Trump’s YUUUGE First 10 Days - In The Tank #481 - In The Tank

Episode Transcript
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Linnea Lueken (00:34):
Alright. We're live. Welcome to the show,
everybody. 10 days into theTrump administration. It feels
like it's been 10 years with theamount of news there is to
cover.
Trump has been signing anabsolute blizzard of executive
orders that practically startedthe moment he was inaugurated. I
mean, he was to work right away.We're we are going to cover a

(00:55):
bunch of them, and break downsome of our favorites. So stay
tuned for today's episode, 481,of the In the Tank podcast.

Jim Lakely (01:45):
I don't want that person in my country, and I
think most Americans agree withme.

That's amazing. I love that so much. Alright.
Welcome to the In the Tankpodcast. I am Linnea Lucan, your
new host.
And today, as usual, we've gotJim Lakeley, vice president of
the Heartland Institute, andChris Talgo, editorial director
at the Heartland Institute andSocialism Research Fellow. Guys,
are you tired of winning yet?

Jim Lakely (02:15):
I am close. Yeah. I I thought, you know, Donald
Trump is really testing the theline. You're gonna be there's
gonna be so much winning. You'llbe tired of winning.
And I thought maybe with all ofthis 350 or so executive orders,
all of them rolling back, hardleftism that has been the
hallmark of our government forso long. I thought maybe I would
get a little smidge of beingtired of winning. No. I am not

(02:38):
tired of winning. I am I wannaput this to the test.
Let's see how much winning wecan take day after day after
day. How about we do it everyday for 4 years? I think that
sounds great.

I apologize real quick for my dog barking in the
background. But, as always, youguys, I wanna before we start
getting into it, if you want tosupport the show, you you can go
to heartland.org/inthetank anddonate there. Please also give
us the thumbs up to like thevideo and remember that sharing
it also helps break through someof the, YouTube suppression.
Even just leaving a commentactually helps with the

(03:10):
algorithm too. If you're anaudio listener, it would also be
super helpful if you can give usa review there, either, on
Audible or, Spotify, wherever itis, iTunes.
We're everywhere. And, so takingit down a notch for a second to
a little bit more, somber topic.Last night, most people have

(03:31):
already heard there was a majorplane crash, accident, at Reagan
Airport. I wanted to extend ourprayers and sympathy for all of
the victims there. It's an awfulshocking thing when you have a
major disaster like that.
Most likely, you know,preventable accidents. Just

(03:53):
wanted to, pitch that out therebefore we get into the good
news, which is Trump's work thathe's been doing. If you guys
wanted to add anything.

Jim Lakely (04:05):
No. I just I I used to I lived a good a good part of
my life in the, Greater DC area.I lived in, Arlington, Virginia.
I lived in Fredericksburg,Virginia. I used to work in DC
for the Washington Times everyday.
You know, I am very familiarwith that area, and I'm very
familiar with flying in and outof Reagan National Airport. It
is, actually one of the moreharrowing isn't the right word,

(04:25):
but it's a, it's a toughairport. Even pilots will admit
it's one of the most difficultairports to to land in in the
United States because theairport is relatively small and
it's got a short runway and yougotta bank hard to get in there.
And, I I find it I find it thisis just a tragic, obviously, an
accident. There was a screw upsomewhere.
There's no way that helicoptershould have, missed seeing that

(04:47):
plane and flown right into it.So there will be a full
investigation, obviously. Wewill, we'll discover what
happened. We will take steps toprevent it in the future. But
there are, you know, more than60 people whose, lodged lost.
There were no survivors of thatcrash. Just, absolutely tragic.
The only, maybe perhaps savinggrace is that there wasn't a ton
of time to think about, youknow, the end of your life and

(05:08):
the suffering. So, our thoughtsand prayers go out to, all the
families there and, and thepeople that it's that it has
affected. Sorry.

Yep. And I see Bob Johnson asking there, why
was there a military helicopterthere? It's there all the time.
They have military craft goingback and forth, but the Potomac
is like a major highway forhelicopters basically between a
couple different military bases.So it wasn't unusual that it was
there.
It's just awful conglomerationof bad decisions probably that

(05:38):
led to this one. So, this thisweek, though, on this show,
we're going to be focusingprimarily on the executive
orders that Trump has been justlike machine gunning out there
since the day that he wasinaugurated. And we're gonna
start with our our favoritetopic, which is the climate and

(05:58):
energy topic, or at least Imight be biased, working for the
Robinson Center. And I wannahighlight 2 in particular. The
first being the putting Americafirst in international
environmental agreements, one,which involved withdrawal from
the Paris agreement.
This is one that we have beenadvocating for since the last

(06:18):
time Trump pulled us out of theParis agreement. It's not a real
treaty, but we've been treatingit like it is one because, for
all intents and purposes, ourgovernment has been acting as
though they actually signed onto something with this, even
though they never actually passit through the Senate as a
treaty. Chris, I know that youhave made comments last week

(06:43):
talking about, you know, how weactually need to put a little
bit of, like, stronger supportbehind a lot of these executive
orders. And do you think thatthis is one that maybe we should
pitch to the senate to see ifthey'll actually pass it as a
treaty, or do we want to noteven take the chance of them,
actually agreeing to it?

Chris Talgo (07:00):
So if I remember correctly, it was called an
executive agreement, and it wasoriginally, put into place by
Barack Obama. And then,obviously, during Trump's first
term, he pulled us out and then,Joe Biden put us back in. Now
Trump has pulled us back out. Sowhat, you know, what this is is
it's it's kind of just becominga you know, from presidential

(07:20):
administration to presidentialadministration, they're just
undoing each other's executiveorders and executive actions,
which is not good for the longterm. So, I mean, technically,
this is a treaty, and treatieshave to go and be, passed by the
senate.
And the senate, I do not think,would approve this treaty. So it
should it it should be thisshould be the end of it. This

(07:41):
really should. And, you know,we'll see if that does happen,
but this is a great start. AndI've got some other, executive
orders on energy I'd be love totalk about later on.

Oh, absolutely. And if you wanna bring one up,
you can, right here. I've gotone more that I definitely wanna
cover. And this one I just enjoybecause it's a a little bit of a
like a kick between the legs atKevin Newsom. It's called
putting people over fish,stopping radical
environmentalism to providewater to Southern California.

(08:12):
And I want to read a passagefrom it. It's pretty terrific.
During my first term, the stateof California, at the direction
of its governor, filed a lawsuitto stop my administration from
implementing improvements toCalifornia's water
infrastructure. Myadministration's plan would have
allowed enormous amounts ofwater to flow from the snow melt
and rainwater and rivers inNorthern California to

(08:34):
beneficial use in the CentralValley and Southern California.
This catastrophic halt wasallegedly in protect protection
of the Delta smelts and otherspecies of fish.
Today, this enormous watersupply flows wastefully into the
Pacific Ocean. And Trump goes onto say that the recent wildfires
in Southern California couldhave been tamped down if they

(08:55):
had more access to water. So,I'm going to pitch it to both of
you guys here. I mean, is it isit. Is it hilarious or is it
just funny that Trump has tocall out Newsom in this
specifically?
But it's also warranted. Right?Because, the the radical

(09:15):
environmentalists in Californiahave been running that state
into the ground. It's actuallycausing loss of life at this
point. Do you do we think thathe actually has the authority,
though, to, be shipping wateracross the state, or is this
something that, again, is gonnabe seeing litigation?

So so, I mean, to me, I I gotta just, you know,
stick to my guns here and thinkfederalism. If this is a
federalism issue, and I am astrong believer in federalism,
and I do not want anyadministration, even one that I
am, you know, very much in favorof, dictating to states what
they should and shouldn't do.So, I mean, to me, it's just you
wanna be honest here, just basedon my my my principles. So, you

(09:59):
know, I feel this is a littlebit of an overreach, and I'm,
you know, gonna stick to that.

