reform? And he said, no, it's that the capital expenditures to make Wall Street's numbers was very high and there was no procurement.
Everything's too expensive in this country. By the way, this goes back to nuclear energy. It's too expensive to build a gigawatt of nuclear power in this country. It takes too long. Meanwhile, China can do it for about a tenth of the price, and they're scaling up 300x our rate in terms of new energy production.
And they can do it in half the time.
Half the time, a tenth of the cost, and there's a regulatory path for Gen 4 reactors going up in China versus here.
I'm for nuclear energy. I'm for smart, modular nuclear energy. I'm for looking at how we build nuclear energy here in the United States in a safe way, but in one that I agree that my party has been opposed to largely.
So this is really important because I think what happens is the Republicans or the Democrats will come forward with a general policy statement. We need to dereg to unleash economic prosperity or dereg to unleash nuclear. But the other party then says, well, we've got to figure out a way to attack them on that vector.
And then they take this like diametrically opposed point of view to try and diminish the strength that they're gaining because of their strong policy perspective that may be good for America. And then we end up in this unfortunate circumstance where we can't ever align on the things that really are good for America. That's how I feel as an American looking at how the parties attack each other.
One party says, this is a good thing for America. Why doesn't the other party say, You're absolutely right. We all agree on that. Let's move forward.
Can you give the win on Doge? Like government efficiency seems like consensus.
Well, I've gotten criticized because I put out an innocent tweet and I've said that if Musk and Ramaswamy have a good idea, then I want to look at that. And, you know, Musk disrupted the entire Pentagon with SpaceX. I mean, he worked with Ash Carter to do that. The track record's there. The track record is there.
So if he's going to, and you have all of the progressives like me saying the defense budget is bloated, 56% of spending. We need to figure out how to have more competition. We need to look at the waste that is there. I mean, spending $150,000 on soap dispensers. And so now if Musk is, it really is Boeing, $150,000, 60 minutes, $1,400 for breast pumps. I mean, I think it's outrageous. Yeah.
And so now because Musk is saying, let's look at the Defense Department, you don't want to do it, even though you've been saying to do that for the past five, six years. That's the stuff that drives people crazy. Or I floated, you know, that Bob Iger would be a good person to run next time for mayor of L.A. He's considering it. Did he tell you that when you talked to him?
Yeah, I don't want to talk about what we've talked about privately. I just think he'd be great. But you did ask him. I did ask him. And so now I'm getting attacked for, well, am I for an oligarch? That's literally my Twitter stream. Bob Iger's an oligarch? I said, I want someone who's going to rebuild this place. It would actually be a public service for him.
I want popcorn and lemonade stands on every corner in LA.
$18 for popcorn. FDR was one of the wealthiest people, John F. Kennedy. So I think there's got to be common sense. How do we actually help people? That has to be the metric and willingness to work across the aisle on things.
Yeah, it does seem in the wake of what's happened in Southern California, Pacific Palisades and all the other regions that were impacted that a large number of affluent and voters and people who are active in politics are now saying it's kind of enough. The progressivism went too far left. We need really qualified people in office.
And so what do you think is going to happen in California and what impact do you think these 12,000, 14,000 homes being destroyed? And of course, the 25 people who lost their lives tragically, what impact is that going to have? Is you think that's a turning point in some ways?
I do. I mean, first of all, it's just horrific. And I'm sure you know people who- I have a couple of friends who lost their homes.
They're alive and that's what's important, but they did lose everything.
They lost everything. And I mean, the place is just burned down. It's devastating. And I think it's just a culmination in California of something that's been creeping up, which is governance matters, execution matters, keeping places safe matters, making sure that we're pragmatic matters. And that's why you saw Dan Lori win. That's why you saw Matt Mahan win.
That's why you've seen sort of reasonable people in district attorneys win. I think that's and you're going to see that in L.A. I think you're going to see that in the governor's race. I do think California is saying regardless of your ideology on issues, we need to be able to govern well. So you have the economy.
