Can Trump Deport 30 million people in 4 years?
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You saw the rollout of all of the border-related security immigration executive orders last week. And then you saw Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt come out with a picture of migrants actually being loaded onto C-130s and taken out of here, which is just like...

That's what we voted for. I mean, this is exactly what we voted for. Donald Trump is just shipping criminals out of this country. And you're like, but what about the Valentine's Day flowers? Get the hell out of here. This is why it's a bad thing. And they're like, oh, coffee's going to be expensive. I don't have to tell you Americans are ready for what's next. We'll be on the hardships of inflation and economic anxiety towards building a future, a better future for our families.

Ensuring greater access to more affordable energy that powers daily lives, reliable energy that fuels innovation and economic growth, and the abundant energy that keeps our nation safer and more secure. It's all within our grasp. We'll do this together, building a brighter future for us, powered by America's oil and natural gas resources. You can learn more about all of this at api.org.

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. Just a catch of strays over here. You're in for a hell of a show. Keep the faith. Hold the line and own the libs. It's time for our main

Good Tuesday to all of you. Welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. Happily presiding over the golden era, Mr. Trump's golden era here in Washington, D.C. And throughout our land, I am Josh Holmes, along with Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook, left or right across your radio dial. Fellas, there's a time for singing and dancing and entertaining. We like to do that here at the Variety Program. But, you know, when you've got this much news, this is sort of a bread-and-butter shtick for us.

We do this better than anybody. There's like stuff here. You got to know. That's the thing is, President Trump made promises when he was running for office and rapidly, I think faster than any of us could expect, he is fulfilling those promises. Yeah, I should say so. Work is getting done. And along with that, that means there's a lot to cover and work that needs to be done and is in the process of getting done. Yeah, I think we all missed it, obviously. You know, sort of increased...

flurry of action. The workload, so to speak. We sort of missed that as a country the last four years. You know, I also think the media appreciates it. They'd never tell you. No, they do, though. But there is a lot going on, a lot cooking. Yeah. They like to complain about how hard they're having to work.

to work. But they like to complain. They're miserable people. There's like actual news to report on. Yeah. But Mr. Trump spent his time in office learning how he could do things better and he improved upon it. And now we're seeing the results of all of that work that he did leading up to last Tuesday, last Monday. Is that your JD hat?

This is so J.D. actually has my hat. Oh, yeah. I had to realize you actually gave that up. I gave him my hat. So now I had to go into the system and order a new one. Very happy to have the new one. So I encourage everybody to get in the merch store and make Michael Duncan do what we're talking about. For those of you on the audio only, he's got a nice camouflage ruthless hat, which it might have been a one of one.

And somehow Ashbrook got his hands on it. I didn't even know the thing existed. And then all of a sudden, now Vice President Vance, then Senator Vance, joined us for a fishing trip. Next thing you know, J.D.'s wearing one.

And I was like, where the hell did that come from? Okay, so the backstory there is we sort of just made a couple up on spec. Is that what it was? Yeah, sometimes we have some trial runs of merch that sort of float around the office. And I think Ashbrook picked one up. I loved it. But it's a great hat. Because we had the fishing trip coming up. And so it just happened to be that JD was like, hey, can I have that hat? And you were like, yeah, absolutely. And so then we had to order a ton of them because everybody wanted it.

I saw a clip just circulating this weekend about all of that. Yeah. He was talking about how he handled debates and whatnot. That thing's got a long tail. Long tail. People really enjoyed that fishing trip. I mean, he went on... We're going to talk about it. He went on Sunday shows again. Yeah, we got that. Another victim. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. So people just... Poor Margaret Brennan. I don't feel bad at all. I don't either. Not for a second. But boy, it has to be tough to stop. I can't imagine...

back into the office Monday morning after that kind of a beat down. But, you know, I guess they don't know a lot of shame. So, you know, maybe it's easier than it looks. And certainly from my vantage point, you'd never see me again.

We're going to talk about immigration. We're going to talk about the Columbia situation. Put a fine point on that. A lot of news, and we'll just tell you what it all means. Dr. Phil was out, which I love. We've got some clips. We're going to talk about Dr. Phil and the immigration border thing. Fantastic stuff. Our variety, we're going to get into. Last week, we talked about AI, the importance of the announcement.

that the president made with the CEOs last week about American development of AI. You quickly found out a week, not even, you know, five days later, how significant that discussion is. Yep.

this week with deep seek and chinese what what that's done to the marketplace we're gonna walk through a little of that this is a hobby horse who's smug he knows a great deal about it and all of us sort of jump in on it because we like it a lot we happen to think it's the future and then we've got some other variety eagles fans which in my house fellas it's not good it's not good uh for those of you don't know my wife's a philly native through and through and a huge eagles eggles

And she's converted my two sons. And I have no recourse because I'm a Vikings fan. And...

The year my oldest son was born, the Eagles won the damn Super Bowl, beat the Vikings in the NFC Championship. It's been downhill ever since. There's nothing I can do about it. I don't want to give up the surprise too quickly, but we have a care package of batteries that we're sending to her to throw at the screen when the refs call everything for Patrick Mahomes. You're going to break my house. Yeah. That's great. Thank you. It's like buying me a drum set, just something that makes my life more difficult. Yeah.

We also have the guest that everyone wants to hear from, in my view, one of the top five most important people in this entire country right now. Maybe the world, if you think about it. Jason Smith. He is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives. And you're like, OK, well, I don't know Jason Smith. He doesn't do a ton of interviews. He's writing the damn tax bill. Yeah.

So if you're interested in money in your pocket, you should listen to what this guy has to say because he is the guy who is putting together the formulation for ultimately what you're going to be looking at next year and filling out your W-2 and the 1040 and all of that. He's going to have a huge impact on it. What he has to say has a material impact on you and your family's

I think we're the only ones that have a discussion like this. So like I said, this is what we do best. Yeah, it's a good one. It's like you said, could not be more important for every single listener. Totally. All right. So let's get in the deportations thing real quick. New York Post, Columbia's President Gustavo Petro buckles under Trump's trade war threat, offers presidential plane for deportation flights. Let me just give you the backdrop and then we'll talk about it for a minute.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro quickly reversed course about accepting flights, which he had previously said he was not going to accept during last week's conversation. These flights were headed out of the United States with illegal immigrants bound for Colombia who had originated there. And President Petro said, no, you're not landing here. Well, here's what happened.

President Trump threatened emergency tariffs of up to 50 percent on the South American country for refusing to cooperate. Petro not only acquiesced to Trump's demands, he even offered up the Colombian presidential plane to help shuttle the migrants back to the country, calling it a response to, quote, the government's commitment to guarantee decent conditions.

That's art of the deal right there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, one more paragraph. The government of Colombia under the direction of Gustavo Petro has arranged the presidential plane to be facilitated a dignified return, as they say. This is his quote. This was a dignified return.

Well, it's a return nevertheless, which is the only thing that we're ultimately interested in. But you saw the rollout of all of the border-related security immigration executive orders last week. And then you saw Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt come out with a picture of migrants actually being loaded onto C-130s and taken out of here, which is just like –

That's what we voted for. I mean, this is exactly what we voted for. And then at the end of the week, you got in the press was just so eager to be like, well, they're not going to take them. So all this is just like not going to work. At which point, as you just heard from the New York Post, Trump was like, well, what if I just slapped a 50 percent tariff on everything that you have? What do you think about that? To me, this was such a very, you know, it's a fascinating microcosm because you saw the press escalate.

instantly flood the zone, jump in. They're like, oh, look, Colombia said no to Trump. Trump got owned. Oh, my God, he can't do anything about this. Everyone is in the frame of thinking and mindset of how things used to be. You'd expect, oh, God, this is probably going to become a six-month process. There's going to be some legislative issue that's needed. And then AOC is going to cry in front of a plane and then

It gets solved in hours. Trump's like 50% tariffs until you bend the knee. Done. I love it so much because think about how much time Washington has talked about the immigration issue. I remember in 2005 when I was a press secretary and we were orchestrating these field hearings at the border to get to the heart of the immigration issue and fix the border. Donald Trump, within days...

picks up the problem and he solves it. So 20 years of people just complaining about immigration and complaining and complaining. This is a man of action. It's exactly what we voted for. Yeah, everyone just sort of gets used to the muscle memory of the morass of D.C. Yeah, totally. Especially when it comes to executive orders. It's like they get signed and there's a ceremony, but you always wonder about the follow through.

And like what happens in the intervening period where there's legal challenges or things happen or countries say, oh, they're not going to take these migrants back. And then Donald Trump's like, no, 50 percent tariff. It's like everybody is playing the wishbone offense. Donald Trump showed up and invented the Ford. He's going five. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh, well, you you we always could do that. Yeah. People just didn't do it. And it's like because he has.

You know, he's just so driven to accomplish these things and deliver on these promises from the campaign that, like, we're really going to do it. And we're going to use every tool at our disposal to make sure that we follow through on it. Yeah. I mean, it's the Don Correale of the 1970s NFL, right? Just a different thing going on here. I like that. What I also love is you look at how quickly this unfolded. Like, crazy.

