September 8, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode of The Jimmy Rex Show, Jimmy sits down with Trent Staggs—recent U.S. Senate candidate and now working with the SBA Office of Advocacy under President Trump. They talk about how government rules affect small businesses, why it’s so hard for entrepreneurs to grow, and what changes could make a real difference.
Trent also shares insights from his new book, Heirs of the Revolution, which focuses on restoring America through strong citizenship, family values, and less government control. He explains the six main pillars from the book and how they connect to everyday life.
Jimmy and Trent wrap up by talking about real estate, interest rates, and what needs to happen for small business owners and families to have more opportunities in the future.
00:00 Introduction
01:14 Utah politics and Senate run lessons
07:02 Big money in politics
11:07 New SBA role under Trump
14:48 Cutting regulations for small business
19:44 Struggles of small business owners
20:37 Heirs of the Revolution book & key pillars
31:00 Trade, tariffs, and China
33:28 Economy, housing, and interest rates
38:05 Where to get the book
39:50 Outro
Trent also shares insights from his new book, Heirs of the Revolution, which focuses on restoring America through strong citizenship, family values, and less government control. He explains the six main pillars from the book and how they connect to everyday life.
Jimmy and Trent wrap up by talking about real estate, interest rates, and what needs to happen for small business owners and families to have more opportunities in the future.
00:00 Introduction
01:14 Utah politics and Senate run lessons
07:02 Big money in politics
11:07 New SBA role under Trump
14:48 Cutting regulations for small business
19:44 Struggles of small business owners
20:37 Heirs of the Revolution book & key pillars
31:00 Trade, tariffs, and China
33:28 Economy, housing, and interest rates
38:05 Where to get the book
39:50 Outro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Jimmy Rex Show.
Today in the podcast, I sit down with Trent Stags
and I've had him on the podcast once before. He
was running for senator here in the state of Utah.
Ultimately that was unsuccessful, but Trent has recently been put
on the board from Donald Trump, the SBA Board to
be one of the ten basically regional representative around the
country to help small businesses and help eliminate regulations and
(00:26):
all the things that hold them back from being able
to thrive. Also, just came out with his new book
that airs to the Revolution and pretty awesome. One thing
I love about Trent is he is a fighter for America,
and he fights for this country and he really is
a person that cares and so happy to sit down
with him and have this podcast and talk a little
bit more about what he's doing and how he is
fitting in into this cabinet in Donald Trump's presidency. So,
(00:49):
without further ado, let's get to the show, and today's
podcast is brought to you by Bucked Up Protein. This
is the Rainbow candy flavor. I don't know how they
come up with that or what that means, but it
tastes unbelievable, twenty five g protein, one hundred calories in
each can. You can pick them up at Harmon's or
anywhere that bucked up products are sold. Trent. Good to
(01:15):
have you back on the show Man.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, I've been wanting to talk politics with somebody for
a minute. It's it's just a kind of a crazy
time and twenty twenty five. I don't think it's played
out necessarily how anybody kind of expected it to. I
think there's a lot of reasons for optimism, and then
I think there's a lot of frustration as well going
on out there. And I mean for you, you know,
you ran to be you know, I guess in the Senate,
(01:40):
and unfortunately we didn't get the victory that you know,
I was hoping that you were going to wait, we
needed somebody that wasn't a rhino from Utah. We just
we get some interesting politicians in Utah. And I'm a
little worried about this state right now. I don't know,
I don't know how the direction of it's all going exactly,
but there's a lot of things that I think the
Republican Party, I'm I'm and I'm just disclosed, but I
(02:01):
am a libertarian, you know, I'm just I just I've
been so frustra with the Republican Party in Utah and
in some ways in general. But there's just a lot
of things that seems like they're not really fighting for
the for the for the people they say that they're
supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, sadly, I mean we've seen that, right, We've seen
a number of people that just want to be part
of the establishment. I has had this conversation with somebody
the other day. It seems like a lot of elected
officials they they just want to be a part of
something and maybe they didn't, you know, they weren't part
of a team or sports or something, you know, growing up,
and they just they find that they really like being
(02:39):
in this elected office, but it starts to to really
blind them, and they just they're more concerned about maintaining
that power or perceived power in that office than really
representing the people. And that's what's so incredibly frustrating. You know,
I don't really care to be part of the establishment, clearly.
You know, when I ran for off, I took on
(03:00):
Mitt Romney at the time, he he didn't decide not
to seek reelection until a good five months or so
after I made my announcement that I was running, because
I just couldn't wait anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So I didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Follow what you might call political norms and saying, oh,
I've got to be in this office first, or do
that curry favor with this group, kiss the ring, so
to speak. Now, that shouldn't matter, none of that. Should
we need people that have actually, you know, got guts,
got courage, They're going to stand up to the cabal.
And that's, you know, during that run, I think that's
(03:34):
what was rewarded and why I was the recipping of
so many endorsements. I was honored to receive, you know,
from Charlie Kirk, from a. Vek Ramaswami, from Cash betelr
FPI director currently now who came out here to Utah,
Kerry Lake, many of those folks that have now endorsed
my book and I maintained friendships with to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, what did you learn running for senate?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Boy?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I learned, sadly that it's all about money, you know,
in a statewide race with this system we have today.
And I write about this extensively in the book. In
chapter two on restoring elections. I learned that when we
moved away in Utah, when we moved away from this
caucus convention system, we still have it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
But it's yeah, it seems like you I know, I
had you know, Phil Lyman on the podcast at one
point two, and he's talked a lot about this and
opened some people's eyes to like, wait, how did exactly
did they he get on the ballot. At this point,
it just seems like there's some winkiness with what's going
on with the elections in Utah.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
There certainly is with the way in which a private
political party nominates its candidates. One would think, Okay, it's
up to the political party decide how they want to
do it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Not in the state of Utah. It was that way
till about twenty fifteen. Mike Lee, you know, when he
won in twenty ten, he beat a three term incumbent
Senator Bob Bennett. That upset the apple cart, this establishment
that we were talking about here at the beginning. They
got scared, so they created another They create a law
that allows and forces, frankly, a direct primary irrespective of
(05:07):
the outcome of the convention, which I think is totally unconstitutional.
I actually wrote Namacus brief and support of Phil Lymon's
most recent suit, taking this all the way to the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear it. It's
been twice now they refuse to hear it. And I
think that's a shame they ought to weigh in on it.
I think it's complete violation of the First Amendment that
forces the Republican Party, in terms of their own freedom
(05:30):
of association, to do what the state tells them to do.
The state basically says, look, if you want that R
next to your name on the primary ballot, we control
the ballot. You got to do what we say. I
think that's completely unconstitutional. So yes, when neighborhoods get together
in March and they select the Republican delegate, there's over
four thousand of them. I got out of eleven candidates,
(05:53):
I got seventy percent of the vote. I had President
Trump's endorsement that morning of the state convention. So those
four thousand delegates in March go to the convention in April,
they decide, they vet. They take their job very seriously
and they vet, and then they end up, you know,
the deciding who in the past, if you had more
than sixty percent, you were automatically a nominee. In fact,
(06:15):
our Republican Party constitution still says that today anybody with
sixty percent or more of the delegate vote at convention,
it says shall be the nominee, shall go straight to
the general. But the state law came in and said wow.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And they basically put state law above that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So what happened in my race is, you know, I won.
I should have been the nominee, but I had three
other folks that basically bought, you know, their way on
the ballot. They bought signatures and got on and John
Curtis being one of them. And I had six weeks
from the time of the convention to the primary ballots
going out. This wasn't enough time. We weren't able to
get enough money. We put out about a million. John
(06:51):
Curtis had fifteen sixteen million, wow, most of which almost
all of that came from out of state big money donors.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Packs That's where the average person like me gets so
frustrated with politics. It's like, you know, big pharma, big tech,
big food, you know, big government, all these things that
unfortunately don't work to serve the common man. And you've
got all these big conglomerate companies and you know, what
makes America great as a strong middle class, and it's gone.
I'm seeing that now. It's like, even right now the
(07:19):
economy we have, it feels like there's still you know,
everything's at an all time high. All the assets are
at an all time high, whether it's bitcoined, the stock market,
or real estate. But the average people don't have any money.
They don't have any you know, extra money. They're they're
paying their bills and they're getting by. But I talk
to young people too, you know, I mean people in
their twenties, and they don't even have hope to own property.