I think safety is up there for folks. What else do you think is on that short list of things that the party in California could say to the voters in terms of winning them back and letting them understand you're focused on something other than, in their perception, DEI, maybe environmental overreach. I can't believe I'm saying that.
The fact that people don't believe in clearing the forest around homes and they're fighting it on environmental grounds. Well, I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that these wildfires have been occurring for a long time. We have the salt in the science here. We can go into the science of it. And that if you want to live near a forest in a fire zone, you kind of got to clean up
the detritus on the forest floor. It feels like the leadership in California is kind of present company excluded. It's kind of lost the script here, huh?
I think it's reasonable to ask why the brush wasn't cleared outside LA. I got in trouble for asking that. I said, these are legitimate questions. That's not going after people. And I supported Karen Bass in full disclosure against Rich Caruso. I was proud to do it. But if Caruso asked reasonable questions, the whole point of being in governance is you say, OK, the guy had a good point.
You're disappointed in her performance, the fact that she's out of the country.
Going back in time, would you have endorsed Caruso knowing what you know now?
I don't know if I would have endorsed him, but I certainly think it's fair to say that people are disappointed in what's what's happened. And I did. I did endorse someone like Iger or others. I think there's I certainly think there needs to be a new mayor.
Do you think there was any reason for her to be in Ghana?
She says that she went on the president's... The inauguration of the president. The inauguration.
She was in a palace having cocktails.
If there were actual warnings before, I think she would probably say she should have stayed.
Should she even be going to Ghana as the mayor of a city that has no economic interest in Ghana?
On vacation, I suppose. No, look, that's a common thing where the president of both parties ask people, mayors, governors, I haven't been asked this in Congress, to represent them at a foreign inauguration. Oh, is that right? Yeah, that's a common thing. And if there weren't the warnings, I don't think that's a big issue. Or she's going to Paris because LA is hosting the Olympics.
The question is, though, your first priority. And if there were warnings, she should explain why- why she didn't go. And I like her. I think she's a good person. But the question is, what is it going to take going forward?
But the big point about one of the points about what we need to do differently other than the economics is we've got to also go around the country and say, my party is not going to look down on people who we have different cultural or social viewpoints with.
I think there was this sense of condescension and that if you disagree with someone, somehow our party is morally superior and that's got to stop.
And this whole thing about if we disagree, the policy generally is wrong, which is, I think, distinguishing the policy from the party. Do you think California has a chance of electing a Republican governor in 26? Do you think that that chance is now greater than 50 percent after the wildfires?
I still think and I will support most likely the Democrat. I mean, whoever the good Democrat is, there are a lot of good Democrats that can run. But, you know, I mean, Arne Schwarzenegger was a Republican. And can a Republican who is a pro-choice and take some of the social issues off the table be competitive? Yeah, I think the Democratic Party would be naive. to take that for granted.
And we need to have thoughtful, strong people on our side run and run, understanding people care about public safety. They want effective government. They want reform. I mean, people like Matt Mahan, who now have had a couple of years and have been effective, are the type of Democrats I think that can win statewide.
What are your thoughts on TikTok going dark in the last 24 hours here?
It's terrible. I've been vocal. We had 1.3 million people sign a petition. We've never had that in orders of magnitude saying keep TikTok. Because they like the product or they make a living on it? Yeah. First of all, it's the stories about people who make a living. There was one person, a content creator, her husband cheated on her, abusive marriage. She leaves. She's got four kids.
two toddlers, and two kids around five, and she's broke, she's in a hotel, she's staying in her best friend's living room for four months, and then she starts telling her story, and now she's making $60,000, $70,000 as a content creator. I could tell you 50 stories like this of people who are actually relying on this for their livelihood. Some people are using it to make rent.
And then you have the issue of free speech and just being able to express it. Now people say, what about China? Well, why don't you pass a broad, broader law that says any interference by a foreign government in algorithms is going to be illegal and criminal?
Well, India banned these apps.
Yes.