Everyone on the left thought this was the same way things happen. They started being like, heads up, folks. Don't you know half our flowers are imported from the Philippines? You're paying more for Valentine's Day. It's like, number one, Donald Trump is just shipping criminals out of this country. And you're like, but what about the Valentine's Day flowers? Get the hell out of here. This is why it's a bad thing. And they're like, oh, coffee's going to be expensive. What?

What I loved about it as a poster on X, and I'm sure you did as well, Smug, was the funniest about it is like the problem got solved so fast. It got solved before the left could even get out the talking points. They couldn't even wrap the 450 words in the Washington Post opinion section. And they were all fully prepared to talk about the price of coffee.

And then like, oh, never mind. We're moving forward. They signed out to like some idiot a story. Can you please write about what effect this will have on Americans and how it's going to drive up costs for the poor on their coffee? Because they always like they try to frame everything like that. Washington Post just had a story about how DEI hurts poor communities. I mean, and you could you could write that lead. Any of us could write like the lead of that story would be Donald Trump.

ushered into office on a wave of a bad economy and high inflation is about to make it worse. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They were so ready to go. They were ready. That editor must be so pissed. A populist brand of nativism has taken over the federal government as they've ushered in what could be hugely consequential economic conditions for the American people. They were so ready. Dude had that up on word and then he gets a newsflash, sorry, Trump already solved it. Yeah.

Columbia surrendered. For real. But that's the way this has gone so far. And again, I think to the point that you opened up with, Smug, like they've been very prepared for this stuff. And Ashbrook, you mentioned it. I mean, they have thought through what they're willing to do. So when you get the deep state, Department of State guy who spent, you know, the last 40 years in Central and South America saying like, no, you can't do that because there will be retaliatory measures. Mm-hmm.

Like, they're like, get the fuck out of here. And they're like, they just go do their thing anyway. Because they know as well as anybody that whatever happens with coffee, whatever happens with flowers, the market for bullshit has no cap on it. Yeah. And they are 100% going to trigger a bunch of bullshit from the Washington Post and the New York Times and Politico just running.

wringing their hands about how terrible this is when he's actually solving the problems that everybody's been asking somebody to solve for 20 years. Well, they're getting a little daytime TV help, too. And so when we come back, you're going to see, you will not believe who is, you know, part of the enforcement mechanism walking the streets of Chicago to make sure that people come back home. You're going to love every minute of this right after this.

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Okay, so, I mean, look, the whole pop culture thing for conservatives and Republicans just come running back for the first time in my lifetime. Like, we've got the people, you know, and like stuff's cool with us. And never before, though, did I think you'd have like prominent daytime network TV people. They're involved in like conservative governance. They're interested in how it works. Nuts and bolts. You won't believe this. Have a look at clip one, please.

- Are you a citizen? - My mom's a citizen. - Your mother's a citizen? - Yes. - But you're not? - Dr. Phil. Nope. - But you've never been deported before? - Dr. Phil. We're like Dr. Phil. - Yeah? How do you know me? - No, I seen Dr. Phil, you know, on TV. - Yeah? - Yeah. - Yeah? - This is an example of sanctuary cities, right? We got an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes involving children. And he's walking the streets of Chicago.

Again, the downfall, the problem with a sanctuary city that people like us walk in the street rather than the law enforcement working with federal agents. This is what we're dealing with. Yeah. You've been charged with sex crimes with children? Not really. Not really? Not really? And never been deported? Nope. Huh. Let's take them in process and lock them up.

There you go, Holman. Yeah. I think this is a great example of what we should do is every time you catch an illegal sex offender who has attacked kids, Dr. Phil's there waiting. It's like the dude who used to be like, why don't you grab a seat over there? Chris Hansen. Chris Hansen, yeah. Now we're setting Dr. Phil. And also-

Shout out Dr. Phil for getting hooked up like that to have Tom Holland be like, you want to go on a raid, bro? I would love to go on a raid, Tom. I want to be there when you kick in doors and drag you. Can the variety program do a ride along on that? Yeah. I don't even need cameras just for fun. But, you know, there's a couple of things that I love about him. One is...

Like Dr. Phil's doing Dr. Phil's thing, right? He's trying to let this guy talk. And this guy like quickly, quickly assesses that like talking is not going to do any good here for him. I've seen your show. Yeah. Talking does me no favor. Yeah. Yeah. And Dr. Phil's like, oh yeah. And then just like lets it sit to see if the guy will fill the space. Like he ultimately did. The second part that I love.

is you got Homan walking around like Elliot Ness. Yeah, exactly. It's so nice to have one dude in charge of this stuff where he's like actually marching the beat and he's like, book him, Dano. Exactly. When you said it right there, it just struck me the difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. In the Biden administration, things are going wrong. They were always arguing over whose fault is it. No, we appointed Kamal the czar of this. Or no, it's not that guy. It's someone else's job. Yeah.

Here you know where the buck stops, who's in charge of it proudly because they want to execute on their job. Homan's their front center because he's like, I was told to do a job of get these illegals out of here, and you see me. I'm doing it right now. Yeah, I'm going to show you how it's done. Great. Great to see that. Meanwhile, they're like, yeah, Kamala's the Bordasar. Yeah. Or actually she's investigating the root causes. The root causes. Which turns out is her.

She's the root cause. Who'd have known? You don't need to figure out the root causes to put them in a cop car and get them out. Yeah, jeez. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. So anyway, this is all going on in Chicago and cities across this country where they're actually taking people

criminals off the street. I mean, that guy, child sex predator? Yeah. Are you kidding me? How is that ever a question? How is that not a top priority? Are there that many? I mean, it's Chicago, so maybe. But like across this country, are there that many higher priorities than getting sex predators off the streets? That should be. That should be up there. It seems like a no-brainer. Like if you're just like a run-of-the-mill sex predator,

You know, where you're just sort of sitting in suburbia. You've got to imagine your timeline is real short. Like they're going to get your ass in the brig pretty quickly. Yeah. At least I hope so. Although, you know, the DAs, the Soros, it depends if you're in a Soros jurisdiction or not. Yeah, but if it's Dr. Phil knocking on the door, bro, it's a wrap. It's over for you. It's a wrap if Phil shows up. No question. Especially if he's standing next to the modern day John Wayne, Tom Homan. Yeah. And he's like, listen, you're out.

He just loads them into a plane. Like, what Tom Homan is doing is exactly, I mean, we talked about this, it's exactly what people want. Our country has hungered for this sort of leadership and no nonsense. For so long, we've been told it has to go through this committee, this process. Oh, well, they got stopped because of this. And oh, they got a Soros prosecutor's.

For so long, Americans have been in a mindset of like, well, it's not possible. Nothing's possible. What I wonder is like, is this guy doing the sex crimes, the illegal alien doing the sex crimes, who apparently has a ton of time to watch Dr. Phil on television. Yeah, he's like, hey, man, I never miss a Thursday. So he might not be gainfully employed, but who knows?

But like, if he doesn't reach the threshold of like people that would be deported by Democrats. Right. Like, who are the Democrats deporting? No one. This is my point. I think the answer is no one. But my point is like your run of the mill average sex offender. I'd like to think we still take care of that relatively quickly. Yeah, I would hope no sex offenders under the radar. But the fact that this guy is an illegal immigrant complicated in a Democratic. This is the progressive prism that they live in.

The fact that he's a sex predator upon children has complicated this guy's imprisonment for them. They're like, now how do we handle it? I saw Bill Mellugian had a ride-along where ICE was just kicking in doors and rounding up all these people. You were hearing stories of this person attacked children 17 times and is still in the country because Chicago's been set as a sanctuary city. Yeah.

Democrats have done a horrible thing where they make the victims feel like the perpetrators. Where they're like, no, no, no, you don't understand. This guy came here illegally, committed a crime right there, and has committed 17 crimes at least that we know about since then. He's the guy we should feel bad for. It's gotten so twisted. Americans are sick of it. The fact that there's controversy. The fact that this is something that we're like, okay.

Whoa, I can't believe they're doing this. And I think that's the thing is we finally figured out if we want to take our country back, if we want this country to work, if we want it to be safer, our families, you just stop listening to the nutjobs. It's over. Put the blinders on. They had their time to do their nuttiness, and we all figured out it just made the country far worse. Don't even listen to them. So they still – there's a handful of these illegal immigrants that think that they can protest their way out of this situation. Yeah.

Right. Which I do find completely hilarious. They're like, well, maybe if we make enough noise, picket signs and whatnot, they won't come for us. We'll see about that. Clip two, please. For audio only listener, what you're looking at is a crowd of people with Mexican flags protesting ICE enforcement efforts in Dallas, Texas. I don't know what they're hoping to have happen here.

Probably the luckiest people in show business that it was week one when they had the Chicago enforcement division working and not Dallas. Right, right. I mean, this seems like a prime opportunity. Tom Homan right now is watching that tape, memorizing faces. Put me on a plane to Dallas. It's also weird. Like, I don't know. I'm not their PR rep or anything. Maybe they need to get in contact with George Soros or whoever's funding this protest. But like.

