4.11.25 Brian Fitzherbert WOND Radio

Liberty and Prosperity president, Brian Fitzherbert joins the 'Talking with Anne' WOND radio show for 'Fitzherbert Friday'. Brian and Anne discuss DOGE cuts, tariffs and China cyber security threat. They also take calls from Dan and Rich.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to talking with Anne on News Talk
1,400
90 two point three w o n d.
Wanna talk politics or what's happening in your
town? This is the place. Wanna give your
opinion on what's happening locally, nationally, or even
internationally?
This is the place.
And if you want civil dialogue no matter
which side of the political spectrum you're on,

(00:22):
this is the place.
Talking with Anne on News Talk fourteen hundred
and ninety two point three w o n
d. Here's your host, Ann Baker.
Oh, good morning. Good morning, everyone. This is
Ann Baker on Talking with Ann, and I've
got Brian Fitzherbert on Fitzherbert Friday. And, Brian,
a lot of good things happening. A lot

(00:43):
of not so good things happening, but we're
we're finding out a lot of great things.
And we we did try to get ahold
of, chairman Purdy, and we have not yet
heard from him. So,
hopefully, we'll be able to, you'll be able
particularly to get a hold of him or
this, young woman,
that he assigned this this,

(01:06):
this post to.
And, perhaps you you two can get together
anyway.
We'll
see.
Alright. Brian, are you there?
Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Now I
can hear you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed.

(01:26):
Yeah. It's it's always a good idea,
to bring together great minds and great ideas
and things that you really
know you need to work on and make
better, make the best. And,
when that happens, it's a good thing.
When it doesn't,
it's not so good.
And it we we need to make perhaps

(01:48):
more of an effort
and,
put down the shield
that some of us put before us because
we don't wanna hear it. We don't want
to be told what to do.
As a as a mother, I know sometimes
that's something I don't want anyone to tell
me what to do.
But,
yeah. It is,

(02:10):
it's a shame
that, we're not as united as we should
be. And it's
if, in fact, it's, the leadership of the
party that's causing this schism,
then I think
I think that that needs to be addressed
by,
the politicians
so,
that can actually have a say

(02:32):
in, how something is run for the good
of them
and their reelection,
as well as for anything else. But most
importantly, wanting to make the Republican Party
the best that it can possibly possibly be.
So,
we've got Dan on the line. Dan, good
morning. Welcome. How are you?

(02:54):
Good morning. How are you? Good. Thanks.
The point of interest,
I know we were having issues with the
price of eggs.
But as of yesterday, the wholesale price was
$400 a dozen.
Now that's obviously the 15,000
case.

(03:16):
What needs to be done is more time
until the price comes down from what they
originally bought the product from.
So it works its way through the system.
Interesting point that no one's
not
a
comprehended.
No. That's a good observation because
ultimately,
things do not happen overnight or at the
snap of fingers.

(03:36):
You have all these
invisible hands in the market on the supply
side, on the demand side that ultimately
have to come to a conclusion.
The biggest example of a mini economy is
the stock market on a daily basis. It
just so happens those are the participants
buying and selling, in this case, stocks
or bonds, etcetera, in any given period of

(03:58):
time. It doesn't you have to look at
the aggregate. What you're what you're observing
is, again, reality. This stuff doesn't happen
overnight, but it can crack
in a negative
very quickly, but it still takes time for
things to go one way or the other.
And, again, it makes me laugh because the
president hasn't even been in a hundred days
yet, and they're like, well, he hasn't fixed

(04:19):
the economy yet. He's done a pretty darn
good job in a lot of areas while
he is continuing to build and re re
up the economy that Biden unfortunately spent four
years destroying.
One other point also.
I'm sure
Dan remembers Ed Hickel.
Yeah.
Ed and I were talking about tomatoes,

(04:41):
and
he showed me an article where the government
of Italy
busted a factory,
that was packing tomatoes and labeling against Italian
tomatoes.
Now
they may have been exported out to United
States from Italy,
but those tomatoes

(05:02):
are from China.
Mhmm. That's how they cheated in the food
industry.
Carve outs. Yep.
Do they And the
the serpent vent.
Yes. Look. There's always ways
and China has now I think their Ministry
of Finance has come out, said that they're

(05:23):
gonna point blank ignore,
the latest tariff rate from The United States
and Donald Trump, which you can't do.
So you're gonna you're gonna cause some economic,
suffering some more. And China's doing the exact
opposite of what it should do. They should
join the the 75 countries that contacted the
White House to negotiate, but instead, they've decided

