All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Senator Ted Cruz | The All-In Inauguration Series
Sun, 19 Jan 2025
(0:00) Besties intro Senator Ted Cruz; history of the "Come and take it" flag (2:21) Texas vs. California: how to approach building and entrepreneurship (10:25) Thoughts on immigration, serving in the Senate, over-politicization (16:55) How to create a bipartisan consensus on immigration, increasing prosperity through opportunity (23:54) How Sen. Cruz would approach Trump's first two weeks of his second term (29:02) DOGE's two major challenges, unlimited Congressional terms, ideology over party, the great political flip (35:22) Trump's strategy on Greenland/Denmark, Panama Canal, and Canada (42:45) Thoughts on Senate confirmation hearings Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Senator Cruz: https://x.com/tedcruz 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
Hey everybody, welcome back to the All In Podcast. We're here at the inauguration of our 47th president, Donald J. Trump, and we have a very special guest joining us on our coverage, Senator Ted Cruz from the great state, now my great state, of Texas. Welcome to the All In Podcast.
And welcome to Texas.
Pretty great. Where'd you get the boots? Any chance I can get a recommendation here?
That's easy. These are Lucchese. Lucchese, the factory is in El Paso. They're handmade there. They're beautiful.
Okay.
And these particular boots, the front of them have the Senate seal on them. Oh, that's cool.
That's strong.
And the back of them have the come and take it flag. Whoa. Which, I don't know, do you know the history of the Come and Take It flag? I was about to ask you. Okay, since you're a new Texan, this is important. And he started saying y'all, so he's adapting, but he needs to learn.
Y'all got to stop giving me a hard time about that.
All right, so Texas in the 1820s and 1830s, we were part of Mexico. And the dictator of Mexico was General Santa Ana. And there's a little town in south Texas called the town of Gonzales. And General Ana sent an order to the Texians, which is what we were called back then, Texians, to hand over their guns and there was a cannon that guarded the city.
And General Santa Anna said, hand over the cannon. And the Texians responded by making a flag with an image of the cannon and underneath it the legend, come and take it. And they flew it over the town and that was the beginning of the Texas Revolution. Now the epilogue is Santa Anna came in with about 6,000 soldiers and he did in fact take the cannon. I mean, Gonzales was a tiny little town.
And the Texas Revolution was very much like the American Revolution. We lost every damn battle. The Alamo was a slaughter. Goliad was a slaughter, much like Washington, where every battle he lost and lost and lost. And then at San Jacinto, we won, defeated Santa Ana, General Sam Houston. And we became our own nation, the Republic of Texas, from 1836 to 1845.
Says something about resiliency, doesn't it?
It does.
Let me ask you a question. Having lived in New York and grown up there, and then done 20 years in California now, my second year in Texas, or starting my second year, it's amazing to me that you're allowed to build things in Texas, like homes or factories, and the price of homes has gone down two years in a row. And then the other two places I live, the price of homes go up every year, 10%, 20%.
And then you don't have state taxes. How is all this possible when you look at it just from first principles? How are you able to accomplish so much development in Texas when in California the nimbyism, like literally if you want to build a cancer ward for children, they'll stop you because it throws shade on a protected species of flower.
So California used to know the answer to this. 50 years ago, California was the economic engine of the country.
and unfortunately you're cursed by idiot politicians who were destroying this this mighty economic engine you know none of this is rocket science in in texas we believe in freedom we believe in low taxes and low regulations and and to understand the state texas was basically founded by a bunch of wildcatters who were guys with fourth grade educations that began drilling holes in the ground and one after the other became the richest man on earth yeah
And the ethos of Texas, you know, it was interesting. A number of years ago, I was visiting with a CEO and an executive team of a company that had moved from California to Texas. And they didn't have any Texas ties, but they were just fed up with California. They moved to Texas. And so I was asking them, they'd only been in Texas for a couple of months.
I said, all right, what's the biggest difference? And I thought maybe they'd say taxes or maybe regulations or maybe lawsuits. Those were the three things I was gonna guess. Their answer blew me away. They said, the biggest difference is the culture. And what they said is, in California, if you're in business, you're a pariah.
They said, look, there's an exception for tech and an exception for Hollywood. I need more. Well, that was their view. But they were not in tech or Hollywood. They were in sanitation, which was not a sexy business. And the way they described it, they said, if you're at a party and someone asks, what do you do? And you say, I'm a businessman. They said, people will turn around and walk away.
And I gotta say, as a Texan, that is weird. I mean, we lionize entrepreneurs.
But California was a pioneering state, the gold rush. What happened? Because it's always easy to blame idiot politicians, but in a democracy... Those politicians are elected by the voters.
So where did the voters go that caused this change in that state compared to where the voters went in Texas when they both came from, and all of America, all of the United States, all the states of the Republic came from a pioneering origin?
