September 8, 2025 • 36 mins
Liberty and Prosperity president Brian Fitzherbert, joins Anne Baker on WOND radio for 'Fitzherbert Friday'.
Brian and Anne discuss the China, Russia, and India connection and their attempt to thwart American dominance around the world.
They also discuss the national security implications of allowing 600K Chinese students access to American college's and university's, and the indoctrination of our youth via public education.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Good morning, everyone. This is Anne Baker. I'm
talking with Anne. And, of course, it being,
Fitzherbert Friday. We've got Brian Fitzherbert with us.
Good morning, Brian. How the heck are you?
Good morning, Anne. I'm doing well. Thanks Yeah.
For having me. Well, you know, it's always
our pleasure.
When I say our pleasure, I mean, I
get a lot of good feedback
whenever you're on because,
(00:21):
you know, it's like,
you know what you're talking about. You are
you talk about politics. You talk about,
what our country,
needs. And,
it needs more men and women like you,
who are clear minded
about the state of our country
(00:42):
and what we need to keep our country
the greatest
country in the world. And you have,
been involved in the weapons industry for,
well over a decade, I guess, or going
on to fifteen or more years.
So you you really know.
You know more than anybody,
just how prepared we are as a country.
(01:04):
Have there been any changes? Because I I
read about China, you know, and their new
sub. I I read about,
them coming together, China, and even India.
I'd like to I'd like to strangle Modi.
But, you know, North Korea,
and I think to myself, Russia, they're bringing
all these really bad people together,
(01:28):
to say we don't need you, Western Hemisphere,
because we're coming together and we may come
to get you.
Do we have to be afraid of this?
Well, from the premise that this is psychological
warfare, this has been going on forever, and
it's usually reactive based on geopolitical
circumstances. Or in this case,
Modi is trying to find
(01:50):
so there's there's a couple of things on
this. So Modi and Putin
have always been close. That that's nothing new,
and yet the media is trying to act
like that's new. What is new is bringing
in Xi Jinping into that triad.
And,
again, this is a direct result of Trump
trying to squeeze Putin and those that
do, economic business
(02:12):
with Russia,
because of the Ukraine Russian war, and he's
put tariffs
of 50%
on India on top of the normal,
tariffs
in order to block energy, which is the
lifeline of the Russian economy. Right? So now
you see a posturing of Putin and Xi
Jinping and Modi from India,
(02:33):
on the world stage. It's it's to send
a message to, like you said, to the
West and to Trump, and it's how Trump
and SECDEF,
EXET respond
as well as treasury secretary, Bessette, in terms
of economic, in terms of,
war preparation. Obviously, Trump has triggered a lot
of people on the left because he's going
to,
revert back to the original name of the
(02:54):
Department of Defense, which is the Department of
War Oh, yeah. Which he did through executive
order, which, again, that's that's the whole point.
Right?
And instead of this, you know, passive aggressive
or or nonaggressive,
department. So in terms of that posturing, we've
seen it before. The new thing is Modi
trying
to cozy up to Xi Jinping, which if
(03:15):
that's gonna be the choice that he makes,
there's going to be an economic fallout because
when you have two countries
with over a billion people
that are essentially
not playing ball with The US and the
West in general, and they're gonna instead align
with each other and with Russia, I don't
see that working out very well for them
in the long term. Maybe in the short
(03:35):
term, they'll have some benefits, but Trump is
not afraid to use tariffs.
Besson is not afraid to use other economic
sanctions at his disposal as treasury secretary to
apply pressure
to have material loss or material impact to
change your behavior. You, me, anyone listening,
people's behavior does not change unless there is
a material
(03:55):
loss
of some on whether psychological, physical, or or
whatnot to change your behavior.
And if you just ignore
things,
then, obviously, things continue as they are. But
when you get punched in the face
or you get smacked over the head with
a bat or you get screamed at or
you get served with a legal notice whether
(04:16):
that's a subpoena, whether that's,
being served, you name it. All those things
then puts you in a pause like,
formality, and that's at the smallest level. What
Trump is doing on the global stage is
a lot more impactful,
And, obviously, Hegseth, as our SECDEF, knows exactly
what he's doing by focusing on naval,
(04:39):
reallocation because it's not gonna be in the
air. It's not gonna be on the ground.
It's gonna be in the South China Sea
and probably,
obviously, with the latest development with Space Force
moving from Colorado Springs to Alabama, Space Force
as well. It's gonna be space. It's gonna
be naval, and that's the future of warfare,
and that's what we're gonna go master.
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, from what I
(05:00):
have read, they
we have our first major icebreaker.
It's, the USCGC
Healy
Yeah. Which is going to help us
when,
winter comes,
to those areas in the Arctic
that we may end up fighting
with Russia over?
(05:22):
Why is it so important for us to
have this naval dominance,
besides wanting to protect the islands that are
out there?
Why is it so important?
Yeah. So,
couple things here here. So I've worked on
icebreaker. I've worked on other fast response cutters,
national security cutters,
and other, offshore patrol cutters
(05:43):
that depending on the need and, obviously, icebreaker
is a huge,
powerful asset that, obviously, it's what it says.
It breaks through the ice in the Arctic
so that your ship can continue to actually
sail through. And, obviously, dealing with and this
is why Greenland is a is a geopolitical
asset in terms of what we're gonna do,
not do. Trump's still figuring that out. And
(06:04):
how to deal with Russia, because if you
look at a globe rather than a map,
that's more of a better understanding of the
the closeness from a geographical standpoint
of what we may or may not encounter
should things get escalated. Because, again, when you
cut off money, when you cut off funds,
I e what Trump is doing to Russia
(06:24):
to try to get him to do a
particular behavior with Ukraine, there's going to be
reactions. Sometimes they're they're as expected. Sometimes they're
unexpected. Sometimes they're consequential. Sometimes they're not. So
when we have things like,
a polar icebreaker
of a ship that breaks through and has
these capabilities, and that's not all they have.
They have other capabilities because, again, we have
submarines
(06:44):
all across this awesome
awesome planet,
that are in support. It's not just an
icebreaker. There's a there's usually a combination of
of, let's call them, products,
that coordinate
not just undersea,
but on surface as well as in space.
And Trump is acutely aware
of maximizing those capabilities.
(07:06):
Well, you know what? It it's it's always
been,
in the back of my mind when when
I read some of these,
articles
that talk about our enemies,
particularly China,
when they would go into the South China
Sea and literally create islands
and build them up and build them up
and build them up until they could actually
(07:28):
build warehouses,
laboratories,
places to store their their weapons or their
planes or anything else.
Why anything wasn't done
to say, hold it. This was not an
island. This is man made, and we don't
have to stay three miles away from this
now, what you call your island.
(07:50):
Is there anything that is going on in
that area
where we're going to be taking them out
if we have to,
because they steward all their weapons or perhaps
using it as a base for,
Uighurs to imprison them?
Yeah. So this is a very complicated issue,
and and the easiest place to start in
(08:10):
terms of the genesis is we didn't have
someone like Donald Trump
as president for the last twenty five years.
We we've had him in two stints. We're
in the second stint. And, unfortunately, the first
one was sabotaged greatly,
internally and externally. Now we have a SecDef
who is, also acutely aware because he's served
in military. He's done massive amounts of research
(08:30):
in terms of,
readiness and being able to carry out what
we need to in theater and to identify,
okay, China's going to build an island. Oh,
they're building another island. What is the intent?
What are they doing? Do we have capabilities
and or weapons to deal with this if
we should? Do we have it in a,
lower level capacity? Do we have it in
a higher level capacity? Do we have it
in ways that we can, obscure,
(08:53):
blame that it happens and we actually don't,
get blamed for it and other other avenues.