Jim Lakely (10:06):
Yeah. I would agree. I mean, I I seem to have lived
everywhere that's important tothis podcast today, but I spent
5 years as a journalist inCalifornia, And so I covered
state politics and policy, quiteextensively during that time.
And, this strikes me as a as astate issue. I mean, what's
California the the Californiaaqueduct, which brings, water

(10:28):
for farming and for, and theninto the desert of Southern
California all the way fromNorthern California, is one of
the great engineering marvels ofthe 20th century that a lot of
people don't necessarily knowabout.
And when you I've driven throughall the way through the Central
Valley. I've driven from, SanDiego, to Sacramento. I'm
actually covering the recallelection that put, Arnold

(10:50):
Schwarzenegger as governor backin gosh. What was that? 2000 I
can't even remember, but it wasa long time ago.
And it was a wonderful drive,and it's kind of lonely. You're
in the middle. You go pastFresno and Bakersfield, and you
go and you just follow the the,the 5 freeway all the way up.
You see the aqueduct, and youpull over just to marvel at it
as you see it in the distancejust winding its way, bringing
all this water down, and it'sjust using gravity, and it's

(11:12):
amazing. And they the state diddivert what was the regular flow
of water from NorthernCalifornia out into the, the the
Delta of Sacramento and then outto the ocean, to protect a so
called endangered fish thatwasn't actually even endangered.
And, when I lived in SouthernCalifornia, that policy had

(11:33):
already been put in place, andwe were under constant, drought
threat in Southern California.You couldn't use water this day,
couldn't use water the otherday. And in this respect, Donald
Trump is right. I don't think hehas the power through an
executive order to divert thatwater. But he is right that
there is actually plenty ofwater in California and in the
West to make it so that,California is not under a

(11:55):
constant drought restriction,situation.
I mean, they had one of thewettest, if not the wettest,
winter in the or, yeah, winterlast winter in the last 10
years. And I think, what, 80 or90% of all that would have been
beneficial water and certainlywould have helped in the in the
fires in Los Angeles, was justleft to go out, out into the
ocean. Completely unnecessary.California, it was built by

(12:21):
great men and great projects ofthe mid 20th century. And the
politicians, the left, theenvironmental nut jobs in
California have, neglected oreven, in some cases, destroyed
the infrastructure that allowsmodern life to exist, as it does
in Southern California.
And this was a very high priceto pay proving that fact.

Now now I just wanna say one thing. You know,
one one consideration would beto, halt federal funding for
certain projects if they're notabiding by, you know, these
these, you know, regulations. SoI think that that's one area
that's definitely worthpursuing, but I do I I just you
know, I'm I'm a little,concerned about these, blanket,

(13:05):
executive orders telling stateswhat to do and what not to do.
And, you know, I definitelydefer to the states on most
matters.

Yeah. Yeah. Not to play too much, you know,
postulating about like 4 d chessor anything, but do you think
that there's a chance that a lotof these orders are kind of
knowingly put out, you know,with the awareness that that
it's gonna end up being a stateissue, but just wanting to,
like, light a fire, not to betoo funny, but to light a fire

(13:36):
underneath the governors of someof these states, especially
places like California.

I mean, that could be the situation, but I think
that what's going on inCalifornia, especially in the
areas that were affected by thefires, it's gonna be much more
of a local thing. So we got thecoastal commission, you know,
already, you know, putting upmajor major, you know,
roadblocks here. And I watchedthe entire, portion of that,
roundtable where president Trumpwas talking to, mayor Bass.

(14:02):
Gavin Newsom wasn't even invitedto this. That just goes to show
how much how much of a nonplayer he is in this.
But Karen Bass was just sayingagain and again, well, we're
gonna do what we can, but weneed to, you know, make sure
it's it's done in a safe manner.And Donald Trump was saying,
listen. These people don't haveanywhere to go. They need to go
back to their homes and startrebuilding tomorrow morning,
not, you know, next month ornext year or 18 months from now.

(14:25):
So I think a lot of this, youknow, we have a tendency to
think, oh, things are almostalways happen at the federal
level, but almost all politicsare local.
So, really, if the pay if thepeople of, you know, California
and the people of Los Angelesand those areas that were
affected wanna really make somechanges, vote for different
local office holders, and youwill see massive changes.

Yeah. There is a concern about, you know, if we
focus too much on the federallevel that actually doesn't have
the authority to do some of thisstuff, then people are gonna be
ignoring the more importantelections. You know, I've I've
championed, like, over and overto my friends. If you're gonna
vote for anything, vote for,like, sheriff and stuff. Like,
these are these are thepositions in your town that

(15:05):
really have a lot of immediateeffect on your life.

Well and and and we don't we don't wanna always look
to the federal government foranswers. We want the states and
we want local municipalities tobe as independent, you know, and
self sufficient as possible. So,you know, one of the things
that, you know, has come withthis, I think one of the
blessing in the disguise is isthe fact that now people are
asking, is FEMA reallynecessary? Do we really need
this giant emergency federalforce? Why don't we just have

(15:29):
the states handle this on theirown?
Because the states are gonna bemuch more agile, much more
flexible, and much more able todo this what needs to be done in
a timely and efficient manner.So I think, you know, one of the
things that we're seeing, youknow, from the Los Angeles, you
know, wildfires is the fact thatthe federal response to it, and
this goes back decades. Thisgoes back to New Orleans. This
goes back, you know, to so manyof these disasters. The flooding

(15:52):
in North Carolina that we sawlate last year, they are not
good at at at at, you know,cleaning up these things.
They're not good at doing it ina timely manner. We need to make
sure that the states and localgovernments take on as much of
this burden as possible.

And, Chris, did you have another another
executive order on theenvironmental or energy side
that you'd like?

So, the the, executive order called
Unleashing American Energy, thatI think is one of the best ones
so far because not only does it,talk about really, you know,
revving up, American productionof natural gas and oil here in
the United States. We've got,you know, just so many of these
resources under our feet, but italso, directs the EPA

(16:38):
administrator, who was justconfirmed, I believe, yesterday,
Lee Zeldin, to actually go andlook at the endangerment
finding. And I think a lot ofpeople don't even know what the
endangerment finding is, but theendangerment finding is a big
deal. So in 2009, under theObama administration, the EPA,
declared that carbon dioxide isa greenhouse gas and it's a

(17:00):
harmful pollutant. Okay.
But what's what what what'shappened now is that we've, you
know, made all these laws andwe've made it very difficult,
for the, the energy industry toprovide enough electricity, you
know, in a reliable anddependable and affordable manner
based on this flawed,assessment. So I I really hope

(17:20):
that Lee Zeldin is gonna do whatneeds to be done to, reverse
that, but really that's not thesolution here because then the
next EPA administrator forDemocrat wins, you know, 4
years, 8 years, 12 years fromnow can just go and reinsert
that. So what we really wannathink, to have happen here is
for the Supreme Court to take upthis case and to say once and

(17:40):
for all, carbon dioxide is not,a a greenhouse, harmful gas that
must be regulated. Because if wetook that to its logical
conclusion, hey. Guess what?
Water vapor water vaporcontributes a lot to warming. So
every single time you boil anegg or every time you boil your,
you know, noodles to make yourspaghetti up, you gotta make
sure we regulate that. So that'sjust how how preposterous, how

(18:02):
absurd, and ridiculous thesethings go. So I think just
putting a, a nail in the coffinto the endangerment finding
would be a boom to the energyindustry and the economy as a
whole.

Oh, yeah. And we we have this article, from the
Manhattan contrarian by FrancisMenten who, goes over how you
can rescind it in a way thatmakes it stick. And this is a
problem with a lot of executiveorders generally is that, you
know, is the Veranek'sadministration can just get rid
of it as they come in. He goesover a couple of different

(18:36):
lawsuits that have, someprecedents in this kind of issue
regarding, you know, like theClean Air Act. You know,
Massachusetts versus EPA, forexample, he points out that,
despite the fact thatenvironmentalists use it a lot
to try and say that the EPA doeshave the right to say that CO2

(18:56):
is a pollutant, it actuallydidn't determine that it was.
It actually just directed theEPA to determine whether or not
it was, which means that theycan also determine that it's not
a pollutant into the future. Andthen there's a couple other
ones. I'm trying to find thespot that I liked that I read

(19:18):
earlier today.

And and, Lanae, this is part of such a bigger
problem in in recent decadeswhere the United States Congress
is not taking, you know, itspower that it should be taking
and passing laws to do this. Andwhat they're doing is passing
these big, vague laws, creatingthese giant, you know,
bureaucracies that then go inand legislate on their own. And
what we see is that, you know,these these, regulatory agencies

(19:43):
have become like legislativebodies in and of themselves with
policing powers as well. We needwe need to make sure that we put
that genie back in the bottle.We need to make sure that, these
regulatory agencies are actingon behalf of the American people
and not acting on behalf oflobbyists and environmental, you
know, alarmists.