Well, there is a cause and effect. And you go back to 1987, and 1987 is when Ronald Reagan signed amnesty into place. And at the time, there were 3 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. And Congress went to the American people and said, all right, we got a deal for you. We're going to secure the border. We're going to fix the problem of illegal immigration forever.
And in exchange, we're going to give amnesty to the 3 million people who are here illegally now. And in 87, the American people said, OK, that sounds like a reasonable deal. They took the deal. Now we now know what happened, which is the amnesty happened, but the border never got secured. What did that mean for California? The highest concentration of illegal immigrants was in California in 1988.
California voted Republican in the presidential race as it had for six consecutive years, six consecutive cycles previously. 1988 was the last year California ever went Republican.
Well, to Schwarzenegger.
For president.
Oh, for president.
In the presidential race. And so I think the amnesty law played a significant part, the federal law changing the voting composition of the state.
Yeah.
And then, and look, you guys would know the state politics more, but it also seemed to me that you have the public employee unions in California that realize that they could vote themselves more and more of the largesse. The ultimate failure of democracy.
So Jason brought up a really important question to kick this off. I just want to give you a chance to maybe expand on it, which is, There are so many examples. Texas is one. You can look abroad. The UAE as an example is another where there's a high degree of quality of infrastructure and civility, social services, education, security, but you don't have the traditional taxation.
And so how is Texas able to actually keep the wheels on And states like California, which has a $322 billion budget, is just completely falling apart. What happens? Because you then see everything at the federal level, but when you go back to your state, you see, hey, we don't have. And your real estate taxes aren't that much higher, are they, than California?
The real estate taxes are a little bit higher, but we have no income tax. So it more than makes up for it. Two percent, one and a half. That's the principal avenue of taxation. You've got real estate taxes and sales taxes are where the state and local governments get their taxes. But no income tax. Look, some of it is government does less.
I mean, there's a philosophy that government doesn't have to spend and provide everything. Government does police and firefighters and roads and does the basic responsibilities of government. But it's not engaged in funding every pet project of every politician. That's part of it. You look at across the country, it is not a complicated migration pattern.
People are fleeing bright blue states with high taxes and high regulations. And they're coming to red states with low taxes and low regulations.
And it's safety.
So we've had, it has now been more than a decade that we have had over a thousand people a day moving to Texas. So when I was first elected 13 years ago, we had 26 million Texans. Today we have over 31 million Texans. So we've added 5 million Texans in 13 years. And the biggest state folks come from is California. It's interesting, the migration pattern, you get a lot of California to Texas.
New Yorkers tend to go to Florida more. We get some New Yorkers, but for whatever reason, West Coast folks seem to prefer Texas and East Coast folks seem to prefer Florida. But I actually think the competition in terms of where we lose people to, we lose people either to Florida or Tennessee. Those are about the only two places if someone's thinking of leaving. And I love that competition.
I want Florida and Tennessee to be out fighting and saying, we can create an even better environment for small businesses and jobs. And part of it is The number one reason people come to Texas is Texas is where the jobs are. And you want an environment where you have small businesses that are doing great, but people also want to be safe.
And so you look at things like defunding the police or Soros prosecutors that let murderers go. And that gives people a pretty acute incentive to get the heck out.
We were involved in the recall of Chesa Boudin, our podcast, and David Sachs, our compatriot who couldn't make it. He's busy working with you guys here. But yeah, this crime issue seems... People have seemed to have lost the script on... who the state is working for, the taxpayers or the criminals.
And in Texas, it's just extraordinary that you've figured out that you could prioritize the people not committing crime and not cater to the people committing crime. I mean, I'm saying this in the most facetious way possible, but it's just common sense. And I think it feels to me like Californians have had enough and it's just going to take a decade or two to unwind it.
But let's double click on immigration since the great state of Texas has to deal with this more than anybody. But this is a land of immigrants. We are all immigrants on this land. And so that's our tradition. In fact, you're sitting next to two extraordinary immigrants, my besties Chamath and Freeburg. What do you believe at this point in time? Is America for the Americans who are here?
Or do you believe we should be getting the best and brightest to come to this country?
Look, absolutely both. I have for a long time described my immigration views in four words. Legal, good, illegal, bad. Okay. I think most Americans, most Texans agree with that.
And most immigrants.
Look, there's a right way to come to this country. There's the way you came to this country. There's the way my dad came to this country. My dad was born in Cuba. He grew up in Cuba. He fought in the Cuban Revolution. When he was a teenager, he fought, was thrown in prison. He was tortured when he was 17 years old. And he came to Texas in 1957. He was 18, couldn't speak English.
had a hundred dollars in his underwear, and he washed dishes making fifty cents an hour. But he came legally because he had applied to the University of Texas, he'd gotten in, he came on a student visa.
and he was an 18-year-old freshman and he started going to school here and he came legally and he worked and got a job and went on in time to start a small business and worked towards the American dream.
Was he able to see your success? Is he still with us?
He is. My dad is 85.