Do we incentivize allies to do things? All
those things are are happening that they haven't
in the past to the magnitude that they
are now because we know that China is
a geopolitical foe at best. And at worst,
(09:14):
they're a, potential,
adversary
from a psychological,
economic, and warfare standpoint because they want to
be number one. They look at things in
hundreds of years.
Sadly, we do not in this country. Right?
They have a five hundred year plan.
We have a hard time as as a
people and voters even staying within a one
(09:34):
year or two year voting cycle.
So that mentality has definitely shifted
because and I know that because of the
RFPs and the requirements
that have been asked of DOD,
of industry, I e defense contractors and other
companies that will bid on these RFPs to
to come up with solutions to these requirements
(09:54):
in theater because that has shifted,
significantly
in the last six months.
I'm I'm gonna bounce
to this now.
We have to worry about China. We have
to worry about what they are doing. We
have to worry about these islands they're creating.
We have to worry about their,
(10:15):
their friendships
with other enemies of ours.
What do you make of the 600,000
Chinese students that are going to be allowed
into our country?
Okay. So this may be the one and
only time that I disagree with president Trump
and, secretary Lutnick.
I am not a fan of this at
all. They have 600,000
students
(10:36):
spots that could be for American
citizens.
That could be for other individuals. And, again,
it's not this is nothing new. You and
I and John have talked about this publicly
and privately, that the last quarter century
of Chinese Communist Party leaders,
propping up all kinds of colleges and universities
(10:57):
across this country,
with upwards of 25%
of the student body being Chinese nationals,
because they paid full price,
to to basically support all this growth that,
again, you know, colleges have grown in price
and all this other stuff. But has the
education changed significantly? Probably not if you actually
(11:17):
did an analysis and there was a study
on it. So the fact that there are
600,000
students now remember, every year, there's roughly 2,000,000
college graduates. 2,000,000. So if you're saying 600,000,
divide that by four, and that's how many
there are each year that are taking away
from American spots. Right? Almost a 120,000
spots
(11:38):
away from American citizens. And I don't really
care if they can afford to pay full
price or not or if there's an economic
impact. National security counts more because we don't
know, and they could be innocent. It's highly
unlikely. Why why else would communist,
party in individuals send their children and or
nieces, nephews, you name it, over to America
(11:59):
to learn English, learn the culture, and also
likely steal technology
that their entire culture is based off of
not recognizing patents or anything else that's that's
subject to legal protections.
And, obviously, they're gonna steal technology, information, culture,
etcetera, and use that against us. And, again,
this is a national security call. I I
(12:19):
don't agree.
And if you wanna slice that down to
50,000
or something that's more manageable that I think
the American people would be on board for,
then fine. We can negotiate with 600,000.
When you do the numbers, you compare that
to the fact that there's 2,000,000 graduates a
year in the amount of spots. And, again,
college isn't for everyone. It's that's fine. There's
nothing wrong with going to the trade schools
(12:40):
or doing your own thing as an entrepreneur
or whatever that may be. But, unfortunately, our
friends on the left have basically said that
any American that doesn't go to college is
a moron, which, again, is not true. But
there are plenty of things that can be
done. But, again, even if you're trying to
do this from an education standpoint, again, the
opportunity
for American citizens
should come first, not over Chinese foreign nationals.
(13:02):
Yeah. Although we can look at our education
system here in The United States Of America
and say that it has failed, for the
most part. I mean, there are some wonderful
schools out there, charter schools out there,
and other public schools that are excellent.
But for the most part, we are a
failing society
giving our children the education
(13:22):
that is available, and,
the mandates that are out there being put
out there by far left,
you know, state,
boards of education,
it it's terrible for our children.
I mean, can they even compete with what
the Chinese send over to us from China?
(13:43):
Okay. So
my short answer is probably no.
And this is one of the sad facts
again in the last quarter century. I was
taught at a very young age,
by my parents that you're not competing with
a kid in your classroom. You're not competing
with kids in the other classrooms in your
grade or even the kids in your school
or even in the kids in your state
or even the kids in your country. You're
(14:03):
you're competing with kids across the globe
that don't have,
as much of a freedom loving
scenario that you do and are a lot
more desperate than you are and a lot
more motivated,
to make something of those cells than you
are because of the things that we inadvertently
take for granted every day. So, again, you've
heard me say this countless times on your
show. I think a hundred and eighty days
(14:24):
in school is nothing. I think it should
be all year round. If I were king
for the day, I would make academia and
school all year round, and I would make
it so that if there are some kids
that excel, then they excel in those certain
classes and they go above their grade level.
And if those that need to be left
behind, they need the ample time to do
that, and and that's what it should be.
But, again, Brian's not king, and I can't
decide all this stuff. When it comes to
(14:45):
the fact that there are those Chinese nationals
that come here that will take spots,
you can say that of any country for
that matter. The amount of foreign exchange students
that Rubio as secretary of state has now
uncovered, the amount of student visas
that are being issued and come over has
to stop, and he's already
he's slashing that left and right, which is
good. Because, again, the protection here is for
(15:07):
United States. Yeah. We have no problem doing
foreign exchange stuff, but it's gotta be reciprocal
just like tariffs, just like anything else that
president Trump says. It's gotta be reciprocal, and
it can't be something that screws us in
the aggregate, in the short term, in the
long term, or whatever that may be. So,
ultimately, this is something that leaders,
quote, unquote, leaders when I say that, I
say that in jest. The elected officials that
have to be able to have a backbone
(15:29):
and say no because at the same time,
you got guys like Joe Biden and others
that are funded through donations
and other ways,
not campaign contributions, but jobs or access to
Hunter Biden to be on boards that he
shouldn't be from countries,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's insane. And the
idea should be the equal opportunity.
And when we allow these things to happen,
(15:51):
it dents the idea and the notion of
equal opportunity for American citizens who should come
first no matter what. Yeah. We don't have
equal opportunity,
which is unfortunate.
We had four years of wokeness,
of DEI,
of putting people in place in very important
jobs that didn't belong there because they were
so unqualified.
(16:11):
The only reason that they were put there
was because of this, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And and you know what? I'm I'm for
diversity.
I think we need to have a a
diverse community of people, whether it has to
do with an industry or whether it has
to do with the school or anything else.
But when it comes to
(16:32):
what's hap Good morning, everyone. This is Anne
Baker together with Brian Fitzherbert on Fitzherbert Friday
and talking with Anne.
And, Brian, you know, we're
we talk about education, and it is,
it should be the focus of every
young parent whose child is in the school
system.
And I don't know how we're gonna change
(16:53):
it as long as the unions have such
a strong hold on the teachers,
most of whom would love not having to
pay dues and would love to be able
to teach as they have been trained to
do to the very best of their ability
so that children actually learn. Do you think
there's anything that we can do
to, lessen the strength of,
(17:14):
a union like the
education
unions that we have in this country
that will really help to make our education
system better?
Yeah. So there's there's multiple strategies you can
do. Obviously, the easiest one is awareness. Right?
You you use political pressure and and you
bring attention and provide examples of things that
are not going very well, what happened, and
(17:35):
you try to bring attention to it, put
it in the limelight so that elected officials
have to respond good, bad, or indifferent both
sides of the aisle and to bring voters
into it. Obviously, Moms for Liberty has become
a huge
aspect of this because of what children were
being taught and sexualized and groomed and all
kinds of nonsense in public schools.
The same could be said with regard to
(17:56):
anything regarding education if you're falling
behind. Again, having correct data or information in
terms of not just test scores, but performance
and grades and all that kind of stuff
that you would think that, you know, in
corporate America, you have all this data, you
have all these scorecards on how performance is
done, but yet we don't do that or
share that to the same magnitude
(18:17):
in terms of schools, teacher performance, student performance,
even if it's anonymous, and bring attention to
it. And that's what you have to do.
