February 25, 2025 • 39 mins
Veterans Under Attack with Francis Jackson Francis Jackson is a best-selling author as well as an attorney who specializes in disability law for those seeking veteran’s disability benefits and social security disability benefits. For more information visit https://veteransbenefits.com
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About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
Connect with Bert: YouTube | Twitter | Instagram
Get a Free Copy of Dominating Your Mind: https://amzn.to/2XuM9Xr While supplies last, limited time.
About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you literally fired every single federal employee tomorrow, that's
about two hundred and seventy billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's a big number. What doesn't even get you to
the first vision.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Welcome back today, Francis Jackson is a best selling author
as well as an attorney who specializes in disability law
for those seeking veterans disability benefits as well as Social
Security disability benefits. Today we're focusing on what is happening
in the Veterans Affairs Department. The VA Department, I think
(00:33):
February thirteenth announced that they were dismissing or firing more
than a thousand employees who has served for less than
two years. And this is according to Senator Patty Murray.
And we're talking people who are researchers, people who are
working on cancer treatments, oipoid, opioid addiction, prosthetic X burnpit exposure,
(01:02):
you name it. These are vitally important people and here
to walk us through what's happening. Is again, Francis Jackson,
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
One pleasure, always a pleasure to have a chance to
chat with you.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you so much for stopping here. I just think
this is this is an incredible thing. You and I
have talked about this numerous times. The VA is already struggling.
It's already like a lot of government agencies that are underfunded,
under man and uh. The the VA is, if I
remember correctly, the second largest department, UH in our in
(01:41):
our in our government anyway, So I wanted to bring
you on and talk about this, and and again we've
heard how Elon Musk and the Department of the Government
Efficiency are getting are basically gutting the government workforce. How
do you see this affecting the VA.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, the truth is burnt. I think it's too soon
to tell.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is a bad sign that they're firing anybody at
the v A. As you talked about in the beginning,
the VA, particularly on the benefits side, is seriously understaffed
and as a result as a huge backlog of benefits
claim spending. And truthfully, they're understanding they are understaffed on
(02:30):
the healthcare side as well. There was talk at the
beginning that VA was going to be exempt from these firings,
and it appears that they have exempted at least the
direct service professionals doctors and nurses for the hospitals, although
(02:55):
just because of the general turmoil that's been created in.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
The whole hiring process in the government. Those those some
of those folks are getting jammed up as well.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
But but the the thing you want to pay attention
to is.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
We don't know where this is going. There.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There have been cuts, but the cuts at the VA
so far have been much more selective than the cuts
in most departments. As you mentioned, they fired over a
thousand people, but there are like forty thousand probationary employees
at the Department of Veterans Affairs. There's a total staff
(03:38):
of almost five hundred thousand ordered maybe six thousand and
change at the last count. So the cuts there have
been proportionally smaller, and so.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's it's just not clear where this is going in
the long run.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, I think I think that you make a very
valid point there. We're not really sure how this is
going to shake up. Let me ask you this because
again to your point, he has the Trumpet administration is
at the same time cutting or gutting seems like everybody, right,
(04:22):
nobody has been left untouched. We have the Health Department,
Education Department that they want to completely get rid of.
It's the my goodness, oh, the IRS Department, which I'm
sure most people are like, oh, less irs agents. That's great,
unless they owe you money then it's not so great.
But obviously there's a pattern here. And as an attorney,
(04:47):
I want to get your opinion on this because one
of the things that I see is this, First of all,
he is when I say he Trump is obviously not
afraid of litigation. He I think this is part the plan.
We're going to fire everybody, uh, and we're going to
do everything that we can. Uh. And and knowing that
(05:09):
eighty or ninety percent of the stuff he does is
going to go through the court system, and I think
that that's what he is betting on, because again we
already seen the Supreme Court said, hey, he can do
whatever he wants. It's all good. Now doesn't mean that
they're going to rule everything in his favor, but I'm
(05:29):
getting prepared that we're going to see some new constitutional
law when it's all said and done. It's clear.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I think it's it's very obvious that Trump, you know,
doesn't want to be president. Trump wants to be emperor.
In fact, there was a it was a great piece
on the news the other night.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Somebody at the White House put together a yet.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Photoshop thing of Trump with a crown, and they were,
you know, they were they were telling you, I mean,
this was not they were not being sarcastic.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They were Trump is just being the kidney. And you're right,
I mean, that's what he's trying to do.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, And I want to remind everybody here that that, uh,
let's look at what happened in Venezuela. So Hugo Chavez,
who tried to take over Venezuela by force, was stopped
and was put in prison, somehow got out of prison,
ran for president, and then dismantled the dismantled the Venezuelan
(06:36):
government once he became president, just got rid of all
the checks and balances. And now we see that Venezuela,
from one dictator to the next, they're monthly. Their money
they're monthly. Their money is worthless, right. I mean there's
tons of YouTube videos where people are taking literally millions
of their pasos or whatever their currency and they're making
(06:58):
hats and different art pieces with it, because that's it's
not worth any money, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And and you know, Maduro, the current the current dictator
has you know, basically replaced all the people on the
election commission, and then when he lost the election, they
went in and certified that he won.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, and it just seems like, uh kind of a ah,
it seems like that is what Trump wants as well, right,
I mean if if you guys remember during the campaign,
on more than one occasion, he says, hey, once, once
I'm president again, you'll never have to vote again. How
(07:44):
did that not alarm some people? Right? And and then
of course on Fox News, Uh, he did say that
he would be a dictator for a day, not more
than two, I think is what he said. Again. How
is that just not alarming some of our listeners? And
and and just just good conscious Uh, I don't know,
(08:06):
it just it just boggles the mind.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Not to pretty much terrify all of us, but it
doesn't doesn't seem to bother.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Some people.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Absolutely Unfortunately. You're correct. All right, let's talk about this
what Trump must uh, what Trump and must uh declared.
Let me rephrase it. So so Musk and Trump have
declared that they want to cut roughly seven trillion dollars.