Oh my God, what a dream for him.
He is my hero. He's an incredible, I will say, when you have lost freedom, it's personal to you. People ask sometimes, why do you do politics? And I grew up as a kid, I would sit on the floor, along with my cousin Bibi, with my dad and Bibi's mom, my tia Sonia. And she also, she was also imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. And we would sit and listen to them tell stories.
And all I ever wanted to do from when I was three, four, five years old was be a freedom fighter. I mean, it was, it's inspiring because what they said and still say, and they're both still going strong, is look, if The only thing that prevents us from tyranny is having good people in office who will fight for our freedoms.
And so I gotta tell you today, I literally jump out of bed every day because I look at the US Senate and I think it is basically the Roman Colosseum. and you strap on some armor and you grab a battleaxe and you go fight the barbarians. And that's an amazing opportunity. I feel blessed and fortunate every day.
You are in the arena. Do you think it's become... We were talking with Ro Khanna, congressman from California. earlier today, and we talked about how there might be good policy put forth by one of the two parties, but the other party's intention is always to get more seats, get more attention, get more votes, and hurt the other party, so we end up having conflict over policy.
Do you feel like there's too much of that in D.C.? And a lot of people talk about the, you know, everything has become too politicized as opposed to, you know, I always think about the show, I love the show The West Wing, and he always talks about the great debate, you know, like we never have the great debate anymore. We don't talk about the fundamental, you know, policy decisions.
We talk about the Republicans said this and so and so, and it gets personal and it gets political, as opposed to like, let's all take our hats off and talk about what's the right thing for the country. Doge being a great example, in my opinion, but I'd love to hear your point of view on how things operate in D.C. today.
Listen, I agree with your point at the outset, which is that we need to talk to each other. I worry that we are too polarized and tribalized, that the left only listens to left-wing media, the right listens to right-wing media. Anyone who disagrees, you scream at them. The sense of community that we used to have has been badly badly unraveled, you know, on social media.
If someone disagrees with you, you unfriend them. And we're all in this little echo chamber.
But we're all patriots is the sad part. All Americans. All Americans.
But we're living in alternate realities. And so look, what y'all are doing is really important. I'm grateful for this podcast. We got to talk to each other. I do a podcast every week called Verdict with Ted Cruz. We've got about a million unique listeners that listen to the Verdict podcast. And we do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every week, my podcast is beating CNN.
Yeah, it's incredible.
And I think the reason is the same reason people listen to you guys, because you're actually talking about issues and you're not just screaming at each other. It's not Jerry Springer, go grab a chair and fling it at somebody, but it's have a real and substantive conversation. And I'll tell you one of the things that I've done and enjoyed is I've taken the podcast on the road to college campuses.
What has that been like?
Well, for example, we did one at Yale a couple years ago and had about 700 students come out, and I didn't know how the reaction would be. And interestingly enough, about a third of the students were left of center. And I know that because it was right after Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed. And I made a reference to that. And about a third of the room began cheering.
And I stopped and I said, hey, look, the fact that you're cheering at that shows that obviously we're coming from different places on the political spectrum. I said, I want to thank you especially for coming here. Because you may not agree with me on everything or even most things. But thank you for coming and being part of a conversation. And so we did about 90 minutes of all Q&A.
And we had a rule. We said, if you have a hostile question, if you have an antagonistic question, come to the front of the line. And we spent 90 minutes having a real conversation. Afterwards, I went out with an Orthodox rabbi on campus and we got a drink and he said, he said, Ted, you know, I've been working on Yale's campus. for decades.
He said, this is the biggest group of students I've seen have a positive, civil, constructive conversation on conservative ideas, he said, in 20 years.
There's something about the podcast format where you're taking a little bit of time. You're not rushed in six or seven minutes like you are on the weekly shows where I see you all the time. And that's sparring. And you're just trying to get a message out in three minutes, five minutes.
But here, you can open it up, maybe listen to each other, invite guests in with different opinions, learn something. Specifically with the immigration issue, which seems to be the one that's tearing us apart a whole bunch, there's so much consensus. Hey, we want the border closed, we want it legal, but we also want to bring in a certain number of people and we want a system.
I did my research on this and places that have consensus like Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, they seem to understand that you need to match
immigration to the reality of unemployment and which jobs you need but the one criticism i have of politicians which i think you're one of um sadly guilty as charged yeah is you you all don't talk about it in numbers we need this many nurses we need this many doctors we need this many construction people we have four percent unemployment record great job to our politicians and helping that out
you know, we can bring in 2 million people this year. Hey, if it goes up to 5%, we're gonna bring in 1.5. I wish that the discussion could be more granular and with numbers, and you guys could actually say, it's not 500, it's 450.
Because if we were in a business decision here, and we do business together, and we say, hey, we have to deploy these resources to get this outcome, but it's so contentious and polarized and not fact and number based. Why is that on this issue that you guys can't just put some numbers on paper?