And we're not India. They're pretty savvy, though. These things are an attack vector. You can remotely control these phones. They were caught spying on journalists and they could shape public policy. So and they've had years to divest. Seems to me that the Chinese government sees this as a strategic military asset. Do you disagree with that?
I do. One, I think the United States has a much, much more robust tradition of free speech than in India. And so I think our considerations are different. I also think we have far more capability in making sure that we protect our data and protect any foreign interference in algorithms. Now, President Trump has floated this idea that you have 50 percent U.S. ownership.
My understanding is 60 percent of the investors already are U.S. investors. I will work with him and Mike Waltz, I know very well. We were co-chairs of the India caucus together in Congress. I will work with him in a bipartisan way to figure out how do we have this app operational.
If the Chinese government spies on their own people, why wouldn't they spy on their adversary, the American people?
Well, certainly they would. But the question is, are they can we protect the American people from that happening on this app? We can as long as we have two clear laws, one that the data stays here. By the way, a lot of the data that's going to the China Communist Party is through data brokers. There's no law against that.
So pass a law that all data of Americans, if it goes to the hands of... Which, by the way, there's U.S.
companies that are selling that data. There's U.S. companies that are buying that data. Any third party can access that data if they want to buy it in one of the markets. That stuff exists. It's existed for a very long time.
And the irony of it is, going back to the trade deficit, China has got to... The same week China announces a $1 trillion trade deficit, surplus. They're building more drones than us, more ships than us, more steel than us. We're talking about banning this TikTok app. More electricity.
What about the concept of reciprocity? Would you be in favor of requiring that we have our social networks in China if they want to have theirs here?
I would be in favor of us pushing for our social media networks to be there just because of free speech. But I would not allow the Chinese Communist Party to be controlling any social media app or having any influence, whether it's on TikTok or whether it's on any other app. I don't want to name another app because I don't want to malign other apps' influence.
But pass a law that says it's a criminal offense if an executive in this country is found collaborating or overseeing any app that has any influence in the algorithms by the Chinese Communist Party or if our data goes in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. You could have a law while still keeping TikTok operational.
Yeah, you litigate the outcome. You don't litigate the methods.
I don't trust China as much as you gentlemen do.
Jason, it's not about trusting China. And you keep trying to characterize it as like people being pro-China if they're pro-free speech or they're pro-giving people options. It's not the only platform you can have free speech. You continue to make assumptions about security when there are security issues with a lot of apps and security issues with a lot of phones.
They don't have the same scale as TikTok.
The scale of TikTok is extraordinary. I'll tell you where we got the politics wrong. I mean, so Donald Trump comes in there and he says, you know what? The Chinese took your jobs. They took your steel jobs. They took your auto jobs. And we're going to have tariffs. And by the way, this TikTok thing, pretty popular app for young people. We're going to keep it. What do we do?
We do the exact opposite. We have running ads. We don't want tariffs. So we're telling all these folks in the Midwest that we're opposed to the policies that could save some of their jobs. And then we're telling all these young people that we want to ban TikTok.
And in fairness, they didn't take the jobs we gave
At some point, I think one of the things the Democrats need to do is stop listening to the foreign policy blob and the beltway pundits who've got fancy titles and fancy think tanks. And every time we get these letters, 500 groups, 200 groups, I said, who are these groups? These are 200 groups with 130 people. It's like every person has three groups.
And we're listening to them as opposed to listening to the people.
I just popped up five groups while we're speaking here.
And I think part of what Trump was doing, I mean, and I obviously totally oppose him. I voted for his impeachment twice, but it was sort of like in our world, A-B testing or fast iterations. He put out ideas, he'd get feedback, he iterates it. He may not call it that, but he's just kind of gauging where people are at. Let's talk about one of those ideas.
Americans want the border secure. There's no doubt about that. The statistics just show it. 80% of Americans want it kind of shut down and be orderly and legal, maybe even more. But this idea that we're going to drag 15 million people out of the country No, I'm just quoting Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who one of them worked in the first administration and architected his first win.