You have to build a coalition
of voters,
that can make change and affect change and,
basically, hire, I e, elect individuals
that will be their vehicle and their vessel,
not someone who's gonna be a shield for
the teachers union,
(18:37):
that wanna continue to keep things in place
and basically, you know, not really do anything
productive.
So that's that's probably the first piece of
it. And then again, you know, if you
think New Jersey in particular is too far
gone and there's a failure of that, then
obviously from a public school standpoint, then that's,
again, using the marketplace to create,
alternatives, I e, parochial schools, private schools, etcetera,
(18:59):
tech schools that can compete.
And then, obviously, the next piece of that
is if that's really not what you're looking
for, then there's plenty of states in this
country that you can go to,
to to basically vote with your feet and
show
that there's a mass exodus and that is
the reason. So there's, but it's awareness and
it's communicating from a political standpoint,
(19:20):
because that's the only way that you're gonna
move the needle with people is when it
starts to impact their bottom line, their power,
their sphere of influence, and ultimately their financials.
Do you know people that have chosen to
keep their children homeschooled?
I know dozens. I know dozens that have
gone the homeschool route.
I know
(19:40):
quite a bit that obviously have just said
enough with public schools. We're going to private
school, and they'll take a second job to
be able to pay for us, like, $67,000
depending on location, maybe $10,000
a year,
to send your kid to private school. And,
again, this is where I said in the
last segment that, you know, in places like
Arizona, you get a tax
refund based on the cost of tuition and
(20:00):
what you pay in property tax slash school
taxes depending on the formula.
So homeschool, again, I think is a is
an avenue,
that a lot of people are exploring because,
again,
you don't wanna give your child away to
someone who does not carry your values for
seven to eight hours a day that is
attempting to do all this other curriculum stuff
that's not math, that's not science, that's not
(20:22):
English and language arts, social studies, etcetera.
That's what we need. We need fundamentals. And
you look around, nobody has fundamentals anymore.
Nobody can remember,
basic things or or anything. And there's too
much reliance on technology, which again is making
us stupid. And I fear, not to change,
trajectories here, but I fear that any of
these kids that are in mid school
and or, other,
(20:44):
secondary schools for college are using Chatt GPT
to pass their classes, and they don't actually
know the information.
Isn't that frightening?
Isn't it frightening? And the fact that,
DEI was actually used to allow people and
affirmative action allowed people to get into,
schools of higher learning like medical school, like
law school. I mean, these are the schools
(21:05):
that are going to be putting out professionals,
supposedly
professionals,
who are the best of the best because
it's very difficult to get into any of
these schools.
So how do we keep chat AI from
becoming part and parcel
of a much, much bigger problem down the
road, which we're gonna find when we have,
(21:27):
people being operated on by
by a a young man or woman who
doesn't really have the credentials to do so?
Yeah. So, again, you're gonna have to go
and change the way evaluations are done on
whether or not you know the subject matter
or not. You know, the idea of Scantron
bubbles filling in
off a multiple choice or writing an essay,
(21:47):
obviously,
matching APT could do something with the right.
It might have to be a verbalized exam.
Yeah. I would think, I mean,
when John was in medical school, I mean,
it was
really, really difficult.
It was,
an arduous task,
and it took,
you know, some some days, it was like
(22:09):
twenty hours
of, nothing but work, work, work, work, and
learning,
as you worked to become the very best
that you could be, which he did.
But I don't know whether the the kids
today who are graduating from the schools that
we've got,
some of whom are good, but many of
whom are just mediocre at best,
(22:29):
How well they're going to do. We're going
to need more doctors. We see it today.
We're gonna need more nurses. We're gonna need
more lawyers. God help us. But
how do we get to a point where
we really do have the best and where
kids don't wanna go into it simply for
the money that they can make, but for
the good they can do?
Yeah. So the yeah. This is a very
(22:50):
complicated situation because,
there's multiple layers at play. You mentioned a
few of them. I mean, not to pick
on New Jersey, but New Jersey only has
Princeton and Rutgers
that's ranked,
in the top 100.
Every other school is, like, in the four
hundreds. It's really embarrassing,
whether it's Forbes, whether it's US,
news. I mean, it's it's pretty abysmal from
(23:11):
an upper education system.
And,
you know, there's there's a recent report about
that. So, again, that's that's not very promising
at all,
from from a higher learning standpoint. Even further,
you know, we all do interviews for jobs.
Sometimes they're just, you know, first and second
round. Sometimes they're third and fourth round because
they wanna make sure that you are
(23:32):
what you say on paper and that you
can figure out through situational questions, STAR method
of interviewing, that you are capable and have
the background to do this.
And, again,
I've encountered this in my career, and it's
it's very disconcerting because of these
DEI,
individuals that say that they are all about
DEI, but then when you call them out
(23:53):
for being a DEI hire because they are
not qualified, they do not have the skill
set, they do not have the education, they
do not have the experience, they get upset
that you call them a DEI hire
when in fact that's exactly what they are.
They are someone that were put in a
place because of
of BS characteristics that have nothing to do
with the meritocracy or performance or experience,
but to fill some quota, and that is
(24:13):
not helpful. And I personally, unfortunately, experienced when
I've been in a hospital where there is
an individual that was trying to stick an
IV in me that was clearly not qualified
to do so and messed up multiple times
that had to be removed
so that an actual nurse that had experience
could stick an IV in me and actually
find the vein. So things like that could
should scare people that, again, we are in
(24:35):
a situation, hopefully, that we're on the back
end of this, and this will this will
be eliminated.
But it is very scary that your future
doctor may not know things because they use
CATGPT to get past an exam or that
a lawyer doesn't know inside and out how
to actually study,
case law to use that as a defense
or even a prosecution.
So, again, we're dumbing ourselves down, and the
(24:55):
only way to push that further is more
human interaction that actually tests the limits, rise
above this, and be actually challenged. The amount
of people out there I I mean, I
really hate to say this, generally speaking, but
there's a lot of people out there that
are unbelievably,
woefully,
ignorant, uneducated, or unqualified
for even the most fundamental jobs.
(25:17):
And that, again, it just brings us down.
And when you think about normal things, you
you call someone for customer service. Are you
talking to a robot? Are you talking to
somebody in a faraway country that has an
accent that you can't understand?
All these kinds of things play a huge
impact in education is the fundamental of this.
And if we continue to be lackadaisical,
generally speaking,
(25:38):
we don't focus on the fundamentals and the
skill sets that we should to build a
foundation.
Again, it shouldn't be it shouldn't be pushed
forward a grade just because of your birth
year. And, unfortunately, George w Bush has No
Child Left Behind. That should be repealed. I
can't stand that law from 02/2006. It needs
to be repealed. It needs to go away.
People need to be in situations where they
(25:58):
can excel. And if they need more time
and they need more adjustment and more learning,
there's nothing wrong with that. And there shouldn't
be a stigma
associated with that. And if you're not college
material, that's okay too. There are plenty of
trades. There's plenty of other things that people
are very successful doing when you don't go
to college. But you need fundamentals, and we
don't have them anymore.
No. And and what we've got in blue
states is sometimes we've got state run boards
(26:20):
of education that mandate things that go trickle
down into the boards of education of every
one of our our school districts. And,
it it's simply a function to, say yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. To everything that's there budget
wise,
and no one really knows
who these contracts are going to or whether
or not the kickbacks are being, pledged to,
(26:43):
administrators,
to people who run the schools, to other
important people who should be concerned most about,
their the children in their school districts getting
the best education that's available.
Is there any way that we're ever gonna
be able to get that straightened out? I
mean, we've got
Murphy in there now. We've got,
(27:04):
Mikey Sherrill who's gonna just be,
Murphy
plus two.
Do you think Jack Ciattarelli is going to
be able to turn around a school system
that has failed us and our children in
so many ways?