So, well, look, there are a lot of numbers that matter intensely. Let's start at one where you talked about low unemployment. As you know, that number can be deceptive because we also have among the lowest labor force participation we've ever had.
62% right now?
And so there are millions that have just dropped out of the labor force altogether. They're not measured in top-line unemployment, but it's still a real challenge. We have healthy young adults who should be working who are not working.
Why aren't they, in your mind? Is it because they have the resources to not do that?
Look, I think it varies state by state, but I think when you have a welfare state where you get paid for not working, people end up not working. And the statistics are really crushing that if anyone doesn't work for a year, the odds of their going back to the workforce drop precipitously. That once someone gets the habit of dependency, I've said a bunch of times,
You know, I try to think of every policy from the perspective of easing the means of ascent up the economic ladder. And I think about, you know, my dad when he was a teenage kid in Austin washing dishes. Thank God some well-meaning liberal didn't come to him and say, Raphael, let me take care of you.
Right, totally.
Just stay home. Let me send you a government check. Don't work so hard. And it's utterly destructive. It breaks your self-respect, your individual responsibility.
But it comes from an empathetic place, Senator. And I know this in kind of a liberal setting. You see people in need. You want to help them. And you use government as a tool to help people in need. And the fundamental issue is that in many cases that creates an incentive model that makes it very difficult for that solution, for that situation to find a solution on its own, a market solution.
And over time it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and you have cascading effects that I believe we're now realizing in this country with what I estimate is somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of people that are employed in this country employed by government or government service providers.
And you're right that much of it is not from ill will. But we do need to have a real conversation about what works to lift people into prosperity. And by the way, all of us know this in our own life. If you're a kid, let's say you have a kindergartner who's struggling with math. there's not a one of us who would do our kids' math homework. We know that's not helping them.
That if your daughter doesn't learn to do arithmetic, it's gonna hurt her for the rest of her life. So you've gotta work through that problem with her, even if it'd be easier for you just to finish it for her. We know that in our lives. The old adage of give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
We know that with people we love, but yet when it comes to public policy, You have a lot of people who don't think about it more broadly. I'll say back in 2017, I did three different CNN town hall debates with Bernie Sanders. And listen, I like Bernie because he is an unapologetic socialist and I'm an unapologetic capitalist.
And we had 90-minute town hall debates on which system was better for maximizing human prosperity and abundance. And we didn't insult each other. Neither of us called each other a son of a bitch. We talked about the facts. And I'll point out something. Let's take socialized medicine. It's interesting. The advocates of socialized medicine, when I pointed out,
all of the problems socialized medicine produces in every country in which it's been implemented, the United Kingdom, Canada. Bernie's answer was, well, it wouldn't be that way here. So the reality would not be here. Every year, about 50,000 Canadians come to America on what they call medical tourism because they can't get the medical care they need in Canada.
And I will suggest to you a question, particularly for those of y'all that are Californians, that I love asking advocates of socialized medicine. Why doesn't California adopt it? You've got a Democrat governor. You've got a Democrat supermajority legislature. There's no constitutional impediment. California could adopt socialized medicine today.
It's not the mean old Republicans that are stopping them. And as you know, the legislature looked at it and realized it would bankrupt them. By the way, Vermont, Bernie's home state, they could adopt it. And the reason you don't see California or New York or Illinois or Vermont or any blue state in America adopt socialized medicine. It wouldn't work.
It wouldn't work and people would flee their state. And so their answer is, we want to do it to everyone in the entire country so you can't flee. Unless you're willing to leave America, you're stuck.
And I think what's challenging, Senator, is that then you have compromises that get you to a point where the federal government has a big enough role in health care. My opinion is much of the inflation in health care costs arises from the federal government's role in the same way that the federal government has a role in student loans that has driven up the cost of education.
And the federal government has a role in providing loans for housing, has also driven up the cost of housing. Education. Education across the board. It's a story. But the empathetic solution is we need to provide access to those who can't get it. And then at the end of the day, it inflates the cost of all of those services. And ultimately, the quality of the services erodes.
And I'll give you the anecdote real quick. My brother lives in England. They just had a child, he and his partner. And they went to the delivery room, and they couldn't get a bed. She was in labor. They could not get a bed to have the baby. I think it took them 36 to 72 hours to actually get into a bed while she was in labor. It was the most insane. He's calling me. He can't get a bed.
I'm like, you're living in the frigging UK. This is supposed to be one of the wealthiest nations on earth. That's the outcome of socialized medicine. And along the way, you get the inflationary effects that we're dealing with in the United States today. I'm with you on that.
You're the quarterback. Quarterback the next two weeks of the Trump administration.
Well, on Monday we're going to see a flurry of executive orders. I think it'll be in the neighborhood of 100 executive orders. I'm optimistic about them. That's the number they're talking about. It's going to be in that neighborhood. Shock and awe. And I actually, I'm pretty happy about that. Now look, will I agree with all 100? I don't know.