(07:41):
I saw the number in you know, fifty years ago
a thirty year old, fifty something percent of the people
thirty years old were married with a house, and now
it's twelve percent of thirty year olds. I mean, it's
just they've destroyed the ability of young people to have
the ambition to even build. And it's it's because all
this money comes in, so all the law to favor
(08:01):
these companies that are already wealthy, and you know, they're
trying to make their stockholders happy and it's just it's
just frustrating for me because I can see it, but
there's nothing. I feel like, there's nothing can even do
about it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, it is.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
It is a little bit discouraging. I think President Trump, though,
is actually changing that. That's my hope. That's why I
agreed to be a part of the administration with the
small business administration.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But so I think some of that is changing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But I agree with you, it's been terribly, terribly difficult,
and that is part of the problem is that you
have these politicians that come in and they are completely
beholden to these outside, big moneyed interests. And that's what
I found in my race for the Senate. That's what
I've seen here in the state of Utah. You realize,
in the state of Utah, we don't have any campaign
contribution limits period.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I mean, so, but again, they want they.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Can donate as much as they want, and that's not
something at all that I dealt with with respect to
the Senate run. But still we saw huge packs and
I write about that in my book. You know, back
in the nineteen sixties, Barry Goldwater, when he wrote Conscience
of a Conservative, he said corporations and unions back then
they had You know, unions are still pretty powerful with
(09:11):
respect to their contributions. He said they were made for
quote economic purposes and need to remain as such, and
so even back then, and I agree with that, and
I that's a little bit of an unpopular stance, perhaps
even in my own party. I am completely against corporate
donations packs all of that, because I think it just
it does just what you said. And you know the
(09:31):
very proof of that. You take a look at the
individual that beat me in the Senate race. Nobody won
with majority, which was another frustrating factor. He got forty
seven forty eight percent. I had thirty five or so.
The other two gentlemen in the Rays twelve and six
percent respectively. So nobody won with over fifty percent in
the primary. And even with all that money, this individual
(09:55):
wasn't able to win a majority. But all that money,
I mean from primarily out of state clean energy, green
energy folks. And so you sit there and you think, well,
who are you going to be more beholden to? And
to me, it's no surprise that he was one of
the few dragging his feet on the big beautiful bill
(10:18):
to force the tax credits in for the Inflation Reduction Act, Right,
A lot of this green energy, clean energy stuff, and
that's what needs We've got to get that out of politics.
We've got to get the big money out of politics.
It's made no sense to me why an individual that's living, breathing,
(10:38):
that can actually vote for me was constrained to thirty
three hundred bucks when a pack can just literally unlimited
amounts of money can come in. I mean I had
three million dollars from one of his packs supporting him.
Three million alone that came in in negative ads just
on me. So every commercial in that six week stint
was a positive message for curtisative stags positive and it
(11:02):
was just unbelievable the amount of money that came in.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, well it was a little bit of a blessing
in disguise for you. I mean, you've got a cool
opportunity now you Trump so basically made you one of
ten board members. What exactly is the role?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at it as a glass half full.
You know, I've been told when when God shuts the door,
he opens a window. So this opportunity, I think is
right up my alley, and it's the Small Business Administration
Office of Advocacy, and the Office of Advocacy was something
created back in nineteen seventy six but very underutilized by administrations.
(11:39):
President Trump has recognized this as wow, we've got this
can effectively act as a sword and shield for businesses.
And when President Trump came out right away, he issued
two executive orders that really touch on our office. But
he said executive Orders fourteen two one nine and fourteen
one nine too said for any new regulation, you got
(12:02):
to get rid of ten And in the first sixty days,
he required every agency head to review all the regulations
and come back with proposals on which were unlawful which
we could eliminate. So the Office of Advocacy works under
the Small Business Administration, but we have this independency because
(12:24):
we're to represent small business across every federal agency that
could include the SBA as well. So small businesses are
defined as five hundred fewer employees. That's ninety nine percent
of all business entity registrations. You know, fit that that qualification,
and I conduct business outreach, you know, roundtables events. I'm
(12:45):
speaking in the six state region.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So the hope is to help small businesses be able
to thrive and be able to make laws that make
it easier to run business.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Is that accurate, help identify and eliminate burden some regulation great?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I mean having been a small business owner, it really
does make or break you. I mean there's certain states
where I wouldn't even open a business because some of
the laws and the ways that things work, you know,
and so the more that I you know, well, a
very good example of this is like all you have
to do is look at China and Hong Kong, and
when they started opening up and allowing Hong Kong to
really have a lot of laws favorable to the businesses
(13:20):
and the small businesses, it really created this huge it
coming in. And you know, you can see in America too,
it's like the states that do this have a lot
of commerce following the ones that don't end up, you know,
losing a lot of jobs to other states.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I mean look at California and other states. I mean,
Colorado is I think the top five to six most regulated.
That's in my area. It was just an energy symposium
where I spoke and yeah, some of these other states
are mentioned where it's quite quite burdensome, and that's part
of my job. Description too, is to work with governors,
state economic development directors, policymakers you know, or federal federal
(13:56):
delegations from these six states and look to again identify
regulations that are burdensome on small business. There's ten appointees,
as you pointed out, so we all have a geographic region.
So President Trump is appointed ten of us across the
country to be the advocate for small business. And then
I've got a team of about thirty or forty in DC.
They are economists and researchers and attorneys. So every attorney
(14:18):
has been assigned a portfolio of different agencies.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So we'll have an attorney just.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Over EPA or the FDA or the FTC. So when
we get out in the field and we talk directly
with business owners and hey, give me your story, what
are your pain points, what are your time waste with
a stupid form or whatever you got to do, And
then I'll put that together. I'll work with the attorney
that has a counterpart at the agencies that oversee the regulation,
(14:44):
and we work to change it or eliminate it.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Outright, give me give a couple examples of some of
you've been able to eliminate. I think that helps people
to hear like, oh, yeah, that's done. Why were they
doing that? And it kind of like just common sense
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
For ye some good examples. And you know my boss,
you know President Trump, he loves numb right, So he's
given us the directive. He said, hey, in this first year,
we want to see at least one hundred billion dollars
in regulatory impact eliminated from business.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And I'm like, that's awesome. So we're we're going after it.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
To give you an example, the Corporate Transparency Act, the
Beneficial Ownership rule is something that came about during Biden years.
This is ridiculous. It's completely onerous, it's intrusive. You know,
as a business owner, even if you've got an LLC,
you were having to pay attorneys often you know, hundreds,
if not one thousand dollars or more to go out
(15:34):
and file to be in compliance with this rule. President
Trump got rid of it and and just by state,
well you had to go out and actually identify kind
of your cap table so to speak, you know, with
your with your company.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
This is the owners.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
There's some detailed information on each owner and it's just
an onerous you know, time waste file filing requirement for
small businesses. And we think the average small business was
spending three hundred to one thousand dollars, you know, and
just having to comply with this, and so by eliminating that,
(16:11):
we are now saving over the next few years forty
billion dollars if you can believe, if you can imagine
some mod business, I mean, that's massive. So we've had
things like that. I've been hit up with regulations on
food safety, for anything from fintech to firearms, you name it.
You know, we're looking at at overhauling all kinds of
(16:34):
regulation and it's going to be very, very beneficial for
small businesses. I'll give you another example they had in
New England. In the New England States, they used to
have this stupid rule that said you had to hire
somebody to be in your boat to look out for whales.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Right, we don't want to run over big fish.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Time you're in a boat.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, So we took a look at that. We said, well,
wait a minute, there's there's new technology today, I mean
one hundred to two hundred dollars device you can put
on a boat, sure, and you can identify whether or
not there's big game or fish there that you might
run over. So we don't think we need to actually
hire somebody to be on the boat, which.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
With the technology probably works much better than a random
person watching you right right exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
So that saves all kinds of money for industry, in
the fisheries industry. And you know, we could go.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
On and on that. I've given several speeches.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
On this, and you know, the the amount of regulatory
burden is over three trillion. The National Manufacturer Association is
put out just federal rags, three trillion drag on our economy.
It's twelve percent of our GDP. And just in Biden.
Biden placed one point eight trillion dollars over the four
years he was in office, burden, regulatory burden over three
(17:44):
hundred million man hours to fill out forms and comply
with stuff. And now President Trump, with his leadership, we're
trying to go back through and and just take all
that away so we're not standing in the way of businesses.
He understands that, I think greater than But if you've.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Never owned a small business, you don't really appreciate how
many hats you're wearing. You know, It's like, you know,
you're doing it. If you're good at you have to
be able to sales and marketing and running employees, hiring, firing,
you're building product. You know, you're you're just everything you
have do. Then you add in accounting, legal work, all
(18:21):
these other things, and it's like it gets to be
pretty overwhelming sometimes. I know, for me, a year and
a half ago, my whole business was thriving, but it
was chaotic and I had to bring someone in for
six months and pay them a lot of money, multiple
six figures, just to kind of get everything aligned again,
because it's and that was the part I was omitting,
because I'm good at running my events and building and
(18:41):
having the vision for what I'm doing, but there was
things getting screwed up on the back end. And you know,
I remember when I was younger, I was running my
very first business. I was running a door to door
meat selling business, really and I didn't know you have
to collect sales tax. So maybe I'm the idiot, but
like you know, my first year of profits went to
fix that problem. I didn't even realize I wasn't collecting it.