Look. This is tough because assuming Jack wins
on November 4 withdrawal,
fingers crossed, voting for, praying for, tell our
(27:25):
friends, get everyone out to vote before November
4. Do it early voting. Vote by mail.
Don't care. Go out and vote Jack Tuttarelli.
Assuming he gets in, he's got a real
problem because he's not gonna have a Republican
legislature likely. It's it's very unlikely we're gonna
pick enough seats even with, coattails that he
could bring, to get one chamber. And we
don't have a Steve Sweeney anymore. We don't
(27:46):
have a middle of the road, dare I
say, you know,
blue dog Democrat,
in the lead of the senate. We have
guys that are much more radical in the
New Jersey legislature now. So he's gonna have
to rely on executive orders that will be
in in place for as long as he's
governor for eight years.
In terms of getting any kind of legislative
fixes, it it's gonna be a stretch. The
(28:07):
amount of things that he's going to have
to sacrifice Republican conservative principle wise in order
to get Democrat votes to get something related
to education
is gonna be a tall order, notwithstanding the
amount of of millions of dollars that teachers
unions
will try to dampen and and broadcast and
and propagandize
whatever Jack's doing and and mutate it into
something that it's not to try to get
(28:29):
voters against any kind of notion or idea.
So I I don't mean a de be
a Debbie Downer, but it is a very
tall order. And you have to do things
incrementally,
And this stuff is gonna take years, if
not decades, if people are willing to do
that. And a lot of people are, you
know, cutting bait, and they're they're leaving the
state of New Jersey because they don't have
time. We're we're on here for a short
amount of time. We're renting space on planet
(28:50):
Earth for, you know, God God willing, eighty
years, maybe ninety years. And sometimes people to
people, it's not worth it, especially when it's
their children,
etcetera. So, again, I'm not to be a
Debbie Downer, but there's a tall order. But
in terms of negotiating,
you can get things done. But at best,
he can have a four to eight year,
executive or applause or direction on on what
we do. And if your kids are in
(29:11):
that eight year window, assuming he wins reelection,
then you're in a good space. But it's
only four to eight years.
Yeah. Well, I I think just having school
choice in place,
will be such a huge step for so
many people who are looking at their children.
I mean, all somebody has to do is
hand a a a a 10 year old
a book and say, read read this chapter
(29:34):
to me. Read these pages to me to
discover that your child may be one of
those poor unfortunate children who have not been
taught how to read.
And in that case,
your child will never excel.
You know, you can hope and you can
pray that by that time, schools have gotten
smart enough that they're going to put workshops
in there, auto shops in there, things that
(29:54):
kids can learn outside of,
what we consider,
oh, college level.
Do you think that will ever occur? I
mean, do you think we're gonna be able
to bring that back,
that that homeschool feel, which really comes from
putting your child in the best place
for them?
(30:16):
I hope so. I pray, and I hope,
my brain says otherwise,
because it's highly likely just because of the
political environment,
that we have. Again, you know, it's you
gotta do this on every single level. It's
gotta be municipal. It's gotta be county. It's
gotta be state. And there's there's just,
a math problem
with getting a lot of things done.
(30:37):
And, again, the only way you solve that
math problem is to do it,
you know, piece by piece incrementally
over a significant amount of time and and
a commitment for that. And a lot of
people don't,
have the patience nor,
the
I'll use commitment as the as the word
in the scenario because it it's just very
tough. And that's why a lot of people,
(30:58):
again,
are going to their own
individual solutions of either homeschooling or parochial schools,
private schools, whatever, because they're so horrified of
of public school,
environments.
And now there's a tax on those who
do,
homeschool.
And, again, at some point, people are gonna
vote with their feet.
And, unfortunately, the only thing that's gonna be
(31:19):
replenished in New Jersey is is more Democrats
probably from New York City if Mamdani is
the mayor,
after November. Yeah. The last thing in the
world that we need actually is,
a Mamdani down here, which is what we'll
get,
if in fact the influx of New Yorkers
who are stupid enough to,
have voted for the guy in the first
place,
if they end up here in New Jersey.
(31:41):
I mean, the amazing thing to me, Brian,
is that people who hate what's happening in
their state, the high taxes, the poor education,
the rising crime rates,
they come to another state, and they bring
the same kinds of,
political background
to the new area that they're living in
that created all of the chaos in their
(32:02):
own state to begin with. How do we
keep them from from doing that? I mean,
I, honest to God, wish there was a
test we could give to anybody who wants
to move to our state that will prove
them to be people who are willing to
open up their hearts to the right wing
rather than to the left wing that they
escaped.
Yeah. I mean, the fact that wherever they
move, they take their politics with them. Again,
(32:24):
you know, in a perfect world, we'd love
to have some kind of test or some
kind of,
litmus in order to basically be part of
the the new club, etcetera, that you actually
have knowledge, etcetera, blah blah blah. And and,
unfortunately,
even when people
do this, they never learn because they're too
busy or they're too uninformed or, quite frankly,
they might be too stupid,
(32:44):
to realize that their own actions have led
to their own result. Like,
what have we learned at the earliest ages
of of childhood in life? Choices have consequences.
They could be good or bad. But the
only person that's responsible for your situation is
you and the choices that you make. Sometimes
you make good choices. Sometimes you make poor
choices. Sometimes you consistently make poor choices and
(33:04):
you never learn. And, unfortunately, we see that,
especially with people that leave a place that
their own politics have destroyed, and then they
take those politics with them and they go
somewhere else to destroy the new place.
So, again, it's it's a matter of
sharing ideas, competing ideas, and showing that conservative
principles and ideas obviously reign supreme because it
(33:25):
maximizes liberty, it maximizes prop, prosperity, and it
maximizes
overall meritocracy.
Well, you know what? We we are all
hopeful,
that,
common sense will invade our our,
politicians' brains.
But when I look and see what, in
fact,
the loudest voices are that we have in
(33:46):
Congress
that are the ones that are,
televised the most, that we have to listen
to the most. These are the worst of
the worst.
Who do you think is gonna be running
in 2028
that's going to try to upend,
what hopefully Donald Trump will have done in
the four years he will have been in
office?
(34:06):
Well, as I said before, I think the
Democrats are still years away from figuring out,
a a winning strategy because they they have
no,
winning issue. They have no eighty twenty issue
to run on. However, there will be people.
There will be Wes Moore, the governor of
Maryland. There'll be, Rahm Emanuel, who's, in my
view, the most concerning. And then, Shapiro, governor
of Pennsylvania, who's the second most concerning. But,
(34:27):
you know, Rahm Emanuel and Josh Shapiro are
both Jewish and a very anti Semitic Democratic
party, so I don't think those are either
primary. You got Gavin Newsom and you got
Gretchen Whitmer,
that will probably be in in that mix
too. But I don't think any of them
are gonna be strong enough to take down
JD Vance, much less the JD Vance Marco
Rubio ticket,
in 2028.
So,
assuming the economy and things, you know, have
(34:47):
some catastrophic four three breakout,
I think that we're still in a in
a good situation because performance matters, and Trump
has proved that performance matters in the eight
months that he's been in since he took
office. So, but there's still gonna be these
lunatic Democrats who are gonna have to beat
on the ideas and and their their issues,
their I their overall vision for America is
wrong. It's and they're on the wrong side
(35:08):
of crime. They're standing next to illegal aliens
and and gang bangers and murderers and criminals
and rapists. There's they're on the wrong side
of normalcy. They're they're standing up for people
who have massive mental disorders that they're trying
to normalize.
They're it's just they have no issue to
run on other than I hate Trump. And
guess what? That's not gonna work in three
years. And assuming again,
(35:29):
barring something like an economic,
significant downturn or a a war like aspect,
the Republicans continue to perform and do well.
And I don't think the Democrats will get
their get their act together in 2028, definitely
not 2026.
No. That's Herbert Friday. And, Brian, thank you.
I appreciate all the input.