Would it hurt you to throw in a couple American flags? Yeah, they don't even try. Just pretend. Now they're like, no, it's Mexico. That's what we're doing here in Dallas. Yeah, it really is. That's the point it's gotten. Bad optics. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you consider the same funders of all these operations had straight Palestinian headdresses immediately after October 7th, I'm not sure that political sensibility is top of the list. Right.

things that they've got going on. Anyway. All right. So we got to make acknowledgement. So several weeks ago, after the Hunter Biden pardon, we had a contest. Some of you may have forgotten about this. We didn't here at the Variety Program, least of all Wolf and Spaghetti, who follow this stuff very, very closely. Our contest at the time after Hunter Biden was, what is the number of pardons that Biden's going to get up to? And he was at like 400.

And we thought that was just completely outrageous because it included his family, like all kinds of different stuff. And we're like, a thousand? I mean, who knows? Little did we know. So we asked all of you, what's the number that you think that he can get to on the pardons? We had a ton of responses on this, some with great specificity. As it turns out, Axios reported there was 4,200 pardons.

Wow. On the button. Big number. 4,200. Well, guess what? Massey's Austin, Texas, in that moment, when there were only 404, number...

Predicted $4,200 on the button. Dead on. What a legend. So we said there's $100 of merch in it for you, and you're going to get that. You've got to email us at hello at RuthlessPodcast.com. We'll do some verification to make sure you're the right person. But hats off. Massey's Austin TX. Nailed it. $4,200 right on it. Nailed it.

What an incredible guess. I mean, look, that's why we throw these things out there. These people are smart. Our folks know. They're smart. I feel like he's got to play the lotto. Yeah, right? After that? He's got a hot hand. Seriously, we asked a question last Thursday, which was at the sort of back end of a week full of executive orders. And we said, if you're president or, you know, if you can just chime in, what executive order would you like to see next?

And, again, fantastic comments. Love every single one of them. You've got to like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Remember, you've got to do this. Take this seriously. Stop for a minute. Like and subscribe. Yeah. If you've got to, put the bell on while you're at it. Get all that stuff out of the way so your stuff can be read here because you don't want anything else other than the voice reading your voice here on the Variety Program. That's right. And that's where we start, sir. Okay. This first one comes from B'nai Yisrael.

And he writes, long-time listener, first time opining. I've got an idea that fits perfectly with Trump's common sense approach to governing. Let's make all federal benefit programs exclusive to full U.S. citizens. States that don't comply will lose their federal support. I find it a

Gosh, it's just well said. Well said. That is entirely right. Very smart.

And I think they're going about the business of doing that, to be honest. It needs to be done. In contrast to the 2020 Democratic primary when all the hands were up about free health care and Social Security and everything else. Yep. That's really what they're—that's still their position. Mm-hmm. That's still a Democrat. They just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to talk about it anymore. Yeah. That is what it is. All right, Dunks, what do we got? This one's from Mad Maduro.

Proposed executive order given recent developments with regard to bringing nuclear facilities online to meet America's growing energy needs and to further encourage the development of modular nuclear and other technologies necessary to effectuate the new golden age of America. The construction, development, and operation of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository furthermore

Pursuant to 40 U.S.C. Section 3102, this facility shall now be called the Biden-Obama Luminous Funtime Radioactive Latrine. That is some good research. Yeah. Must be some sort of lawyer. He did some lawyering in there. There was lawyering. There was code talk. Yeah. I love it. I love it. That's great stuff. All right, Smuggles, what do we got? Comment three is from Ty B., and they write, Serious EO.

Large cities and metropolitan areas must have roadways and infrastructure audited for quality and safety two years. Failed audit results in all federal government funding suspended until audit is passed. Yeah, that's... Love it. Unserious executive order. Passengers and luggage must be weighed when checking in a bag for a flight and charged according to total weight. That's not a bad idea. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can get a handle on the fats in the process. It says PGA Tour...

I like this. PGA Tour must implement a shot clock, shorts, and side betting during rounds. Golf ball shall not exceed $24 per dozen. Ty, if you're interested in some kind of a job within the administration, I feel like this is a gentleman who understands this all the way through. You're talking about doing something about the fats, improving...

your visual Sunday afternoon quality of PGA consumption. And side betting. And then side betting to amp up a little adrenaline, a little dopamine in the process. And at the end, capping golf ball. Correct.

I love all of it. I need to know before that unserious EO about the passengers and luggage being weighed. I would like to buy whoever, you know, the stock of whoever makes those drugs, you know, the what's it called? Ozempic.

Oh, before we do the fat tax? Yeah, before the EO fat tax comes into effect. You've got to buy as much stock in Ozempic as possible. Yeah, it's a transport fat tax. You're not just taxed because you're fat. You're taxed if you're fat and you're fly. A shot clock would be awesome. And the side bets. If you could side bet...

tour? Yeah, it'd be good. I'd watch all of it. It would be good. How would you do the fat tax? Do you just like have a scale right there at the head of the jetway and you weigh and you're charged down the spot? Instead of just putting the bag up there, they say, okay, now you hop up. You stay in on it too. And now like, look, you could do something like, you know how the NFL has got the blue tent around the injury? Yeah. You know, protect the medical privacy. Let people have some dignity. You could get them in a blue tent. You don't want that. Nope.

Well, maybe if you have enough sky miles, maybe you can avoid the blue tent. That's sort of like along with the diamond medallion package. Oh, there's a spending incentive that can maybe get you around the fat tent. It's a capitalist society.

I don't even feel like you'd need more infrastructure. Like, you could actually just weigh the bag like you would normally weigh it. And then, you know, when you go through TSA, they already see all your business. You know, you get into that machine and it scans you. All they have to do is be able to put a little weight at the bottom of that thing.

that it weighs you. Yeah. And then, you know, when you collect your belongings, you find out how much more you owe. And you know, you know, there are some dudes out there who are so happy that they're three bills plus. They would just be like, yes, watch this. I'm going to stand on the scale and I'm going to... And they're just going to pull out the cash. A high score. A high score.

It's an interesting concept. You know, it may improve flight travel. I've always wondered, you know, have you guys been on those planes where you sit down and somebody that sat there previously has got the extender? Oh, the belt extender? Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that. Have you ever seen one of these things? I have seen it. These things have flummoxed me. So basically, it's like the massive seatbelt that they have for you in a regular coach seat.

is not enough. And so they have a full extender that plugs in on both sides that you could literally just be Andre the Giant and get this thing around you. And I've always wondered, like,

Before you commission that set of belts, it doesn't concern you at all? You're in the weight monitoring business at some level. And that's never been a part of the calculus as to whether this plane can fly. Stop happening back in Coach Hunt. It's terrifying. Is there a big smoke? It's really happening?

But is there a thing like they only have five? If you get over like five extenders, then you're going to have to start. They can keep adding extenders? No, no, no. I mean like. How many extenders are in use on one airplane before that thing's going to be over? Yeah, yeah. It's like because, you know, I mean, look, if you're 52, we've all been on those flights where you're like 52 pounds for your checked luggage. And they're like, well, you got to take something out. And then you got this whole thing that's happening with people moving stuff from bag to bag to try to get under air.

But they don't do that for the person, right? So like you get this like 89-pound gal who rolls up with a bag that's 51 pounds and they put her through hell and gone. Yeah.

Meanwhile, you got like a 700-pound hippo that walks up and checks a 35-pound bag. No problem at all. It's a very good point. I think we put it out to the community. I know that there's multiple pilots who listen to this show. Yeah, a lot of tons. And I hope they reach out and let us know. I think as the plane gets bigger for commercial purposes,

it's less of a concern, you know, when you get beyond the Cessnas and whatnot. Sure. And most of the planes, I think, are pretty overpowered, you know, as is for some of the short domestic flights. But I'd be curious on some of, like, the long-haul ones, you know, where people are taking lots of, like— You get a couple of 600-pounders. I mean, it feels like maybe the— Oh, maybe. Might dip a wing or something. I don't know. Hope not. Jeez, I don't know. Anyway, it's worth looking into. Thanks for the suggestion, Tybee.

Listen, if you're a fan of this variety program, you know that we were very early on into how J.D. Vance just totally dismantles an opposition. And he was caricatured by the left when he was first named by Donald Trump as something like weird or like incapable of like somehow he wasn't qualified for it. And then like those of us who actually watched and didn't

read and knew him from before were like, man, this guy's going to do a lot of damage and these guys are going to underestimate the hell out of him. Then came the debate. Everybody was aware of that. Well, it hadn't stopped. At some level, I'm surprised that anchors still have one-on-ones if they're going to take an adversarial position because what he does to these people is remarkable. It's must-see TV. Next up in the cage was Margaret Brennan at CBS on Sunday.

Can we play a clip? Let's play a clip to start this, please. Clip three, if you don't mind.