I think it's like between six point five and seven
(08:37):
trillion dollars from their federal budget. What is your take
on this, because that's a lot of trillions for a budget.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You you misplaced the numbers a little bit burned. The
total budget is six point eight trillion. Okay, you're proposing
to cut two million out of two trillion out of.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Excuse me, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And and you know, one of the things that that
a lot of people don't realize. If you eliminated the
entire federal for a compedial workforce, and I mean literally
all of them by the FBI, got rid of the cords,
sent sent all the ice and border patrol of people home,
literally fired every federal employee. That's not a trillion dollars one,
(09:24):
and they claiming they've got to find two.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well, I think that again, they want to get rid
of the Education Department. They're they're looking at what departments
they can get rid of. They've shut down USAID again.
I don't know how many departments they have to get
rid of to trim a trillion or two trillion dollars.
Because to your.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Point, they have to get rid of the wall over,
they can't any federal employees, and they still don't.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Get to a trillion.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
That's remarkable, that's remarkable. But again you're looking at You're
looking at Elon Musk, who has no real in my opinion,
doesn't have a connection with working class people who are
again somebody who might be working. What's that that's pretty
mildly Yeah, well because yeah, absolutely, So here's these guys
(10:19):
who are billionaires and millionaires. They're disconnected from what the
average person is going through. So you think that they're
bothered by the fact that all of a sudden, we
were having an egg crisis and you're gonna be paying ten, twelve,
fifteen dollars an a or per carton of eggs to them,
They don't care. That doesn't affect them one way or
the other. It's certainly not going to affect the richest
(10:41):
man in the world. And so for him to come
in and say we got to gut all these things
without thinking about the humanity behind those budgets. Now, again,
is there waste in our government. Absolutely, But I bet
you a lot of that waste comes from the sweet
deals that Congress cuts. I mean right now, and as
(11:03):
far as I know, the some of the biggest industry, sugar,
corn oil, the beef industry, all of these guys get subsidies.
These are profitable, massive companies that are involved, and they're
getting subsidies. But yet I haven't I haven't heard one
(11:23):
thing from the Trump administration about gutting those subsidies.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And what's going on when you when you look at this,
I mean, if you stop and actually drill down on
this stuff. And the thing is, you start talking trillions
of dollars, and you know, those are those are crazy numbers.
Anytime you see one with twelve zeros after it, nobody,
nobody can really figure out what that means. But but
if you start looking at what they're doing, I mean, essentially,
(11:54):
what you've got is, as you said a minute ago,
you've got a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who don't
want to pay taxes and they're finding ways to cut
the government because they want to keep taxes.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, that's that's their goal.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So but you can't do what they're promising without doing
some real serious heart. What most people don't seem to
pay attention to is out of the six point eight
trillion dollars that comprise the federal budget, sixty five percent
of that of that total, or four and a half trillion,
(12:29):
is Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's it, that's all.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's that is four point five trillion out of the
six point eight and if you throw in the Defense partment,
which is another brillion, you know, you now are at
five point five trillion. So the only way you can
meet they musk from goal of cutting two trillion from
(12:58):
the budget is to cut Defense, Medicare, social Security, or
veterans' benefits, or some combination thereof. You can't do it
any other way. The numbers simply don't work.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And when you think about how scary that is, there's
a large percentage of Americans that count on Social Security,
that count on Medicare, Medicaid, and not to mention are
veterans who count on their benefits from the Department of Defense,
(13:34):
and they were promised these things put your life on
the line, and when if you make it back, you're
going to have access to medical you're going to have
access to education funds, you're going to have access to
housing funds. And now they're saying maybe not, maybe we're
just going to not do any of that. We're not
(13:56):
going to honor any of that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
That's what they would have to do to get to
a two trillion dollar cut.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
There's no other way.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I mean, and as I said earlier, if you literally
fired every single federal employee tomorrow, that's about two hundred
and seventy billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It's a big number, but it doesn't even get you
to the first billion, you know. And that's that's everything.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That's that's firing the people who are in the Social
Security Office, that's firing the people at Treasury we send
out the Social.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Security and VAX.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
That's firing every single employee in the entire government other
than the Defense Department.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That that is such a crazy thought. It blows me away.
So you fire every federal employee except for the Defense
and you're still you know.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You haven't even got to have the trunion.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, that just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And they're swearing they're going to get to too. It's
you can't get to tune without cutting into Medicaid, Social Security,
veterans benefits.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It can't be done. The math just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You know. And something else that I found interesting is
that he fired a bunch of the inspector generals, right,
and so I found for those of us who aren't
familiar with the inspector general and this is what I understand,
correct me if I'm wrong. You know, the inspector generals
(15:33):
one of their first duties or is to help monitor
fraud and waste. They are the first line, and so
when they see waste and when they see fraud, they're
they're the ones that make that report. And it just
seems odd to me that for the Department of Government
Efficiency and for the Trump administration, who are looking to
(15:56):
cut fraud and cut ways that you will get rid
of the first line of wastebinders. For lack of better terms.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I think there's some pretty obvious reasons for that. I mean,
if you look at the Trump cabinet, which is composed
exclusively of millionaires and billionaires, those people are not seriously
interested in cutting overall government spending. They're interested in extracting
the money from the government in ways that they don't
(16:28):
get caught for. I mean, mousc alone has billions of
dollars of contracts with the federal government through his various enterprises,
whether you talk about his SpaceX or the the trucks,
the electronic trucks from from Tesla that he's selling to
(16:50):
the State Department. You know, it goes on on and on.
They just don't want anybody looking over their shoulder to
see how much they chiseling.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
If your pardon boy, be.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Creuding, no, I think you hit the nail right on
the head. That's the only thing that makes sense if
you're going to get rid of the watchdogs, is because
you don't want to be watched. You don't want to
be held accountable to the same light that you're holding
other people accountable. Let me ask you this, how again,
(17:22):
how big is the budget for the Department of Defense.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Defense?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It's about a trillion dollars, Okay, so it's it's called
fifteen percent roughly of the entire national budget.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, And I tell you what's also kind of interesting
that I just found this out. A lot of you
guys probably already know this, but to me it was news.
And that is if I believe in getting these numbers correct.