I appreciate your,
(35:52):
your perfect mind. And, keep up the good
work, and my love to Catherine and to
the Luther.
In the meantime, thank you. I look forward
already to next Friday.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's always a
pleasure.
Good morning, everyone. This is Anne Baker. I'm
talking with Anne. And, of course, it being,
Fitzherbert Friday. We've got Brian Fitzherbert with us.
Good morning, Brian. How the heck are you?
Good morning, Anne. I'm doing well. Thanks Yeah.
For having me. Well, you know, it's always
our pleasure.
When I say our pleasure, I mean, I
get a lot of good feedback
whenever you're on because,
(00:21):
you know, it's like,
you know what you're talking about. You are
you talk about politics. You talk about,
what our country,
needs. And,
it needs more men and women like you,
who are clear minded
about the state of our country
(00:42):
and what we need to keep our country
the greatest
country in the world. And you have,
been involved in the weapons industry for,
well over a decade, I guess, or going
on to fifteen or more years.
So you you really know.
You know more than anybody,
just how prepared we are as a country.
(01:04):
Have there been any changes? Because I I
read about China, you know, and their new
sub. I I read about,
them coming together, China, and even India.
I'd like to I'd like to strangle Modi.
But, you know, North Korea,
and I think to myself, Russia, they're bringing
all these really bad people together,
(01:28):
to say we don't need you, Western Hemisphere,
because we're coming together and we may come
to get you.
Do we have to be afraid of this?
Well, from the premise that this is psychological
warfare, this has been going on forever, and
it's usually reactive based on geopolitical
circumstances. Or in this case,
Modi is trying to find
(01:50):
so there's there's a couple of things on
this. So Modi and Putin
have always been close. That that's nothing new,
and yet the media is trying to act
like that's new. What is new is bringing
in Xi Jinping into that triad.
And,
again, this is a direct result of Trump
trying to squeeze Putin and those that
do, economic business
(02:12):
with Russia,
because of the Ukraine Russian war, and he's
put tariffs
of 50%
on India on top of the normal,
tariffs
in order to block energy, which is the
lifeline of the Russian economy. Right? So now
you see a posturing of Putin and Xi
Jinping and Modi from India,
(02:33):
on the world stage. It's it's to send
a message to, like you said, to the
West and to Trump, and it's how Trump
and SECDEF,
EXET respond
as well as treasury secretary, Bessette, in terms
of economic, in terms of,
war preparation. Obviously, Trump has triggered a lot
of people on the left because he's going
to,
revert back to the original name of the
(02:54):
Department of Defense, which is the Department of
War Oh, yeah. Which he did through executive
order, which, again, that's that's the whole point.
Right?
And instead of this, you know, passive aggressive
or or nonaggressive,
department. So in terms of that posturing, we've
seen it before. The new thing is Modi
trying
to cozy up to Xi Jinping, which if
(03:15):
that's gonna be the choice that he makes,
there's going to be an economic fallout because
when you have two countries
with over a billion people
that are essentially
not playing ball with The US and the
West in general, and they're gonna instead align
with each other and with Russia, I don't
see that working out very well for them
in the long term. Maybe in the short
(03:35):
term, they'll have some benefits, but Trump is
not afraid to use tariffs.
Besson is not afraid to use other economic
sanctions at his disposal as treasury secretary to
apply pressure
to have material loss or material impact to
change your behavior. You, me, anyone listening,
people's behavior does not change unless there is
a material
(03:55):
loss
of some on whether psychological, physical, or or
whatnot to change your behavior.
And if you just ignore
things,
then, obviously, things continue as they are. But
when you get punched in the face
or you get smacked over the head with
a bat or you get screamed at or
you get served with a legal notice whether
(04:16):
that's a subpoena, whether that's,
being served, you name it. All those things
then puts you in a pause like,
formality, and that's at the smallest level. What
Trump is doing on the global stage is
a lot more impactful,
And, obviously, Hegseth, as our SECDEF, knows exactly
what he's doing by focusing on naval,
(04:39):
reallocation because it's not gonna be in the
air. It's not gonna be on the ground.
It's gonna be in the South China Sea
and probably,
obviously, with the latest development with Space Force
moving from Colorado Springs to Alabama, Space Force
as well. It's gonna be space. It's gonna
be naval, and that's the future of warfare,
and that's what we're gonna go master.
Oh, yeah. Well, you know, from what I
(05:00):
have read, they
we have our first major icebreaker.
It's, the USCGC
Healy
Yeah. Which is going to help us
when,
winter comes,
to those areas in the Arctic
that we may end up fighting
with Russia over?
(05:22):
Why is it so important for us to
have this naval dominance,
besides wanting to protect the islands that are
out there?
Why is it so important?
Yeah. So,
couple things here here. So I've worked on
icebreaker. I've worked on other fast response cutters,
national security cutters,
and other, offshore patrol cutters
(05:43):
that depending on the need and, obviously, icebreaker
is a huge,
powerful asset that, obviously, it's what it says.
It breaks through the ice in the Arctic
so that your ship can continue to actually
sail through. And, obviously, dealing with and this
is why Greenland is a is a geopolitical
asset in terms of what we're gonna do,
not do. Trump's still figuring that out. And
(06:04):
how to deal with Russia, because if you
look at a globe rather than a map,
that's more of a better understanding of the
the closeness from a geographical standpoint
of what we may or may not encounter
should things get escalated. Because, again, when you
cut off money, when you cut off funds,
I e what Trump is doing to Russia
(06:24):
to try to get him to do a
particular behavior with Ukraine, there's going to be
reactions. Sometimes they're they're as expected. Sometimes they're
unexpected. Sometimes they're consequential. Sometimes they're not. So
when we have things like,
a polar icebreaker
of a ship that breaks through and has
these capabilities, and that's not all they have.
They have other capabilities because, again, we have
submarines
(06:44):
all across this awesome
awesome planet,
that are in support. It's not just an
icebreaker. There's a there's usually a combination of
of, let's call them, products,
that coordinate
not just undersea,
but on surface as well as in space.
And Trump is acutely aware
of maximizing those capabilities.
(07:06):
Well, you know what? It it's it's always
been,
in the back of my mind when when
I read some of these,
articles
that talk about our enemies,
particularly China,
when they would go into the South China
Sea and literally create islands
and build them up and build them up
and build them up until they could actually
(07:28):
build warehouses,
laboratories,
places to store their their weapons or their
planes or anything else.
Why anything wasn't done
to say, hold it. This was not an
island. This is man made, and we don't
have to stay three miles away from this
now, what you call your island.
(07:50):
Is there anything that is going on in
that area
where we're going to be taking them out
if we have to,
because they steward all their weapons or perhaps
using it as a base for,
Uighurs to imprison them?
Yeah. So this is a very complicated issue,
and and the easiest place to start in
(08:10):
terms of the genesis is we didn't have
someone like Donald Trump
as president for the last twenty five years.
We we've had him in two stints. We're
in the second stint. And, unfortunately, the first
one was sabotaged greatly,
internally and externally. Now we have a SecDef
who is, also acutely aware because he's served
in military. He's done massive amounts of research
(08:30):
in terms of,
readiness and being able to carry out what
we need to in theater and to identify,
okay, China's going to build an island. Oh,
they're building another island. What is the intent?
What are they doing? Do we have capabilities
and or weapons to deal with this if
we should? Do we have it in a,
lower level capacity? Do we have it in
a higher level capacity? Do we have it
in ways that we can, obscure,
(08:53):
blame that it happens and we actually don't,
get blamed for it and other other avenues.
Do we incentivize allies to do things? All
those things are are happening that they haven't
in the past to the magnitude that they
are now because we know that China is
a geopolitical foe at best. And at worst,
(09:14):
they're a, potential,
adversary
from a psychological,
economic, and warfare standpoint because they want to
be number one. They look at things in
hundreds of years.