Well, this is a country founded by immigrants. Well, this is a country founded by... This is a very unique country, and it was founded by some immigrants and some settlers, but just because we were founded by immigrants doesn't mean that 240 years later that we have to have the dumbest immigration policy in the world. Yeah. We also mentioned this on the show last week as well, right? It's like for far too long our immigration policy has been determined by this sort of glib shorthand of

Bumper stickery. Yeah, America was founded by immigrants. And, you know, there's a poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty. So our hands are tied. We can't change anything. And it's like that's not the way the world works. And for 20 years, every Republican's talking point was, well, we are a nation of immigrants, but we're also a nation of laws. Yeah, that was it. It's just like nothing but pocket protectors and J.D. Vance.

In one interview, I mean, like, God love him. He's been doing it for months and months and months. But in one interview, completely dismantled that talking point. Any Republicans need to ever apologize for anything. You shouldn't have a stupid immigration policy. And you'd have thought she'd have learned from the debate. Right. She had already tried coming at J.D. when he was having his debate and he was demolishing Tim Walz. And she kept trying to cut him off and being like, no, actually, that APA,

Yes, it existed in 1992. The CBP app. And I'm really glad you brought that up, Smug, because I noticed there were a couple of people online who were kind of criticizing the decision to go into this interview with Margaret Brennan and CBS. Yeah.

Why would you give them airtime? Why would you give these people airtime, especially when they treated you so horribly at the debate? It's like, don't underestimate J.D. Vance. They know what they're doing. It's also the best way to win. Because it's a fair fight now. When you're in a debate and you're up there and they can cut your mic and they can talk over you and they can frame up your answer around the next question they ask, that ain't a fair fight. The moderator's actually in a stronger position. But one-on-one, J.D. Vance was going to be fine.

And also, I'll just say this. This goes forward because you're going to see some of this out of Trump. You're going to see this out of Trump administration officials. And you're like, why are they talking to these people who are just trying to sabotage all of their reference? It's a good question. You look at it and you're like, you've got to just ignore all this stuff.

But like ultimately, they have the better set of arguments here, one that the majority of the American people have actually bought into. But you have to remember that for a lot of the center left in this country, I'm not talking about the progressive left, which is like an untouchable absurdity.

But a lot of the center left, they just don't have access to information whatsoever. They pick up the New York Times, they pick up the Washington Post, they watch CBS Evening News. They think that's the reality. It's not that they're done seeking information. It's just the only information that ever comes is like this slanted far left nonsense. So when you put J.D. on with Margaret Brennan in a show that you're already watching on Sunday morning, and he just completely dismantles every single one of her arguments, I bet that that's

that there are some number of people who like voted for Joe Biden twice, probably thought J.D. was like still a crazy person who was like, oh, it makes a lot of sense. Right. Yeah. Right. Completely unconflicted about the fact pattern. He is not going to take it. And I think that that's a reason why so many people are attracted to what Trump and J.D. Vance are doing. I mean, just look at the state of Nevada.

Full of immigrants, okay? And what we learned yesterday is that the state of Nevada now has more Republicans than Democrats. First time in 20 years. And a lot of credit on that goes to President Trump, J.D. Vance, Governor Joe Lombardo. But I think that people are really catching on to this style because they're like, finally, leadership in America.

Somebody's saying something that's real and resonates rather than like dancing behind talking points and trying to pretend they care about something they don't. Right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Well, anyway, it was beautiful. Let's one more clip on this, if you don't mind. Clip four.

Well, Margaret, I don't agree that all these immigrants or all these refugees have been properly vetted. In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks on our country. That happened during the campaign, if you may remember. So clearly not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted. No, but there are 30,000 people in the pipeline.

Afghan refugees. But my primary concern as the vice president, Margaret, is to look after the American people. And now that we know that we have vetting problems with a lot of these refugee programs, we absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country. These people are vetted. Just like the guy who played a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago. He was allegedly properly vetted. And many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly, he wasn't.

I don't want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted. And because I don't want it for my kids, I'm not going to force any other American citizens' kids to do that either. No, and that was a very particular case. It wasn't clear if he was radicalized when he got here or while he was living here. I don't want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.

It's just unbelievable. I don't really care. Margaret is now a new thing. It's so good. Excuse me, point of order. We're not clear exactly when he was radicalized and somehow that makes it okay and you're wrong. Why would it be different? Like, what the fuck? Why would it be different? Yeah. I mean, what's so amazing for people like Johnny appreciates this instinctively is for those of us who've done this for 20 years and you kind of like watch the way, you know the way that they're going to handle it.

But she's handling it like a mid-2000s way. Right. Right? Where she's challenging the assumptions that are made without the logic attracting itself to her point of view. There's no thinking behind it because what is – she's not trying to make a point about

She's just trying to be a problem. What's your point you're making here, Margaret? What are you trying to say? Because if she was right and he was radicalized later when he was here, well, all the more reason to do a little bit more vetting and not trust the homework that the Biden administration did on all of these migrants. Right. Like if she's right.

She proves his point. If she's not right, he's still also right. Her point makes no fucking sense. One of the best memes I saw on Sunday immediately after the interview was this picture that somebody put of J.D. Vance in like a suit and a tie. And he's like, frankly, Margaret, I don't give a.

That's great. Yeah, it's really, really good. Well, anyway, keep up the good work, J.D., and your entire staff. Just roll it out every Sunday for all I care. I would love to keep seeing those clips. All right, so economic news.

It's a little bit of variety. We'll classify it as variety because it's not like our core bread and butter. But we talked about this last week. Very quickly, everything we talked about in terms of AI, the importance of President Trump's announcement to the world that there is a significant import in this country for developing American AI versus foreign adversaries.

Six days later becomes a critical discussion when it comes out that DeepSeek, which is a China-based AI, open AI product, comes out. Now, this is according to Fortune. Mark Andreessen, a friend of the program, friend of yours, Smug, warns the Chinese chat GPT rival DeepSeek is AI's Sputnik moment. Yep.

All right. So let me just the markets reacted horribly from a domestic standpoint. Everybody sort of freaked out about this. You saw some big tech giants lose huge market cap over this announcement. And everybody's sort of wondering, like, what's up with that? Let's get your take, Smug, and go from there. Sure. A couple of things. First, I'd say I think Mark makes the most.

cogent point and I think the best way for folks to think about this. I know when you start hearing the buzzword AI in the news, it's hard to conceptualize what they're even talking about. For most folks, you say AI, they think it's just like a Google on steroids. But when Mark says that this is AI Sputnik moment, he's referring for our younger folks who don't know or who attended public school.

Oh, boy. You know what? I'm to take immediate offense. Sputnik was a satellite that the Russians put up. And the effect that it had on America is it put a fire under America's butt and we won the space race. It became, you know, every American realized they could see, you know, at night.

In the night sky, you see a satellite fly over. You know it's the Russians. It was a constant reminder that we might not be number one anymore. That's the thing. And that is the thing, is it stuck in the psyche of every American until we won that space race. That's why that choice of words is so important. Yeah. And so I think that's a good way for folks to conceptualize what this exactly means. There's a lot of discussion when it comes more specifically to DeepSeek of...

Okay, it was done so cheaply. The number that's being thrown around is $5, $6 million. That also, if you want to get to nuts and bolts, there was already an existing model that Chinese hedge fund was using. And the leader of the hedge fund used profits towards expanding their computer model to do general knowledge, AGI, instead of just pick me a stock that goes up.

I think the main takeaway here when you talk about why did so many tech companies lose such value is a lot of investors were like, okay, we've been being told that by Google and Facebook, these companies are spending billions and billions of dollars on NVIDIA chips, and that's needed to build a large language model that can power one of these AIs. Right.

Investors were like, well, if this model China did for $5 million, $6 million, then what's all this expenditure for? They're wondering what the cost of the overhead is that they've been financing. And so I think if I had to say that was just like a single-day freakout, it's not like all of a sudden we realize that China has won, the world is over, and the markets are toast. I think what the takeaway from this should be is

It's not like America's got this massive lead over China and we don't need to think about this. And when you saw those folks visit the White House and we hear President Trump speak about AI, it's because it's incredibly important. It's because this is...

Like the race for the atom bomb right now because the amount of impact it will have on society and productivity the first country to capture this technology harness this technology is Going to have such a lead on the rest of the world We're talking about it is going to cut poverty in half look at projections of what this does for productivity in this country What the what would happen to the American economy would be like on rocket fuel. Yeah, I

Yeah, I mean, look, the fellas all we were discussing this prior to coming on air. And look, I think one of the and one of the reasons why you put it in last week's show about the announcement by President Trump was because Democratic leadership in Washington is

have basically limited your knowledge of AI to, like, any sort of what they saw as a derogatory image of a politician they loved that they didn't want you to see. And they talk about deep fakes and AI and, like, all of that. And they were like, that's what it is, right? Which is not what it is. Like, that's, like, literally...