But bottom line is China They're standing army is twice
(18:02):
as big as ours. Their navy is two to three
times the size of our navy. And so that, to me,
I found that to be very interesting and alarming. Twenty
percent of the illegal aliens that are crossing the border
are from China. That was from an investigation that sixty
minutes did so again. I know there's a lot of focus,
(18:27):
a lot of talk about illegal immigrants, and a lot
of that is focused on the Latinos, which do come
here illegally, but they but they work hard and they
send a lot of money home. You know, we've never
had we've never had a Mexican or a Latino who
was caught for espionage. But every year we have four
(18:49):
or five Chinese individuals. Some of these are Chinese, some
of these are American citizens who have been caught sending
information back to China. And when I say American citizens,
these are Chinese immigrants who went through the system, became
naturalized citizens. But they still are agents of China and
(19:13):
they and they get caught with esbionage again three or
four times a year on a pretty regular basis. So
to me, I just find it interesting that there's so
much focus on the Latinos. Nothing is mentioned of China,
who has a long history of being a bad citizen,
just a global globally being a bad citizen. Right. They
(19:37):
send toxic food, they send toxic toys, toxic honey, you
name it. In my opinion, it seems like China is
doing the best They can to become the only power
in the world.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I mean, it's clear that the Chinese school has to
become the super.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Power of the world.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And you cannot underestimate their power because they have literally
billions of people at their disposal, and they're not afraid
of enlisting people against their will. That's true, all right,
So let me ask.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
You this, your family, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Say that again.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
The Chinese are famous for, you know, do this or well,
wipe out your family kind of kind of approach to
to what persuading people.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yes, yes, all right, so right now, what is your take?
Do we just wait and see what's going to happen?
I mean, do we write our our senators and our congressmen,
our congress people who are basically a lot of them
are pro Trump anyway, So what do we do now?
(20:52):
Just wait and see?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Well, I think there are a couple of things that
need to be done.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Obviously, One is to register the extent of our unhappiness
with with what's going on.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I thought it was very interesting that the volume
of calls over overloaded the entire network for the Housince
Sentive because so many people were trying to call and
complain about what's going.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
On, and uh.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska posted something on the internet
about that, saying, you know, we're where we understand that
we're getting a lot of calls and unfortunately that the
system going to handle them all. But you know, we're
interested in what you have to say.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And as you know, Murkowski has been one of the
few Republicans who has stood.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Up and said yeah, I'm not happy with this and
has voted against some of the nominees and so on.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But to in terms of making a serious response to
your question, seems.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
To me that one of the first things that has
to that people have to do if they're not happy
with what's going on is look at the twenty twenty
six elections. Right now, the Republicans have enough votes barely
to control House and Senate.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
The numbers for the Senate in the twenty twenty six round.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Of elections, there are far more Republicans who are up
for re election than Democrats, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
There's some possibility there.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But the real potential gain, I think, in terms of
trying to restore balance here is in the House. There
are lots of House races that look like they're potentially
somebody to flipping as people have become disaffected with.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
The way things are being done.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
So I think paying attention to and supporting those folks,
both in terms of volunteering and money and so on,
is going to become one important thing.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I think the other important thing is the courts.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, this this nonsense like Trump's proposal to in
birthright citizenship, you know, I mean, that's embedded in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I don't think even Trump can get away with that.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Same with Trump getting a third term, and you know
it's in the constitution, I don't think he can get
away with it.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
But as you pointed out earlier, one.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Concern is that the current balance on the Supreme Court
requires that someone who is more conservative than than some
of the others has to vote against these things that
(24:07):
Trump is doing in order to actually get a majority.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And I mean I think that.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's been interesting to watch Justice score such and Justice
Parrot in particular, along with Justice Roberts, I think are
not idealds.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
They have conservative views, no question, but I don't think
they are willing to just toss the Constitution out the window.
There are a couple of justices there who I wouldn't
say that about. But you know, I do think that
ultimately the courts are going to be the prominent owork
against real overuse of executive power. Now, the one thing
(25:01):
that is really scary is you've got gdv answering around.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And some other people echoed it, saying, yeah, well, we don't.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Care what the court say, We're just going to go
ahead and do it. Right, that's that's outright revolt. I
don't I don't know where that goes. I'm hoping it
doesn't go that far. Trump to this point at least
has been saying, well, but it was incredible, just appeal.
We're not We're not, you know, We're going to do
what the courts say. So I'm hoping that will continue.
(25:29):
But it does seem to me that one of the
things that frustrates people is how slowly the courts move.
But I do think ultimately the courts are going to
reign in are would be emperor. But we'll see.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I think is is the longer term, But I do
think in the shorter term. You know, in most presidencies,
not always, but in most presidencies in the first term,
the numbers change in terms of the number of members
(26:11):
of that president's party who are re elected, they typically
go down. Typically the incumbent loses either senators or members
of the House. We're both and my best guess, that's
(26:31):
all it is. I'm not a Blacksbert. My best guess
is that you'll see from lose the House in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But who else.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
He may do things that make people so happy with
him that that won't happen, But it wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Be blad that right. And as you mentioned before the
show started, it is the economy stupid, right, and.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
It's it is.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
The number one thing that I think a lot of
Americans are concerned about, is is my income, my ability
to buy a house, you know, my taxes. People the
news networks are constantly talking about the disappearing middle class
and how much harder it is. And so I think
that to your point, if all of a sudden Trump
(27:22):
is able to pull that rabbit out of his hat,
then everybody will say, hey, yay, we did the right thing,
and this guy's awesome. Let's keep them there going forever.
But his idea of taxing by tariffs or managing by tariffs,
I think is you know, I think is bad and
(27:43):
and I think he does too. So I think he
was going to put a tariff on Mexico and he
decided at the last minute, no, he was going to
put a tariff on candidate. At the last minute he
decided no. I believe he still has a small tariff
against China ten percent or something. But I think that
he's aware that that Mexico and Canada they'll just retaliate
(28:07):
in kind and all of a sudden. If you think that,
you know, paying whatever whatever it is, eighty cents for
a pound of bananas is high, wait till you're paying
two dollars for that same pound.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I do think tariffs are going to come back to
bite him, And the twenty five percent tax on steel
and aluminum, I'm personally convinced that's not going to do
good things for the economy. I think the price of cars,
for example, is going to walk substantially. But you know,
(28:41):
it may be that cooler heads will prevail and feel
back off from those terrafs. But the currently post tariff
of twenty five percent on steel and aluminum alone, I
think is going to have a significant impact. If he
goes in and cantinues with the tariffs, and he seems.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
To be in love with the concept.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And I think there's a very good chance that the
inflation numbers will go up. As as you saw, his
first life wasn't great. Nobody knows what the what it's
going to look like from here, but I don't see
anyway that he's going to be able to keep his
promise on bringing inflation.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Down and.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Be able to make things more affordable for people with
the policy he's currently pursuing.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
And I agree, I think that you're right. I think
the CEO Ford basically came out and said the same thing,
that taxing our vehicles at twenty five percent, and that's
essentially what he's doing. He says, you're just making it
easier for foreign competition to come into the US, and
(29:55):
just now he's.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Now he's putting a tariff on foreign cars, right, So
you know, I mean it's not going to get better.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It's not. And like you said, only time will tell,
because maybe maybe by some miracle something else happens. But
managing by tariffs, I think historically has proven to be bad.