Sadly, we do not in this country. Right?
They have a five hundred year plan.
We have a hard time as as a
people and voters even staying within a one
(09:34):
year or two year voting cycle.
So that mentality has definitely shifted
because and I know that because of the
RFPs and the requirements
that have been asked of DOD,
of industry, I e defense contractors and other
companies that will bid on these RFPs to
to come up with solutions to these requirements
(09:54):
in theater because that has shifted,
significantly
in the last six months.
I'm I'm gonna bounce
to this now.
We have to worry about China. We have
to worry about what they are doing. We
have to worry about these islands they're creating.
We have to worry about their,
(10:15):
their friendships
with other enemies of ours.
What do you make of the 600,000
Chinese students that are going to be allowed
into our country?
Okay. So this may be the one and
only time that I disagree with president Trump
and, secretary Lutnick.
I am not a fan of this at
all. They have 600,000
students
(10:36):
spots that could be for American
citizens.
That could be for other individuals. And, again,
it's not this is nothing new. You and
I and John have talked about this publicly
and privately, that the last quarter century
of Chinese Communist Party leaders,
propping up all kinds of colleges and universities
(10:57):
across this country,
with upwards of 25%
of the student body being Chinese nationals,
because they paid full price,
to to basically support all this growth that,
again, you know, colleges have grown in price
and all this other stuff. But has the
education changed significantly? Probably not if you actually
(11:17):
did an analysis and there was a study
on it. So the fact that there are
600,000
students now remember, every year, there's roughly 2,000,000
college graduates. 2,000,000. So if you're saying 600,000,
divide that by four, and that's how many
there are each year that are taking away
from American spots. Right? Almost a 120,000
spots
(11:38):
away from American citizens. And I don't really
care if they can afford to pay full
price or not or if there's an economic
impact. National security counts more because we don't
know, and they could be innocent. It's highly
unlikely. Why why else would communist,
party in individuals send their children and or
nieces, nephews, you name it, over to America
(11:59):
to learn English, learn the culture, and also
likely steal technology
that their entire culture is based off of
not recognizing patents or anything else that's that's
subject to legal protections.
And, obviously, they're gonna steal technology, information, culture,
etcetera, and use that against us. And, again,
this is a national security call. I I
(12:19):
don't agree.
And if you wanna slice that down to
50,000
or something that's more manageable that I think
the American people would be on board for,
then fine. We can negotiate with 600,000.
When you do the numbers, you compare that
to the fact that there's 2,000,000 graduates a
year in the amount of spots. And, again,
college isn't for everyone. It's that's fine. There's
nothing wrong with going to the trade schools
(12:40):
or doing your own thing as an entrepreneur
or whatever that may be. But, unfortunately, our
friends on the left have basically said that
any American that doesn't go to college is
a moron, which, again, is not true. But
there are plenty of things that can be
done. But, again, even if you're trying to
do this from an education standpoint, again, the
opportunity
for American citizens
should come first, not over Chinese foreign nationals.
(13:02):
Yeah. Although we can look at our education
system here in The United States Of America
and say that it has failed, for the
most part. I mean, there are some wonderful
schools out there, charter schools out there,
and other public schools that are excellent.
But for the most part, we are a
failing society
giving our children the education
(13:22):
that is available, and,
the mandates that are out there being put
out there by far left,
you know, state,
boards of education,
it it's terrible for our children.
I mean, can they even compete with what
the Chinese send over to us from China?
(13:43):
Okay. So
my short answer is probably no.
And this is one of the sad facts
again in the last quarter century. I was
taught at a very young age,
by my parents that you're not competing with
a kid in your classroom. You're not competing
with kids in the other classrooms in your
grade or even the kids in your school
or even in the kids in your state
or even the kids in your country. You're
(14:03):
you're competing with kids across the globe
that don't have,
as much of a freedom loving
scenario that you do and are a lot
more desperate than you are and a lot
more motivated,
to make something of those cells than you
are because of the things that we inadvertently
take for granted every day. So, again, you've
heard me say this countless times on your
show. I think a hundred and eighty days
(14:24):
in school is nothing. I think it should
be all year round. If I were king
for the day, I would make academia and
school all year round, and I would make
it so that if there are some kids
that excel, then they excel in those certain
classes and they go above their grade level.
And if those that need to be left
behind, they need the ample time to do
that, and and that's what it should be.
But, again, Brian's not king, and I can't
decide all this stuff. When it comes to
(14:45):
the fact that there are those Chinese nationals
that come here that will take spots,
you can say that of any country for
that matter. The amount of foreign exchange students
that Rubio as secretary of state has now
uncovered, the amount of student visas
that are being issued and come over has
to stop, and he's already
he's slashing that left and right, which is
good. Because, again, the protection here is for
(15:07):
United States. Yeah. We have no problem doing
foreign exchange stuff, but it's gotta be reciprocal
just like tariffs, just like anything else that
president Trump says. It's gotta be reciprocal, and
it can't be something that screws us in
the aggregate, in the short term, in the
long term, or whatever that may be. So,
ultimately, this is something that leaders,
quote, unquote, leaders when I say that, I
say that in jest. The elected officials that
have to be able to have a backbone
(15:29):
and say no because at the same time,
you got guys like Joe Biden and others
that are funded through donations
and other ways,
not campaign contributions, but jobs or access to
Hunter Biden to be on boards that he
shouldn't be from countries,
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's insane. And the
idea should be the equal opportunity.
And when we allow these things to happen,
(15:51):
it dents the idea and the notion of
equal opportunity for American citizens who should come
first no matter what. Yeah. We don't have
equal opportunity,
which is unfortunate.
We had four years of wokeness,
of DEI,
of putting people in place in very important
jobs that didn't belong there because they were
so unqualified.
(16:11):
The only reason that they were put there
was because of this, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And and you know what? I'm I'm for
diversity.
I think we need to have a a
diverse community of people, whether it has to
do with an industry or whether it has
to do with the school or anything else.
But when it comes to
(16:32):
what's hap Good morning, everyone. This is Anne
Baker together with Brian Fitzherbert on Fitzherbert Friday
and talking with Anne.
And, Brian, you know, we're
we talk about education, and it is,
it should be the focus of every
young parent whose child is in the school
system.
And I don't know how we're gonna change
(16:53):
it as long as the unions have such
a strong hold on the teachers,
most of whom would love not having to
pay dues and would love to be able
to teach as they have been trained to
do to the very best of their ability
so that children actually learn. Do you think
there's anything that we can do
to, lessen the strength of,
(17:14):
a union like the
education
unions that we have in this country
that will really help to make our education
system better?
Yeah. So there's there's multiple strategies you can
do. Obviously, the easiest one is awareness. Right?
You you use political pressure and and you
bring attention and provide examples of things that
are not going very well, what happened, and
(17:35):
you try to bring attention to it, put
it in the limelight so that elected officials
have to respond good, bad, or indifferent both
sides of the aisle and to bring voters
into it. Obviously, Moms for Liberty has become
a huge
aspect of this because of what children were
being taught and sexualized and groomed and all
kinds of nonsense in public schools.
The same could be said with regard to
(17:56):
anything regarding education if you're falling
behind. Again, having correct data or information in
terms of not just test scores, but performance
and grades and all that kind of stuff
that you would think that, you know, in
corporate America, you have all this data, you
have all these scorecards on how performance is
done, but yet we don't do that or
share that to the same magnitude
(18:17):
in terms of schools, teacher performance, student performance,
even if it's anonymous, and bring attention to
it. And that's what you have to do.
You have to build a coalition
of voters,
that can make change and affect change and,
basically, hire, I e, elect individuals
that will be their vehicle and their vessel,
not someone who's gonna be a shield for
the teachers union,
(18:37):
that wanna continue to keep things in place
and basically, you know, not really do anything
productive.