It's literally Google or paint by numbers. I mean, it's like the easiest thing. It has nothing to do with what the basis of AI is. And the lack of understanding by most Americans have contributed to this culture of wariness about what AI means. And we said last week, and I mean it, like this is the new frontier. This is the next generation of AI.

not warfare so much as information warfare that America just simply has to win. Yeah. I mean, if I could put it in perspective here, we've been talking a lot about Panama, the Panama canal and Donald Trump wants to get it back. Well, one of the reasons why he wants to get it back is because the Chinese through their belt and road initiative are doing a bunch of infrastructure around the Panama canal. The Panama government basically, you know, signed deals with China to do that. Well, this is the digital version of that. Um,

China is building an open source AI model in order to give it to the rest of the world. And we don't want to lose this fight for who's going to control the future of AI because all these other countries decide to go with China's model rather than ours. And let me tell you why that makes it. You're like, oh, China versus the United States or whatever. So whatever you think of China, maybe you're just agnostic to China. Like if they're doing it better, let them do it.

There is the economic piece, which is critically important to our domestic economy and all of that, which is something you should concern yourself with. But there's also a value cylinder here, international security cylinder. And in the value cylinder, it is absolutely opaque. And then ultimately, all of the algorithms that are run on these open source AI information chambers where they're ingesting every piece of information around the world and spitting out an answer.

basically to the question, those have assumptions built into them. In the United States, for however critical, self-critical you can be of your own country, has a basic democratic value system that allows things like our First Amendment. It has like basic human protection, human rights and liberties built into it, or else you'd get into a lot of trouble producing it domestically.

That's why a lot of our companies, whether it's Meta or Google or whatever, are ultimately accountable to the people of the United States because they do business here. They're headquartered here. They have to operate within the confines of the Bill of Rights. They don't have to do that in China. Not only do they not have to do it,

It's an advantage. They see it as a net advantage where they can push an agenda. So you worry about things like TikTok. The reason that that's thoughtful criticism is because they don't have these kind of things and they can serve up algorithms that in the most nefarious purposes could be just trying to indoctrinate a new generation of Americans to a point of view they don't share here in the Western world. But if you take that to an AI standpoint, you're talking about changing the world. Right. Right.

And that is very much akin to a Cold War footing, an arms race. The only difference is that we're talking about an information arms race where ultimately our government has to accept the payload.

And we don't have to accept the payload. We don't have to do it. We can do things like the president did last week, which is announce their firm support for the development of American AI. We're like firmly in this race. And I think ultimately one, the United States will win because our Western allies understand that like China's not in it for them. Right, right. And the information that they provide to the rest of the world is awesome.

always a little bit or a lot wrong, right? Like in America, you have to be transparent about what you're spending. You have to be transparent about what you're doing. And so to get to one of the points I think you were making, Smug, is like the idea that they only spent $6 million to develop this is probably wrong. Like there was... There's a lot of questions brought in the development of it, but I think a really important thing that also makes it, I guess, more relatable and understandable to folks is...

They are essentially attempting the model that China has gotten so successful at. Because, you know, if you open your phone, you see on your Google search, it says now powered by AI and on Facebook and even grocery shopping. Now, if you use the app, it says like, OK, we're using AI to determine your choice. Write your emails. So the back end of that is typically they're licensing it from like OpenAI or Google's got Gemini, their own model, or Facebook's got Lama, their own model.

But what this company has been doing, DeepSeek, is they beat all their competitors on price in China. They put a bunch of them out of business by being like, "We're offering it at pennies on the dollar to offer that back end, their AI, to do the decision making for other companies, like their local Amazon, to be able to have their back end AI. We'll just use DeepSeek. We'll charge you 10 cents compared to the dollar that the other guy is charging."

And the president of China, Xi was very pleased to see this and has been meeting very frequently with the founder of this company, the hedge fund manager of this company. Well, he should. He's got a huge stake in it. That's the thing. Turns out that every single thing is wired through the CCP. And it's not hard to beat you on price when you have an entire state actor as a business partner. They want to run that same model back and just flood the world with a cheap Chinese good to make the market completely theirs. Hmm.

And there is no look, there is no coincidence that all of this rolled out six days after the president of the United States for the first time in American history made a definitive statement about our intent to develop American A.I. beyond the likes of which the world could understand.

We did that for the first time. I mean, Joe Biden, even if he had that event lined up, couldn't have pulled it off. You know what I mean? Like, what do you... Can you imagine what his little note card would have to say for him to be able to describe what AI is? Yeah, couldn't have. So, you know, like, whatever, however this made its way to market, whether it was through a Goldman analyst or whatever, like, the intent was very, very clear in that China was like, no, no, no, we're here too. We can do it cheaper. Tank the stock prices of a whole bunch of people who were investing in...

AI and told, you know, I think for obvious reasons, all of their shareholders that they were making this baseline investment in things that, you know, maybe it's not as expensive as we were led to believe. I think all that shit's bullshit. The important part that you need to take away from it is like this isn't something to be fearful about because we get it. That's the thing. You got SACs.

Inside. You got Elon inside. You got guys like Mark Andreessen who are very plugged in. We're talking about this. Zuckerberg has been working on this. If you want to know what's going to happen to the world, listen to what that guy says two years ahead of time, because he is like a 10 out of 10 in terms of predicting the future. Like we're good shape. It's just a matter of whether or not you can.

sort of coalesce marketplaces to understand the new reality that this president is going to protect the American consumer and he's going to allow us to innovate things like energy. That's the thing is I think another important takeaway from this is especially under Biden,

The tech community was treated as like they're criminals, like antagonists. Like what can we do to try to like wrap these people up? They were debanking a bunch of people. They were putting in regulations. And it's very easy for folks to understand of the energy regulations that Biden administration had.

crippled American domestic energy production. And that was a choice that they made and they want to do that. If we take the exact opposite tack, because the AI industry needs a lot of energy to run all these models, all these computers working together, it takes a lot of energy.

Just deregulate. Let American energy be tapped. If it takes a lot of energy and you have more domestic energy than anywhere else in the world, isn't that an advantage? That's an advantage. So maybe enable. Maybe turn that switch on. That's the thing. Just let our country have a chance. It's just incredible to me. If you think about the way the president, even before President Biden, with the Democrats in Congress, in a liberal worldview domestically,

Is that they spent the last eight years talking about things like how do we curb speech that we disagree with? How do you how you're limiting the power of the future to like being concerned about words that hurt your feelings? You know, that was in contrast. You're now dealing with an administration that's like, no, no, we're all in on the next election.

that's going to make, you know, the 2025 internet seem like a Model T. I was seeing a lot of AI researchers and computer scientists discussing this as they were fiddling with DeepSeek, the Chinese AI. Is there like, what's really fascinating to me is there's no like,

specific, except for Tiananmen Square and things like that, there's not speech sensitivity guardrails. Well, how could you if your whole goal is to open source all information to provide answers? So many AI companies in the US have, during the Biden regime, had to deal with, okay, if we don't

have the model say, you know, this line on the current thing of whether trans rights or... Or incorporate DEI. Yeah. Or incorporate DEI, then there's going to be hell to pay. You know? Like...

For so long, tech companies have had to live afraid of what the Biden administration would do. And now the Trump administration is the exact opposite. He said, you know, he wants a golden age. The golden age has begun. They're going to let America just flourish. Listen, I think it's a real opportunity. I'm not scared about this at all. I feel like we've got the best innovators anywhere on the planet.

I mean, could you pick a better time to have a guy like Elon Musk who literally started a company that catches rockets out of the air? Yeah. Like inside our government? Yeah. Well, like just Jamie Dimon said, he's our Einstein. Yeah. Like this is our – we're watching our Einstein. I like our odds. I like our odds. You know, and you got Zuck and everybody. Like, look, I feel good about that. Yeah. I feel good about those. I have no fear about all.

A little bit of a recap here in the variety section. In the football situation, it's not exactly what the variety program wanted to see in the Super Bowl. I understand we got a lot of Philly fans. I got a lot of them in my house, unfortunately. They're very happy. Nearly, like, burned down their city. Can we play clip five here, Spaghetts?

Oh, Jesus. I think that was a gun. That was definitely a gun. Get us in the camera. Go, go.

So this is a party post-victory over the Washington Commanders where clearly visible if you're a YouTube watcher is a gentleman pulling out what looks like a Glock, some kind of a 9mm, and firing three shots directly into the air like we're in Kabul.

And the reaction was, I think he shot a gun. All right, well, get me in the camera. And then go birds. And then go birds. Like, I got to tell you, fellas, those bullets are coming down somewhere. That's the thing. They don't erase in the atmosphere. I mean, I could not be. I mean, I know our next guest is happy that the Chiefs are there, but I'm so sick of the Chiefs. I'm so sick of the Chiefs. I'm done with them. I know it. I know it. But, you know, it's just like it is what it is. We just have to deal with it.

Another year of disappointment for the fellas. That's right. Well, next year it's going to be all purple. Yeah. All purple with the Vikings. I don't know.

No, I don't. Don't get your hopes up. I can't even say it with a straight face. But we do have a great guest. And this guy, you're going to want to pay attention to each and every sentence that comes out of his mouth. Because your future, my future, the American economy's future, probably the global economy's future relies on everything this guy has to say. Jason Smith.