It's a poor way to manage and I think that
(30:28):
most people don't. Let me rephrase that. I think that
most farmers appreciate the people who work for them. And
historically these are individuals who come here illegally. There are
a lot of illegals that help pick our crops. But
(30:50):
you get rid of all these people, and all of
a sudden, all your cost of produce is going to
shoot up. During the first Trump administration, when he scared again,
he scared the migrant worker, there was four tons of
uncollected food in California that just went bad because there
was nobody to pick it. And what happens is that,
(31:11):
if I remember correctly, the farmers were like begging people
to come work, will pay you thirty forty fifty bucks
an hour. They couldn't get anybody. And what happens is like,
not that my kids are spoiled, but I think, you know,
a lot of our generation, the children or our kids,
(31:33):
have evolved. They're now doing service projects now or service
type of work, and so not that picking crops is
inherently a bad thing. America was raised on farming. You know,
at one point we were feeding the world, and we
had such a surplus that we could send food all
(31:55):
over And I think that surplus is going to dry up.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think certainly there's going to be a problem in
getting labor in what we would think of is heavy
labor jobs.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know, picking programs for example.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That's that's tough work, you know, out there in the
heat and stooping overall day. You know, it's it's it's
not not good stuff. And I think there's going to
be a real shortage of people willing to do heavy labor.
It's not clear what's going to happen as you as
you probably have noticed, there's a fight within the publican
(32:34):
party trying to get Trump's here, between people like Steve Bannon,
who were opposed.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
To pretty much any foreign workers, and.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
People like Moscow saying, oh we need skilled foreign workers,
we need the H one B and and those kinds
of folks.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So who knows where that's all going to go. But
the thing that.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
That people are not paying attention to, I don't think,
and I suspect they're going after spooning, is that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
There is a disproportion disproportionate level of.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Workers available in relation to the older generation that needs
the most help. What's going on right now you have
the Baby boom generation and after COVID, most of the
folks who are sixty five and up who were still
in the labor force left the labor force. Many of
(33:37):
them retired sadly, a number died, others got second set.
You know, I don't need to do this anymore. And
after COVID, if you look at the statistics about what
groups came back to the labor force, the group that
didn't come back in large part is the sixty plus group.
(33:58):
So now you've got all these owners books, you've got
a relatively small generation behind them. I mean, if you
look at the at the numbers, the sheer numbers of
the baby bores compared to later generations, there just aren't
a lot of people there who are workers. And you
may have noticed that in the last few years wages
(34:19):
have gone up comparatively, which has put a strain on
various kinds of businesses, especially fast foods. But it's I
think going to get worse because one of the ways
that we were offsetting that strain was with immigrants. And
if you scare people off from me from immigrating, and
(34:39):
right now they're not making much distinction between legal and
illegal immigrants. You know, these roundups, they're they're scooping up
people who are here legally and just waiting for an
asylum of hearing or whatever. But regardless, if you put
a lot of pressure on that segment of labor for
(35:01):
because you were saying earlier, there's not going to be
anybody doing work. And you know, while we're making strides
with AI and robotics and so on to to fill
in some of that deficiency, you can't fill.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It all fast enough.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
There's going to be a serious labor shortage in my opinion,
if the Trump administration continues with its current efforts, and
they don't seem to be changing course so far, so
we'll see, but it seems to me that that's going
to become a serious problem.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Well, and to your point, look what's happening in New York.
Talk about in your face, in my opinion, in your
face corruption. Right, So for those who aren't aware, they're
they're prosecuting the mayor of New York for all sorts
of corruption and bribery type of of indictments. And the
(36:02):
Trump administration came in and said, hey, we want to
dismiss that case completely, not because of lack of evidence,
but just because we can force this mayor to play
ball with us. And and if you watch the Fox
News where uh the what do you call it? The
borders are Basically it is just is just saying, hey,
(36:27):
if this guy doesn't play ball with us, you know,
I'm going to be at his house. And this is
so you have you have the borders are and then
you have Mayor Adams and they're both on Fox News
and the mayor is saying, well, they got me. I've capitulated.
I have no choice but to do what they want.
And it's it is a very sad interview, and it's
(36:49):
just like, wow, there is no line that the administration
will not cross.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, it's said one of the one of the things
that has happened is I'm afraid you're going to be
successful in witicizing the Department of Justice.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
One of one of the things that happened in that
in the Adams case, we're talking about a number of
senior prosecutors resigned just said, you know, we can't tell
them that's this kind of stuff. And you know, it
is not good when you have the best and brightest
people leaving law leading law forcem that's that's not a
good thing. But you know, we're just gonna have to
(37:33):
see where it all goes. As I said, I'm hopeful
that the courts will reign this in, but that's a
very slow.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Process, very slow process. And to your point, uh, the uh,
the first prosecutor to resign on the Adams case was
a Trump appointee. I believe she's a conservative Republican. I
believe the second person who resigned was also a conservative Republican.
(37:59):
And and you know that, I'm grateful that some of
these people are saying, hey, this is not what I
signed up for, this is not legal, this is not right,
and I'm not going to put up with it. It's
it's still a very what do you call it? A
very It gives me hope, I'll just say, it just
gives me hope that there's some people out there that
(38:21):
are standing up for what's right.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
One of the one of the senior ethics people with
Justice just left.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I mean, it's it's not good, all right, So we're
out of time. I want to say thank you so much,
Francis Jackson's for stopping by letting us know what's going
to be happening to our brave men and women that
it seems like they have a fight in their near
future just to get their benefits. If you guys want
to know more about Francis Jackson and his team, check
(38:53):
out Veterans Benefits dot Com Veterans Benefits dot Com. Francis,
thank you so much for stopping by today.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It is always a player and our chance to Chaplin
If you literally fired every single federal employee tomorrow, that's
about two hundred and seventy billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
It's a big number. What doesn't even get you to
the first vision.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Welcome back today, Francis Jackson is a best selling author
as well as an attorney who specializes in disability law
for those seeking veterans disability benefits as well as Social
Security disability benefits. Today we're focusing on what is happening
in the Veterans Affairs Department. The VA Department, I think
(00:33):
February thirteenth announced that they were dismissing or firing more
than a thousand employees who has served for less than
two years. And this is according to Senator Patty Murray.