(19:02):
And so it's it's like, basically, I mean, you just
start adding all these there's just a million different things
you're worrying about as a small business owner, as my point,
and it's hard enough. And and really I think you
know the number of people that run small it's millions
in the United States that own a small business, and
so more than you can thirty six million.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah, I mean that's all business one and every what
five adults.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, that's that's the number of business you know, small
business registrations for us you.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I mean, it makes sense. But anyway, and so it's
pretty cool. It's one of those things that I imagine
on your end, it's really fun to go in and
just say, how can I help these business owners? You know,
how can I help make their life a little bit
easier and make them a little bit more profitable too?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Absolutely, Well, you.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Got a new book that just came out, Airs of
the Revolution. I'm a big revolutionary war guy. I just
you know, like my guys are like you know, John
Adams and and you know, and just all the revolutionary
guys that Samuel Adams that were just crazy and they
were just going out there and doing these things. And
(20:01):
but tell us a little bit. It's you know, our
civic duty to restore our Republic and tell us a
little bit about why this book, what's in it? Like,
what can we do as Americans to make this country better?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
No, well, this is something that you know, it was.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
It kind of came about because of me running for
US Senate, you know, my twelve years in municipal government,
I then running for US Senate and having the experiences
that we did. I was out talking to thousands of
not tens of thousands of people across the state, across
the country, you know, and all the events, and the
National Conservatives that endorsed me and people basically were saying
(20:38):
the same thing over and over again in not so
many words, but they were like, look, the freedoms that
our founders gave us, that they envisioned back in seventeen
eighty seven with the creation of the Constitution and what
we have today are two very different things. And I
think any objective like.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
The stuff that you know, the sons of Liberty were
rebelling and causing a war over wouldn't even make the
news today. No, like three literally you know what I mean? Yes,
it was you started looking at what you know, the
true patriots were rebelling against. You start going, oh, like
we're so far from what you know this country was
established to be.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Very far afield.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And you know I waited until after the election because
the whole thesis of the book is hey.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
With President Trump's.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Victory now, I mean, heaven forbid, I don't even want
to think about what would happened with Kamala winning the election.
But thank goodness, president Trump wins. With his victory, I
believe we've got the best opportunity we've had in a
lifetime generations to get back to what our founders bequeathed us,
what they gave us, what we inherited. And and the
(21:37):
title of the book really airs of the revolution. That
phrase was used, to believe it or not, in one
of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address when he said that
the revolutionary idea that we had as a country is
that our rights come from our creator.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Life.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Liberty, the acquisition and control of property, or pursuit of happiness,
those are inalienable. They come from God. They don't come
from the quote rosity of the state, he said, And
he said, we dare not forget today that we are
the heirs of that revolution. And so that phrase is
always stuck with me. And in talking to so many people, again,
we're far afilled from where what we inherited. We kind
(22:13):
of squandered this inheritance over the generations.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
We've got to get back to that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
And this acts as a roadmap, if you will. I've
got six pillars of restoration we've got to restore.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Would you've mind sharing a few of those? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, Restoring citizenship, I say, restoring elections, restoring moral governance,
restoring property ownership, family, and defense. So those are the
six pillars. But to pick out a few, you know, citizenship.
I believe that's what President Trump means when he says
make America great again. It's making citizenship great again. It's
letting people, you know, really stand up and fulfill their
(22:49):
civic duty with regard to citizenship. And we've had so
many things that devalued citizenship. Lack of enforcement of you know,
illegal immigration. We've got dual citizenship, which wasn't a thing
until the nineteen sixties. There's a Supreme Court case that
allowed it.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Now about four percent of the fintion.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
A lot of my friends have been really frustrated with
you know, it feels like there's a lot of Israel
first agenda going on with what's going on with this
dual citizenship, and we're like, we just don't want to
be spending money on bombs to for foreign countries anymore,
Like can we just bring it back? Can we focus
on Detroit in Kansas City and Salt Lake City as
opposed to the next war that it seems to be
fighting for Israel. And then you see how many members
(23:29):
of Congress have dual citizenship with Israel, and it's like,
wait a second, and no wonder they're putting Israel ahead
of the United States interest dual citizenship.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
There's a Supreme Court case back in the nineteen sixties,
I think sixty seven. A Freuken was the name. It
was completely stupid. I don't understand it at all. Our
founders never envisioned that they wanted allegiance and loyalties to
be placed solely with America. And if you have any
question about that, look at the allegiance. We have an
oath of allegiance we require of every naturalized person.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I love going to naturalization ceremonies and seeing people that
tear up that pledge allegiance to the flag. But the
oath we require them to take says that they will abjure,
they will get rid of any allegiance to any to
any other state, prince, potentate, anything else.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, there was one of those Democratic ladies, I think
she's a congresswoman that she's I think she has Guatemala
dual citizen or one of them. And then she said
that she that was like she puts them for. This
was in the news like a couple of weeks ago.
And then you had that judge that let that guy
go back to Israel, the pedophile guy that got caught
in Vegas, and you find out she has dual citizenship
and she's from Israel, and you're just like all these
things and you're just like, it keeps popping up in
(24:36):
the news over and over again, these people that have
these dual citizenships, and they literally say they put the
other country above the United States.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
We've got to get rid of it. We've got to
get rid of it. That's what we talk about here.
The other things that have cheapened into valued citizenship or
with respect to you know, this the concept of American exceptionalism,
not that you know, we're better as human beings over anybody, no,
but our form of government is exceptional. It's better than
anywhere else. Longest running constitution France has changed, there's like
fifteen times. Look, we do have an exceptional system here,
(25:06):
but sadly mostly because of the educational system. I mean
about three quarters we show in the books and a
lot of statistics, about three quarters of educators are self
avowed socialists or communists. Do you think they love this country? No,
they don't, so they've been denigrating it, And sadly, too
many Americans are growing up with those people fusing their
ideology on them. And the level of people that think
(25:28):
we're exceptional is very, very small.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well, it just seems like for me, you know, growing up,
there was a lot of patriotism, there was a lot
of pride in the you know. And I've started thinking
about as I talked to somebody about this. There's a
friend of mine that he works for Angel Studios and
it does some things with them, and they're making these movies.
He's got one coming out next July fourth, about George
Washington and it's going to be a major motion picture.
And we don't even have any movies about the founding fathers,
(25:52):
about the revolution. It's like, not only do we not
have movies, we don't have the history. Nobody's telling it
in schools, they're tearing down statues, and you know, I
think it was to your point of the whole thing.
But Thomas Jefferson, you know, he was very adamant that, like,
we should never entangle ourselves completely with another country. We
need to be a sovereign country. We have friends, but
they we always you know, and you bring it back
(26:13):
home and when you start studying these things, you see
this beautiful, perfect system that they set up. We're just
not living it. We're just not practicing.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The beauty of what is the American you know system
well said.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And that's why I don't think we need another revolution
per se.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
We need to need a restoration.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
We got to get stored back and to start reading
it what they'd be given us. But that that's a key,
key Component's why it's chapter number one. We got to
get back to this concept of citizenship, you know. And
of course apathy and ignorance plays a big role. Where
the voter participation rate is very, very low. In the
eighteen hundreds it was eighty percent plus of available or
registered voters, of people that could vote we're in the
(26:53):
sixty percent best case. It's it's just horrible. And another
stat was only twelve percent. Twelve percent of people even
contributed in any way, you know, called their congressman or
elected official, attended a council meeting. Only twelve percent even
participate at any level in this government. And we've got
to change that. We've got to get elections restored. I
(27:14):
talk about getting back to the caucaus system. Thomas Jefferson.
You mentioned the Virginia caucuses. That was the role the
model in the nineteen seventies. With the McGovern Fraser Commission,
we moved away from that, moved into direct primaries. We
see the result that happened at my race, which is
just horrible. We went away from our caucus convention where
those people are the most informed, and when it goes
(27:34):
out to a million plus registered Republicans in our state,
some of which are very loosely affiliated or even of
the other party that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Register, so they come go away.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I mean, this is ridiculous. We've got to allout parties
to be able to choose their own methods and then
get money out of politics. No more packs, no more
corporations donating, just individuals that's on the restoring elections.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Is there any hope of even being able to do
that because there's so much money even you know, I
heat to say it, but it looks like, you know,
Trump has favored some of the big money players that
came in and helped him in different ways, and so
it's like, I'm hopeful that we could do this and
get that money out of politics, but it's like, who
would actually be able to have enough influence because Bernie
Sanders had the will the people for the Democratic Party
(28:17):
and they basically just eliminated the primary, you know, they
basically just kicked them completely out. And so it's like,
how do you actually get the voice of the people
to get money out of politics because the people that
have tried, the best example have is in the Democratic
Party when Bernie Sanders was doing it, and they just
completely rigged it against him. And so I don't know,
it's like that's the part that gets a little bit.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It does, but I think it's state by state we
can take this back, and really in the state of
Utah starting here first, you know, we've got to get
rid of the centavel fifty four that allows for big
money and interest and out of state interest. We've got
to have campaign finance reform in the state of Utah.
We've got we should have campaign contribution limits. I mean,
it's crazy to me that we don't have any at
all in this state. So there's some things that we
(28:58):
can definitely do, but we've got to be able to
stand up and take that back.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, I agree. I'm Ron Paul is my guy, you know,
And it's like, if you just listen to what that
man said, it's all the same things you're saying here is.
But you just anytime that people are beholden to these
big money donors and you see it. You see the
decisions they start making, and the favorabook contracts, the you know,
the no bid contracts, some of these things that ended
up happening. It's like it all starts to kind of
(29:24):
make sense.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
It's a pay to play, you know, getting people back,
and we've got to get that out.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
If I could touch on one or two other pieces of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
The ball, I love too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I know.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
The Chapter four is our return, you know, restoring ownership.