My guess is I'll agree with the vast majority of them, but I don't know everything that's in there, so we'll see.
And in some ways, it'll just make it almost impossible for the Democrats to react, because where do you focus?
Yes, and Chamath, that's actually a point. You know, I think back to, so my wife Heidi and I met on the 2000 George W. Bush campaign. And so we both served as young people in the Bush administration. And I think there is a quantum of outrage, and I call it the arsenic quantum of outrage. If you remember the beginning of Bush 43, One of the first things he did is his EPA revoked a rule on arsenic.
And for like six weeks, the media saturated the airwaves with the evil Republicans want to poison our children with arsenic. And I mean, it was it dominated forever and they beat the living daylights out of him for it. Now, look, Monday, when you get 100 executive orders, I think that's how much outrage there is. And that arsenic quantum of outrage will be directed at everything smeared.
Which makes it very hard for them to oppose anything coherently and directly and gives an opportunity, I hope, for this administration. What I'd like to see is really delivering on the mandate of this election. The outcomes in November were clear.
Let's ask that. If you had to distill, what are your specific takeaways as the mandate in priority?
So number one, secure the border. And I believe that'll start on January 20th. And it will start by ending catch and release so that when people are apprehended, they are detained and they're sent back to where they came from. I think that will be followed up by going and arresting criminal illegal aliens, going and arresting murderers and rapists and child molesters and gang bangers.
I think all of that will roll out very, very fast. I think there is also a mandate to end the federal government's war on energy, on Texas oil and gas. And that will lower prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store, every bill people are paying. And I think if you look at the top two issues in this election, it was illegal immigration and safety, and it was inflation and the economy.
I think we will also see a lessening of the job killing regulations on small businesses, a return to thriving, booming economic growth. What would those be? Look, there are a host of them. Energy is the easy example where the Biden administration's put in over 90 different regulations and executive orders, all designed to drive up the cost of energy.
Right. So the input gets higher and everybody suffers. Got it.
And so I expect pretty much all of those to be reversed.
Hydrocarbon. And then subsidies for, quote, green energy.
Look, I think on energy, we ought to pursue all of the above. Beyond that, I think there is also a mandate on the economic side. The 2017 Trump tax cuts are expiring this year. We're going to extend them. My hope is we make them bigger and bolder. That's going to take some time. We'll do that through what's called the reconciliation process. And then on foreign policy.
I think under Biden, we have abandoned and alienated our friends and we've shown weakness and appeasement to our enemies. I think that will stop. on Monday as well.
Senator, you just said five things, but what you didn't say was doge. So cutting taxes, there's an inflation problem. There's no way you're cutting taxes and not cutting government spending and not tampering inflation down. Don't we have to cut federal spending? How important is doge? How real is it? Is it a marketing gimmick from your point of view? How much can actually be done?
Is it a real, you know, is this kind of require legislative authority and it's going to be a longer form process or is there going to be a lot of very quick action?
And I'm happy to answer that directly. Let me just say one thing you just said there with respect is incorrect.
Yes.
You said there's no way we're cutting taxes and not cutting spending and having inflation stay down. And I just say that's objectively false because that's exactly what happened in the first Trump term. which is the 2017 tax cuts. CBO had these apocalyptic projections.
You're saying tax revenue went up as the economy grew.
Tax revenue went up every single year. After we cut the taxes, the revenue from the federal government went up. So we cut taxes. Sadly, we did not cut spending. I tried mightily to cut spending, but we did not have the votes to do it, and inflation still stayed down. So if the economy is booming, you can turn things around.
Look, Doge- But is there a deficit mandate?
So I am excited about Doge. Elon is a good friend. I admire the hell out of him. I'm thrilled that he's a Texan. You know, I've joked with Elon that he doesn't just think outside the box. He doesn't know there is a damn box. That's a great thing. Now, Elon calls me periodically going, all right, what the hell is this government thing? How does this work this way?
And I'm trying to give whatever guidance I can on that. But I think how you deal with a disruptor in government is going to be an interesting challenge. Vivek is very smart, very creative. I will say a couple of challenges. Right now, look, I'm excited about Doge. I want to see some big, bold, creative ideas. I'm going to give you two warning signs. Number one, the phrase waste, fraud, and abuse.
Anytime someone talks about waste, fraud, and abuse, they don't really want to cut government spending. You know why? Because there is no waste, fraud, and abuse caucus. There's no one that says, I'm for the waste. So it's the easy place to go. We'll cut the waste.
If you actually cut real government spending, there is always, always, always a constituency who's pissed off, who likes the thing they're getting.
Totally.
And so you have lots of politicians that are going to lose. They're going to lose their votes. Right. Somebody will be mad. That's right. And so that is a challenge. I will say, secondly, at least in the first term, Donald Trump did not campaign as a small government conservative and he did not govern as a small government conservative. And in fact, I will relay a story.