Right. And here's here's a segment that I wanted
to highlight real quick. I foundit. Francis Menton points out to
rescind the endangermentfinding, EPA does not need to
contend that greenhouse gaseswill not or cannot cause any
global warming. Rather, they canput the burden of proof on the
other side to show thatgreenhouse gases emitted under

(20:21):
EPA's EPA's regulatoryjurisdiction will inevitably
cause dangerous warming.
EPA need to only conclude thatthere is no sufficient proof of
that. So he says, frame thatway, this is not complicated or
difficult. There are, in fact,hundreds of scientific papers in
peer reviewed literature showingempirical evidence that the

(20:43):
dangers predicted all thoseyears ago when the endangerment
finding was put into regulatory.I don't know. I completely lost
my train of thought thereanyway, has not actually
happened.
So, you know, for example,there's been no upward trend in
hurricanes. We go over that allthe time at Climate Realism. So

(21:05):
there's the the evidence thatthey would need to prove that
carbon dioxide, water vapor, abunch of different greenhouse
gases, including methane, arepollutants just doesn't exist.
So they do have what they wouldneed. It's just a matter of
being intelligent about puttingit together before the

Jim Lakely (21:23):
legislature. Yeah. I saw a clip on, on X this week of
representative John Dingell. I'msure Chris might remember that
name. A long time, very powerfulmember of Congress from
Michigan.

Abby Dingell's husband. Correct?

Jim Lakely (21:34):
That's right. And then when he died, his, his his
wife you know, that's the way wedo things in this country. At
least you're you know, you dieand then your wife or your son
gets your seat, you know, justlike just like in, in England in
the in the 12th century orsomething. But, anyway, I saw on
the clip, John Dingell said,essentially, hey, I was there
when we passed the Clean AirAct. There was never a hint of a

(21:57):
congressional intent to allowthe Environmental Protection
Agency to consider carbondioxide emissions a pollutant
that warranted very strictregulation.
And so, I thought, wow, that'sinteresting. And I'm sure it
wasn't getting a whole lot of,whole lot of play. But, Chris,
you're right. Congress has, fordecades now, given increasingly

(22:18):
increasing power to thebureaucracy, to the
administrative state, to figureout the details of the laws that
they pass. Even when theyobviously, as John Dingell was
of the opinion, when theyobviously go over the intent of
Congress, seem to never eventake any steps to rein them in.
It would have been very easy forCongress, to pass a law saying

(22:40):
the Environmental ProtectionAgency does not have the power
to regulate carbon dioxideemissions from any human
activity. It would be a a onesentence bill, and Donald Trump
would have signed it, butcongress can't even bother
themselves to do something likethat. I do think we're gonna
talk about the endangermentfinding, I think, in much more
detail on tomorrow's, theClimate Realism Show, same time,

(23:01):
on Friday, on the same batchannel. But, but, yeah, the
that that's that's big. And, infact, Lee Zeldin, has already
one of my favorite things.
This isn't an executive order.But the first thing he did as
soon as he was sworn in as thenew administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agencywas to cancel increased or more
stringent and unscientifically,necessary restrictions on big

(23:27):
rigs, you know, diesel, 18wheelers that was set to take
effect, I think, in 2030. Hesaid, nope. We're done with
that. We're not doing that.
I think he's probably eithergoing to freeze or even loosen
the CAFE standards. That's thecorporate average fuel economy,
What CAFE stands for. It'sbasically the California
standard because they havestrict smog and other, you know,

(23:48):
other emissions stuff. And sothat actually sweeps across the
country because Ford and Hondaand all these places are not
gonna make a California car andthen one for everybody else. So,
the most stringent, bar youknow, the most stringent
restrictions are the ones thatrule for the entire country.
I think you're gonna see EPArelease some of those as well.
So, EPA is just getting started.And, it's there's so much

(24:10):
happening. There's there's somany executive orders, so much
stuff that's happening in thisTrump administration so so far
right now that Lee Zeldin isalready taking actions that, 4
years ago, would have been frontpage story, would have led every
single, network news program,and it's it's not even
registering. It's barelyregistering with the climate
press and the energy press inthis country.

That's good. No. Yeah. This is definitely I mean,
the word that comes to mind isblitzkrieg with the way that
Trump has been, putting forwardhis policies, and and it
actually is. I I hate to get toointo the, like, 40 chess stuff
because I tend to think that'sexaggerated quite a bit.
But I do think that this isprobably intentional that the

(24:53):
way that they're passing all ofthis stuff or the way that he's
signing all these executiveorders is make is putting the
media so on their back foot.They do not know how to focus on
any one issue right now. They'rethey're, like trying desperately
to scramble around and figureout what to cover. And it and it
seems to be making it verydifficult for them to focus. One

(25:15):
of the examples of these areas,that they're that they're trying
to focus on, but they keepgetting distracted off in
different directions is onimmigration.
And this is one of Trump'scornerstone topics, illegal
immigration, and what we'redoing about the the just massive

(25:36):
influx of illegal immigrantsthat we've had over the last
couple of decades, especially inrecent years. So from the New
York Post, we have this article,which let's pull up. Okay. So
this is crazy to me. Fedsroundup 50 Trende, Arawagua.

(25:58):
Yeah. Members at makeshiftnightclub in Denver as
nationwide ICE raids bust childrapists and suspected ICE's
terrorists. Now Trump directedICE to begin doing these
operations, like, right away,and it's crazy how right away
they're arresting dozens anddozens of, like, major cartel

(26:19):
connected, you know, and, like,drug deal connected illegal
immigrants that are in thecountry. Let me just read you a
passage from this because it'svery it's just nuts. It says the
first migrant roundups, part ofan operation dubbed Return to
Sender, are focusing on migrantswho have been charged with

(26:39):
crimes or who have been deportedby a judge.
The DEA and Immigration andCustoms Enforcement led Sunday's
predawn efforts in Colorado, andthey were joined by squads from
Homeland Security Investigationsand ICE Enforcement and removal
operations to execute the busts.The Post has been at the
forefront of reporting how TrendAoragua terrorized the Denver

(27:01):
subject suburb of Aurora, a popa city with a population of just
under 400,000 for months, eventaking over entire neighborhoods
and apartment complexes. Okay.So what strikes me about this is
that they have known for yearsthat these guys were there, that
they were illegally in thecountry, and that they were

(27:22):
doing organized crime inColorado. And then Trump gives
them the mandate to go, yeah, goget rid of those guys, and they
immediately go arrest them.
Jim, is it me, or is it, like,kind of mind blowing and very
insulting that that they'veknown this whole time that there
were all these criminals, andthey knew exactly where they

(27:42):
live to the point where they canjust show up and just decide
we're gonna arrest them today?

Jim Lakely (27:47):
Tom Homan at ICE arrested more than 500, you
know, felon Theloniouscriminals, aliens in the United
States. And he had to go huntthem down and find them under
the you know, in their hideyholes. But the the Trump
administration, on its firstday, in half a day, because he
didn't get to get rolling tillabout, you know, 3 o'clock in
the afternoon, you know, we,apparently, were able, at any

(28:10):
time in the last 4 years, to letour, immigration and customs
enforcement agents do theirjobs, which is to track down,
arrest, and deport violentcriminals who are here in this
country illegally, rapists,murderers, people who have
committed armed robberies andcarjackings, both in their home
countries where they came from.They should have been allowed

(28:32):
here in the first place, butalso when they're here in the
United States. The Bidenadministration could have done
any of this at any time, andit's obvious that they chose not
to do this.
The the Democrats and and andthe Biden administration chose
to keep dangerous criminals onour streets all across America.
And the the fact that that, youknow, the the Trump

(28:54):
administration could arrest anddeport 500 of them in a few
hours on day 1, and I think thenumber is probably more than 2
or 3000 of these hardenedcriminals have been rounded up
and and, you know, and deported.You know, it just like Andy,
there's a there's a thing Iwanna add to the stage here. I'm
gonna do that if I can. And thisis, this is a chart, there it

(29:14):
is, that, Donald Trump hadshared.
And it was it's daily encountersof undocumented migrants without
repatriations and and returns toMexico or, I guess, or elsewhere
in January 2025. The day beforehis inauguration was a high
point for the month of Januaryunder the Biden administration.
2,516 daily encounters. Theseare just encounters that, you

(29:36):
know, where our border patrolagents just happen to see them
and encounter them. This is notincluding people who sneak by
that are not seen, and it's morethan 2,000.
The the day of his inauguration,it dropped to it dropped in
half. And then the first fullday after Donald Trump was was
was, sworn in what is thatnumber? 43 or a 143? And then
on, like, 5 days after hiselection, it was the number was

(29:58):
total was 47. We go from morethan 2,000 encounters a day to
47, and that's because policymatters.
And and and wanting to enforcethe law matters, and sending a
message to the world matters.And so now, just in this last,
you know, 10 days, we have fewerviolent criminals trying to

(30:18):
sneak into this country, andthat's a good thing. That is not
a bad thing. It is not racist.It is none none of those things.
This is something that needed tobe done in this country a long
time ago. Donald Trump,actually, if if you look at the
statistics, Barack Obamaactually deported more illegals
that were in this country thanDonald Trump did in his first

(30:39):
term. I think Donald Trump'spretty determined to be the
world record holder in his next4 years. But, this idea that
it's somehow mean or racist orun American to track down
hardened criminals and get themthe hell out of our country. The
American people voted for this.
They voted to get these peopleout of our country, and it's
it's the Trump administrationshould be applauded at how

(31:01):
quickly they're able toaccomplish this.