And the other one is the most powerful person inside the administration this time. So I'm just quoting people. They say day one, 15 million are going. So do you think that's actually going to happen?
And do you think it should happen? It shouldn't happen. Whether it's actually going to happen or not, I don't know is the answer. Whether they're going to try. What do you think should happen? I think you should have people who are convicted. First of all, we need a secure border. We need to encourage people to come here through the legal process like my parents did or like so many did.
When you say encourage, do you say encourage or require? But to do that, we've got to have reform to make that more possible because right now that's a very hard thing to do. And it wasn't as hard, by the way, when my father came in the 1960s, studied engineering, had a green card within months of graduating. So how do we do that?
But of course, require people to come through the legal process and secure the border. I don't deny that there's been a problem on the border. But and then for those who are criminals here who are convicted, convicted of crimes, fine. Deport, deport people. We all agree on that. Those all seem logical and obvious.
But but in terms of so let me tell you someone in my district without telling your name and you you tell me what what should happen with this person. She's a she's been in the country. She's undocumented. She came to to see me with a group of people. She's a dental hygienist. Her daughter is going to med school. She's undocumented. She's undocumented.
Do you consider yourself to be her representative? She's not a citizen of the United States. She doesn't have a legal right to vote. Are you representing that undocumented non-American person?
I am supposed to represent everyone in the district.
That lives there, regardless of their citizenry.
Citizenship. We don't ask in terms of their citizenship, in terms of just being a representative of the area. No, I won't.
But as a Congress member, you believe that you should represent non-Americans that happen to be domiciled in your region, in your district.
I don't think that I need to represent their political views. But if they're being abused in terms of the process in some way, and they came to us within the law, we would figure out how they got due process.
So you would have empathy and sympathy for the person living in your district, even if they weren't legal, is what you're saying, I think. It's quite reasonable, if I may interpret.
Yeah, I mean, that's a more eloquent way of putting it. But let me just tell you about this person. So her daughter is in med school in Southern California. She drives down once a month and drives back because she can't afford a hotel down there. And the reason she can't afford a hotel is she's being underpaid as a dental hygienist for 20 years. Now, do you really think we need to deport her?
And what is that going to do to her daughter? Or can we find a path? Sounds like a great potential American to me.
Well, the alternative point of view, someone would say, I'll play the devil's advocate here. They would say, but there is another American. Who is qualified to be a dental hygienist, who cannot get a job, who would be getting paid more because they are a citizen and they are legal and documented. This person is undercharging their employer and they are taking a job away from America.
And that's what the counter argument would be from some people.
So there are two things. One, I agree that if someone who is in a position that is undocumented or even on an H-1B and they are being underpaid, that's wrong. That's why we need reform so that people are being paid appropriately and aren't being employers aren't abusing the process to drive down market wages. But the argument that they're taking American jobs misses a central point.
And that is when you have a immigrant as a worker, yes, you're increasing the labor supply. And if you increase supply, that drives down price or wages. But you're also increasing demand because they're spending a lot of money on things.
I've always viewed this to be more of a demand part of the equation for growing the US population is you can actually increase the economic growth. So let's put a number on this.
So clearly, you don't believe these people should be dragged out of the country. Correct. I think we're in agreement on that. Some people are not. Mago 1.0. Do you believe they should be dragged out? It's a long... I don't want to put you on the spot.
No, no, it's not that simple. And I'm really hungover today, so I'm not going to be super articulate about it.
What about that dental hygienist who's been here for 20 years? Would you give her amnesty? I would. Seems like a great American.
Yeah, hard. So obviously being empathetic, I think for me would always be a priority. That person should not lose their job, lose their life. That's a very hard circumstance. At the same time, there are a lot of Americans who feel they are getting underpaid, that they don't have jobs. And there's empathy that I think is part of the alternative side of that equation.
You know, I would you know, let me let me ask this question. Whenever we talk about immigration. We never have a number put on it. And we don't have a point-based system here. So it devolves into this discussion we're having right here, which is, oh, they stole our jobs and wages are down in the face of the lowest unemployment of our lifetime, 4%. And 7, 8 million jobs out there.