(05:43):
to up the ante. And guess what? We
can last a hell of a lot longer
than they can,
with regard to every one of these things.
And when you're talking about your example,
the amount of carve outs that are gonna
be attempted I mean, this happens from a
business standpoint, from a labor standpoint, you name
it. This this always happens because you're always
trying to find ways to cut costs. And
in a lot of other places outside The

(06:04):
United States,
they can do things that we can't because,
guess what, we have laws. We have safety
regulations. We have environmental
regulations.
We have child labor laws. We have all
these things that, relatively speaking, are disadvantaged from
business perspective, but are probably good in some
in some cases. Obviously, you wanna have a
safe labor force. You don't wanna have children

(06:25):
under the age of 14 working more than,
you know, x amount of hours, three hours
a day, whatever it may be today. It's
natural. And we have to be aware of
this. But Trump is resetting the economic table,
and you're watching the reactions
and the attempts, like you said, to do
things outside,
outside the the channels of economic commerce. And,

(06:46):
ultimately, they're the ones that are gonna suffer
the most. And China is playing a very
dangerous game because Trump's got the cards, and
he is not afraid
to decimate that entire country economically.
Yep. Correct. And he has been studying this
now for the last thirty years.
Under %.
The videos that are circulating

(07:06):
around that a lot of people I mean,
literally older than me, Videos that show Trump
and his position on tariffs. He's never changed
his opinion or policy position. He's finally in
a position to do this and to fix
this. And I've said before on Anne's show
that everyone who's flipping out of this, give
him the shot to do it because the

(07:27):
alternative
is more debt, $36,000,000,000,000
of debt that will likely jump to 40,000,000,000,000
in the next couple of years and make
it because unsustainable from a GDP standpoint and
will collapse. So give the guy a chance
to reset the table, fix the economy, fix
Biden's mess, and make other countries
finally, as the Democrats like to say, pay
their fair share. And his goal, again, is

(07:49):
zero
tariffs, maximum free trade, which isn't right now
in terms of actual tariff percentages,
regulations and other economic barriers.
Correct. And we definitely should have learned from
the COVID problem.
Do you think? Because I'm telling you, people

(08:10):
people
were were saying, oh my god. Measles.
And then there was the monkeypox,
and there was and everybody's afraid that there
will be another COVID.
And I'm praying to God that people remember
their first amendment rights were removed from them
because the government got involved in telling people
what they had to do, when in fact
it should be up to each and every

(08:30):
one of us us whether or not we
get a shot, whether or not we stay
indoors, whether or not we mask ourselves,
or go out and visit other people.
Yeah. I think I think we learned our
lesson. I know I did,
and I think you gentlemen probably did,
but I hope the world did seeing what
China could do to us if they put

(08:51):
their their claws
into us, not only with having COVID nineteen
spread,
but
with creating the kind of intense,
eventual
confrontation
between people having to do with COVID nineteen
and with the inoculations.

(09:11):
Yes. And and Donald Trump is also looking
at the Taiwan issue right now, three years
down the line.
You bet. He better.
Joe Biden wasn't.
Well, you know, people are saying well, Joe
Biden didn't know squat nor did any of
the communist behind him. But the it seems

(09:32):
that the Chinese,
communist party
is looking to 2027
to invade Taiwan.
And with our military
might being probably
a tiny bit a tiny fraction better than
what,
China has at this point,
We better be aware. We better be grateful

(09:55):
that Donald Trump is there and wants to
make our military as well. And and certainly,
Brian knows this,
more than any of us,
being in the weapons industry and knowing what
America is capable of, but you probably already
know what China is capable of as well.
And we need to keep that always in
mind

(10:15):
when we're thinking about
Taiwan
and the fact that they make our semiconductors,
that they're still the the greatest provider.
That's why Donald Trump is so important when
he brings back these kinds of industries into
our own country.
Okay. Thank you, guys. Have a good day.
Thank you, Dan.
Rich, good morning. Welcome.

(10:36):
What kind of a fact, if any,
will the local FAA tech center have?
Great question. And that's something that, from my
knowledge and my connections, has yet to be
reviewed.
The interesting thing about our tech center here
in the district in South Jersey is it's
one of two FAA tech centers. The other

(10:58):
one is in Oklahoma
that have the capabilities and the expertise, etcetera.
I suspect
that just like all the other organizations,
there's going to be a review
of what people do
and what their producibility
is with regards to that now?