At the end of the first term, you remember we're in COVID and the government is in the business of sending out checks and more checks and more checks to people all over the country. And Trump wanted the checks to be even bigger. And a lot of the folks in the White House, they asked me, they said, Ted, can you go try to talk him down from this lunch?
Yeah, that's a tough job.
So I went on Air Force One, and I'm sitting there with the president. I'm trying to make the case that we don't need these gigantic stimulus checks. And he goes, Ted, and I get the back of the hand. He goes, Ted, no one ever lost an election by spending too much money. I said, yeah, but they did bankrupt the country. So I did not succeed then.
Well, you know what you should have done? You should have asked him to keep the same number, but just make the check larger and the signature bigger.
That's a good idea. Look, I'll go with it. He likes big.
Are you a small government conservative? Very much so. And if no one was going to be able to run for re-election, What percent of Congress do you think would support a massive reduction in government agencies? How much of this really is driven by this kind of I got to get reelected?
So look, it's a good question.
Versus what my principals tell me.
Yeah, listen, I am also a passionate advocate of term limits. So I have introduced in every Congress a constitutional amendment that would limit senators to two terms, limit House members to three terms. I think term limits would change that dynamic in a very significant way. Right. and the career politicians in both parties oppose it.
Look, on any big spending bill, you unfortunately have a bipartisan coalition in favor of spending. You have essentially all the Democrats and about half the Republicans. There are about 20 of us who will vote against a trillion dollar spending. And we are frequently begging our colleagues.
And to be honest, I don't think we will ever see real spending restraint without strong presidential leadership, which means it will never come from a Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. And look, if Elon and Vivek convinced President Trump that he's going to lean in aggressively on cutting spending, great. But that hadn't happened so far.
What would it take for the voters to eventually get there? Because it would require the voters backing a candidate with that message. And it seems like no one sees that because what everyone sees is I want to get X. And the only way I get X is if I get the government to do X for me.
Yeah, look, it varies. It takes electing strong leaders. So I engage, elections matter, and I engage, so I think I've probably campaigned for more candidates for Senate, House, and governorship than any Republican in the country. I mean, I travel all over the country, I endorse candidates, and I follow the old Bill Buckley rule, which is I support the most conservative candidate who can win.
Yeah.
And that varies. Look, a candidate who can win in Texas is different than a candidate who can win in Maine.
Yeah. Right.
But I can say the problem is you get, I can tell you in Texas, I mean, when I ran, 2012, I ran for Senate. I'd never been elected before. Never been elected to nothing. Literally the last thing I was elected to was student council. By the way, Chamath, you may not remember this. You actually wrote me a check in that race.
I was going to tell that story. We looked it up. We were together in Utah. Peter Thiel had an event. He does his thing. And we had a breakfast. And Ted was surrounded by sort of
a handful of us were speaking to him and then what I would say is like every traditional Democrat from Central Castle and He went through the firing squad and he came out the other side and I thought wow, this is really great And so then I was I was very happy to donate.
Well, I would I was you were a damn donor back then I was a damn donor but I would but see here's the thing like and I think what you're getting what I think what the senator speaks to which is what I agree with is I ideology matters. And so when you make decisions about how you think the country should run, you should stay loyal to that.
And I think what happens instead is people stay loyal to a party. And it's the minute you do that that the whole thing breaks. And this is what's broken. And I think what the great thing that Donald Trump did was he basically conducted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Undoubtedly. Yeah, and then the Democrats committed seppuku. And that's the most important thing that happens.
I mean, all parties are reset. You don't have to go and kick the Koch's ring. What will they say? What will all this infrastructure say? What does Soros say? All of that is done. The whole thing's flipped over.
Hey, Senator, that's very powerful. You had an anecdote for me two nights ago. I don't know if you're willing to share it, about a conversation regarding Denmark and Greenland. Do you want to tell us what you think happens here?
Look, my view on Denmark and Greenland, so I did a podcast two weeks ago on Denmark, Greenland, and Canada. And I did all three of them on my Verdict podcast. And I put them in a spectrum. Let's start with Canada. I think the President's Canada remarks were just trolling. I think he was just screwing with Trudeau.
I think he was sitting at the table and decided, you know, why are you even a country? You ought to be a state. You should be a governor.
It's a lot that I send J-Cal texts like that all the time.
I love it. You know, I would have paid, frankly, to be sitting at that table just to see Trudeau's face.
In fact.
Look, it was reminiscent, if you remember the 2016 campaign on the debate stage, where Trump turned Rand Paul was at the end. And he's like, why are you even on this stage? And what is it with your hair? I mean, it was the same sort of comment that was just messing with him.
I put that in one, and by the way, that may be the most epic troll of all time, because I think that literally pushed Trudeau into resigning. Crazy, huh?
I mean, it's a fairly... Why would he do that? Go to Mar-a-Lago? I mean, such a stupid thing to do. He just should have been like, yeah, we're our own sovereign country, thanks.