So that's that's probably the first piece of
it. And then again, you know, if you
think New Jersey in particular is too far
gone and there's a failure of that, then
obviously from a public school standpoint, then that's,
again, using the marketplace to create,
alternatives, I e, parochial schools, private schools, etcetera,
(18:59):
tech schools that can compete.
And then, obviously, the next piece of that
is if that's really not what you're looking
for, then there's plenty of states in this
country that you can go to,
to to basically vote with your feet and
show
that there's a mass exodus and that is
the reason. So there's, but it's awareness and
it's communicating from a political standpoint,
(19:20):
because that's the only way that you're gonna
move the needle with people is when it
starts to impact their bottom line, their power,
their sphere of influence, and ultimately their financials.
Do you know people that have chosen to
keep their children homeschooled?
I know dozens. I know dozens that have
gone the homeschool route.
I know
(19:40):
quite a bit that obviously have just said
enough with public schools. We're going to private
school, and they'll take a second job to
be able to pay for us, like, $67,000
depending on location, maybe $10,000
a year,
to send your kid to private school. And,
again, this is where I said in the
last segment that, you know, in places like
Arizona, you get a tax
refund based on the cost of tuition and
(20:00):
what you pay in property tax slash school
taxes depending on the formula.
So homeschool, again, I think is a is
an avenue,
that a lot of people are exploring because,
again,
you don't wanna give your child away to
someone who does not carry your values for
seven to eight hours a day that is
attempting to do all this other curriculum stuff
that's not math, that's not science, that's not
(20:22):
English and language arts, social studies, etcetera.
That's what we need. We need fundamentals. And
you look around, nobody has fundamentals anymore.
Nobody can remember,
basic things or or anything. And there's too
much reliance on technology, which again is making
us stupid. And I fear, not to change,
trajectories here, but I fear that any of
these kids that are in mid school
and or, other,
(20:44):
secondary schools for college are using Chatt GPT
to pass their classes, and they don't actually
know the information.
Isn't that frightening?
Isn't it frightening? And the fact that,
DEI was actually used to allow people and
affirmative action allowed people to get into,
schools of higher learning like medical school, like
law school. I mean, these are the schools
(21:05):
that are going to be putting out professionals,
supposedly
professionals,
who are the best of the best because
it's very difficult to get into any of
these schools.
So how do we keep chat AI from
becoming part and parcel
of a much, much bigger problem down the
road, which we're gonna find when we have,
(21:27):
people being operated on by
by a a young man or woman who
doesn't really have the credentials to do so?
Yeah. So, again, you're gonna have to go
and change the way evaluations are done on
whether or not you know the subject matter
or not. You know, the idea of Scantron
bubbles filling in
off a multiple choice or writing an essay,
(21:47):
obviously,
matching APT could do something with the right.
It might have to be a verbalized exam.
Yeah. I would think, I mean,
when John was in medical school, I mean,
it was
really, really difficult.
It was,
an arduous task,
and it took,
you know, some some days, it was like
(22:09):
twenty hours
of, nothing but work, work, work, work, and
learning,
as you worked to become the very best
that you could be, which he did.
But I don't know whether the the kids
today who are graduating from the schools that
we've got,
some of whom are good, but many of
whom are just mediocre at best,
(22:29):
How well they're going to do. We're going
to need more doctors. We see it today.
We're gonna need more nurses. We're gonna need
more lawyers. God help us. But
how do we get to a point where
we really do have the best and where
kids don't wanna go into it simply for
the money that they can make, but for
the good they can do?
Yeah. So the yeah. This is a very
(22:50):
complicated situation because,
there's multiple layers at play. You mentioned a
few of them. I mean, not to pick
on New Jersey, but New Jersey only has
Princeton and Rutgers
that's ranked,
in the top 100.
Every other school is, like, in the four
hundreds. It's really embarrassing,
whether it's Forbes, whether it's US,
news. I mean, it's it's pretty abysmal from
(23:11):
an upper education system.
And,
you know, there's there's a recent report about
that. So, again, that's that's not very promising
at all,
from from a higher learning standpoint. Even further,
you know, we all do interviews for jobs.
Sometimes they're just, you know, first and second
round. Sometimes they're third and fourth round because
they wanna make sure that you are
(23:32):
what you say on paper and that you
can figure out through situational questions, STAR method
of interviewing, that you are capable and have
the background to do this.
And, again,
I've encountered this in my career, and it's
it's very disconcerting because of these
DEI,
individuals that say that they are all about
DEI, but then when you call them out
(23:53):
for being a DEI hire because they are
not qualified, they do not have the skill
set, they do not have the education, they
do not have the experience, they get upset
that you call them a DEI hire
when in fact that's exactly what they are.
They are someone that were put in a
place because of
of BS characteristics that have nothing to do
with the meritocracy or performance or experience,
but to fill some quota, and that is
(24:13):
not helpful. And I personally, unfortunately, experienced when
I've been in a hospital where there is
an individual that was trying to stick an
IV in me that was clearly not qualified
to do so and messed up multiple times
that had to be removed
so that an actual nurse that had experience
could stick an IV in me and actually
find the vein. So things like that could
should scare people that, again, we are in
(24:35):
a situation, hopefully, that we're on the back
end of this, and this will this will
be eliminated.
But it is very scary that your future
doctor may not know things because they use
CATGPT to get past an exam or that
a lawyer doesn't know inside and out how
to actually study,
case law to use that as a defense
or even a prosecution.
So, again, we're dumbing ourselves down, and the
(24:55):
only way to push that further is more
human interaction that actually tests the limits, rise
above this, and be actually challenged. The amount
of people out there I I mean, I
really hate to say this, generally speaking, but
there's a lot of people out there that
are unbelievably,
woefully,
ignorant, uneducated, or unqualified
for even the most fundamental jobs.
(25:17):
And that, again, it just brings us down.
And when you think about normal things, you
you call someone for customer service. Are you
talking to a robot? Are you talking to
somebody in a faraway country that has an
accent that you can't understand?
All these kinds of things play a huge
impact in education is the fundamental of this.
And if we continue to be lackadaisical,
generally speaking,
(25:38):
we don't focus on the fundamentals and the
skill sets that we should to build a
foundation.
Again, it shouldn't be it shouldn't be pushed
forward a grade just because of your birth
year. And, unfortunately, George w Bush has No
Child Left Behind. That should be repealed. I
can't stand that law from 02/2006. It needs
to be repealed. It needs to go away.
People need to be in situations where they
(25:58):
can excel. And if they need more time
and they need more adjustment and more learning,
there's nothing wrong with that. And there shouldn't
be a stigma
associated with that. And if you're not college
material, that's okay too. There are plenty of
trades. There's plenty of other things that people
are very successful doing when you don't go
to college. But you need fundamentals, and we
don't have them anymore.
No. And and what we've got in blue
states is sometimes we've got state run boards
(26:20):
of education that mandate things that go trickle
down into the boards of education of every
one of our our school districts. And,
it it's simply a function to, say yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. To everything that's there budget
wise,
and no one really knows
who these contracts are going to or whether
or not the kickbacks are being, pledged to,
(26:43):
administrators,
to people who run the schools, to other
important people who should be concerned most about,
their the children in their school districts getting
the best education that's available.
Is there any way that we're ever gonna
be able to get that straightened out? I
mean, we've got
Murphy in there now. We've got,
(27:04):
Mikey Sherrill who's gonna just be,
Murphy
plus two.
Do you think Jack Ciattarelli is going to
be able to turn around a school system
that has failed us and our children in
so many ways?
Look. This is tough because assuming Jack wins
on November 4 withdrawal,
fingers crossed, voting for, praying for, tell our
(27:25):
friends, get everyone out to vote before November
4. Do it early voting. Vote by mail.
Don't care. Go out and vote Jack Tuttarelli.