And the thing is we've been so heavily taxed and regulated,
particularly over the last hundred years. You know, the income
tax sixteenth amendments, it's student nineteen thirteen. At that time,
the first one hundred and twenty thousand of today's dollars
was zero. You paid zero income tax, and the top
(29:54):
marginal rate was at seven percent. You had to make
over fifteen million dollars in today's money back then when
the tax first was instituted to even pay seven percent.
We're crazy today with.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The amount that we're paying.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So through that confiscation of our wealth, through all the regulation.
You know, the Code of Federal Regulations was some a
few thousand pages back in the nineteen fifties. We're over
one hundred and eighty thousand pages today. It's insane. And
we talked about all the regulatory burden that's placed on business.
We've got to get rid of that, you know. I
quote in the very beginning of the chapter Ronald Reagan
(30:29):
back in nineteen sixty four his Time of Choosing speech,
when he said, Hey, what good is it if you
or I own the title or deed to our property
or business if we don't have any control over the
life and death of that property in business? And he said,
such machinery exists today. That was back in nineteen sixty four.
The machinery's only gotten worse, and we've got to cut
through it. We've got to I'm a big proponent. I
(30:49):
love what Trump is doing with respect to tariffs. I mean,
nineteen thirteen, we didn't have the income tax.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
When I think, but people it can be a little
bit naive and they don't realize, like how unfair the
balance has been of what we've been trading and paying
taxes in tariffs versus what was coming in right, And
I think the average person's just like, oh, no, that's
going to cause this, or it's like no, no, no,
like we've been unfairly paying so much more than the
(31:15):
countries that we've been doing business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
The keyword is reciprocal, right.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I love how he and the Commerce Secretary that's what
they need to keep saying over and over this is
reciprocal tariffs, because you're right, we haven't been treated fairly
at all for decades and decades. And why China was
ever admitted to the World Trade organiz I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That was insane.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, we basically, I mean, if we want to be honest,
the boomers sold out the younger generations they just created,
you know, the rise of China through them having a
little bit extra prosperity in that time, and unfortunately it
was at the cost of where we're at today.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And on the middle classes you indicated earlier. Yeah, sad.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
So we've got to get back getting back to property owners.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So how I guess is this a full time thing
that you do now?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It is, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So appointed back in May and it's spent about three
months now that we've been on the road. My six
states are Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. So
I've been all over from Billings, Montana. Yeah, I just
came back from Casper, Wyoming at a Global Uranium and
Energy symposium, and then through.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
A state of Utah.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
We've done several roundtables. I was out in Fargo, North
Dakota as well. So it's just awesome being out there
interacting with small business owners and saying, hey, here are
things that the federal government is doing right now that's
really impeding my abilities to succeed. To your point, and
I heard this on the campaign trail too and running
for Senate To your point earlier, just why small business
(32:39):
shouldn't be forced to wear all these hats. Then also
be a regulatory expert. They said, Trent, we've heard of
too big to fail, remember that in the two thousand
and eight financial crisis. But they said, one person said
this to me and it stuck with me. He said,
what about too small to succeed? He goes, Heck, I
can't afford all the army of accountants and attorneys and
spend all my time, half my day running through and
making sure I'm doing I'm complying with this regulation and
(33:03):
that regulation. It's insane. There's way too much of a
stranglehold on business. And President Trump under his leadership, you know,
deregulation is one of his top three and he's taking
this very seriously and he's really as advocates and our
team in the Office of Advocacy, we're really trying to
help fulfill that top priority of the president in the administry.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
No, that's great. What are a couple of other things
that have you optimistic right now about where the country's gone?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
That's I think.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I think we have a number of things that we're
looking at with what Trump has been able to President
Trump has been able to do. I love the Big
Beautiful Bill. You know, some people found controversial. I hate
the amount of debt that was added to it. I
think the Senate kind of screwed up on that piece
and go as far as they could have. But the
tax cuts having a permanency. With the tax cuts, there
(33:56):
the trillions of dollars in investment that President Trump has
been able to bring into the United States, it's oh,
it's a phenomenal that makes me very optimistic that going
forward we're going to have this economy turnaround. I'm seeing
a number of other things in the Big Beautiful Bill,
where the one hundred percent expensing for R and D
and other things, the small business qualified deduction, so these
(34:19):
small businesses can actually get out there and really start thriving.
There's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines going, well,
I don't know what does the future look like with
that bill passage, with what President Trump has been doing.
Our Secretary Treasury Scott Bessen said that he goes one
of the most unheralded things in that bill is the
ability to one hundred percent expense. So a lot of
(34:39):
businesses and small businesses in particular looking at it, going okay,
I can go ahead and now invest go ahead, and
that's going to create all kinds of jobs, and you're
going to see the economy take off. The one area
of concern is interest rates. And you know President Trump
has been berating and I think rightfully so Jerome Powell.
You've already got four rate cuts in Europe. We're been
(35:00):
sitting on our hands this year. It's like, come on,
let's go already.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, he's intel May next year, right.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, I think he had about Yeah. I think I
think there were some eight months or so left on
us like that.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, there's rumor that they're going to have some rate
cuts coming up. It's it is fascinating. It's I mean,
I'm in real estate, right and it's just so stagnant
right now, right, It's well, nobody wants to sell their house.
I mean, I just bought a new house a couple
of months ago. This is an example of how rates
affect the public perception I'm buying. I bought a new
house and it was the house I've wanted for some
(35:32):
time now. I waited ten years past when I probably
could have bought it. But congratulations, thank you, and I
put half down on a multimillion dollar home and my mortgage.
It was literally a two million dollar house. I put
half down, and my mortgage was nine thousand dollars a month.
So I'm like, I don't want to pay nine thousand.
So I ended up selling a couple other assets and
I paid off my loan. I'm just like, I don't
want to deal with it. But I didn't even sell
(35:54):
my other house because my rate on that house is
two point one. I'm renting it for thirty eight to
fifty a month, My mortgage just twenty one hundred a month,
and fifteen hundred that goes to principle. So it's like
the cash cow, right, So this is the dilema. It's
like people aren't selling these houses with nice rates, but
nobody wants to buy the new and I was thankfully
in a position where I could. But who could afford
a nine thousand dollar a month payment with half, you know, down.
It's just it's insane. And so unfortunately, you've got this
(36:16):
huge segment of the market where nobody can do anything,
and you're just like, well, no, I don't want to
double my mortgage payment to move in a house one
thousand square feet bigger, and so I don't know. It's
the housing thing is one that I'm keeping a close
close eye on. You know. It does seem like there's
so much money in the market that that's what's keeping
it afloat right now. It's keeping it from going down,
(36:37):
and people just are like pulling their houses back off
the market. I think I saw a stat the other
day it's thirty seven percent of the people in Utah
that have listed their home took it back off the market.
Really yeah, because it's like they don't have to sell.
They were kind of like, well, if I can get
my price, I'll sell it. And so it's just there's
just not enough homes being sold. There's not enough movement
going on. And so hopefully rates can get to a
place because that is obviously the first I mean, somebody
(36:57):
will go I'm not going to go from a three
percent rate to seven, but I'll go from three to five.
I'll go from three to four and a half, you know,
And so I think that's what is needed for us
to kind of get the real estate market movement.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I think one hundred percent and that's what they indicated.
We need to be blow six percent morer begauge rates again.
And there's no reason why we can't be I think.
I think President Trump again rightfully, has been pushing on
this issue because it's such a huge component of the market,
you know, of the economy, and he's.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Kind of firing in all cylinders everywhere else.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
You know, we talked about the permanency of the tax cuts,
all the great business deductions that we have now, the
trillions of dollars worth of investments coming in to the country.
We're really leading the way on AI and everything else.
But we've got to be able to have the interest
rates come down so your industry here in the real
estate sector can get back going again.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, when I think people don't realize how much of
the full economy revolves around that real estate market. I
mean there's so many there's three four million jobs in
that sector, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Oh yeah, can contemplate construction, you start host agents, financing lenders.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Well, if people want to pick up the book, they
want to read it, where do we send them, Trent?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You can go to Amazon. So Airs of the Revolution,
if you look for that on on Amazon, we're there
in your kindle version or print version, and really appreciate it.
I hope people could pick it up, leave a review,
let me know what you think of it. It isn't
intended I'll say this, it wasn't it ever intended to
be a really big read. You know, I don't like
(38:29):
picking up books that you know, this is one hundred
and yeah, seventy pages, very very consumable. People within three
hours or so it could sit down and read it.
I think really hopefully written in a way that people can.
It's thought provoking, but they can, they can easily consume it.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Awesome. Well, I wanted to have you on. I appreciate
people that are truly working to make this a better
country for everybody, and I know you do that, and
so very grateful for you and the effort you spend
on it. For me, I get overwhelmed and I just
don't want to deal with it. I just go do
other things. But like you know, it's nice when I
can at least have this conversation with you, so people
know kind of what's going on and what's out there
(39:09):
and how they you know, some things that they can
do themselves to kind of help.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Well, thank you, that's very kind and nice compliment.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I believe in it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
You know, I've given a big portion of my life
to you know, civic service in the city side. Who
knows what the future will hold, but I just felt
like I was blessed with an opportunity met so many
great people across the country, and I'm definitely blessed that,
you know, so many of them agreed to endorse the book,
like r FBI Director Cash Bettel, Charlie Kirk, Kerry Lake,
(39:39):
who's become all these people great friends, and Senator even
Senator Lee said, hey, absolutely, let me let me put
my name to this.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I mean, they've been behind you for a long time.