There's two jobs for every person who's unemployed if you do that basic math. Now, of course, there's some disparity in people having the skills to take certain jobs and geography. Putting all that aside, We have 340 million Americans. Would an easy situation here be to say we will import people based on the need in the country?
So if we don't have enough people working in health care, we're going to open up. And if unemployment's under 10%, we'll have 3 million people come in a year. We'll have 2 million people come in a year. And just put a number on it. And then have Americans and our representatives debate that number. Why don't you guys do this?
Well, I'd say two things. I think my view of why we have lost jobs and stagnation has been the offshoring of so much of our industry and the hollowing out of towns and communities where we just watched as wealth piled up in districts like ours. Not because people in our district stole the wealth from Youngstown or Down River.
It's just that the wealth was piling up, industry was being offshored, and there was kind of indifference towards it. And if we want real solutions, we need to have economic revitalization instead of blaming the dental hygienist in my district. why, you know, Johnstown or Warren, Ohio are suffering.
The broader point, though, is that we have a number on green cards and legal immigrants around 1.4 million a year. And then we should debate how do we where which categories do you want to increase it? Why and how do you get people out of the status where they're being underpaid?
I do think that's what's hurting is this is whether you're on an H1 and you're there for years and you're being underpaid. or whether you're undocumented and being underpaid, that's hurts the American worker far more than when- That's such an important point.
People don't understand this about the H1Bs is they are transferable, but you have 30 days, which makes essentially, as it was explained to me when I was in the IT business, these are indentured servants and they don't have choice and they have this- threat that they're constantly under.
If you don't do what we say as an employer and you don't accept this salary, you're going to be out of the country. Exactly. And you're going to have to take your family with you. Would an easier solution to be to just charge 10% of the salary into a pool as a tax so people don't abuse it, the salaries go up, have a minimum salary, and give them maybe a year to find another job?
What do you think of that? I think that type of a solution is reasonable and have them be paid well. I mean, this idea that they're being abused, you know, put a floor or have it be prioritized based on the highest wages, because that's a reflective of talent coming in. But, you know, you don't want a situation like now where you're on a H1 for three years, then you get it extended.
because you apply for a green card to six years. And then while your green card application is in process, it keeps getting extended. So these folks are here 10, 12 years and the abuse of it. And my view is, you know, I think the American people are pretty decent and fair. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was 95, 98% white. It was a few Indian American families.
And I grew up with a belief that you could do anything in America. Look at you. And the country trusted me to represent a district with $12 trillion of value of the most economically prosperous place perhaps in the history of humanity. Perhaps. What a meritocracy. Right. And I just think that that is America. And people are upset at the extremes. They're upset at the abuses.
They're upset that there wasn't a process of the border. But deep down, this country has always been one that embraces democracy. immigration and most immigrants tend to be very patriotic.
So when you hear Stephen Miller say, America is for Americans and American only, you think that flies in the face of the spirit of this country?
I'd say, what does he mean by Americans? You know what I want to do? I'd love to have lunch with him, actually. Me too. You know, maybe have him on All In. It'd be great.
You want to join for that?
I'd love to. And, you know, we should all, instead of just reading every tweet, you know, read Lincoln's.
Because I heard he's a guy that if you sit down with him and have a long-form conversation, you get a lot more than what the short-form media bites have been about him. So I'd actually be...
Yeah, no, I would love to have him on because I watched his entire speech, and the way he speaks seems incredibly xenophobic and a bit racist to me.
So what I would ask him about is, without being too pedantic about history, is Lincoln has this speech in 1858 on Independence Day. And the challenge for Lincoln is to say, how is a German-American or a French-American American? Because back then, to be American, you literally had to trace one great-grandparent who fought the Revolutionary War.
How could you be American if no one in your family fought the Revolutionary War? And Lincoln has this brilliant formulation that he says, you're flesh of the flesh, blood of the blood of the founders if you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in the Declaration of Independence. And so I'd say to Stephen, do you still believe that? How are you defining American?