And we're talking people who are researchers, people who are
working on cancer treatments, oipoid, opioid addiction, prosthetic X burnpit exposure,
(01:02):
you name it. These are vitally important people and here
to walk us through what's happening. Is again, Francis Jackson,
Welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
One pleasure, always a pleasure to have a chance to
chat with you.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Thank you so much for stopping here. I just think
this is this is an incredible thing. You and I
have talked about this numerous times. The VA is already struggling.
It's already like a lot of government agencies that are underfunded,
under man and uh. The the VA is, if I
remember correctly, the second largest department, UH in our in
(01:41):
our in our government anyway, So I wanted to bring
you on and talk about this, and and again we've
heard how Elon Musk and the Department of the Government
Efficiency are getting are basically gutting the government workforce. How
do you see this affecting the VA.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, the truth is burnt. I think it's too soon
to tell.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It is a bad sign that they're firing anybody at
the v A. As you talked about in the beginning,
the VA, particularly on the benefits side, is seriously understaffed
and as a result as a huge backlog of benefits
claim spending. And truthfully, they're understanding they are understaffed on
(02:30):
the healthcare side as well. There was talk at the
beginning that VA was going to be exempt from these firings,
and it appears that they have exempted at least the
direct service professionals doctors and nurses for the hospitals, although
(02:55):
just because of the general turmoil that's been created in.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
The whole hiring process in the government. Those those some
of those folks are getting jammed up as well.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
But but the the thing you want to pay attention
to is.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
We don't know where this is going. There.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There have been cuts, but the cuts at the VA
so far have been much more selective than the cuts
in most departments. As you mentioned, they fired over a
thousand people, but there are like forty thousand probationary employees
at the Department of Veterans Affairs. There's a total staff
(03:38):
of almost five hundred thousand ordered maybe six thousand and
change at the last count. So the cuts there have
been proportionally smaller, and so.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It's it's just not clear where this is going in
the long run.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, I think I think that you make a very
valid point there. We're not really sure how this is
going to shake up. Let me ask you this because
again to your point, he has the Trumpet administration is
at the same time cutting or gutting seems like everybody, right,
(04:22):
nobody has been left untouched. We have the Health Department,
Education Department that they want to completely get rid of.
It's the my goodness, oh, the IRS Department, which I'm
sure most people are like, oh, less irs agents. That's great,
unless they owe you money then it's not so great.
But obviously there's a pattern here. And as an attorney,
(04:47):
I want to get your opinion on this because one
of the things that I see is this, First of all,
he is when I say he Trump is obviously not
afraid of litigation. He I think this is part the plan.
We're going to fire everybody, uh, and we're going to
do everything that we can. Uh. And and knowing that
(05:09):
eighty or ninety percent of the stuff he does is
going to go through the court system, and I think
that that's what he is betting on, because again we
already seen the Supreme Court said, hey, he can do
whatever he wants. It's all good. Now doesn't mean that
they're going to rule everything in his favor, but I'm
(05:29):
getting prepared that we're going to see some new constitutional
law when it's all said and done. It's clear.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I think it's it's very obvious that Trump, you know,
doesn't want to be president. Trump wants to be emperor.
In fact, there was a it was a great piece
on the news the other night.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Somebody at the White House put together a yet.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Photoshop thing of Trump with a crown, and they were,
you know, they were they were telling you, I mean,
this was not they were not being sarcastic.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They were Trump is just being the kidney. And you're right,
I mean, that's what he's trying to do.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, And I want to remind everybody here that that, uh,
let's look at what happened in Venezuela. So Hugo Chavez,
who tried to take over Venezuela by force, was stopped
and was put in prison, somehow got out of prison,
ran for president, and then dismantled the dismantled the Venezuelan
(06:36):
government once he became president, just got rid of all
the checks and balances. And now we see that Venezuela,
from one dictator to the next, they're monthly. Their money
they're monthly. Their money is worthless, right. I mean there's
tons of YouTube videos where people are taking literally millions
of their pasos or whatever their currency and they're making
(06:58):
hats and different art pieces with it, because that's it's
not worth any money, right.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
No.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And and you know, Maduro, the current the current dictator
has you know, basically replaced all the people on the
election commission, and then when he lost the election, they
went in and certified that he won.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, and it just seems like, uh kind of a ah,
it seems like that is what Trump wants as well, right,
I mean if if you guys remember during the campaign,
on more than one occasion, he says, hey, once, once
I'm president again, you'll never have to vote again. How
(07:44):
did that not alarm some people? Right? And and then
of course on Fox News, Uh, he did say that
he would be a dictator for a day, not more
than two, I think is what he said. Again. How
is that just not alarming some of our listeners? And
and and just just good conscious Uh, I don't know,
(08:06):
it just it just boggles the mind.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Not to pretty much terrify all of us, but it
doesn't doesn't seem to bother.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Some people.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Absolutely Unfortunately. You're correct. All right, let's talk about this
what Trump must uh, what Trump and must uh declared.
Let me rephrase it. So so Musk and Trump have
declared that they want to cut roughly seven trillion dollars.
I think it's like between six point five and seven
(08:37):
trillion dollars from their federal budget. What is your take
on this, because that's a lot of trillions for a budget.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
You you misplaced the numbers a little bit burned. The
total budget is six point eight trillion. Okay, you're proposing
to cut two million out of two trillion out of.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Excuse me, thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And and you know, one of the things that that
a lot of people don't realize. If you eliminated the
entire federal for a compedial workforce, and I mean literally
all of them by the FBI, got rid of the cords,
sent sent all the ice and border patrol of people home,
literally fired every federal employee. That's not a trillion dollars one,
(09:24):
and they claiming they've got to find two.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Well, I think that again, they want to get rid
of the Education Department. They're they're looking at what departments
they can get rid of. They've shut down USAID again.