So well, thank you so.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Much, appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Thank you again for listening to the Jimmy Rex Show.
And if you liked what you heard, please like and subscribe.
It really helps me to get better guests, to be
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It's going to make it the most interesting. Also, want
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(40:11):
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
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Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Jimmy Rex Show.
Today in the podcast, I sit down with Trent Stags
and I've had him on the podcast once before. He
was running for senator here in the state of Utah.
Ultimately that was unsuccessful, but Trent has recently been put
on the board from Donald Trump, the SBA Board to
be one of the ten basically regional representative around the
country to help small businesses and help eliminate regulations and
(00:26):
all the things that hold them back from being able
to thrive. Also, just came out with his new book
that airs to the Revolution and pretty awesome. One thing
I love about Trent is he is a fighter for America,
and he fights for this country and he really is
a person that cares and so happy to sit down
with him and have this podcast and talk a little
bit more about what he's doing and how he is
fitting in into this cabinet in Donald Trump's presidency. So,
(00:49):
without further ado, let's get to the show, and today's
podcast is brought to you by Bucked Up Protein. This
is the Rainbow candy flavor. I don't know how they
come up with that or what that means, but it
tastes unbelievable, twenty five g protein, one hundred calories in
each can. You can pick them up at Harmon's or
anywhere that bucked up products are sold. Trent. Good to
(01:15):
have you back on the show Man.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, great to be with you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, I've been wanting to talk politics with somebody for
a minute. It's it's just a kind of a crazy
time and twenty twenty five. I don't think it's played
out necessarily how anybody kind of expected it to. I
think there's a lot of reasons for optimism, and then
I think there's a lot of frustration as well going
on out there. And I mean for you, you know,
you ran to be you know, I guess in the Senate,
(01:40):
and unfortunately we didn't get the victory that you know,
I was hoping that you were going to wait, we
needed somebody that wasn't a rhino from Utah. We just
we get some interesting politicians in Utah. And I'm a
little worried about this state right now. I don't know,
I don't know how the direction of it's all going exactly,
but there's a lot of things that I think the
Republican Party, I'm I'm and I'm just disclosed, but I
(02:01):
am a libertarian, you know, I'm just I just I've
been so frustra with the Republican Party in Utah and
in some ways in general. But there's just a lot
of things that seems like they're not really fighting for
the for the for the people they say that they're
supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, sadly, I mean we've seen that, right, We've seen
a number of people that just want to be part
of the establishment. I has had this conversation with somebody
the other day. It seems like a lot of elected
officials they they just want to be a part of
something and maybe they didn't, you know, they weren't part
of a team or sports or something, you know, growing up,
and they just they find that they really like being
(02:39):
in this elected office, but it starts to to really
blind them, and they just they're more concerned about maintaining
that power or perceived power in that office than really
representing the people. And that's what's so incredibly frustrating. You know,
I don't really care to be part of the establishment, clearly.
You know, when I ran for off, I took on
(03:00):
Mitt Romney at the time, he he didn't decide not
to seek reelection until a good five months or so
after I made my announcement that I was running, because
I just couldn't wait anymore.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So I didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Follow what you might call political norms and saying, oh,
I've got to be in this office first, or do
that curry favor with this group, kiss the ring, so
to speak. Now, that shouldn't matter, none of that. Should
we need people that have actually, you know, got guts,
got courage, They're going to stand up to the cabal.
And that's, you know, during that run, I think that's
(03:34):
what was rewarded and why I was the recipping of
so many endorsements. I was honored to receive, you know,
from Charlie Kirk, from a. Vek Ramaswami, from Cash betelr
FPI director currently now who came out here to Utah,
Kerry Lake, many of those folks that have now endorsed
my book and I maintained friendships with to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, what did you learn running for senate?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Boy?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I learned, sadly that it's all about money, you know,
in a statewide race with this system we have today.
And I write about this extensively in the book. In
chapter two on restoring elections. I learned that when we
moved away in Utah, when we moved away from this
caucus convention system, we still have it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
But it's yeah, it seems like you I know, I
had you know, Phil Lyman on the podcast at one
point two, and he's talked a lot about this and
opened some people's eyes to like, wait, how did exactly
did they he get on the ballot. At this point,
it just seems like there's some winkiness with what's going
on with the elections in Utah.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
There certainly is with the way in which a private
political party nominates its candidates. One would think, Okay, it's
up to the political party decide how they want to
do it.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Wrong.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Not in the state of Utah. It was that way
till about twenty fifteen. Mike Lee, you know, when he
won in twenty ten, he beat a three term incumbent
Senator Bob Bennett. That upset the apple cart, this establishment
that we were talking about here at the beginning. They
got scared, so they created another They create a law
that allows and forces, frankly, a direct primary irrespective of
(05:07):
the outcome of the convention, which I think is totally unconstitutional.
I actually wrote Namacus brief and support of Phil Lymon's
most recent suit, taking this all the way to the
Supreme Court. The Supreme Court refused to hear it. It's
been twice now they refuse to hear it. And I
think that's a shame they ought to weigh in on it.
I think it's complete violation of the First Amendment that
forces the Republican Party, in terms of their own freedom
(05:30):
of association, to do what the state tells them to do.
The state basically says, look, if you want that R
next to your name on the primary ballot, we control
the ballot. You got to do what we say. I
think that's completely unconstitutional. So yes, when neighborhoods get together
in March and they select the Republican delegate, there's over
four thousand of them. I got out of eleven candidates,
(05:53):
I got seventy percent of the vote. I had President
Trump's endorsement that morning of the state convention. So those
four thousand delegates in March go to the convention in April,
they decide, they vet. They take their job very seriously
and they vet, and then they end up, you know,
the deciding who in the past, if you had more
than sixty percent, you were automatically a nominee. In fact,
(06:15):
our Republican Party constitution still says that today anybody with
sixty percent or more of the delegate vote at convention,
it says shall be the nominee, shall go straight to
the general. But the state law came in and said wow.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And they basically put state law above that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
So what happened in my race is, you know, I won.
I should have been the nominee, but I had three
other folks that basically bought, you know, their way on
the ballot. They bought signatures and got on and John
Curtis being one of them. And I had six weeks
from the time of the convention to the primary ballots
going out. This wasn't enough time. We weren't able to
get enough money. We put out about a million. John
(06:51):
Curtis had fifteen sixteen million, wow, most of which almost
all of that came from out of state big money donors.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Packs That's where the average person like me gets so
frustrated with politics. It's like, you know, big pharma, big tech,
big food, you know, big government, all these things that
unfortunately don't work to serve the common man. And you've
got all these big conglomerate companies and you know, what
makes America great as a strong middle class, and it's gone.
I'm seeing that now. It's like, even right now the
(07:19):
economy we have, it feels like there's still you know,
everything's at an all time high. All the assets are
at an all time high, whether it's bitcoined, the stock market,
or real estate. But the average people don't have any money.
They don't have any you know, extra money. They're they're
paying their bills and they're getting by. But I talk
to young people too, you know, I mean people in
their twenties, and they don't even have hope to own property.
(07:41):
I saw the number in you know, fifty years ago
a thirty year old, fifty something percent of the people
thirty years old were married with a house, and now
it's twelve percent of thirty year olds. I mean, it's
just they've destroyed the ability of young people to have
the ambition to even build. And it's it's because all
this money comes in, so all the law to favor
(08:01):
these companies that are already wealthy, and you know, they're
trying to make their stockholders happy and it's just it's
just frustrating for me because I can see it, but
there's nothing. I feel like, there's nothing can even do
about it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Well, it is.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
It is a little bit discouraging. I think President Trump, though,
is actually changing that. That's my hope. That's why I
agreed to be a part of the administration with the
small business administration.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
But so I think some of that is changing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But I agree with you, it's been terribly, terribly difficult,
and that is part of the problem is that you
have these politicians that come in and they are completely
beholden to these outside, big moneyed interests. And that's what
I found in my race for the Senate. That's what
I've seen here in the state of Utah. You realize,
in the state of Utah, we don't have any campaign
contribution limits period.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I mean, so, but again, they want they.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Can donate as much as they want, and that's not
something at all that I dealt with with respect to
the Senate run. But still we saw huge packs and
I write about that in my book. You know, back
in the nineteen sixties, Barry Goldwater, when he wrote Conscience
of a Conservative, he said corporations and unions back then
they had You know, unions are still pretty powerful with
(09:11):
respect to their contributions. He said they were made for
quote economic purposes and need to remain as such, and
so even back then, and I agree with that, and
I that's a little bit of an unpopular stance, perhaps
even in my own party. I am completely against corporate
donations packs all of that, because I think it just
it does just what you said. And you know the
(09:31):
very proof of that. You take a look at the
individual that beat me in the Senate race. Nobody won
with majority, which was another frustrating factor. He got forty
seven forty eight percent. I had thirty five or so.