Right. And and we have a little clip here too
because, you know, as one of ourviewers pointed out, the media
is already trying to, you know,kind of spook you spook us out
of supporting this policy byshowing like, oh, well, you
know, there's people who are,you know, coming in or who are
being deported that aren'tcriminals. They didn't commit
any crime. And, or do we havethe clip, Andy? Yeah.

(31:32):
Yeah. The Maryland immigration.

Jim Lakely (31:33):
Of the 35100 arrests ICE has made so far since
President Trump came back intooffice, can you just tell us the
numbers? How many have acriminal record versus those who
are just in the countryillegally?

Speaker 5 (31:44):
All of them. Because they illegally broke our
nation's laws and therefore theyare criminals as far as this
administration goes. I know thelast administration didn't see
it that way, so it's a bigculture shift in our nation to
view someone who breaks ourimmigration laws as a criminal,
but that's exactly what theyare. Are you

Jim Lakely (31:57):
hearing me? Worst person. They all have a criminal
record. And welcome to the If

Speaker 5 (32:00):
they broke our nation's laws, yes. They are
criminal. Yes.

Thank you. Gosh. Oh.

Yeah. She was she was really blunt about that, and
I'm very glad she was bluntabout it because it's time to be
blunt about this. Now I I wannajust go off on a little, thing
that I saw on on the media acouple days ago. So, apparently,
in Chicago, there was a reportthat ICE officials went into a
high school. It was actually noteven true, but, of course, the
media ran with it.

(32:28):
And I saw an interview with TomHoman, and he was saying, you
know what? There are manyinstances of, 15, 16, 17, 18
year old gang members who arenow in schools, and they are
harming, you know, children.Okay. He also then said, you
know what? There are a bunch of,legal immigrants who are child
predators.
You know, they've they've ruinedchildren's lives. Okay? We wanna

(32:51):
get rid of them. Okay? And ifthat means going into a school
and taking out a a a teenagerwho should not be there, then
that's fine.
And I'm gonna give you guys onelittle just quick story about my
teaching days in South Carolina.I know for a fact that we did
have several illegal immigrant,students and and families. Okay?

(33:13):
Because the students told methat. We had I had one student
who, was, let's just say, ratherlarge and rather mature.
And he claimed that he was,like, 17 because he was he was a
junior. That's correct. Becausehe was taking American history.
And guess what happened? Wefound out that he, was, engaging

(33:36):
with child pornography and thatthat he was actually, like, 23
years old.
Okay? They booted him out of theclass. Thank god. Because I just
kept thinking myself, wow. Imean, you know, this this this
criminal, this degenerate was inthese was in these hallways
with, you know, these these, youknow, preteens and teenagers,
and that's scary in and ofitself.

(33:56):
There were some, instances ofsexual, misconduct, on the
school premises on behalf ofsome of those kids who were then
later kicked out. But, yeah,this does happen, and I saw it
happen firsthand. And, we needto make sure that we are putting
American citizens first, and weneed to make sure that we are,

(34:17):
putting American children first.And if that means that, these
sanctuary cities are gonna haveto, you know, just do whatever
the federal government tells meto do, I'm fine with that
because this is a federal issue.So it's interesting.
We went back to the, to theCalifornia thing, and that's
more of a state issue. But guesswhat, everybody? Immigration is
a federal issue. And the federalgovernment has every single

(34:37):
right in the book to go intoevery single sanctuary city and
state or even what they are nowcalling themselves super
sanctuary cities and go in thereand then say, you know what? We
have a, warrant for this personto, you know, to to leave this
country.
We are going to to make surethat we apprehend this person
and get them out of thiscountry. I don't understand why

(34:58):
anyone would be opposed to that.And what's also funny is Tom
Homan mentioned that on a lot ofthese raids, you know what
people are doing coming up andtelling the ICE people after the
the raid occurs? Thank you somuch for doing that. We were all
scared of this person.
We didn't know what to do. So Ithink that, you know, the media
doesn't report on those kind ofstories, but I can guarantee you
that in downtown Chicago where,you know, the the residents are

(35:21):
have been struggling for yearswith overcrowded schools, with
overcrowded streets, and withthese giant budget shortfalls
because we are spending1,000,000,000 of dollars on
these illegal immigrants thatthey are more than happy that
Donald Trump has sent in ICEagents to Chicago and all these
other cities, you know, acrossthis country and are getting rid

(35:41):
of these child predators andthese just total, you know,
losers.

Chris Rand. Yay.

Jim Lakely (35:49):
Yay. Chris Rand. Chris Rand. Yeah. I mean, look.
The reason I picked that, thethe right thing, it went
instantly memeable. The, Ireally don't care, Margaret,
like JD Vance when, MargaretBrennan was telling, well, you
know that guy that you that wasarrested as a terrorist? You
know, we don't really even knowif he was radicalized before he
got in the country or after hegot here. Like, he was like, he
was more radicalized by comingto the country. Sure.

(36:10):
Sure. And he says, I reallydon't care, Margaret. People
like that should not be in ourcountry, and they should be
around our kids. I don't wantthem around my kids. I don't
want them around your kids.
I want them the hell out of thiscountry. Finally, common sense.
And the and a person in powerwho is actually reflecting the
majority opinion of people inthis in in the United States.
And let's be honest here and andclear about what was happening

(36:30):
over the last 4 years. Yes,there are such things there are
such things as, people who areseeking political asylum in this
country.
The vast majority of themillions and millions of people
that the Biden Administrationled into this country were not
actually legitimate asylumseekers. They were economic
migrants, or they were gangmembers and criminals, or they

(36:52):
just wanted you know, byeconomic migrant, I mean, they
just wanted a better a betterlife for themselves and their
family, better than they have itin Honduras or Guatemala or El
Salvador. You can understandthat desire, but that does not
mean you get to walk into thiscountry illegally. You must
apply for legal immigration intothis country and then,
eventually, apply forcitizenship. That's the way it's
supposed to work.
The Biden administration did notcare and just flooded our

(37:14):
country with no vetting at all,for the most part, of all these
people that that that came intothis country. And it's time to
as JD Vance said at the end ofthat, you know, in that
interview, it's like, yes. We'rea nation of immigrants, but that
doesn't mean that, you know andwe were built by immigrants 200
years ago and settlers and allof that. But that doesn't mean
that 250 years later, we have tohave the dumbest immigration law

(37:35):
in the world, which is what wehave right now. Well, which is
what we had under Biden, whichwas, essentially, no immigration
law.
So, yeah. I'm very happy to seethis. I think immigration is
good if it's controlled and ifit's orderly, and we have had
nothing remotely close to thatover the last 4 years.

Yeah. Well, you know, as a sovereign country,
you have the right or thecitizen the government should be
enforcing its own immigrationlaws and should be choosing its
own border control policies andeverything to benefit the
citizens that live here. We,it's just not freezing.

Jim Lakely (38:15):
But but but but here's but

here's what happened, and I think we all
know this. And I think theAmerican people finally
understood this. What the Bidenadministration was trying to do
was to change the demographic ofthis country so that they would,
get 10, 15, maybe even20,000,000 new voters for, you
know, for eternity. But it's soironic that that blew up in
their face. And most of theAmericans, you know, in those

(38:37):
border towns, it's Hispanics inparticular, said we don't want
this.
We're gonna we're gonna vote forthe guy who said he's gonna get
rid of all these people. So it'sjust so I I think it's it's it's
such a great, you know, exampleof a of a policy totally
backfiring because it wasgrounded in politics and not
common sense.

Exactly. I wanted to, point out to another one of
the, orders on when was thisday? This was from the
Associated Press from the AP.President Donald Trump on
Wednesday signed the Lake andRiley Act into law, giving
federal authorities broaderpower to deport immigrants in

(39:19):
the US illegally who have beenaccused of crimes. He also
announced at the ceremony thathis administration plan to send
the worst criminal aliens to adetention center in Guantanamo
Bay.
So I don't know about the Idon't know about the Gitmo part.
I'm not sure if that's actuallywhat they're going to do. But, I
mean, if we're not using it as amajor prison anymore, then I

(39:39):
guess that would be a goodmiddle ground before sending
them on somewhere else.