I don't know how many departments they have to get
rid of to trim a trillion or two trillion dollars.
Because to your.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Point, they have to get rid of the wall over,
they can't any federal employees, and they still don't.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Get to a trillion.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
That's remarkable, that's remarkable. But again you're looking at You're
looking at Elon Musk, who has no real in my opinion,
doesn't have a connection with working class people who are
again somebody who might be working. What's that that's pretty
mildly Yeah, well because yeah, absolutely, So here's these guys
(10:19):
who are billionaires and millionaires. They're disconnected from what the
average person is going through. So you think that they're
bothered by the fact that all of a sudden, we
were having an egg crisis and you're gonna be paying ten, twelve,
fifteen dollars an a or per carton of eggs to them,
They don't care. That doesn't affect them one way or
the other. It's certainly not going to affect the richest
(10:41):
man in the world. And so for him to come
in and say we got to gut all these things
without thinking about the humanity behind those budgets. Now, again,
is there waste in our government. Absolutely, But I bet
you a lot of that waste comes from the sweet
deals that Congress cuts. I mean right now, and as
(11:03):
far as I know, the some of the biggest industry, sugar,
corn oil, the beef industry, all of these guys get subsidies.
These are profitable, massive companies that are involved, and they're
getting subsidies. But yet I haven't I haven't heard one
(11:23):
thing from the Trump administration about gutting those subsidies.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And what's going on when you when you look at this,
I mean, if you stop and actually drill down on
this stuff. And the thing is, you start talking trillions
of dollars, and you know, those are those are crazy numbers.
Anytime you see one with twelve zeros after it, nobody,
nobody can really figure out what that means. But but
if you start looking at what they're doing, I mean, essentially,
(11:54):
what you've got is, as you said a minute ago,
you've got a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who don't
want to pay taxes and they're finding ways to cut
the government because they want to keep taxes.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, that's that's their goal.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So but you can't do what they're promising without doing
some real serious heart. What most people don't seem to
pay attention to is out of the six point eight
trillion dollars that comprise the federal budget, sixty five percent
of that of that total, or four and a half trillion,
(12:29):
is Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's it, that's all.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That's that is four point five trillion out of the
six point eight and if you throw in the Defense partment,
which is another brillion, you know, you now are at
five point five trillion. So the only way you can
meet they musk from goal of cutting two trillion from
(12:58):
the budget is to cut Defense, Medicare, social Security, or
veterans' benefits, or some combination thereof. You can't do it
any other way. The numbers simply don't work.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And when you think about how scary that is, there's
a large percentage of Americans that count on Social Security,
that count on Medicare, Medicaid, and not to mention are
veterans who count on their benefits from the Department of Defense,
(13:34):
and they were promised these things put your life on
the line, and when if you make it back, you're
going to have access to medical you're going to have
access to education funds, you're going to have access to
housing funds. And now they're saying maybe not, maybe we're
just going to not do any of that. We're not
(13:56):
going to honor any of that.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
That's what they would have to do to get to
a two trillion dollar cut.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
There's no other way.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I mean, and as I said earlier, if you literally
fired every single federal employee tomorrow, that's about two hundred
and seventy billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It's a big number, but it doesn't even get you
to the first billion, you know. And that's that's everything.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That's that's firing the people who are in the Social
Security Office, that's firing the people at Treasury we send
out the Social.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Security and VAX.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
That's firing every single employee in the entire government other
than the Defense Department.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That that is such a crazy thought. It blows me away.
So you fire every federal employee except for the Defense
and you're still you know.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
You haven't even got to have the trunion.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, that just blows me away.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
And they're swearing they're going to get to too. It's
you can't get to tune without cutting into Medicaid, Social Security,
veterans benefits.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It can't be done. The math just doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
You know. And something else that I found interesting is
that he fired a bunch of the inspector generals, right,
and so I found for those of us who aren't
familiar with the inspector general and this is what I understand,
correct me if I'm wrong. You know, the inspector generals
(15:33):
one of their first duties or is to help monitor
fraud and waste. They are the first line, and so
when they see waste and when they see fraud, they're
they're the ones that make that report. And it just
seems odd to me that for the Department of Government
Efficiency and for the Trump administration, who are looking to
(15:56):
cut fraud and cut ways that you will get rid
of the first line of wastebinders. For lack of better terms.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I think there's some pretty obvious reasons for that. I mean,
if you look at the Trump cabinet, which is composed
exclusively of millionaires and billionaires, those people are not seriously
interested in cutting overall government spending. They're interested in extracting
the money from the government in ways that they don't
(16:28):
get caught for. I mean, mousc alone has billions of
dollars of contracts with the federal government through his various enterprises,
whether you talk about his SpaceX or the the trucks,
the electronic trucks from from Tesla that he's selling to
(16:50):
the State Department. You know, it goes on on and on.
They just don't want anybody looking over their shoulder to
see how much they chiseling.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
If your pardon boy, be.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Creuding, no, I think you hit the nail right on
the head. That's the only thing that makes sense if
you're going to get rid of the watchdogs, is because
you don't want to be watched. You don't want to
be held accountable to the same light that you're holding
other people accountable. Let me ask you this, how again,
(17:22):
how big is the budget for the Department of Defense.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Defense?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It's about a trillion dollars, Okay, so it's it's called
fifteen percent roughly of the entire national budget.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, And I tell you what's also kind of interesting
that I just found this out. A lot of you
guys probably already know this, but to me it was news.
And that is if I believe in getting these numbers correct.