The other two gentlemen in the Rays twelve and six
percent respectively. So nobody won with over fifty percent in
the primary. And even with all that money, this individual
(09:55):
wasn't able to win a majority. But all that money,
I mean from primarily out of state clean energy, green
energy folks. And so you sit there and you think, well,
who are you going to be more beholden to? And
to me, it's no surprise that he was one of
the few dragging his feet on the big beautiful bill
(10:18):
to force the tax credits in for the Inflation Reduction Act, Right,
A lot of this green energy, clean energy stuff, and
that's what needs We've got to get that out of politics.
We've got to get the big money out of politics.
It's made no sense to me why an individual that's living, breathing,
(10:38):
that can actually vote for me was constrained to thirty
three hundred bucks when a pack can just literally unlimited
amounts of money can come in. I mean I had
three million dollars from one of his packs supporting him.
Three million alone that came in in negative ads just
on me. So every commercial in that six week stint
was a positive message for curtisative stags positive and it
(11:02):
was just unbelievable the amount of money that came in.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, well it was a little bit of a blessing
in disguise for you. I mean, you've got a cool
opportunity now you Trump so basically made you one of
ten board members. What exactly is the role?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, yeah, I'm looking at it as a glass half full.
You know, I've been told when when God shuts the door,
he opens a window. So this opportunity, I think is
right up my alley, and it's the Small Business Administration
Office of Advocacy, and the Office of Advocacy was something
created back in nineteen seventy six but very underutilized by administrations.
(11:39):
President Trump has recognized this as wow, we've got this
can effectively act as a sword and shield for businesses.
And when President Trump came out right away, he issued
two executive orders that really touch on our office. But
he said executive Orders fourteen two one nine and fourteen
one nine too said for any new regulation, you got
(12:02):
to get rid of ten And in the first sixty days,
he required every agency head to review all the regulations
and come back with proposals on which were unlawful which
we could eliminate. So the Office of Advocacy works under
the Small Business Administration, but we have this independency because
(12:24):
we're to represent small business across every federal agency that
could include the SBA as well. So small businesses are
defined as five hundred fewer employees. That's ninety nine percent
of all business entity registrations. You know, fit that that qualification,
and I conduct business outreach, you know, roundtables events. I'm
(12:45):
speaking in the six state region.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
So the hope is to help small businesses be able
to thrive and be able to make laws that make
it easier to run business.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Is that accurate, help identify and eliminate burden some regulation great?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I mean having been a small business owner, it really
does make or break you. I mean there's certain states
where I wouldn't even open a business because some of
the laws and the ways that things work, you know,
and so the more that I you know, well, a
very good example of this is like all you have
to do is look at China and Hong Kong, and
when they started opening up and allowing Hong Kong to
really have a lot of laws favorable to the businesses
(13:20):
and the small businesses, it really created this huge it
coming in. And you know, you can see in America too,
it's like the states that do this have a lot
of commerce following the ones that don't end up, you know,
losing a lot of jobs to other states.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I mean look at California and other states. I mean,
Colorado is I think the top five to six most regulated.
That's in my area. It was just an energy symposium
where I spoke and yeah, some of these other states
are mentioned where it's quite quite burdensome, and that's part
of my job. Description too, is to work with governors,
state economic development directors, policymakers you know, or federal federal
(13:56):
delegations from these six states and look to again identify
regulations that are burdensome on small business. There's ten appointees,
as you pointed out, so we all have a geographic region.
So President Trump is appointed ten of us across the
country to be the advocate for small business. And then
I've got a team of about thirty or forty in DC.
They are economists and researchers and attorneys. So every attorney
(14:18):
has been assigned a portfolio of different agencies.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So we'll have an attorney just.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Over EPA or the FDA or the FTC. So when
we get out in the field and we talk directly
with business owners and hey, give me your story, what
are your pain points, what are your time waste with
a stupid form or whatever you got to do, And
then I'll put that together. I'll work with the attorney
that has a counterpart at the agencies that oversee the regulation,
(14:44):
and we work to change it or eliminate it.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Outright, give me give a couple examples of some of
you've been able to eliminate. I think that helps people
to hear like, oh, yeah, that's done. Why were they
doing that? And it kind of like just common sense
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
For ye some good examples. And you know my boss,
you know President Trump, he loves numb right, So he's
given us the directive. He said, hey, in this first year,
we want to see at least one hundred billion dollars
in regulatory impact eliminated from business.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And I'm like, that's awesome. So we're we're going after it.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
To give you an example, the Corporate Transparency Act, the
Beneficial Ownership rule is something that came about during Biden years.
This is ridiculous. It's completely onerous, it's intrusive. You know,
as a business owner, even if you've got an LLC,
you were having to pay attorneys often you know, hundreds,
if not one thousand dollars or more to go out
(15:34):
and file to be in compliance with this rule. President
Trump got rid of it and and just by state,
well you had to go out and actually identify kind
of your cap table so to speak, you know, with
your with your company.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
This is the owners.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
There's some detailed information on each owner and it's just
an onerous you know, time waste file filing requirement for
small businesses. And we think the average small business was
spending three hundred to one thousand dollars, you know, and
just having to comply with this, and so by eliminating that,
(16:11):
we are now saving over the next few years forty
billion dollars if you can believe, if you can imagine
some mod business, I mean, that's massive. So we've had
things like that. I've been hit up with regulations on
food safety, for anything from fintech to firearms, you name it.
You know, we're looking at at overhauling all kinds of
(16:34):
regulation and it's going to be very, very beneficial for
small businesses. I'll give you another example they had in
New England. In the New England States, they used to
have this stupid rule that said you had to hire
somebody to be in your boat to look out for whales.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Right, we don't want to run over big fish.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Time you're in a boat.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, So we took a look at that. We said, well,
wait a minute, there's there's new technology today, I mean
one hundred to two hundred dollars device you can put
on a boat, sure, and you can identify whether or
not there's big game or fish there that you might
run over. So we don't think we need to actually
hire somebody to be on the boat, which.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
With the technology probably works much better than a random
person watching you right right exactly.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
So that saves all kinds of money for industry, in
the fisheries industry. And you know, we could go.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
On and on that. I've given several speeches.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
On this, and you know, the the amount of regulatory
burden is over three trillion. The National Manufacturer Association is
put out just federal rags, three trillion drag on our economy.
It's twelve percent of our GDP. And just in Biden.
Biden placed one point eight trillion dollars over the four
years he was in office, burden, regulatory burden over three
(17:44):
hundred million man hours to fill out forms and comply
with stuff. And now President Trump, with his leadership, we're
trying to go back through and and just take all
that away so we're not standing in the way of businesses.
He understands that, I think greater than But if you've.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Never owned a small business, you don't really appreciate how
many hats you're wearing. You know, It's like, you know,
you're doing it. If you're good at you have to
be able to sales and marketing and running employees, hiring, firing,
you're building product. You know, you're you're just everything you
have do. Then you add in accounting, legal work, all
(18:21):
these other things, and it's like it gets to be
pretty overwhelming sometimes. I know, for me, a year and
a half ago, my whole business was thriving, but it
was chaotic and I had to bring someone in for
six months and pay them a lot of money, multiple
six figures, just to kind of get everything aligned again,
because it's and that was the part I was omitting,
because I'm good at running my events and building and
(18:41):
having the vision for what I'm doing, but there was
things getting screwed up on the back end. And you know,
I remember when I was younger, I was running my
very first business. I was running a door to door
meat selling business, really and I didn't know you have
to collect sales tax. So maybe I'm the idiot, but
like you know, my first year of profits went to
fix that problem. I didn't even realize I wasn't collecting it.
(19:02):
And so it's it's like, basically, I mean, you just
start adding all these there's just a million different things
you're worrying about as a small business owner, as my point,
and it's hard enough. And and really I think you
know the number of people that run small it's millions
in the United States that own a small business, and
so more than you can thirty six million.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Yeah, I mean that's all business one and every what
five adults.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Yeah, that's that's the number of business you know, small
business registrations for us you.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I mean, it makes sense. But anyway, and so it's
pretty cool. It's one of those things that I imagine
on your end, it's really fun to go in and
just say, how can I help these business owners? You know,
how can I help make their life a little bit
easier and make them a little bit more profitable too?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Absolutely, Well, you.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Got a new book that just came out, Airs of
the Revolution. I'm a big revolutionary war guy. I just
you know, like my guys are like you know, John
Adams and and you know, and just all the revolutionary
guys that Samuel Adams that were just crazy and they
were just going out there and doing these things. And
(20:01):
but tell us a little bit. It's you know, our
civic duty to restore our Republic and tell us a
little bit about why this book, what's in it? Like,
what can we do as Americans to make this country better?
Speaker 2 (20:11):
No, well, this is something that you know, it was.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
It kind of came about because of me running for
US Senate, you know, my twelve years in municipal government,
I then running for US Senate and having the experiences
that we did. I was out talking to thousands of
not tens of thousands of people across the state, across
the country, you know, and all the events, and the
National Conservatives that endorsed me and people basically were saying
(20:38):
the same thing over and over again in not so
many words, but they were like, look, the freedoms that
our founders gave us, that they envisioned back in seventeen
eighty seven with the creation of the Constitution and what
we have today are two very different things. And I
think any objective like.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
The stuff that you know, the sons of Liberty were
rebelling and causing a war over wouldn't even make the
news today. No, like three literally you know what I mean? Yes,
it was you started looking at what you know, the
true patriots were rebelling against. You start going, oh, like
we're so far from what you know this country was
established to be.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Very far afield.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And you know I waited until after the election because
the whole thesis of the book is hey.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
With President Trump's.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Victory now, I mean, heaven forbid, I don't even want
to think about what would happened with Kamala winning the election.