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth was on, Jesse
Waters prime time last night forhis first interview, and he said
that there are 30,000 beds atGuantanamo Bay that are going
unused and that are gonna startbeing used because they don't
want these people even in theUnited States, like, awaiting
whatever, you know, processeshave to be, you know, done. They

(40:04):
want them out of this countryimmediately, and that's gonna
start happening.

Yeah. And that was the whole point in the first
term, right, with the stay inMexico policy. It was, you know,
a lot for a long time, thepolicy under Obama and under
Biden later was they come intothe country, and I think even
under Bush to a certain extentas well. They come into the they
they break into the country.They've detained them somewhere,
and then they give them, like, aphone, and they give them a

(40:29):
court date.
And they release them back intothe United States. And they say,
okay. Show up your court date sowe can deport you. Right. And
no.

Jim Lakely (40:39):
Yeah. I
mean, duh.

Would do that.

80 80 to 90% don't even show up for their court
date. Those those court datesare years years in the future.
The immigration system isreally, really broken, and we
need to fix it. And I thinkDonald Trump is getting us back
on solid footing. Obviously, wewant, you know, high skilled
immigrants.
My mom came to this country, butyou know what? She did it the

(41:02):
right way. She waited years andthen had to get her citizenship
and had to do it that way.That's what we want. We want
people who come here and do itthe right way, not people who
break the law, skip the line,and then basically just become,
you know, you know, they theythey they just, you know, suck
up, you know, benefits, and thatthat's that's not good.

(41:22):
We don't want that.

Jim Lakely (41:23):
Chris, let me let me slightly correct you, or or
maybe correct Pete Hesketh.We're not going to start using
those 3 30,000 beds inGuantanamo. We are going to
restart using those 30,000 bedsin Guantanamo because Guantanamo
Bay, Gitmo, has been used tohouse, masses of illegal
immigrants in this country goingback several presidencies. And
so, yeah, you will not hear thatin the mainstream media. They

(41:45):
will make you think that they'rewe're locking them up where we
put the terrorists.
It's not the case. This issomething we've done for a lot,
over the years, and, DonaldTrump is just using the tools
available to him, as president.

Very good point. Yeah.

Well and and, Jim, I think that, there is
another thing, that you hadwanted to bring up, and I think
it's a very important topic,that is related to illegal
immigration in particular, butalso to a certain extent some of
the legal temporary kind ofstatus, immigration that we have
here. And that has to do withbirthright citizenship, if you

(42:22):
wanted to take that one.

Jim Lakely (42:23):
Yeah. I mean, this is one of the things that's
amazing about these these first10 days. You know, you guys you
know, it's it's called movingthe Overton window. Right? And,
normally, moving the Overtonwindow, which is roughly the
window of the possiblepolitically, culturally, you
know, socially, It takes yearsto move that window in the
direction that you would like itto go, either left or to the

(42:45):
right.
In 10 days, Donald Trump isswooping that window in
different you know, to the rightin in many areas. And one of
them is on immigration, and oneof them is on birthright
citizenship, that is the 14thAmendment to the United States
Constitution. And the idea thatour courts this is something
that nobody ever voted on.Congress never voted on this.

(43:08):
The people have never voted onthis.
It has been interpreted this wayover the years by, frankly, left
leaning courts and judges thatif you are just the fact of your
birth on soil of the UnitedStates of America automatically
makes you a, a a US citizen. Nomatter how you got here, you
could have been beamed down byby Scottie from from the Star

(43:30):
Trek Enterprise. And if you'restanding, you know, in Kansas
City, Missouri, you are a UScitizen as well as a member of
the American Federation ofPlanets, I guess. But, the the,
but now we have we're we areactually now going to have a
national conversation about whatthe 14th Amendment and
birthright citizen citizenshipreally means. It is clear, we're

(43:51):
all just starting to do researchon research on this now.
Right? And it was clear fromsome of the reading I have done
from the the members of the ofcongress who had, passed that
amendment and got it to thestates, that they had never
intended for noncitizens of theUnited States, like foreign
dignitaries or somebody who cameover the border and did not

(44:11):
intend to ever become anAmerican, that all of their
children are automaticallyAmerican citizens. The 14th
Amendment was written because,you know, after the Civil War,
Democrats in the South werestill trying to deny that, freed
slaves were full Americancitizens. And so the 14th
Amendment was required to saythat these children of slaves
who were born here in Alabama orin Georgia are American citizens

(44:35):
now because the Civil War isover, and we're all getting back
together. We're Americans.
That's what the 14th Amendmentwas for. That's what birthright
citizenship meant when the 14thamendment was put into our
constitution, but we've neverbeen allowed to have a
conversation about that. Andthere is no other country on
Earth in which you could sneakover the border, give birth, and
have that child be, be a citizenof that country. You can't do

(44:56):
that going to Mexico. You can'tdo that going to Great Britain.
You can't do it maybe you coulddo it in Greenland. Maybe we'll
do that when, we'll we'll havebirthright citizenship in
Greenland when we buy that. Youknow? But there is no other
country in the world that hasthat kind of immigration system
or that kind of interpretationof birthright citizenship, and
it's time that we have aconversation about that. And
that's gonna be part of, youknow, the Democrats and the left

(45:18):
always talk about we needcomprehensive immigration
reform.
Let's include this in that.

You know, the birthright citizenship has been
abused so much over the pastcentury and a half. You know,
it's now led to chain migration.It's led to birthright tourism
where, these, you know, pregnantwomen fly in here, have their
baby, and then, the rest of thefamily becomes citizens as well.
Yeah. Jim's right.
You know, this has been abused.It was done, in the in the wake
of the civil war because thesouth was denying, citizenship,

(45:48):
to, former slaves. So, yeah, weneed we we need we need to deal
with immigration in a holisticmanner, and we need to make sure
that these loopholes are nolonger being, you know, used and
abused.

This is such a, like, a passion filled topic. I
mean, it it really has been kindof making things extremely
difficult for especially thepoor in the United States. Chris
as Chris pointed out, you know,inner cities and stuff have
really been suffering from a lotof illegal immigration,

(46:23):
especially when it comes to,like cartel activity. I saw
someone make this, like,completely stupid comments on
Twitter, which is or on x, whichis shocking and unheard of. I
know.
But, they said something alongthe lines of, oh, well, you
know, the cartels are gonnastart retaliating if we start
arresting and deporting theirmembers. So we really need to,

(46:45):
you know, not do this. And theysaid, you know, there's gonna
start to be kidnappings andstuff in major border towns.
There already are. They wealready are have kidnappings and
murders.
Yeah. In our own towns. Like,what do you it was just it was
so stupid. I I couldn't believeit.

Just just one other quick thing. So I saw Stephen
Miller on CNN get into a reallygood give and take with, Jake
Tapper about this. And JakeTapper, of course, used the old
trope of, well, Steven, who'sgonna pick the fruits if we
don't have these illegalimmigrants? Do you know what
Steve Miller did? He said, gee,Jake.
Do you know that less than 1% ofillegal immigrants here in this
country actually work in theagricultural sector? So we're

(47:23):
not talking about, like, youknow, like, 100 of thousands of
illegal immigrants who arecoming to Florida and California
and just wanna, you know, like,work in the fields and then
return home, you know, in theoff season. No. That is just
simply not true. And second ofall, you know what?
If if we did not have all theseillegal, immigrants, fulfilling
those jobs, you know what wouldhappen? Americans would fulfill
those jobs.

Jim Lakely (47:43):
Not only that, but we have a guest worker program
in this united in attendancehere in United States, and so
that can be done legally.

That's crazy, Jim. Why would they do that? I
think just okay. So I would loveto keep on this topic, but it's
149 here in the East Coast. It'stime to move on to the next one,
which is both a very funny topicand also sad in in just so many

(48:11):
ways.
So here I have this headlinefrom The Wall Street Journal, an
anxious federal workforce bidsgoodbye to job stability and
remote work. In early executiveactions, Trump moved to order
government workers back to theoffice full time and watered
down job protections. Now forsome reason, I have a really

(48:31):
hard time generating any tearswhatsoever for these people.
Jim, you worked in DC. Are arefederal workers at this level
just run ragged?
Are they just they they justsuffer all the time, and Trump
is just making their sufferingeven worse?