Well, this is an interview that we've been eagerly anticipating. Someone we follow very, very closely. I think you can make an argument. One of the top five most important people on the globe right now. Yeah. Would you consider what his responsibilities are? The Ways and Means Chairman, Jason Smith. How are you, sir? It's great to be with you. This is fantastic. You're here in studio. I mean, there's no better place to be in Washington, D.C., so...

We're going to get down to business and we'll talk about tax reform and all the incredible things that you're responsible for here over the next year. But, you know, let's get to know you a little bit. Oh, boy. Yeah. Look, I think in many ways the change in the Republican Party itself is.

reflected upon your chairmanship in many ways and that you are a working-class guy from the center of this country the kind of people that put President Trump in office not typically who you know historians think of is somebody who's like running the largest most significant tax writing committee in history

But your colleague chose you to do it. And the speaker has great faith in you to do it. And you've been executing upon this for two years. You now have all the responsibility of it. I mean...

Am I right about that? We're busy. Yeah. But you know, I think I mean, the constituency, you sort of reflect back an awful lot of what the change in the Republican Party. So it's very interesting. I revert back to two years ago when I was wanting to become the Ways and Means chairman. The very first slide that I presented to the House Steering Committee when I was giving my pitch was.

was a slide that said the Republican Party is the party of the working class. And that we needed to make sure that the policies and the Ways and Means Committee address who we represent. And those are small business owners, farmers, working class families. I...

I grew up in my congressional district. I'm seventh generation in my district and grew up in a very working class family. My dad was a preacher and an auto mechanic. My mother was a factory worker. I lived most of my life in a single wide trailer, and then we upgraded to a double wide. Those were heady days. They were heady days. But, you know, the farm that I live on, I purchased –

My first year in law school when my granddad died because his – him and his brothers didn't want to keep the property, and I wanted to keep it in the family. And so I literally bought the farm by convincing a local banker before Dodd-Frank was in existence that if you loan me enough money while I'm a first-year law student with zero income –

I will sell enough timber off the property every year to make the payments until I graduate law school and become gainfully employed. It was like all on spec. It was like, I knew that I could do this. And I couldn't do it today under Dodd-Frank, but I was able to keep our family farm 20 years ago. And so that's home. I raise...

I raise beef cattle, white buffalo. I have sheep, donkeys, all named after Democrats. Amazing. So it's where I go to get away. And there's nothing better than like building fence, cleaning brush, working cattle. Sometimes it's easier to be around the cattle than some of the people in Washington. Almost all the time. I mean, you can clear the mechanism out.

And also, I'm sure it gives you a ton of perspective when you're dealing with big tax code type things and how it impacts the American people when you're living out there. It does. The district that I represent is the heart of working class Americans. It is the ninth poorest congressional district out of 435. It is also the sixth most conservative out of 435. And so by definition...

The Republican Party is the party of the working class. I mean, our federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is called the Rush Limbaugh Federal Courthouse. We're pretty conservative. But it's so similar to Appalachia.

We're the Ozark Hills. I always tell people, you know, J.D. Vance may be a hillbilly from Appalachia. I'm a hillbilly from the Ozarks, which is very similar. And it's why my very first committee hearing that I held as chairman of Ways and Means wasn't in Washington. I did it in Petersburg, West Virginia at a lumber yard.

It was called State of America's Economy Appalachia. I wanted something very similar to the people who I represent in Missouri, and Appalachia is about as close as you can. And so we heard from real working families, coal miners, small business owners. And I still believe that that's the best committee hearing we've had. I mean, it's a hell of a way to start. It is reflective of the change in the Republican Party, no question. I mean, a working class coalition that came together last November –

gave you all the majority, President Trump, the White House, and the Senate.

it. It's hard to argue with. I mean, we've definitely changed as a party. We're definitely representing that center of the country. I wonder, I mean, you had to have seen this transformation where you grew up, right? I mean, a lot of these rural places started out very blue and then just sort of started trending. And then all, you know, 2016 was a big line of demarcation in a lot of ways where they became very red. Yours may have been a little ahead of that in some ways, but

Were you into politics growing up? Did you watch all this stuff? How much of an effect did that have? So I wasn't. I was raised in a family where my dad's family were all Republicans and my mom's was all Democrats. Democrats as of a Southern Democrat style. They're now all Republicans now. But they raised me to vote for the person. I thought I was a Democrat growing up.

until I started looking at the platforms and I'm like, there's no way, this is terrible. And so that's what I think the majority of the people of Missouri has been. Missouri used to be a swing state. Yeah, very much so. Obama barely lost the state to McCain, if that tells you anything. And we usually went the direction of the winner, but it's not a swing state any longer. Our congressional district is the most red state.

congressional district in the entire state, and it used to be the most blue. Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm talking about. That shift, unmistakable, state after state. I mean, it's not unique to Missouri, maybe higher margins in some ways, but that has been the case almost everywhere over the last 10 years. Well, I mean, I think, number one, that is critical is for so long. And I think part of the reason the Trump movement took off so much is because

it was almost like the forgotten man in America, the silent majority, folks who felt that they were left behind. But when you have elected officials such as yourself who are representative of that group, of the working class, seeing folks like that speaking for them

draws them into the process of wanting to get out and vote, of wanting to be a part of this because they feel like one of us is now there. And that's critical, I think, especially to get things done is because now it's not these people in Washington are telling me this information. It's, oh, we've sent one of our own to Washington. That must have been a tremendous resource for you to move the ball on this committee.

It's been super important to be able to just represent the people who I serve and who I represent. And in

the ways and means tax issues. I've been very supportive of tax provision that some people get a little nervous about, such as the child tax credit. But our vice president's very supportive of the child tax credit. Some of the consumer-facing stuff. Absolutely. The Republican Party created the child tax credit in 1996. Mm-hmm.

It wasn't the Democrats. It was us. And so we need to own that. We are the party of families. No question about that. Let's encourage that. Yeah. No, look, it's really well said. Johnny? I got to tell you, I mean, I love your background. I mean, there are guys who come to Washington and they literally don't want to talk about their humble upbringing, if you can believe that. I mean, there are guys who grew up in a trailer and they won't tell anybody because they've spent so much time trying to be a part of the club. They want to forget about that past.

And I think it's such a mistake in the fact that you say that right up front and that that informs who you are and what it is that you're doing gives everybody a lot of confidence that you're going to continue to carry those concerns all the way into the Ways and Means Committee. I mean, think about it. From a single wide trailer to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, you could make a movie about that. Only in America. Yeah. But anybody can do that. I tell people with a quality education and determination –

The sky is the limit. My parents were the first to ever graduate high school. I was the first to graduate college in my family. My grandparents never even had running water on the farm that I own. I actually had to drill the well in law school to have the first running water. I literally at Christmas or any time I worked on the family farm,

To wash my hands, I had to pump water outside in a cistern, and there was no indoor plumbing. And I didn't know that that was so unusual, but I'm so thankful. I'm so thankful and proud how I was raised, and it makes me a better representative because there's people like that still in our congressional district. When people ask me, what's the—

What's the proudest thing that you've been able to accomplish as chairman? We reauthorized Title IV-B. It's a huge child welfare program in the Ways and Means Committee that was signed into law this year. And there was numerous provisions that help children who have been taken away from their families. But there's a provision in there that required that children cannot be taken away strictly on poverty. Mm-hmm.

They shouldn't be taken away on poverty. Like it's more important to keep that family intact than to put them in the system just because some people may think that they're being neglected when in fact they're not. It's just that they live in poverty. Right, because family is actually wealth.

And people in Washington, elites, they may not see it that way. It may not look the same on a balance sheet, but family is wealth. And having people together is just, I mean, that's a great thing that you did. You mentioned the child tax credit. I'm wondering if there's other examples you have, you know, that

impact working families in your district that you'd like to see reflected in what we do next when it comes to tax reform? Obviously, President Trump's tax cuts were incredibly impactful for working families across this country. And also just totally mischaracterized

Totally mischaracterized. Raised income by $5,000 for your average American family. You know, the richest 1% in this country actually paid more in taxes as a result of Donald Trump's tax cuts that were supposed to be a giveaway to the rich, as the left said. So I'm curious, you know, what are the other opportunities you think we have this time around?

I think one of the provisions that's expiring at the end of this year is the guaranteed deduction. It gets slashed into half. And 97% of the people who I represent, that's how they use to file their taxes, is the guaranteed deduction. If that gets slashed in half, that's a tax increase on every one of them. And these are working families. 91%.

of all Americans use the guaranteed deduction. That's a big number, only 9%.