But thank goodness, president Trump wins. With his victory, I
believe we've got the best opportunity we've had in a
lifetime generations to get back to what our founders bequeathed us,
what they gave us, what we inherited. And and the
(21:37):
title of the book really airs of the revolution. That
phrase was used, to believe it or not, in one
of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address when he said that
the revolutionary idea that we had as a country is
that our rights come from our creator.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Life.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Liberty, the acquisition and control of property, or pursuit of happiness,
those are inalienable. They come from God. They don't come
from the quote rosity of the state, he said, And
he said, we dare not forget today that we are
the heirs of that revolution. And so that phrase is
always stuck with me. And in talking to so many people, again,
we're far afilled from where what we inherited. We kind
(22:13):
of squandered this inheritance over the generations.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
We've got to get back to that.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
And this acts as a roadmap, if you will. I've
got six pillars of restoration we've got to restore.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Would you've mind sharing a few of those? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, Restoring citizenship, I say, restoring elections, restoring moral governance,
restoring property ownership, family, and defense. So those are the
six pillars. But to pick out a few, you know, citizenship.
I believe that's what President Trump means when he says
make America great again. It's making citizenship great again. It's
letting people, you know, really stand up and fulfill their
(22:49):
civic duty with regard to citizenship. And we've had so
many things that devalued citizenship. Lack of enforcement of you know,
illegal immigration. We've got dual citizenship, which wasn't a thing
until the nineteen sixties. There's a Supreme Court case that
allowed it.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Now about four percent of the fintion.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
A lot of my friends have been really frustrated with
you know, it feels like there's a lot of Israel
first agenda going on with what's going on with this
dual citizenship, and we're like, we just don't want to
be spending money on bombs to for foreign countries anymore,
Like can we just bring it back? Can we focus
on Detroit in Kansas City and Salt Lake City as
opposed to the next war that it seems to be
fighting for Israel. And then you see how many members
(23:29):
of Congress have dual citizenship with Israel, and it's like,
wait a second, and no wonder they're putting Israel ahead
of the United States interest dual citizenship.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
There's a Supreme Court case back in the nineteen sixties,
I think sixty seven. A Freuken was the name. It
was completely stupid. I don't understand it at all. Our
founders never envisioned that they wanted allegiance and loyalties to
be placed solely with America. And if you have any
question about that, look at the allegiance. We have an
oath of allegiance we require of every naturalized person.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
I love going to naturalization ceremonies and seeing people that
tear up that pledge allegiance to the flag. But the
oath we require them to take says that they will abjure,
they will get rid of any allegiance to any to
any other state, prince, potentate, anything else.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, there was one of those Democratic ladies, I think
she's a congresswoman that she's I think she has Guatemala
dual citizen or one of them. And then she said
that she that was like she puts them for. This
was in the news like a couple of weeks ago.
And then you had that judge that let that guy
go back to Israel, the pedophile guy that got caught
in Vegas, and you find out she has dual citizenship
and she's from Israel, and you're just like all these
things and you're just like, it keeps popping up in
(24:36):
the news over and over again, these people that have
these dual citizenships, and they literally say they put the
other country above the United States.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
We've got to get rid of it. We've got to
get rid of it. That's what we talk about here.
The other things that have cheapened into valued citizenship or
with respect to you know, this the concept of American exceptionalism,
not that you know, we're better as human beings over anybody, no,
but our form of government is exceptional. It's better than
anywhere else. Longest running constitution France has changed, there's like
fifteen times. Look, we do have an exceptional system here,
(25:06):
but sadly mostly because of the educational system. I mean
about three quarters we show in the books and a
lot of statistics, about three quarters of educators are self
avowed socialists or communists. Do you think they love this country? No,
they don't, so they've been denigrating it, And sadly, too
many Americans are growing up with those people fusing their
ideology on them. And the level of people that think
(25:28):
we're exceptional is very, very small.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Well, it just seems like for me, you know, growing up,
there was a lot of patriotism, there was a lot
of pride in the you know. And I've started thinking
about as I talked to somebody about this. There's a
friend of mine that he works for Angel Studios and
it does some things with them, and they're making these movies.
He's got one coming out next July fourth, about George
Washington and it's going to be a major motion picture.
And we don't even have any movies about the founding fathers,
(25:52):
about the revolution. It's like, not only do we not
have movies, we don't have the history. Nobody's telling it
in schools, they're tearing down statues, and you know, I
think it was to your point of the whole thing.
But Thomas Jefferson, you know, he was very adamant that, like,
we should never entangle ourselves completely with another country. We
need to be a sovereign country. We have friends, but
they we always you know, and you bring it back
(26:13):
home and when you start studying these things, you see
this beautiful, perfect system that they set up. We're just
not living it. We're just not practicing.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
The beauty of what is the American you know system
well said.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And that's why I don't think we need another revolution
per se.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
We need to need a restoration.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
We got to get stored back and to start reading
it what they'd be given us. But that that's a key,
key Component's why it's chapter number one. We got to
get back to this concept of citizenship, you know. And
of course apathy and ignorance plays a big role. Where
the voter participation rate is very, very low. In the
eighteen hundreds it was eighty percent plus of available or
registered voters, of people that could vote we're in the
(26:53):
sixty percent best case. It's it's just horrible. And another
stat was only twelve percent. Twelve percent of people even
contributed in any way, you know, called their congressman or
elected official, attended a council meeting. Only twelve percent even
participate at any level in this government. And we've got
to change that. We've got to get elections restored. I
(27:14):
talk about getting back to the caucaus system. Thomas Jefferson.
You mentioned the Virginia caucuses. That was the role the
model in the nineteen seventies. With the McGovern Fraser Commission,
we moved away from that, moved into direct primaries. We
see the result that happened at my race, which is
just horrible. We went away from our caucus convention where
those people are the most informed, and when it goes
(27:34):
out to a million plus registered Republicans in our state,
some of which are very loosely affiliated or even of
the other party that.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Register, so they come go away.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
I mean, this is ridiculous. We've got to allout parties
to be able to choose their own methods and then
get money out of politics. No more packs, no more
corporations donating, just individuals that's on the restoring elections.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Is there any hope of even being able to do
that because there's so much money even you know, I
heat to say it, but it looks like, you know,
Trump has favored some of the big money players that
came in and helped him in different ways, and so
it's like, I'm hopeful that we could do this and
get that money out of politics, but it's like, who
would actually be able to have enough influence because Bernie
Sanders had the will the people for the Democratic Party
(28:17):
and they basically just eliminated the primary, you know, they
basically just kicked them completely out. And so it's like,
how do you actually get the voice of the people
to get money out of politics because the people that
have tried, the best example have is in the Democratic
Party when Bernie Sanders was doing it, and they just
completely rigged it against him. And so I don't know,
it's like that's the part that gets a little bit.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It does, but I think it's state by state we
can take this back, and really in the state of
Utah starting here first, you know, we've got to get
rid of the centavel fifty four that allows for big
money and interest and out of state interest. We've got
to have campaign finance reform in the state of Utah.
We've got we should have campaign contribution limits. I mean,
it's crazy to me that we don't have any at
all in this state. So there's some things that we
(28:58):
can definitely do, but we've got to be able to
stand up and take that back.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, I agree. I'm Ron Paul is my guy, you know,
And it's like, if you just listen to what that
man said, it's all the same things you're saying here is.
But you just anytime that people are beholden to these
big money donors and you see it. You see the
decisions they start making, and the favorabook contracts, the you know,
the no bid contracts, some of these things that ended
up happening. It's like it all starts to kind of
(29:24):
make sense.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
It's a pay to play, you know, getting people back,
and we've got to get that out.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
If I could touch on one or two other pieces of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
The ball, I love too.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I know.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
The Chapter four is our return, you know, restoring ownership.
And the thing is we've been so heavily taxed and regulated,
particularly over the last hundred years. You know, the income
tax sixteenth amendments, it's student nineteen thirteen. At that time,
the first one hundred and twenty thousand of today's dollars
was zero. You paid zero income tax, and the top
(29:54):
marginal rate was at seven percent. You had to make
over fifteen million dollars in today's money back then when
the tax first was instituted to even pay seven percent.
We're crazy today with.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
The amount that we're paying.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
So through that confiscation of our wealth, through all the regulation.
You know, the Code of Federal Regulations was some a
few thousand pages back in the nineteen fifties. We're over
one hundred and eighty thousand pages today. It's insane. And
we talked about all the regulatory burden that's placed on business.
We've got to get rid of that, you know. I
quote in the very beginning of the chapter Ronald Reagan
(30:29):
back in nineteen sixty four his Time of Choosing speech,
when he said, Hey, what good is it if you
or I own the title or deed to our property
or business if we don't have any control over the
life and death of that property in business? And he said,
such machinery exists today. That was back in nineteen sixty four.