Jim Lakely (48:48):
Well, I mean, back when I was, living and working
in DC, there was no such thingas remote work. Everybody got on
the trains, and everybodystuffed themselves into the into
the subways and to get to andfrom the city to their homes in
Maryland or Virginia. And bysome accounts, I believe there
was a survey done. I think amember of congress asked the
survey to be done on how fullour federal buildings are in, in

(49:10):
Washington DC, and some of themwere as low as, like, 6%
occupancy. And so it so theywould just work from home.
COVID COVID kind of changed theway America works. The Heartland
Institute itself, we have now ahybrid system where, like, for
instance, today, I am working,remotely, but I go into the
office 3 days a week. And that'sbeen kind of standard across the

(49:33):
country, and it's to keep youremployees happy, which we like
to do here at Heartland. Butsome of these federal employees
have never gone back to worksince 2020. And, they just wanna
work remotely forever.
So so yeah. The Saab storieshere, you know, I don't have a
lot of sympathy for them.

Yeah. I've got this good, link on x to someone
that, told their story to NPR.And so I'm gonna read a little
segment from this because it'sjust it's very funny. Okay.
Lane's a federal employee andworks in person 2 days a week, a
common setup for some federalworkers.

(50:12):
NPR is only using her middlename because she fears speaking
out about the new teleworkpolicies may jeopardize her job.
Lane says she works those 2 inperson days back to back,
finishing up at the officearound 3 PM, getting home around
5. She says, you know, I'm soexhausted by the end of the day.
By that 3rd morning when I'm,you know, waking up and
teleworking, I'm just so braindead. It's actually hard to

(50:35):
focus the next day.
I cannot imagine trying to getin the car and go in a 3rd day.
Oh, man. This, I don't knowwhether to blame, like,
millennials or or like mygeneration, millennials or or
Gen Zers who are working in thegovernment now or who or just

(50:56):
the the general spoiledness offederal employees in general. I
don't I don't really know. It'spretty bad, though.
They're they're also there's thehiring freeze that Trump has put
in, which is also very good,although I think that some of
that is being contended or alittle bit or at least the the

(51:19):
freeze on funding is beingfought. Right. This one from the
Wall Street Journal. I no. Thisone from AP News that says,
Trump White House rescinds memofreezing federal money after
widespread confusion.
President Donald Trump's budgetoffice on Wednesday rescinded a

(51:39):
memo freezing spending onfederal loans and grants. That
ties in a little bit with thethe general, like, swamp
atmosphere that Trump istackling with a lot of these
executive orders. Right? We'vegot all this money floating all
over the place that they don'tquite know where it's going or
what it's for or what it'sactually being spent on versus

(51:59):
what it is billed for. And thenwe also have all of these
federal employees, many of whomare probably realistically doing
like 2 hours of work in a wholework week and kind of goofing
off for the rest of the week.
So he's trying to figure out howto make that a little bit more
efficient with Doge. So do wehave sympathy for the confusion

(52:20):
in the federal bureaucracy right

now? Absolutely not. You know, the the federal
workforce is just incrediblylazy. That is just a fact. Okay?
They have these extremely cushyjobs that they can never get
fired from, and they know thatthey can just, you know, do the
bare minimum. And we've allexperienced this in one form or
another, whether it's the USPSor the, you know, DMV, any sort

(52:43):
of pub not any, but most public,you know, sector employees, they
have no incentive to do betterbecause their jobs are just
based on solely just putting inthe time. So, you know, that's
that is a, I think, a cultureshock that we need, and we need
to also, you know, take thesefederal agencies and get them
out of Washington DC. I wannasee them spread all throughout

(53:05):
this country. I wanna see themput in places where the the
people that they are actually,you know, looking over, whether
it's like the ag department, putthem in the middle of the
country.
I don't want them near theswamp. So that's that's my my
thing on federal workforce. Oneother thing about the this
federal spending freeze, ofcourse, as usual, the mainstream
media just goes, you know,ballistic when, the federal

(53:29):
government, you know, just evertries to reduce spending. And,
here's just one one littleexample. And Caroline Levitt,
the the new press secretary, shementioned this.
Did you know that the UnitedStates was going to send
$50,000,000 worth of condoms toGaza? Did you know that? For
this year. Now how many how manycondoms is that per person in
Gaza? They did the math, and itwould be something like 5,000

(53:52):
per year.
Now did you also know that,Hamas uses those condoms to make
bombs and and use those, condomsto blow them up and put bombs
into Israel? So why is theUnited States of America funding
$50,000,000 worth of condoms toGaza, which, I mean, we know
they're not gonna use them fortheir intended purpose. And why

(54:14):
are we doing that anyways? Thatis just one example of literally
probably 100 of thousands ofexamples like that. Our
government spends more than$6,000,000,000,000 a year.
I kid you not. I bet if youlopped off 2,000,000,000,000 of
that, you would not notice adifference. You just wouldn't
even notice a difference. And,actually, you know what would
happen? We'd have more money inour pockets.

(54:35):
Our economy would gogangbusters. And all these,
federal bureaucrats who justdrag our economy down, they
would just be out of the job,and that would be great. And I
don't say that, oh, I want themto suffer. No. I don't want them
to suffer.
But I want them to stand ontheir own two feet, get a job in
the private sector, and actuallymake themselves valuable. I know

(54:55):
it's asking a lot, by the way. Iknow.

Alright. Well, I think we have a clip for this
topic too, don't we?

Jim Lakely (55:01):
Yeah.

Previous one. Okay. So we can play the clip,
and, I think Jim has some pointsto make.

Speaker 6 (55:08):
And I'm restating right now to correct any
confusion that the media haspurposely and somehow, for
whatever reason, created SocialSecurity, Medicare, Medicaid
have not been affected by anyaction we're taking in any way,
shape, or form.

Yep.

Speaker 6 (55:24):
We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy
where there has been tremendouswaste and fraud and abuse. In
that process, we identified andstopped $50,000,000 being sent
to Gaza to buy condoms forHamas.

It's just so ridiculous.

Speaker 6 (55:45):
And you know what's happened to them? They've used
them as a method of makingbombs. How about that? We
stopped an attempt to make anillicit payment for illegal
alien resettlement. We canceled$181,000,000 in DEI training
contracts.
This is just for the training ofpeople in DEI, which has been

(56:07):
terminated and completelyterminated. And we paused
$1,700,000,000 in unauthorizedpayments to foreign
organizations, includingstopping more than $40,000,000
that was on its way out the doorto the very corrupt World Health
Organization, which has not doneits job and not done it

(56:28):
properly. We also thank you. Wealso blocked $45,000,000 for our
diversity scholarships in Burma.45.
That's a lot of money fordiversity scholarships in Burma.

Jim Lakely (56:47):
Yeah. That's a lot of money. Just a just a couple
quick points here. I mean, I'mI'm Gen x, and I remember, and
I've been a conservative all mylife. And I remember how excited
I was in in 1994 whenRepublicans took control of the
house for the first time, Ithink, in 45 years.
And they promised under NewtGingrich that we're gonna get
spending under control. RonaldReagan tried to get spending

(57:09):
under control, but he didn'thave the power to do it because
he didn't have the power of thepurse. And you couldn't cut
things without Walter Cronkitesaying that you're starving
grandmothers and all this stuff.But don't worry, guys. Now that
consider the Republicans are incharge of congress, we're gonna
get a handle on spending.
Well, that never reallyhappened. And I've thought I
would never in my life see a aspending freeze announced by the

(57:31):
federal government. I never, inmy lifetime, thought I would see
a hiring freeze announced by thefederal government. And what's
happening here, we have to, Ithink, take stock of the
historic nature of this moment.Because, you know, during the
campaign, Elon Musk, when hewould campaign for Trump, would
say, look.
We're not gonna just fire all ofthese federal employees, but we

(57:52):
do need to reduce the size ofthe federal bureaucracy. And so
we'll just make them an offer,an offer that they'll probably
wanna take. It's like, here's 8months severance. Go that gives
you plenty of time to go andfind something else to do with
your life that's more productivethan pushing paper, I guess, on
your home desk, for somebureaucracy that doesn't do any
good in the world and nobodyeven knows about. So here you

(58:13):
go, and a lot of people willtake it.
And that's the deal that we seeon the table from Donald Trump
right now. And I think just likewhen you start enforcing
immigration law and announcethat you're gonna get serious
about it, a lot of illegals inthis country will self deport.
We're gonna see a lot of peoplein the bureaucracy self retire
or self you know, firethemselves and go off. And,
plus, they also get to keepwhere however much time they put

(58:35):
in for the federal government,the most generous pension
package in the Western world isa is a an employee of the
federal government of the UnitedStates of America. So they still
get that as well.
So what we're gonna see is that,we're gonna see a lot of these
people, you know, self deport.We're going to again, moving the
Overton window. We never have adiscussion about, yeah, exactly

(58:55):
why are we spending $46,000,000on a DEI scholarship program in
Burma while while while, youknow, natural disaster victims
in North Carolina get $750, ifthat if they put if they jump
over all the, bureaucratichurdles first. And another thing
that is happening here, and I Iwanted to make sure to remember
to bring this up, and DonaldTrump has already done this.