But bottom line is China They're standing army is twice
(18:02):
as big as ours. Their navy is two to three
times the size of our navy. And so that, to me,
I found that to be very interesting and alarming. Twenty
percent of the illegal aliens that are crossing the border
are from China. That was from an investigation that sixty
minutes did so again. I know there's a lot of focus,
(18:27):
a lot of talk about illegal immigrants, and a lot
of that is focused on the Latinos, which do come
here illegally, but they but they work hard and they
send a lot of money home. You know, we've never
had we've never had a Mexican or a Latino who
was caught for espionage. But every year we have four
(18:49):
or five Chinese individuals. Some of these are Chinese, some
of these are American citizens who have been caught sending
information back to China. And when I say American citizens,
these are Chinese immigrants who went through the system, became
naturalized citizens. But they still are agents of China and
(19:13):
they and they get caught with esbionage again three or
four times a year on a pretty regular basis. So
to me, I just find it interesting that there's so
much focus on the Latinos. Nothing is mentioned of China,
who has a long history of being a bad citizen,
just a global globally being a bad citizen. Right. They
(19:37):
send toxic food, they send toxic toys, toxic honey, you
name it. In my opinion, it seems like China is
doing the best They can to become the only power
in the world.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
I mean, it's clear that the Chinese school has to
become the super.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Power of the world.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And you cannot underestimate their power because they have literally
billions of people at their disposal, and they're not afraid
of enlisting people against their will. That's true, all right,
So let me ask.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
You this, your family, you know that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Say that again.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
The Chinese are famous for, you know, do this or well,
wipe out your family kind of kind of approach to
to what persuading people.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yes, yes, all right, so right now, what is your take?
Do we just wait and see what's going to happen?
I mean, do we write our our senators and our congressmen,
our congress people who are basically a lot of them
are pro Trump anyway, So what do we do now?
(20:52):
Just wait and see?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Well, I think there are a couple of things that
need to be done.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Obviously, One is to register the extent of our unhappiness
with with what's going on.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I thought it was very interesting that the volume
of calls over overloaded the entire network for the Housince
Sentive because so many people were trying to call and
complain about what's going.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
On, and uh.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska posted something on the internet
about that, saying, you know, we're where we understand that
we're getting a lot of calls and unfortunately that the
system going to handle them all. But you know, we're
interested in what you have to say.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
And as you know, Murkowski has been one of the
few Republicans who has stood.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Up and said yeah, I'm not happy with this and
has voted against some of the nominees and so on.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But to in terms of making a serious response to
your question, seems.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
To me that one of the first things that has
to that people have to do if they're not happy
with what's going on is look at the twenty twenty
six elections. Right now, the Republicans have enough votes barely
to control House and Senate.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
The numbers for the Senate in the twenty twenty six round.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Of elections, there are far more Republicans who are up
for re election than Democrats, and so.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
There's some possibility there.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
But the real potential gain, I think, in terms of
trying to restore balance here is in the House. There
are lots of House races that look like they're potentially
somebody to flipping as people have become disaffected with.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
The way things are being done.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
So I think paying attention to and supporting those folks,
both in terms of volunteering and money and so on,
is going to become one important thing.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I think the other important thing is the courts.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You know, this this nonsense like Trump's proposal to in
birthright citizenship, you know, I mean, that's embedded in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I don't think even Trump can get away with that.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Same with Trump getting a third term, and you know
it's in the constitution, I don't think he can get
away with it.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
But as you pointed out earlier, one.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Concern is that the current balance on the Supreme Court
requires that someone who is more conservative than than some
of the others has to vote against these things that
(24:07):
Trump is doing in order to actually get a majority.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
And I mean I think that.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
It's been interesting to watch Justice score such and Justice
Parrot in particular, along with Justice Roberts, I think are
not idealds.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They're not.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
They have conservative views, no question, but I don't think
they are willing to just toss the Constitution out the window.
There are a couple of justices there who I wouldn't
say that about. But you know, I do think that
ultimately the courts are going to be the prominent owork
against real overuse of executive power. Now, the one thing
(25:01):
that is really scary is you've got gdv answering around.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
And some other people echoed it, saying, yeah, well, we don't.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Care what the court say, We're just going to go
ahead and do it. Right, that's that's outright revolt. I
don't I don't know where that goes. I'm hoping it
doesn't go that far. Trump to this point at least
has been saying, well, but it was incredible, just appeal.
We're not We're not, you know, We're going to do
what the courts say. So I'm hoping that will continue.
(25:29):
But it does seem to me that one of the
things that frustrates people is how slowly the courts move.
But I do think ultimately the courts are going to
reign in are would be emperor. But we'll see.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That's that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I think is is the longer term, But I do
think in the shorter term. You know, in most presidencies,
not always, but in most presidencies in the first term,
the numbers change in terms of the number of members
(26:11):
of that president's party who are re elected, they typically
go down. Typically the incumbent loses either senators or members
of the House. We're both and my best guess, that's
(26:31):
all it is. I'm not a Blacksbert. My best guess
is that you'll see from lose the House in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
But who else.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
He may do things that make people so happy with
him that that won't happen, But it wouldn't.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Be blad that right. And as you mentioned before the
show started, it is the economy stupid, right, and.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
It's it is.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
The number one thing that I think a lot of
Americans are concerned about, is is my income, my ability
to buy a house, you know, my taxes. People the
news networks are constantly talking about the disappearing middle class
and how much harder it is. And so I think
that to your point, if all of a sudden Trump
(27:22):
is able to pull that rabbit out of his hat,
then everybody will say, hey, yay, we did the right thing,
and this guy's awesome. Let's keep them there going forever.
But his idea of taxing by tariffs or managing by tariffs,
I think is you know, I think is bad and
(27:43):
and I think he does too. So I think he
was going to put a tariff on Mexico and he
decided at the last minute, no, he was going to
put a tariff on candidate. At the last minute he
decided no. I believe he still has a small tariff
against China ten percent or something. But I think that
he's aware that that Mexico and Canada they'll just retaliate
(28:07):
in kind and all of a sudden. If you think that,
you know, paying whatever whatever it is, eighty cents for
a pound of bananas is high, wait till you're paying
two dollars for that same pound.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I do think tariffs are going to come back to
bite him, And the twenty five percent tax on steel
and aluminum, I'm personally convinced that's not going to do
good things for the economy. I think the price of cars,
for example, is going to walk substantially. But you know,
(28:41):
it may be that cooler heads will prevail and feel
back off from those terrafs. But the currently post tariff
of twenty five percent on steel and aluminum alone, I
think is going to have a significant impact. If he
goes in and cantinues with the tariffs, and he seems.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
To be in love with the concept.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
And I think there's a very good chance that the
inflation numbers will go up. As as you saw, his
first life wasn't great. Nobody knows what the what it's
going to look like from here, but I don't see
anyway that he's going to be able to keep his
promise on bringing inflation.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Down and.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Be able to make things more affordable for people with
the policy he's currently pursuing.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
And I agree, I think that you're right. I think
the CEO Ford basically came out and said the same thing,
that taxing our vehicles at twenty five percent, and that's
essentially what he's doing. He says, you're just making it
easier for foreign competition to come into the US, and
(29:55):
just now he's.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Now he's putting a tariff on foreign cars, right, So
you know, I mean it's not going to get better.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
I don't think.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It's not. And like you said, only time will tell,
because maybe maybe by some miracle something else happens. But
managing by tariffs, I think historically has proven to be bad.