The machinery's only gotten worse, and we've got to cut
through it. We've got to I'm a big proponent. I
(30:49):
love what Trump is doing with respect to tariffs. I mean,
nineteen thirteen, we didn't have the income tax.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
When I think, but people it can be a little
bit naive and they don't realize, like how unfair the
balance has been of what we've been trading and paying
taxes in tariffs versus what was coming in right, And
I think the average person's just like, oh, no, that's
going to cause this, or it's like no, no, no,
like we've been unfairly paying so much more than the
(31:15):
countries that we've been doing business.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
The keyword is reciprocal, right.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I love how he and the Commerce Secretary that's what
they need to keep saying over and over this is
reciprocal tariffs, because you're right, we haven't been treated fairly
at all for decades and decades. And why China was
ever admitted to the World Trade organiz I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
That was insane.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, we basically, I mean, if we want to be honest,
the boomers sold out the younger generations they just created,
you know, the rise of China through them having a
little bit extra prosperity in that time, and unfortunately it
was at the cost of where we're at today.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And on the middle classes you indicated earlier. Yeah, sad.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
So we've got to get back getting back to property owners.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So how I guess is this a full time thing
that you do now?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
It is, yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So appointed back in May and it's spent about three
months now that we've been on the road. My six
states are Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. So
I've been all over from Billings, Montana. Yeah, I just
came back from Casper, Wyoming at a Global Uranium and
Energy symposium, and then through.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
A state of Utah.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
We've done several roundtables. I was out in Fargo, North
Dakota as well. So it's just awesome being out there
interacting with small business owners and saying, hey, here are
things that the federal government is doing right now that's
really impeding my abilities to succeed. To your point, and
I heard this on the campaign trail too and running
for Senate To your point earlier, just why small business
(32:39):
shouldn't be forced to wear all these hats. Then also
be a regulatory expert. They said, Trent, we've heard of
too big to fail, remember that in the two thousand
and eight financial crisis. But they said, one person said
this to me and it stuck with me. He said,
what about too small to succeed? He goes, Heck, I
can't afford all the army of accountants and attorneys and
spend all my time, half my day running through and
making sure I'm doing I'm complying with this regulation and
(33:03):
that regulation. It's insane. There's way too much of a
stranglehold on business. And President Trump under his leadership, you know,
deregulation is one of his top three and he's taking
this very seriously and he's really as advocates and our
team in the Office of Advocacy, we're really trying to
help fulfill that top priority of the president in the administry.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
No, that's great. What are a couple of other things
that have you optimistic right now about where the country's gone?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
That's I think.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I think we have a number of things that we're
looking at with what Trump has been able to President
Trump has been able to do. I love the Big
Beautiful Bill. You know, some people found controversial. I hate
the amount of debt that was added to it. I
think the Senate kind of screwed up on that piece
and go as far as they could have. But the
tax cuts having a permanency. With the tax cuts, there
(33:56):
the trillions of dollars in investment that President Trump has
been able to bring into the United States, it's oh,
it's a phenomenal that makes me very optimistic that going
forward we're going to have this economy turnaround. I'm seeing
a number of other things in the Big Beautiful Bill,
where the one hundred percent expensing for R and D
and other things, the small business qualified deduction, so these
(34:19):
small businesses can actually get out there and really start thriving.
There's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines going, well,
I don't know what does the future look like with
that bill passage, with what President Trump has been doing.
Our Secretary Treasury Scott Bessen said that he goes one
of the most unheralded things in that bill is the
ability to one hundred percent expense. So a lot of
(34:39):
businesses and small businesses in particular looking at it, going okay,
I can go ahead and now invest go ahead, and
that's going to create all kinds of jobs, and you're
going to see the economy take off. The one area
of concern is interest rates. And you know President Trump
has been berating and I think rightfully so Jerome Powell.
You've already got four rate cuts in Europe. We're been
(35:00):
sitting on our hands this year. It's like, come on,
let's go already.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, he's intel May next year, right.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, I think he had about Yeah. I think I
think there were some eight months or so left on
us like that.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, there's rumor that they're going to have some rate
cuts coming up. It's it is fascinating. It's I mean,
I'm in real estate, right and it's just so stagnant
right now, right, It's well, nobody wants to sell their house.
I mean, I just bought a new house a couple
of months ago. This is an example of how rates
affect the public perception I'm buying. I bought a new
house and it was the house I've wanted for some
(35:32):
time now. I waited ten years past when I probably
could have bought it. But congratulations, thank you, and I
put half down on a multimillion dollar home and my mortgage.
It was literally a two million dollar house. I put
half down, and my mortgage was nine thousand dollars a month.
So I'm like, I don't want to pay nine thousand.
So I ended up selling a couple other assets and
I paid off my loan. I'm just like, I don't
want to deal with it. But I didn't even sell
(35:54):
my other house because my rate on that house is
two point one. I'm renting it for thirty eight to
fifty a month, My mortgage just twenty one hundred a month,
and fifteen hundred that goes to principle. So it's like
the cash cow, right, So this is the dilema. It's
like people aren't selling these houses with nice rates, but
nobody wants to buy the new and I was thankfully
in a position where I could. But who could afford
a nine thousand dollar a month payment with half, you know, down.
It's just it's insane. And so unfortunately, you've got this
(36:16):
huge segment of the market where nobody can do anything,
and you're just like, well, no, I don't want to
double my mortgage payment to move in a house one
thousand square feet bigger, and so I don't know. It's
the housing thing is one that I'm keeping a close
close eye on. You know. It does seem like there's
so much money in the market that that's what's keeping
it afloat right now. It's keeping it from going down,
(36:37):
and people just are like pulling their houses back off
the market. I think I saw a stat the other
day it's thirty seven percent of the people in Utah
that have listed their home took it back off the market.
Really yeah, because it's like they don't have to sell.
They were kind of like, well, if I can get
my price, I'll sell it. And so it's just there's
just not enough homes being sold. There's not enough movement
going on. And so hopefully rates can get to a
place because that is obviously the first I mean, somebody
(36:57):
will go I'm not going to go from a three
percent rate to seven, but I'll go from three to five.
I'll go from three to four and a half, you know,
And so I think that's what is needed for us
to kind of get the real estate market movement.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
I think one hundred percent and that's what they indicated.
We need to be blow six percent morer begauge rates again.
And there's no reason why we can't be I think.
I think President Trump again rightfully, has been pushing on
this issue because it's such a huge component of the market,
you know, of the economy, and he's.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Kind of firing in all cylinders everywhere else.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
You know, we talked about the permanency of the tax cuts,
all the great business deductions that we have now, the
trillions of dollars worth of investments coming in to the country.
We're really leading the way on AI and everything else.
But we've got to be able to have the interest
rates come down so your industry here in the real
estate sector can get back going again.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, when I think people don't realize how much of
the full economy revolves around that real estate market. I
mean there's so many there's three four million jobs in
that sector, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Oh yeah, can contemplate construction, you start host agents, financing lenders.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Well, if people want to pick up the book, they
want to read it, where do we send them, Trent?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
You can go to Amazon. So Airs of the Revolution,
if you look for that on on Amazon, we're there
in your kindle version or print version, and really appreciate it.
I hope people could pick it up, leave a review,
let me know what you think of it. It isn't
intended I'll say this, it wasn't it ever intended to
be a really big read. You know, I don't like
(38:29):
picking up books that you know, this is one hundred
and yeah, seventy pages, very very consumable. People within three
hours or so it could sit down and read it.
I think really hopefully written in a way that people can.
It's thought provoking, but they can, they can easily consume it.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Awesome. Well, I wanted to have you on. I appreciate
people that are truly working to make this a better
country for everybody, and I know you do that, and
so very grateful for you and the effort you spend
on it. For me, I get overwhelmed and I just
don't want to deal with it. I just go do
other things. But like you know, it's nice when I
can at least have this conversation with you, so people
know kind of what's going on and what's out there
(39:09):
and how they you know, some things that they can
do themselves to kind of help.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Well, thank you, that's very kind and nice compliment.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I believe in it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
You know, I've given a big portion of my life
to you know, civic service in the city side. Who
knows what the future will hold, but I just felt
like I was blessed with an opportunity met so many
great people across the country, and I'm definitely blessed that,
you know, so many of them agreed to endorse the book,
like r FBI Director Cash Bettel, Charlie Kirk, Kerry Lake,
(39:39):
who's become all these people great friends, and Senator even
Senator Lee said, hey, absolutely, let me let me put
my name to this.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
I mean, they've been behind you for a long time.
So well, thank you so.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Much, appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Thank you again for listening to the Jimmy Rex Show.
And if you liked what you heard, please like and subscribe.
It really helps me to get better guests, to be
able to get the type of p on this podcast.
It's going to make it the most interesting. Also, want
to tell everybody about my podcast studio, The Rookery Studios,
now available in Salt Lake City and or in Utah.
(40:11):
If you live in Utah and want to produce your
own podcasts, we take all of the guests, work out
of it for you and make it so simple. All
you do is you come in, you sit down, you
talk and leave. We record it, edit it, even post
it for you. If interested in doing your own podcast,
visit our Instagram and send us a DM Rookery Studios,
or go to our website, The Rookery Studios dot com
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