(11:18):
Obviously, that creates a lot
of uncertainty for the labor force, etcetera. But
I would say with staunch
confidence, A, it's not being shut down. B,
is there a possibility that there's going to
be some culling?
I would say just based on the
actions of Doge and other places
in identifying,

(11:40):
ways to cut costs. Now remember, nobody has
been terminated
yet within,
transportation. They've done it, and that's where FAA
falls under, etcetera.
So they're going department by department, and the
Doge employees become
temporary
employees of that department while they go and
do their review because they're more or less,
they're a special government caucus as it were,
and they just go from agency to agency.

(12:02):
So just based on their performance in other
places,
when it comes to safety and all the
other stuff that the tech center does,
it's probably minimal relative to something like what
RFKJ just did at helping human services where
he fired 10,000 workers,
because of what their producibility was and the
fact that a lot of them were temporary
workers doing things that really didn't add anything

(12:24):
to the value chain.
So I would suspect that there would be
some culling. And
my assumption is that there might be opportunities
for,
other roles that may not be FAA but
similar expertise,
which I know has been offered to other
employees within the government that, for the most
part, governments haven't government employees haven't taken up
because they they they wanna keep doing what

(12:46):
they're doing. So, you know, we've talked in
the previous weeks where Doge did the voluntary
separation plan. Right? The 75,000
government workers across
the federal agencies to voluntarily separate, take eight,
nine months in pay, and no longer be
an employee. And then there's those that are
gonna be reviewed for,
firing, which a lot of them were contract

(13:06):
work, temporary workers, that kind of stuff, in
other agencies,
on
state department health and human services, ones that
aren't from an integrity
safety,
standpoint, and you see that from the IRS.
So I suspect
there will be some calling, but I don't
think it's going to be to the magnitude,
that we've seen in other places,

(13:27):
given my knowledge of the tech center and
and what they're able to to do for
the country
out of the tech center here?
Yes. I just got
a meeting out at the CU COUNTRY Club
by the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New
Jersey and
Howard Kyle

(13:49):
and I learned more
Vince Paulusina
and Tim Edmond
shared it and they were talking about
the expansion of the Aviation Park.
And I didn't get an opportunity to ask
that question, but if you're planning this part,
what kind of an effect

(14:11):
with the federal government spending will it have
on that?
Well, so it's twofold and you bring up
a very good point because the park itself
is not really for government
entities or employees. I don't think that's the
intent or design. I think it's to attract
private and public companies that are in the
aerospace

(14:31):
and probably defense
industries to do business as contractors with the
government.
But there's also other ways,
again, it's creative destruction when the economy grows
when it contracts,
of new things to do,
to support whether that's
there's government work that is not being done
efficiently or productively,

(14:52):
then all of a sudden, guess what? It
gets outsourced
to, you know, a subcontractor or a contract
that does with the government that's driven and
motivated by profit, and they want to do
well, and they want to win contracts. The
only problem when this is when it's a
sole source,
you know, the SSJ's that get filled out
full source notifications,
those should be rare because there always should

(15:12):
be competitive bidding, and that's the whole point
of the federal acquisition regulations to par with
any government entity and any contractor
to follow, and that's the that's that's the
federal regulations. That that's not necessarily the same
when it comes to state or county or
municipal, etcetera,
to make sure that there isn't funny business,
backroom deals,

(15:33):
backscratched from politicians, all those kinds of things.
You want it to be a fair and
open competition to drive up the best producibility,
technical competence for the lowest price for the
taxpayer.
So there's opportunity,
but the the economy is gonna contract in
both ways,
as we continue to grow and as we
continue to affect the demand side of economics,

(15:55):
I. E. Keynesian economics that the Democrats have
instituted throughout the federal government and do more
of what Trump is proposing, which is supply
side economics.
And what is what are you actually producing
of value? What is the real demand, not
artificial demand? And I know that sounds that
sounds horrible to say, but you shouldn't have
a job just to have a job. What
are you producing, whether you're in the private

(16:16):
sector or public sector or government, etcetera? What
is your producibility, and what what is the
outcome?
Got it. All right. Well, hopefully
that
Aviation Park can continue to grow and
there was some mention about that Amazon is
exploring

(16:37):
out in Mammals and townships too. So Well,
stay tuned and see if that comes to
fruition.
Well, we don't have any AOCs here.
Yeah. So We don't have any AOCs
in this in this district. So Just Gary,
I think we do.
Oh, we certainly would.