(59:18):
He's frozen the, the donationsof our tax dollars to NGOs,
nongovernmental organizations,especially those who specialize
in facilitating the, migrationand and life of illegal
immigrants in this country.
He's putting an end to it byshutting off the money. The

(59:38):
Heartland Institute is anonprofit. We're a 5013
organization. Like many of theseorganizations, there's thousands
of them in the United States.There's many of them on the
left.
We have never taken 1 cent ofgovernment money. So many of
these NGOs, these nonprofitsthat advanced leftist ideology
and and leftist agenda, almostall of them take government

(59:58):
money. So we are paying thesalaries and for the and for the
work of all of these left wingNGOs that are undermining the
national security of thiscountry, our economy by by
bringing in a bunch of illegal,immigrants and all sorts of
other things. And so DonaldTrump is putting a stop to that.
This is historic.
And now he's moved the Overtonwindow where we as a society and

(01:00:20):
a country can start to talkabout whether these should
really be the priorities ofAmerican tax dollars, or maybe
it should be something else,like rebuilding Los Angeles and
Western North Carolina.

Linnea Lueken (01:00:31):
Yep. It's I'd like to recommend a, x account
that I like to follow,randoland.us. He tracks or auto
posts all of these, likegovernment federal grants and
how much they're for and whatthey're going to. And there are
some doozies in there. I mean,we are sending 100 of 1,000, if

(01:00:54):
not 1,000,000 of dollars toforeign countries for like.
I don't know, transgender basketweaving classes. I mean, it
really is that ridiculous insome cases. It's it's absolutely
nuts. But, and it and it'sreally insulting when you look
at how much money we're dumpinginto other countries for, like,
random social progressivecauses, when we have, like,

(01:01:18):
major problems at home that wecould be addressing.

Chris Talgo (01:01:22):
Yeah. And, Lisanaya, one other thing. And,
you know, Jim and I, we've beenaround for a while. We've we've
seen the the annual list ofgrand grandpa puts together a
good list of, you know,government waste. But I was
watching, an interview with,someone at the OMB office saying
that there are literallyhundreds of programs that the
funding has lapsed.
There is no longer they are nolonger authorized, but the funds

(01:01:44):
just keep getting dispersed bytreasury. So it's like those are
the kind of things where you'vegot such a gargantuan government
that spends such an enormousamount of money. It's not as if
someone is checking on everysingle, transaction that's going
in and out of treasury. So weneed to get our we need to, you
know, look under the hood here.And that's what this was about.
This was not about saying we'regonna cut all this. It's yo,
guys guys, chill. Take a freezefor a minute. Let's actually

(01:02:07):
look under the hood, see what'sgoing on, and then determine,
okay. Yeah.
We get rid of this. You know, wecan pause this. Okay. We, you
know, need this. But, of course,as usual, the left, the
democrats, you know, inparticular, just, you know, are
get are getting reallyhyperbolic about this saying,
oh, you're gonna cancel people'sSocial Security payments.
That's not true. We've seen thatargument just again and again

(01:02:27):
and again. Government shutdownsdon't even affect, Social
Security payments. So why woulda temporary, funding freeze on
grants and other other spending,priorities, why would that cause
the Social Security checks tonot be mailed? It just doesn't
make any sense.
The fear mongering, I think it'sI think it's not working
anymore. I think the Americanpeople see through it, and they
know. And they, you know, votedfor someone who's gonna go in

(01:02:49):
there and clean up this mess.

Jim Lakely (01:02:51):
A 100%. Those top stories don't work. Those those
top stories aren't gonna workanymore. I I think that people
are completely done with thatdone with that.

It it won't work on it won't work on most, like,
thinking people, but people thatare, you know, just kinda going
off of what they see in socialmedia, especially young people.
I had a relative of mine reachedout to me concerned because one
of her friends told her that,she heard that the birthright
citizenship thing was going toget her deported even though

(01:03:19):
she's an American citizenbecause, like, her grandmother
or whatever was an immigrantlike an illegal immigrant or
something. No. But people arebeing grandfathered in. You're
not gonna be deported if ifyou're a citizen now.
If you have a Social Securitynumber, you're not getting
deported.

There's a very powerful response response to to
this, and I've been saying thisfor years when people bring this
stuff up. It's your tax money.You know, I just just filed my
2024 taxes. I paid the federalgovernment a lot of money. Yeah.
I got a little bit of it back,but, you know, that money was
wasted on so many of thesefrivolous stupid programs and

(01:03:57):
going to pay, you know, people'ssalaries for just doing nothing
but watching Netflix, you know,in their PJs all day. And I
think the American people arejust getting really sick and
tired of that. You know, this isour money. The government does
not just have money. Thegovernment can only get money
from productive people, and we,you know, are sick and tired of
funding these ridiculousprograms, these people who do

(01:04:19):
nothing, and the government thatalmost does nothing.

Yep. Absolutely. Well, before we wrap it up
today, I want I wanted to, takea look and give you guys any
chance that, you wanna take tobring up any executive orders
that we didn't cover. We onlycovered a very small number of
them. I mean, there's a1,000,000,000 of them at this
point.
And I'll I'll start because Ithink that this is one that is
going to, have some good broaderimpacts on how the United States

(01:04:49):
looks at internationalactivities and international
organizations and everything,and that's withdrawing the
United States from the WorldHealth Organization. And right
off the bat, Trump does not,pull any punches on it
whatsoever. He immediately saysthat the reason why we're doing

(01:05:10):
this is because of theorganization's mishandling of
COVID 19 that arose out ofWuhan, China, he specifies, and
other global health crises, itsfailure to adopt urgently needed
reforms, its inability todemonstrate independence from
inappropriate politicalinfluence of member states. In
addition, the WHO continues todemand unfairly onerous payments

(01:05:33):
from the United States far outof proportion with other
countries' assessed payments.China, with a population of
1,400,000,000 has 300% of thepopulation of the United States
yet contributes nearly 90% less.
So this is great. This isterrific. I don't think it
should stop here. The reason whyI picked this one as my favorite
is because I hope that it iskind of a bellwether for what is

(01:05:58):
to come with other internationalorganizations. I don't think I
it's my personal opinion that Ido not think that we should be
in the United Nations anymore.
I think that it's a huge wasteof time and money. Everywhere
the United Nations goes, theybring suffering, and all they do
is they suck money out of, theUnited States in particular and

(01:06:22):
send it to everybody else in theworld, whether or not they're
holding up their end of whateverbargain it is that they claim to
be involved in. This isespecially true on the climate
issue. So I would just like themto just be done. We're just done
with them.
So I like the idea of pullingout the WHO. It's a good kind of
test for pulling out ofinternational organizations like

(01:06:45):
that. I'd like to see it gofurther. Okay. Who's next?
What's your favorite?

Alright. I'm gonna go with, the education sector
here. As of yesterday, DonaldTrump said that the federal
government will no longerprovide funding to schools that
promote CRT. That's calledcritical race theory. I think
that is a huge win because as a,teacher, I saw the, corrosive
effect that CRT has uponstudents making them, you know,

(01:07:12):
feels if they are, you know,some sort of oppressor just
because of their skin color,that is sick, that is twisted,
that is everything against whatMartin Luther King, you know,
stood for.
So I'm very glad to see that aCRT looks like it's gonna be on
its way out just like DEI. Andone other, executive order
signed yesterday and thisdoesn't have that much teeth,
but I think it's just stillimportant to note it. Donald

(01:07:35):
Trump wants to make schoolchoice universal. He wants to
make school choice universal forevery single American, which it
should be. Our public schoolsystem I'm a former public
school teacher.
I've been in the trenches foryears. It is utterly failing. It
is utterly failing. Our,national assessment education,
report just came out. And guesswhat?
We fell we fell behind again, interms of our reading, writing,

(01:07:59):
and math skills. Our educationsystem is in dire need of
repair. The only way to properlyrepair it and to save this next
generation is through schoolchoice. We have to have school
choice. It's happening at thestate level, but if it would if
it were to happen at the,federal level, that would just
be a total game changer.