Well, he was already, I think... He likes to go with the trend, so that was the trend. Yeah, that's what happens when you're a weatherman.
I will say, I couldn't resist tweeting and said, you know, Trudeau's lasted really long for a son of Fidel Castro. Oh, wait, wait.
It's close to home. No, no, no. Keep telling us about... All right, okay.
So Canada's a troll.
Yeah, Denmark-Greenland.
Greenland, on the other hand, I think is a very serious policy proposal. And I think there are... You know, Trump mentioned this in the first term, and a lot of people dismissed it. Oh, this is just Trump talking wacky.
Yeah.
But I think there are enormous national security and economic reasons why acquiring Greenland makes a ton of sense. Yeah. And you look at Greenland's location on the Arctic, it has incredibly prime location on the Arctic. From a national security perspective, God forbid we ever get in a shooting war with China or with Russia, ICBMs are coming right over the Arctic.
And Greenland is a prime location to deal with that. We're also seeing more shipping lanes coming in and around the Arctic. And China and Russia are both competing for prized access there. Greenland makes an enormous sense from that perspective. It also makes an enormous perspective from critical minerals and rare earth minerals. They have vast amounts.
And so what I said is, look, I think we should pursue this seriously. I'll tell you, I had a conversation this week with the Danish ambassador to the United States. And look, Denmark's a little freaked out by all this conversation. And I'll tell you what I told the ambassador. I said, listen, Denmark is our friend. You are our ally. You will continue to be our friend and ally.
But friends and allies can have conversations. And the ambassador said, well, Greenland's not for sale. I said, that's fine. Everything's for sale. We're going to have a conversation. And by the way, if you maintain that, one of the things this has produced is a growing independence movement in Greenland.
And if you do nothing, you may end up getting nothing for Greenland because they break off on their own. Now, look, for it to happen, I think you would probably have to have a referendum on Greenland. I find it quite plausible that the Greenlanders, about 50,000 of them, would say, wait a second, I get to be an American? Their poll just showed positive results.
They just did a survey there.
I mean, to become an American is in many ways the greatest gift we can give anyone on planet Earth.
Totally.
And the billions in investment, if Greenland became an American territory, the difference it would make for Greenlanders.
Well, Senator, we could pay $200 billion for the territory of Denmark. Their federal debt or their national debt is about $150 billion. They'd have a $50 billion surplus. They could build a pension plan around it.
He wanted back.
You could spend another $10 billion to put everyone in a great situation for the rest of their life that's a resident of Greenland, and that becomes an American territory.
This could be like a whole new philosophy for us. I think we just go right to 60 states.
Let's just make an open offer. And sorry, how does the president and the administration, how are they going to tackle this? Do you have any insights into what's going to happen here?
So look, Ken Howery, you guys know, I know, is a good friend who has been nominated to be ambassador to Denmark. I've talked with Ken just yesterday about this. I think we need to lean in and try to negotiate, both with Denmark and Greenland. I'm certainly from the Senate going to push it. But I wanted to contrast it. Is Canada going to become a state? No.
But Greenland, listen, we acquired Louisiana purchase. We purchased from France. Alaska, we purchased from Russia.
I mean, there's a long history of this. Puerto Rico next. Let's go. If they want to come on board, why not? Well, it's an American territory. It's not a state.
And so Panama, I view as kind of in the middle of the two. And Panama is a little more complicated. Look, I think Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal remains one of the most spectacularly stupid decisions a president has ever done in office. I think it was profoundly harmful to U.S. national security interests, to our economic interests.
Yep.
That being said, it's been long enough that unwinding it is really tough. However, President Trump, if you listen to what he's saying on Panama, he's got actually some very sophisticated legal arguments that he's making. Number one, when we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, technically sold it for a dollar, we had a binding agreement that laid out the terms of that transfer.
And one argument that President Trump has put forth is that Panama is in violation of that agreement because they have allowed China to effectively seize control of the canal. How is that? Because a Chinese state-owned enterprise owns a building on one end of the canal and on the other end of the canal.
And should we be at a point of conflict, military or other, with China, it's not difficult to imagine those Chinese state-owned enterprises using that location to try to shut down
anyone traversing the sounds like they avoided the contract that's that's a pretty powerful argument the second argument and i had breakfast this morning with president trump he had breakfast with all the republican senators two and a half hours he gets sworn in tomorrow and he spent two and a half hours stamina stream of consciousness talking we talked about panama he's pointing out uh the president said this morning said u.s navy ships paid double
what any other country's Navy ships pay. He said that American commercial ships pay 58% more than other nations pay. Look, we need to drill down into those facts, but on the face of it, I think there's a powerful argument that that's inconsistent with the terms of the agreement. And is the final outcome of this that we get total control of the Panama Canal back? Probably not.