It's okay if you don't too, right? I mean, we can have that discussion in America if we're pulling the ladder up now and we're not a land of immigrants.
But I agree with you. I'm an immigrant. I think the immigrants are the most patriotic. That's why I believe in it. It's because of you, Freeburg. Well, I mean, you should. You've done great things and look what you're going to do for potatoes. Here I am moving here from... South Africa. South Africa when I was six years old and I'm hanging out in Washington, D.C. with a congressman.
And how many jobs have you created? The president and the vice president. I get to meet all these people and hang out with them.
And you've created thousands of jobs and you're going to create billions of extra calories with these amazing Ohana strawberries.
Ohalo is the name of my company. But I appreciate it. I think my company might actually be in your district. You cover Santa Cruz County?
No, that's Jimmy Panetta.
Let me ask you a question. Do you think the United States should spend $200 billion to acquire Greenland from Denmark? Denmark has $150 billion debt. They could build a public pension plan.
What are we trying to solve? First of all, I'm a person that believes that we need to respect the self-determination of other countries. That's what makes us different than Britain. That makes us different than Rome, America.
Even though we intervene in foreign elections and use military force to overturn foreign governments?
Well, nobody's perfect. There you go. There you go. I got to get this guy. He's got my tongue.
You know, if you ever need a hype man or a campaign manager, you got to go. Let's go. When you do your run for governor, there's your guy.
By the way, this show has been brought to you, but not only by Ro, but also Roman. Go to get Roman, Ro. I got to wrap up. You got to go.
No, no, hold on. I want to hear the Greenland answer. Yeah, Greenland.
Yes, no, maybe.
No, but the question is, what interest does Greenland have? They have critical minerals. They have a lot of important resources. And basically, they want to partner economically with us. They're letting us invest. They're letting us develop it. So what do we gain?
So you're saying we could achieve our objectives without it becoming a territory.
What about Puerto Rico? It's the 51st state. By the way, do you really want... Here's my cautionary tale. I think this could be the dispositive argument. Every time Bernie Sanders ran, you know what he talked about? The politics of Denmark. You really want Greenland as your state? No, I know. We're gonna get to Denmark. They call it getting to Denmark.
Greenland is gonna, that's gonna, those two senators are gonna be Democratic senators. We're gonna have two years of paternity.
If you watch some of the interviews that have come out on Twitter from the people that live in Greenland, they're sick of the socialist, you know, kind of overseers. I think they do want to have a different way of governing I don't know, man.
I'm going to have more kids if I get two years of paternity.
It sounds pretty amazing. Yeah, but it is. I mean, look, I don't think that you're necessarily getting that. What about Puerto Rico? It's an important question is like, does the United States need territorial dominion to achieve its strategic objectives?
I'm open-minded. What about Puerto Rico?
Well, there are two. Like, look, every Democrat is like, oh, we want Puerto Rico. Why? Because you're going to get two Democratic senators and congresspeople. But my view is it should be a Puerto Rico self-referendum. If 80, 90 percent want to do it, you'd be down? Yes. If they want to join the United States, because that's a different thing. You know, we basically took that as a territory.
Now let's see what they want to do. I'm all for it. Let's go straight to 60 states.
Are you running for governor of California?
No, are you? Why not? You've done such a great job. Well, I've thought about it, Jason. No, not you, Roe. Talk to your family. I love being in Congress. I love representing Silicon Valley. And I have been focused on how do we get innovation, technology, partnering with communities to have economic revitalization. If you were asked, would you consider?
But didn't I see a rumor this week that someone said something that you were?
Am I wrong? I think someone may have floated a rumor.
If asked by your party and the citizens of California, would you consider? Would you consider it?
That's just a consider. I'd consider anything. Okay, great. There you go. All right, he'd consider it. Your campaign manager might... I mean, he's good. He's got his moments.
I'll give him that, bro. That's a wrap.
That's a wrap from the 47th inauguration of the United States, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.