(16:58):
Absolutely. No. And Amazon is a very unique
company because everyone thinks about, you know, shopping
online, warehousing,
distribution centers, that kind of thing. But they
also have, obviously, their drone programs is one
of the reasons why they built H Q
2 in Crystal City in in Arlington because
they do a lot of government contracting work,
specifically
clearance related jobs.

(17:19):
I've had multiple conversations with recruiters from Amazon,
because of my background in in defense and
aviation, aerospace, etcetera, and having security clearance. And
what Amazon can really do
is really be in the mold with developing
further,
drone and unmanned aerial
vehicle applications. You know, everyone who's listening who
knows me, I've said this for years. There's

(17:41):
so many applications
from a commercial stand standpoint, you know, nonmilitary,
that we could do. And we here in
the Second District in South Jersey have such
a unique,
you know, hidden gems and environment because we're
a peninsula down here. We've got a lot
of shoreline. We've got the coast guard training
center. We got the tech center. We got
the fighter wing. We got Atlantic City Airport.
We got all these county airports and municipal

(18:03):
airports in South Jersey that you could do
a lot of drone testing. You could do
a lot of this practice that institute,
you know, pharmaceutical delivery, medications to retirees and
older people that are not as mobile, the
delivery of packages, pizza, food, you you know,
all these things, You know,
mapping infrastructure
for roads,
bridges, all those kinds of things.

(18:23):
We have a lot of opportunity here, and,
you know, Amazon is one of those,
research and development hubs under AWS that Okay.
Do it. We we're we're we're at the
end of the segment, but, yeah, you know
what? Amazon, if they're listening, should be chomping
at the bit to get here to Atlanta
County. Anyway, thanks. Good morning, everyone. This is
Anne Baker together with my cohost Brian Fitzherbert

(18:45):
on Fitzherbert Friday.
And,
Rich, you're still on the line?
No. He's not. Okay.
Brian, we
we know that there are many things happening
in our, country today.
We also understand that China is, in fact,
the greatest threat that we've got.

(19:07):
You being in the weapons industry,
what should we be most concerned about when
it has to do with weapons?
And whether or not we're on the same
page as China, whether they are as strong
as we are in certain areas,
where should we be most concerned when it
comes to China?
Yeah. So the generic,

(19:27):
tagline is we need to be mission
ready
yesterday.
The military is there to protect The United
States and its interests,
break things and kill people. That's that's what
it is. And whatever leads to that cohesion,
we can't have distractions.
Now, specifically,
we need to have an increase with regard
to our sea power. What does that mean?

(19:48):
The likelihood if there is a conflict
with
China in the future that is from any
perspective of military outside of the economic and
psychological that's going on right now,
is gonna come down to the sea lanes
and probably things that develop in the South
China Sea, etcetera. We need to be able
to have submarines
that are fully capable,

(20:10):
for this generation and the next,
challenges and scenarios, as well as the sea
power support from drone satellites and everything else.
Aircraft carriers we mainly need to have ships
that can get close enough to launch,
the air force or naval aviators into,
a situation if necessary because we own the

(20:31):
air. But we need to focus on sea
power,
especially,
in
the South China Sea and anything around Taiwan.
And everyone keeps asking probably the question, why
do we have to give a crap about
Taiwan or the South China Sea? It's because
of that's where, ultimately,
a lot of the supply chains are impacted.
And, again, this bodes well with what Trump

(20:51):
is doing by resetting the economic world order
with regard to tariffs taking the maximalist position,
renegotiating
with every single country, and using it to
even the playing field to bring back,
manufacturing
and an industrial base here so we don't
have to rely on Taiwan, China, or other
countries for mission critical

(21:13):
parts,
that go into things. Now from a military
standpoint, we don't do anything with China because
they are notorious for counterfeit parts relative to
material
that's on an engineering drawing. So that's China
is not affecting us that way. But from
other,
tools that support and supplement
the military,
it's a big no no. And, obviously, Taiwan
is is big on the semiconductors.