I think that's a high lift. But in many ways, I think Trump is negotiating on price. And I could easily see an outcome where both Navy ships and commercial ships that are American pay much, much lower rates, number one. And number two, critically, that we get China the hell out of the canal. And that, if we accomplish those two, that would be a massive improvement from U.S. interest.
Have you, I'm sure you've been paying attention beyond the things that you've been a part of, the confirmation hearings. Can you give us the sort of blow by blow of where you think things have gone well, where there is room for improvement, whether there's going to be some spotty weather ahead?
Look, I've been really happy so far. I think the array of cabinet nominees has been very, very strong.
Were there a couple that were you thought going in, we have to, this one will be a little bit harder than the other and...
Well, look, clearly the most bumpy was Matt Gaetz and they withdrew Matt Gaetz. He was not going to get confirmed. There were multiple Republican senators who were going to vote no. Right. But I will say, I mean, they withdrew that nomination pretty quickly.
I think that was strategic. They sent him up the hill to take the first two. And Pam Bondi seems amazing.
Pam Bondi is going to be terrific. She's going to get confirmed easily. I think right now every Trump cabinet nominee gets confirmed.
That's great.
Pete Hegseth is clearly who they're shooting at the most. I don't think they've scored real blood. I did a whole podcast on the Hegseth confirmation hearing where it spoke volumes that the Democrat virtually all of the Democrat attacks were personal attacks based on anonymous charges, typically with no evidence and with no one coming forward and putting their name on it.
And they had virtually nothing to say about the job to which he'd been nominated and what he intends to do as the Secretary of Defense. I think that fundamentally is a flawed strategy. So I think everyone gets through right now.
Do you think that you'll see any Democrat senators support any of the candidates?
Yes. Rubio? So Rubio will get 90 votes. He could get north of 95 votes. It'll be a huge bipartisan vote for Rubio. John Ratcliffe for CIA, he'll get significant bipartisan votes. Sean Duffy at Transportation, he'll get a bunch of bipartisan votes. Howard Lutnick at Commerce, my guess is he'll get bipartisan votes, although he hasn't had his hearing yet, so we'll see.
So there will certainly be some. Pam Bondi, I think Pam is terrific. Brooke Rowlands? Brooke will get bipartisan votes. Part of it is, all right, let's take Sean Duffy. So I chaired the confirmation hearing for Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation. it was a love fest. Why was it a love fest? Because everyone wants a bridge or a road in their state.
So if you're a Democrat, you're like, wait, you're Santa Claus and you're giving out hundreds of billions of dollars, I want some. And so everyone wants it. And so Brooke Rollins at Department of Agriculture, again, everyone wants stuff for ag and farmers in their state. So in that sort of role, it's easy for it to be a love fest. Pam Bondi, even though she did very well,
I'd be surprised if Democrats vote for just the nature of Attorney General in this politicized environment. My guess is, I think on the committee, the D's are going to vote no. But I think Pam will hold every Republican. And so I think she gets through easily. Bobby? Senator? I think he makes it through. I spent an hour with him. It'll be interesting. I was talking with him about this.
Will any Democrats vote for him? Obviously, he's been a Democrat his whole life until like 12 minutes ago.
They hate him.
And they really, they do view him as a Judas for daring to change. All of us. It's still, look. J. Cal too. You look at like red dye number three. You look at what Bobby is doing.
He's made more change before he's become HHA secretary.
The food system is so screwed. Like, let him cook. Let's see what he can do.
And his willingness to take on corruption, corruption of big pharmaceutical companies that get in bed with big government, that they perpetuate their monopolies using government power. So I talked to Bobby, for example, about a bill that I've been fighting for a long time that I call the Results Act.
The Results Act says that if any pharmaceutical, any medical device is approved in another major developed country, so approved in Canada or Japan or the EU, that the FDA has 60 days to approve it here or it's deemed automatically approved by operations. Love it. Brilliant. I'm going to fight. I have been fighting for that, but I think now I have an HHS secretary that agrees with it.
And I do think if you look at these cabinet nominees, the most striking characteristic of virtually all of them is that they're change agents, that they're going to fundamentally disruptors. And that's exciting. We need that.
All right, listen, your people have been trying to get you to end for 20 minutes, but you know what? Let the man cook. I got to tell you, I got to tell you. Our bestie Phil Hellmuth, every time he sees you, comes back to our poker game, says what a great poker player, what a gentleman. He drops your name. I can get him on the phone right now. I told him, call him right now. He never does it.
He was 100% right. You are amazing. Great to have you on the podcast.
You are tempting me with poker chips. No, we're going to get you in a game. Senator, I know you don't make it to California much, but when you do, come play.
Just so you know, the boots play.
And we need scotch and a cigar, and I am perfectly happy. Maybe we'll go play in Austin. I can't stand all these gang balls where everyone's in tuxedos, but my happy place is sitting around the poker table with good conversation and good scotch.
So great to have you and congratulations on the big win and thank you for your service. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
That was great.