Only 9% of Americans use taxes where they itemize. Yeah, you're itemizing. Typically, that's done with very sophisticated, usually pretty wealthy people who are itemizing large charitable giving and that kind of thing. For the rest of us, this is it. That's it. And so I like to point out that when you look at Trump's tax cuts in 2017 –

They tried to say it was for the wealthy and it didn't help the working class or the poor. Let me just tell you a fact. A family of four who make $60,000 or less...

they paid zero in federal taxes under Trump tax cuts. My average median income in our congressional districts, right, in the low 40s. So that deeply affected the people I represented by doubling the child tax credit from 1,000 to 2,000, doubling the guaranteed deduction. Those provisions alone really, really affect working class families. Yeah, no question. Well, as long as we're talking tax reform, we might as well get into that.

this. Look, in this town, you do a great job of talking about the impact that this has on the end user, the taxpayer. But you also are chairman of the most prestigious committee in the House of Representatives, where there's a cottage industry, literally larger than a cottage industry,

that is just constantly talking about process and talking about, you know, how are you going to go about doing these things? And then it's just like one bill or two bills or whatever. I've heard you talk about your preference for a one bill. I'm wondering if when you're formulating your opinion on how we ought to do this, how much of that is because you understand the importance of getting the tax piece done and

in good time in 2025 to not only just assure Americans that their taxes aren't going up, but markets, the larger American economy and somewhat the global economy. One big, beautiful bill. Every moment, every day. Let me tell you, if we do not finish our job,

We will face the highest tax increase in the history of our country under a Republican House, Republican Senate.

and a Republican White House. - Can't have it. - And that cannot happen. Failure is not an option. I go to sleep thinking about tax policy. I think about tax policy while I'm sleeping. I think about it when I wake up. And so every- - It must be enjoyable night time. - Oh, it's so enjoyable. It's probably why no one will date me. So...

I mean, I gotta say, it's better you lose sleepover than me. I'm sorry. Honey, I was just thinking of the marginal tax rates. That's exactly what people want whenever you go to dinner. But, um...

It is so crucial that the decisions we make right now are the right decisions. And history tends to repeat itself all the time. And I said early on that the last time two reconciliation bills were ever signed into law in the same year was 1997. And I was wrong.

1997, we did pass two reconciliation bills, but it was on the same day and it was under the same reconciliation. They bundled it. They bundled it together. So the last time that two different budget resolutions and reconciliation bills were signed into law in the same year was 1986. And so I know the Republican House better than most. I've been here a while. I know my colleagues. And I'll tell you...

It's a tough dynamic. To get one over the finish line is going to require all hands on deck. And you're talking about razor-thin margins here anyway. I mean, regardless of everybody's intent. I mean, you can't lose anybody. In a few weeks, it will be 217 to 215. It's wild. Right now, we're at 218 to 215. If one person dies... Mm-hmm.

That's that's troubling. And think about it. I hate to say this, but if you look at the average Congresses, there's typically four people that die every Congress. Wow. And so don't assume we will always have a majority. And besides that, look at 2017. If you talk to President Trump, one of the regrets that he may have had from TCGA was the fact we didn't do it soon enough. Yeah. We did health care first. And

I would argue that we waited too long as well. We passed it. It came into law like the week of Christmas in 2017. And 10 and a half months later, we lost the House of Representatives. Yeah, it didn't have a time to sort of set into the marketplace. People didn't understand what they were getting out of it. The economic tailwinds was not making effect.

There are 26 million small businesses right now that are making their decisions of how to invest, whether to hire new employees, what directions are going to move their company.

But they have the uncertainty of will their tax rate be 43.4% or will it be 23.4% with the 199A small business deduction just going away? I have a friend who said this to me in conversation about a week ago that he has to place orders for goods that he's selling this year. He's got a small mom and pop shop in a strip mall.

And he says, I don't know how to base these orders because I don't know if taxes are going up and my margins are gone. People are scared. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, it goes to your point, Chairman. I mean, this is something that needs to be a no doubter by the time you get to the end of this year. I mean, people are planning all the way through. The earlier you can get it done, obviously, the better economic impact.

One big, beautiful bill will – He's on message. I love it. It is the quickest, best approach to deliver as many wins that we can for the American people. It needs to have border. It needs to have energy. It needs to have spending cuts. It needs to have –

the tax cuts. Let's get this done. If we keep our head down, work together, stay united, we could have this done by Memorial Day. There's no question that we can. And we need to deliver that for the American people. They're counting on us. Like, they...

The reason why we have the White House, the House and the Senate is because of President Trump. And President Trump campaigned on these priorities, securing the border, making us energy dominant.

making sure permanency to his expiring tax provisions. And then the economic security message was central and a great contrast with the Biden administration that presided over record inflation and the rest. Americans are struggling. They've seen inflation go up 21 percent in the last four years. And so it's cost more to just put food on their table, closing their backs or gasoline in their cars than

They need relief and they need certainty. And that's what Congress can do if we stick together and work together. We have a smaller majority in the House of Representatives than the United States Senate has. And so usually the Senate is the problem. The obstacle is going to be the House. We have 218 senators in the House of Representatives because one person.

can kill the bill. Yeah, well, we were talking about this a little bit earlier. One of the things that sort of consternates us, maybe we're a little old school in this regard, but you hear out of some of your colleagues in the House, well, you know, all these tax cuts need to be paid for, right? Whereas if

Our view largely is that you either believe in a smaller government or people keep their own money. It's like the government's money. That's right. No, that's exactly right. Nobody needs to tell you that people work very, very hard for what they earn. And what's wild to me is that you have a handful of Republicans. I won't name names because you've got to work with all these guys in a very small margin. We love them all. We love everyone.

But all of a sudden you have a handful of Republicans who think that money that belongs to someone else is somehow their pay for. And now they want to raise taxes on small businesses. And so I wonder, do you feel like you can prevail upon those guys to sort of return to the conservative roots and want to give let people keep more of what they earn, let the small businesses keep more of what they earn? You know, we have to. Last week I presented to the House Republicans a

for the numerous time. I don't even know how many on the big, beautiful bill. But what I was trying to hit on there was the revenue. Yeah, the revenue goes up. Yeah. As Republicans, we always say that we don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem in Washington. And if you look at the revenue to GDP for the last 50 years, it's right at 17%.

Revenue right now is 17.1% in the most recent year. So we don't have a revenue problem. Where the spending has been typically for the last 50 years, it was around 20%. So we did spend more than revenue coming in. However, in the last five years, it's 26% to GDP. And so we know how...

We know the amount of revenues that's coming in under this tax code. There is no reason why you would pay for just extending current tax policy because our revenues are enough. The only way you would pay for it or allow them to expire is if you believe we have a revenue problem and that we need to increase taxes. And I haven't found a colleague that will say that we have a revenue problem.

I've challenged them. They'll talk a lot about pay-fors, but nobody will admit that. That's absolutely the case. And so this is what we're working on, what we're navigating. I think that when you look at new tax cuts,

You need to consider that. Yeah, because that could affect the revenue that's coming in. But we know that this is current tax policy. We know what's working. We know how it's grown the economy. I mean, joint tax and CBO was so wrong. Oh, so wrong on revenue. Yeah. The revenue estimates. They were static. Yeah. It's just like I get a little wound up when we start talking about joint tax.

- Let's go put a quarter in his back. - If you look at, it was projected that we would be at one and a half trillion dollars in deficit in revenues if we pass TCGA. In fact, if you look at the years from what their projections were to what they are now, we had 1.6 trillion above their projections. That's a $3 trillion dollar miss.

And they're still going to score it the same way, though. It just happened to be Republican tax policy. But if you look at the IRA, they scored it at $271 billion. And six and eight months later, they scored it at $700 billion. Right.

I mean, how do you get it? But it was Democrat tax policy. It's Democrats. It's funny how that works. Well, and theirs is always – theirs is more static because it's just raising taxes. You're going to give me terrible scores on everything now. No, but I mean I think – look, I think this is the point is if you look at this stuff – and I remember doing tax policy –

Johnny and I were out in the hall and several different tax reforms trying to convince reporters that, you know, it turns out if you do things that are good for the economy and businesses and individuals react to it and increase GDP significantly, your revenue goes up as a result of that. And the economy starts to boom. And pretty soon all of those static estimates that you have are meaningless because every time we've done it and the economy responds to it and you end up with more revenue than they project.

You absolutely do. We have record revenues right now. We have record corporate tax receipts right now. Think about that. A 21 percent tax rate instead of a 35 percent tax rate. Maybe it's because corporations are interested in doing business now with a 20 percent. They're investing. They're growing and they're coming back. There has not been one inversion yet.

of a US company since passage of TCJA. And when Obama was in office, there was 28 inversions. It shows our tax policy worked. Trillions of dollars came back to the United States. We need to make sure that's protected. - So let me just add, just structurally,

I assume most of this, as you're looking at it, is to ensure that we're protecting what we won in 2017 in terms of making sure those 2017 tax cuts don't expire and Americans don't have massive tax increases. And then obviously you heard the things on the campaign trail that the president talked about, no tax on tips and things like that, that are, you know...