(21:34):
So all that what Trump is doing, you
have to bring the industrial base back here.
COVID was a sad, sad lesson when it
came to reliability
that, oh my gosh. What happens when we
need pharmaceuticals
or or,
any kind of supplies, medical supplies? They're all
made in China. We have to eliminate this
idea that my entire generation
of the last three or four decades

(21:55):
has seen made in China. It's gotta go
back to the made in the USO.
That's almost impossible to do though, isn't it?
And you you talk about how important the
South China Sea is to us in our
shipping lanes and getting products,
this with this
with this supply chain.
But, in fact,
China is well known for taking over and,

(22:17):
in fact, building islands
in the South China Sea Yeah. Where they
then build warehouses, and we have no idea
what's going on within the walls of these
huge warehouses that are being built on these
huge new islands.
And those new islands are being claimed by
China so that nobody is allowed to get
within
whatever it is,

(22:37):
whatever the rules are
about getting within,
I don't know, three miles
of what belongs to someone else?
Yeah. And, again, this is where the leverage
of relationships like Japan
and Taiwan come into play. Now everyone in
the past has tried to
do an ultimate one China policy.
Right? Hong Kong's part of China. Taiwan's part

(23:00):
of China and not, you know,
utilize them at separate countries or regions.
But I think Trump's gonna change that. He
partnered with the idea back in his first
term, and I think he's gonna I think
he's gonna go full bore and try to
accept Taiwan as independent and all that because
it's it's a poke at the bear, but
you have to understand the environment that we're
playing in, and you gotta make China

(23:22):
yield, which we will because we can last
a whole lot longer than they can,
no matter how big a talk they're they're
gonna be acting right now. But, ultimately,
these things are vastly important. You said it's
very difficult,
to do things here, obviously. Like I said
in the last segment,
China does not have environmental
safety and or child labor laws that mirror

(23:44):
us. In a perfect world, you would say
that we're not doing business with any country
that does not meet our safety, environmental, or
child labor laws. But guess what? We do.
Because what does that produce? Less cost of
goods,
ultimately up and down the supply chain. So
we have to and this is what Trump
is doing. He is flipping the economic table
and saying, you know what? I'm gonna make

(24:05):
everything as costly as possible. We're gonna renegotiate.
The goal is 0%,
on both sides, but we need to be
able to make it cost effective here in
The United States. And what does that mean?
You do one of two things. You either
find ways to drive cost out or you
make it more expensive everywhere else, but the
only competitive
low cost place,

(24:25):
relatively speaking, becomes The US, and it's the
best option in a ten to twenty year
period for businesses and CEOs to make. Now
what does that do? Then you think about,
okay, does that cost get passed on to
the consumer in the form of higher prices?
Possibly. Or they could absorb that and try
to find ways to become more efficient
like Doge and government or what Elon Musk
did with Twitter, what he's done with Tesla,

(24:47):
what he's done with SpaceX, etcetera.
So all these factors are gonna play. It's
not gonna happen overnight, but you gotta reset
the economic game board, and that is exactly
what Donald Trump is doing. Oh, boy. Well,
you know what? We we have to also,
consider China
a supreme enemy when it comes to our,
AI and the fact that China

(25:09):
has hacked into our infrastructure
in every way, shape, and form. In fact,
there probably isn't an an important government infrastructure
that China hasn't already hacked into.
How do we deprive China of all the
information they can glean
by having done this, and can we somehow
or another reverse it?

(25:30):
Yeah. So I actually I think I've talked
about this in the past, maybe a few
years ago,
because
I have been vetted and have had security
clearances,
whether a speaker or top secret. When you
have it,
you your information is logged in the office
of personnel
Management, OPM,

(25:51):
and that is what China
hacked. So all the names and all of
that information,
was was hacked by China A Few Years
ago. And as a result, the government responded
by saying, okay. Anyone whose information was hacked,
we're gonna have this,
for lack of better terms, lifelock
type thing that protects
all aspects of your identity, etcetera, for, you

(26:12):
know, whatever amount of time it is.
And this stuff is now becoming a more
and more recurring theme. You know, yesterday, it
like I said in my example, it's those
that have security clearances. The next could be
a knock list of, you know, undercover agents
in a particular country or a region. So
all these things could be,

(26:33):
dangerous, and that's where cybersecurity
cybersecurity
needs to be,
paramount. And, actually, most of the military arms
now have a far and usually,
contractual regular,
contractual requirement in all RFPs
that have a cybersecurity
requirement that needs to be met for a
risk management framework in our in RMF.

(26:56):
It's also confusing.