(01:08:19):
And, Tim Scott, by the way, thesenator from South Carolina, did
just, introduce propose a billthat would make school choice
universal. I doubt the senateobviously is gonna pass it
because he needs 60 votes in thesenate, and we know that
Democrats who claim they care somuch about children actually
don't give a you know what aboutchildren because they care much
more about the teacher unionsand, you know, the the, lobbying

(01:08:43):
fees and lobbying, money thatthe teacher unions supply to
almost solely Democrats.Interesting.

But but, Chris, don't Chicago schools just need
more money, and they'll dobetter? Isn't that the formula?
Of course,

they need no more money. And you wanna know what's
really sick and twisted aboutthis. Let's let's, just circle
back real quick to theimmigration stuff. The Chicago
Teachers Union is actually, youknow, congratulating these
illegal immigrants because guesswhy? It boosts their attendance.
Yep. It it boosts public schoolattendance. And as a former high
school teacher exactly. I canassure you that all they care

(01:09:17):
about is the attendance, andthey only care about the
attendance in the 1st 2 weeksbecause those are when the
federal government gives youthose these pink sheets of paper
and you go and you do yourattendance. And if that's if
that student is there duringthat 2 weeks, they count as a
seat and they count as moremoney.
And we went on, we were we wereencouraged to go on door
doorbell knocking, missions toget students to come just for

(01:09:40):
the 1st 2 weeks. But then guesswhat? After those 1st 2 weeks,
they didn't give one you knowwhat if those kids showed up
again. So that just goes to showme they didn't care about
educating the kids. They caredabout getting as much money as
they could per seat, which isjust that that's evil.
That's why I just could not takeit any longer.

Awesome. Thank you. And I I've seen reports to
that, something like 30 schoolsin the Chicagoland area have 0
students that are reading attheir grade level, which is,
like, just stunning. I don'tknow how you you even achieve
that. It's terrible.
And yet we're supposed to we'resupposed to give them more money

(01:10:21):
anyway. Jim, what is yourfavorite executive order or
orders of these last 10 days?

Well, we actually went over so many of them. I
have a big list and we weactually hit a lot of the ones
that I had on my list. But Ijust want to one of the ones I I
don't even know if this isexecutive order necessarily. But
Donald Trump is ending thepractice of sue and settle at
the Environmental ProtectionAgency. This is a practice where
a, again, a, probably publiclyfunded national, you know, NGO
on the left that working to savethe planet will, sue, the EPA to

(01:10:54):
say that you must regulate inthis in this particular fashion.
And then the EPA, instead offighting it, will say, oh,
that's a good idea. Fine. Great.We'll set we'll we'll we'll
accept that. We'll probablyactually award you some money,
and this will now be the newpolicy of the United States,
through the EPA.
That's, a complete scam, andit's going to end, apparently,
under Donald Trump. I'm gonnakeep an eye on that for sure

(01:11:15):
because that's a very importantway that the left has imposed
their will against the will ofthe people. We never get to vote
on these things. They just theyjust go to court and make
everything happen. And anotherone just based on, on the
environment and energy stuff isthat Donald Trump fired the
entire science advisory board atat the Environmental Protection
Agency.

(01:11:35):
And so these are the radicalalarmists who, give the fake
scientific justification for allthe regulations that the EPA
wants to roll out. Trump firedthem all. Again, he's moving
this Overton window into wherewe can have actual discussions
about, some very importantpolicy ideas. And, and that's
only possible because of the waythe election turned out. I just

(01:11:57):
wanted to just to I just wannaremind everybody that if the
election went in anotherdirection, the opposite
direction, Donald Trump would bein jail today, and he would die
there.
He would be sentenced forprobably 30 years in prison, for
that. Elon Musk's ex wouldprobably already be under, would
be certainly under assault, andhe may even be in in big legal

(01:12:17):
trouble. So we dodged a realbullet on November 5th, and now
we are seeing the benefits ofthat in ways that were wholly
unimaginable even based onTrump's record in his first
term. He is serious. This is amajor political and, I think,
social inflection point in thiscountry.
And I just I said, I I'm notgonna get sick of the winning. I

(01:12:40):
promise you I promise you I willnot get sick of the winning as
long as it happens every day for4 years.

Yeah. We are we are loving it.

Do you remember shortly after Barack Obama won
in 2008 that he, had that that,big meeting with, I think it
was, people from both sides ofthe aisle, including John
McCain, who he defeated, wasback in the senate. And he said
these infamous words, electionsmatter. Well, you know what?
Elections really matter now. SoI'm really sorry, Barack, but
your fundamental transformationwas, you know, a complete

(01:13:10):
disaster, and elections matter.
And this election is gonnamatter a lot for a long time to
come.

Yeah. I believe the quote was elections have
consequences. Excuse me.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And and he had said famously on the campaign
trail that, we are 5 days awayfrom the fundamental
transformation of the UnitedStates of America. Donald Trump
is now bringing about thefundamental restoration of the
United States of America. Imean, one of the lines from his
and we'll end here. But one ofthe lines from his campaign that
really struck me as verypowerful, as he's as he would

(01:13:41):
run through the list of litanyof things that were wrong with
this country and the policiesthat were completely backwards,
policies that took away ourfreedom and treated us like
children or worse.
He said, we don't have to livethis way. And we don't have to
live this way. And the voters inNovember decided they were not
gonna live that way anymore. Andthat's why I think this is a
real political and socialinflection point that we may

(01:14:01):
look back on in in 10 or 20years as as pivotal as the fall
of the Berlin Wall.

Can I speak one more one more one more quick
point? You know, I I've beenthinking a lot about this. So,
you know, there was obviously abig side of me that wanted
Donald Trump to win in 2020, butI think it was actually a
blessing in his and blessing inhis skies that he that he I
think he won the election, butthat he wasn't certified the
winner. We'll put it that way.Okay?
Because it allowed us to get torock bottom. I think the

(01:14:28):
American people actually neededto hit rock bottom, and Joe
Biden led us to rock bottom. Theeconomy was a joke. The, border
was wide open. Our foreigninfluence and our, you know,
foreign standing just plummeted.
And I think that sometimes youneed to really just kinda hit
the bottom to to finallyrealize, like, woah. It doesn't
have to be this way. So I thinkthat, you know, we probably

(01:14:51):
wouldn't even have this flurryof executive orders in this, you
know, this this, you know, this,almost like widespread
acceptance of Donald Trump atthis point. You know, there's
polls showing that, you know,he's 52%, you know, approval
rate, you know, for his firstcouple weeks here in office. We
would not have seen that in 2020because he would have been under

(01:15:13):
that, that impeachment.
It would have been just way moreresistance. So I think looking
back on it, and I know that alot of people have struggled,
and I have struggled too in someways under the Biden
administration. But I thinklooking back on it that we will
look at that as, wow. You knowwhat? We had to hit rock bottom
in order to realize that we cando so much better than this.

Oh, yeah. Definitely. And it's it's very
amazing to watch. I I thinktoday, we can say this real
quick. Today, I think Democratsactually pulled, like, the
lowest popularity rating thatthey've ever pulled, and that's
after the the opposing partyjust got into office.
I don't think that normallyhappens. I think normally,
Democrats get a little boostafter a Republican is in office

(01:15:55):
because they get to be theresistance, you know. But that
is not happening right now.People are sick and tired of
these guys. Anyway, everybody,so I wanna pitch real quick
before we end the show.
A lot of the research that wedid or that I did anyway to try
and find good executive ordersto highlight because there are
just so many of them, came froman account on Twitter called 47

(01:16:18):
or on the x. Sorry. I alwayscall it Twitter. 47 tracker, and
all it does is post, theexecutive orders as they are
published to the White Housewebsite. There's no commentary
or anything, so it's a reallygood source for that.
Anyway, that is all the time wehave. We went a little bit over,
but thank you guys so much forsticking with us. We are live

(01:16:40):
every single week on Thursdaysat noon CST on Rumble, Twitter,
YouTube, Facebook. When they letus, they might let us more into
the future. For audio listeners,again, please rate us well on
whatever service you're using.
Leave a review that really helpsus climb the ranks there. And
thank you guys so much. Ourusual panelists are terrific.

(01:17:00):
Guys, where can the audiencefind you, and do you guys have
anything to plug this week?

Atjlakeleyonx, atheartlandinst, also on x.
Visitheartland.org, and see youtomorrow for for the Climate
Realism Show same time, but onFridays on this year channel.

I got nothing to plug. I just I concur with
everything that Jim just said.

Okay. That's terrific. Well, thank you again,
everybody. We will see you nextweek.

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Trump’s YUUUGE First 10 Days - In The Tank #481

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Trump’s YUUUGE First 10 Days - In The Tank #481