It's a poor way to manage and I think that
(30:28):
most people don't. Let me rephrase that. I think that
most farmers appreciate the people who work for them. And
historically these are individuals who come here illegally. There are
a lot of illegals that help pick our crops. But
(30:50):
you get rid of all these people, and all of
a sudden, all your cost of produce is going to
shoot up. During the first Trump administration, when he scared again,
he scared the migrant worker, there was four tons of
uncollected food in California that just went bad because there
was nobody to pick it. And what happens is that,
(31:11):
if I remember correctly, the farmers were like begging people
to come work, will pay you thirty forty fifty bucks
an hour. They couldn't get anybody. And what happens is like,
not that my kids are spoiled, but I think, you know,
a lot of our generation, the children or our kids,
(31:33):
have evolved. They're now doing service projects now or service
type of work, and so not that picking crops is
inherently a bad thing. America was raised on farming. You know,
at one point we were feeding the world, and we
had such a surplus that we could send food all
(31:55):
over And I think that surplus is going to dry up.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think certainly there's going to be a problem in
getting labor in what we would think of is heavy
labor jobs.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know, picking programs for example.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
That's that's tough work, you know, out there in the
heat and stooping overall day. You know, it's it's it's
not not good stuff. And I think there's going to
be a real shortage of people willing to do heavy labor.
It's not clear what's going to happen as you as
you probably have noticed, there's a fight within the publican
(32:34):
party trying to get Trump's here, between people like Steve Bannon,
who were opposed.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
To pretty much any foreign workers, and.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
People like Moscow saying, oh we need skilled foreign workers,
we need the H one B and and those kinds
of folks.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
So who knows where that's all going to go. But
the thing that.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
That people are not paying attention to, I don't think,
and I suspect they're going after spooning, is that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
There is a disproportion disproportionate level of.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Workers available in relation to the older generation that needs
the most help. What's going on right now you have
the Baby boom generation and after COVID, most of the
folks who are sixty five and up who were still
in the labor force left the labor force. Many of
(33:37):
them retired sadly, a number died, others got second set.
You know, I don't need to do this anymore. And
after COVID, if you look at the statistics about what
groups came back to the labor force, the group that
didn't come back in large part is the sixty plus group.
(33:58):
So now you've got all these owners books, you've got
a relatively small generation behind them. I mean, if you
look at the at the numbers, the sheer numbers of
the baby bores compared to later generations, there just aren't
a lot of people there who are workers. And you
may have noticed that in the last few years wages
(34:19):
have gone up comparatively, which has put a strain on
various kinds of businesses, especially fast foods. But it's I
think going to get worse because one of the ways
that we were offsetting that strain was with immigrants. And
if you scare people off from me from immigrating, and
(34:39):
right now they're not making much distinction between legal and
illegal immigrants. You know, these roundups, they're they're scooping up
people who are here legally and just waiting for an
asylum of hearing or whatever. But regardless, if you put
a lot of pressure on that segment of labor for
(35:01):
because you were saying earlier, there's not going to be
anybody doing work. And you know, while we're making strides
with AI and robotics and so on to to fill
in some of that deficiency, you can't fill.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It all fast enough.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
There's going to be a serious labor shortage in my opinion,
if the Trump administration continues with its current efforts, and
they don't seem to be changing course so far, so
we'll see, but it seems to me that that's going
to become a serious problem.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Well, and to your point, look what's happening in New York.
Talk about in your face, in my opinion, in your
face corruption. Right, So for those who aren't aware, they're
they're prosecuting the mayor of New York for all sorts
of corruption and bribery type of of indictments. And the
(36:02):
Trump administration came in and said, hey, we want to
dismiss that case completely, not because of lack of evidence,
but just because we can force this mayor to play
ball with us. And and if you watch the Fox
News where uh the what do you call it? The
borders are Basically it is just is just saying, hey,
(36:27):
if this guy doesn't play ball with us, you know,
I'm going to be at his house. And this is
so you have you have the borders are and then
you have Mayor Adams and they're both on Fox News
and the mayor is saying, well, they got me. I've capitulated.
I have no choice but to do what they want.
And it's it is a very sad interview, and it's
(36:49):
just like, wow, there is no line that the administration
will not cross.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Yeah, it's said one of the one of the things
that has happened is I'm afraid you're going to be
successful in witicizing the Department of Justice.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
One of one of the things that happened in that
in the Adams case, we're talking about a number of
senior prosecutors resigned just said, you know, we can't tell
them that's this kind of stuff. And you know, it
is not good when you have the best and brightest
people leaving law leading law forcem that's that's not a
good thing. But you know, we're just gonna have to
(37:33):
see where it all goes. As I said, I'm hopeful
that the courts will reign this in, but that's a
very slow.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Process, very slow process. And to your point, uh, the uh,
the first prosecutor to resign on the Adams case was
a Trump appointee. I believe she's a conservative Republican. I
believe the second person who resigned was also a conservative Republican.
(37:59):
And and you know that, I'm grateful that some of
these people are saying, hey, this is not what I
signed up for, this is not legal, this is not right,
and I'm not going to put up with it. It's
it's still a very what do you call it? A
very It gives me hope, I'll just say, it just
gives me hope that there's some people out there that
(38:21):
are standing up for what's right.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
One of the one of the senior ethics people with
Justice just left.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
I mean, it's it's not good, all right, So we're
out of time. I want to say thank you so much,
Francis Jackson's for stopping by letting us know what's going
to be happening to our brave men and women that
it seems like they have a fight in their near
future just to get their benefits. If you guys want
to know more about Francis Jackson and his team, check
(38:53):
out Veterans Benefits dot Com Veterans Benefits dot Com. Francis,
thank you so much for stopping by today.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
It is always a player and our chance to Chaplin
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