Assuming he gets in, he's got a real
problem because he's not gonna have a Republican
legislature likely. It's it's very unlikely we're gonna
pick enough seats even with, coattails that he
could bring, to get one chamber. And we
don't have a Steve Sweeney anymore. We don't
(27:46):
have a middle of the road, dare I
say, you know,
blue dog Democrat,
in the lead of the senate. We have
guys that are much more radical in the
New Jersey legislature now. So he's gonna have
to rely on executive orders that will be
in in place for as long as he's
governor for eight years.
In terms of getting any kind of legislative
fixes, it it's gonna be a stretch. The
(28:07):
amount of things that he's going to have
to sacrifice Republican conservative principle wise in order
to get Democrat votes to get something related
to education
is gonna be a tall order, notwithstanding the
amount of of millions of dollars that teachers
unions
will try to dampen and and broadcast and
and propagandize
whatever Jack's doing and and mutate it into
something that it's not to try to get
(28:29):
voters against any kind of notion or idea.
So I I don't mean a de be
a Debbie Downer, but it is a very
tall order. And you have to do things
incrementally,
And this stuff is gonna take years, if
not decades, if people are willing to do
that. And a lot of people are, you
know, cutting bait, and they're they're leaving the
state of New Jersey because they don't have
time. We're we're on here for a short
amount of time. We're renting space on planet
(28:50):
Earth for, you know, God God willing, eighty
years, maybe ninety years. And sometimes people to
people, it's not worth it, especially when it's
their children,
etcetera. So, again, I'm not to be a
Debbie Downer, but there's a tall order. But
in terms of negotiating,
you can get things done. But at best,
he can have a four to eight year,
executive or applause or direction on on what
we do. And if your kids are in
(29:11):
that eight year window, assuming he wins reelection,
then you're in a good space. But it's
only four to eight years.
Yeah. Well, I I think just having school
choice in place,
will be such a huge step for so
many people who are looking at their children.
I mean, all somebody has to do is
hand a a a a 10 year old
a book and say, read read this chapter
(29:34):
to me. Read these pages to me to
discover that your child may be one of
those poor unfortunate children who have not been
taught how to read.
And in that case,
your child will never excel.
You know, you can hope and you can
pray that by that time, schools have gotten
smart enough that they're going to put workshops
in there, auto shops in there, things that
(29:54):
kids can learn outside of,
what we consider,
oh, college level.
Do you think that will ever occur? I
mean, do you think we're gonna be able
to bring that back,
that that homeschool feel, which really comes from
putting your child in the best place
for them?
(30:16):
I hope so. I pray, and I hope,
my brain says otherwise,
because it's highly likely just because of the
political environment,
that we have. Again, you know, it's you
gotta do this on every single level. It's
gotta be municipal. It's gotta be county. It's
gotta be state. And there's there's just,
a math problem
with getting a lot of things done.
(30:37):
And, again, the only way you solve that
math problem is to do it,
you know, piece by piece incrementally
over a significant amount of time and and
a commitment for that. And a lot of
people don't,
have the patience nor,
the
I'll use commitment as the as the word
in the scenario because it it's just very
tough. And that's why a lot of people,
(30:58):
again,
are going to their own
individual solutions of either homeschooling or parochial schools,
private schools, whatever, because they're so horrified of
of public school,
environments.
And now there's a tax on those who
do,
homeschool.
And, again, at some point, people are gonna
vote with their feet.
And, unfortunately, the only thing that's gonna be
(31:19):
replenished in New Jersey is is more Democrats
probably from New York City if Mamdani is
the mayor,
after November. Yeah. The last thing in the
world that we need actually is,
a Mamdani down here, which is what we'll
get,
if in fact the influx of New Yorkers
who are stupid enough to,
have voted for the guy in the first
place,
if they end up here in New Jersey.
(31:41):
I mean, the amazing thing to me, Brian,
is that people who hate what's happening in
their state, the high taxes, the poor education,
the rising crime rates,
they come to another state, and they bring
the same kinds of,
political background
to the new area that they're living in
that created all of the chaos in their
(32:02):
own state to begin with. How do we
keep them from from doing that? I mean,
I, honest to God, wish there was a
test we could give to anybody who wants
to move to our state that will prove
them to be people who are willing to
open up their hearts to the right wing
rather than to the left wing that they
escaped.
Yeah. I mean, the fact that wherever they
move, they take their politics with them. Again,
(32:24):
you know, in a perfect world, we'd love
to have some kind of test or some
kind of,
litmus in order to basically be part of
the the new club, etcetera, that you actually
have knowledge, etcetera, blah blah blah. And and,
unfortunately,
even when people
do this, they never learn because they're too
busy or they're too uninformed or, quite frankly,
they might be too stupid,
(32:44):
to realize that their own actions have led
to their own result. Like,
what have we learned at the earliest ages
of of childhood in life? Choices have consequences.
They could be good or bad. But the
only person that's responsible for your situation is
you and the choices that you make. Sometimes
you make good choices. Sometimes you make poor
choices. Sometimes you consistently make poor choices and
(33:04):
you never learn. And, unfortunately, we see that,
especially with people that leave a place that
their own politics have destroyed, and then they
take those politics with them and they go
somewhere else to destroy the new place.
So, again, it's it's a matter of
sharing ideas, competing ideas, and showing that conservative
principles and ideas obviously reign supreme because it
(33:25):
maximizes liberty, it maximizes prop, prosperity, and it
maximizes
overall meritocracy.
Well, you know what? We we are all
hopeful,
that,
common sense will invade our our,
politicians' brains.
But when I look and see what, in
fact,
the loudest voices are that we have in
(33:46):
Congress
that are the ones that are,
televised the most, that we have to listen
to the most. These are the worst of
the worst.
Who do you think is gonna be running
in 2028
that's going to try to upend,
what hopefully Donald Trump will have done in
the four years he will have been in
office?
(34:06):
Well, as I said before, I think the
Democrats are still years away from figuring out,
a a winning strategy because they they have
no,
winning issue. They have no eighty twenty issue
to run on. However, there will be people.
There will be Wes Moore, the governor of
Maryland. There'll be, Rahm Emanuel, who's, in my
view, the most concerning. And then, Shapiro, governor
of Pennsylvania, who's the second most concerning. But,
(34:27):
you know, Rahm Emanuel and Josh Shapiro are
both Jewish and a very anti Semitic Democratic
party, so I don't think those are either
primary. You got Gavin Newsom and you got
Gretchen Whitmer,
that will probably be in in that mix
too. But I don't think any of them
are gonna be strong enough to take down
JD Vance, much less the JD Vance Marco
Rubio ticket,
in 2028.
So,
assuming the economy and things, you know, have
(34:47):
some catastrophic four three breakout,
I think that we're still in a in
a good situation because performance matters, and Trump
has proved that performance matters in the eight
months that he's been in since he took
office. So, but there's still gonna be these
lunatic Democrats who are gonna have to beat
on the ideas and and their their issues,
their I their overall vision for America is
wrong. It's and they're on the wrong side
(35:08):
of crime. They're standing next to illegal aliens
and and gang bangers and murderers and criminals
and rapists. There's they're on the wrong side
of normalcy. They're they're standing up for people
who have massive mental disorders that they're trying
to normalize.
They're it's just they have no issue to
run on other than I hate Trump. And
guess what? That's not gonna work in three
years. And assuming again,
(35:29):
barring something like an economic,
significant downturn or a a war like aspect,
the Republicans continue to perform and do well.
And I don't think the Democrats will get
their get their act together in 2028, definitely
not 2026.
No. That's Herbert Friday. And, Brian, thank you.
I appreciate all the input.
I appreciate your,
(35:52):
your perfect mind. And, keep up the good
work, and my love to Catherine and to
the Luther.
In the meantime, thank you. I look forward
already to next Friday.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's always a
pleasure.
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