And as you said, those are kind of tradeoffs that we're going to have to figure out how to incorporate. Clearly, you're going to do your level best to get as much in that, if not all of it in that, as you can. But this isn't like just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You basically are working off a product, correct? I think it's pretty simple. You know, the president made it clear on the campaign trail, make permanent my expiring tax provisions in TCJ, no tax on tips.

no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. What we would have to do there, you can't touch Social Security and reconciliation, but we can still provide tax relief for seniors. There is numerous ways that we can use the code to help provide the tax relief that the president campaigned on. Also, he wants to lower tax rates for companies that produce and manufacture in the United States.

These are things that we have been researching for months now. I set up 10 different tax teams back in April planning for a unified Republican last April, planning for a Republican unified government, House, Senate and White House. People thought I was crazy that, oh, there's no way that Republicans could have all three. And.

Our tax teams went to more than 20 states, did over 120 different meetings across this country with real small business owners, real big businesses, real working families, real farmers, and looked at the entire tax code. Just not what's expiring, but the entire tax code. Because we're going to be touching things that was not just in TCJA as well because they need to be touched.

We need to take away bad tax policy and replace it with good Republican tax policy that would fit great in a big, beautiful bill. I like the sounds of that. I mean, look, I think core to what you're talking about certainly was the case with TCJA and what you were talking about with the president's.

promises on Social Security. A big piece of this is just the economic security piece. Clearly, seniors with inflation, a huge concern, but really everybody. How much do you look at the tax code as an opportunity, not just for the short-term tax relief component, which is very, very important, but you're also incentivizing people to do some financial planning here, make sure their retirement is taken care of. This is a piece that

I don't think many people understand is a critical component to what it is that you guys do when you look at how to help your average American family. Very critical. One of the big examples that jumped to mind is the death tax. The death tax gets slashed in half if we do nothing.

And it has a huge impact. I represent a very poor congressional district. Agriculture is the lifeblood of our area. And those family farms, it doesn't take much whenever you're land rich but cash poor to be over that exemption level as a farmer.

And the worst thing you need is have a death in your family, and you're going to have to take out a second mortgage on your farm ground just for Uncle Sam. Those are real things that affect real Americans. You just look at— And you guys in 17, I think you took it all the way up to like 13. It's right around 13,000 to 14,000 right now. Which I guess, I mean—

Well, at least if I'm hearing it right. I mean, 13, 14 million right now. Yeah, right. So, I mean, you're basically protecting your district at that point, right? So you look at an average cotton farm. It's 1,500 acres. Farm ground in the Boot Hill of Missouri is about $10,000 an acre. And so...

1,500 acres at 10,000, you're over the exemption. And that's not counting your equipment, like a cotton picker or a combine. These are real expenses, but that's the investments. And that's what they've continued to grow for that family for years. But they may have to pay 40 plus percent tax upon death. That's horrible.

So, I mean, look, these are all kind of different categories of things. You get Trump's promises, you're building off 2017, and then, you know, I feel for you on this, but you got the SALT crew.

We love the salt crude. Yeah, I'm sure he does. Not a big issue in Missouri. I think the average salt deduction in Missouri is like $1,211. Yeah, right. So for those of you who don't know what we're talking about here, I mean, this is the state and local tax deduction. It applies to people who may very well be great, red-blooded Americans, but they happen to live in very liberal states with huge tax burdens.

And so they get hit because they can't deduct their state and local taxes from their federal returns as they became accustomed to. So they would just continue to raise state and local taxes. This became an issue that was addressed in 2017. But we still have a majority that's built on a lot of folks from New York, California, places like that, that you're going to have to kind of deal with that.

In a razor thin majority, we have to deal with everyone's every single person. And this is a significant issue for my colleagues from New York, California and New Jersey. Yeah. And we've been working with them aggressively and we got to we got to thread the needle. We got to find a good compromise. The ten thousand dollar salt cap.

that was put in in 2017, created about $800 billion considered for pay-fors to help lower the individual rates for everyone because every individual rate was lowered. That expires too. And so if we do not extend the Trump tax cuts, it'll be an unlimited cap on SALT. So the people who hate SALT

will be giving the folks in New York and California and New Jersey unlimited salt. And so it's super important that we all work together and find that good common ground that's in the middle. And we'll get there. See, I like what he's doing there. I like what he's doing there. No, it's just like this guy gets it. You know, it's like...

Look, if you don't work with me, it'd be really bad. Because I do have a point of view. Failure is not an option, to your point. I mean, this is not a time for rigid ideology when you're talking about thousands of dollars coming out of your average American's paycheck. Right.

I mean, this is about figuring out how to protect the American people who put you there in the first place. It is. It's so important. There's 207 million taxpayers in the United States. 207 million. There's a lot more people than that, but 207 million taxpayers. On average, if we allow these tax cuts to just expire, they will face a 22% tax increase. Wow.

And they've already faced a 21% inflation tax over the last four years. You talk about cratering the economy. You talk about making sure that Republicans are never elected again. This is a great way to do it is by not passing this bill. That's why I think about tax policy during the day, while I'm sleeping, and when I wake up. In one big? One big, beautiful day. All right.

So my roommate is Senator Mullen. Actually, he's my landlord. So I wake up making sure he hears one big, beautiful bill every day. He's about to put me in a headlock. I've got one note on this. When you finally do all of this work and get everybody to the table and you've got the New Yorks and the Californias and you fix the salt thing and no tax on tips, you get it back to the president and you say, Mr. President, I've got a surprise for you.

No surprises for the president. You told me one.

big, beautiful bill. I have brought you the most beautiful. And just one up and I'm like, oh, that's even better. Give it some gold trim. Yeah. Really emboss that thing. The president loves to talk tax policy. He does. And he you never know when he's just going to call you on your cell phone and you better answer. It's not good to miss it. But he really cares about delivering on these economic policies. It's it's it's

He, you know, in regards to salt, he's like, Jason, fix it, figure it out, you know, and that's what we're going to do. We're going to fix it. We're going to, we're going to thread that needle and, and we're going to be able to create,

One very good, big, beautiful bill. I got to ask you this before we go, because I think it's so hilarious. Having done this for 20 years and been a part of a lot of different tax debates, I always get a kick out of Democrats and the way that they approach these things. And anything the Republican does is always a tax cut for the rich, no matter what.

And they're like, what we ought to do is raise taxes on the rich. And we ought to focus on them paying their fair share. It's like a broken record. It's been doing 20 years, same talking point. No alterations every single time.

And then every time in practice when they get into like what they would do, it's just increasing marginal individual rates. Right. And pass through LLCs. Right. As if any like ultra wealthy person – and I only bring this up because it's so rare that we get somebody who's like as steeped in the tax code as you are. You must get a kick out of this. It's because it makes you fall asleep. That's what it is. But that's the thing that always kills me is that they're always – their answer to tax cuts –

or tax hikes on the rich is never actually anybody who's rich. You know, it's always individual. I mean, that farmland is a perfect example. How many W-2 earners do you know that are like the filthy rich? I mean, it just doesn't exist. Well, this is the prime example. If you look at all the expiring provisions of TCGA, 70% are individual. 70% of all the expirations are individual. And of that 70%, two-thirds are...

focused on people who make less than $400,000 a year. That affects real Americans. And when I hear them talk about everyone pay their fair share, millionaires, billionaires pay their fair share,

I always ask, what is the fair share? Is it 100% of what they make? Meanwhile, the guys in New York, they won't answer. But if you took all the money from every billionaire in the United States, you would fund government for like eight months. Like, it's almost impossible. Yeah.

Yeah. Meanwhile, you're like, what is the rich? And the guys from New York are all hiding their people. Wow. It's somebody else. Listen, I can't thank you enough for coming in and sharing and imparting some of this wisdom with us. Obviously, you are the man in the hot seat and delivering here for the whole country.

And listen, we got a lot of faith and trust in what you guys are doing. Your team is terrific. Keep telling us what we need to know as we go along because I think I heard you the other day say, this is going to be really hard. And I agree. It's going to be really hard, but it is a no-fail operation. Mm-hmm.

Failure is not an option, but it is going to be the hardest thing that we do this Congress. And it's going to require all hands on deck, everyone working together until we get the votes and have it across the finish line. And we'll do it. Yep. We'll get it done. Jason Smith, everybody.

I mean, he's just brilliant. And there is no better person to be in charge of writing this than someone from a poor district in the Midwest. Yeah, I mean, that's what he said, like at the top. He's perfect. He's indicative of the change within the Republican Party and the way that he looks at economic incentives to represent this country. And I think we see that happening in the tax. So it's nice to see somebody, by the way, who has that sort of like

Midwestern sensibility about them that also understand that like the goal of the government is not to just get more revenue from American taxpayers. Yeah.

Right. I mean, you hear it. We talked about this a little bit with them where it's like, oh, a new thing in the republic. You got to pay for tax cuts. OK. All right. So let me get this straight. What I want is to make sure that we never decrease the size of government. I just want to make sure that we have more funding for that operation because that's what that is. Don't let any conservative ever tell you that.

That that's not the debate when they're like, well, I'm fiscally conservative, so I want you to pay for tax cuts. What that means is that they're very comfortable with the size and the scope of this government. They just want to make sure that they reduce the annual deficit by having you pay more to fund the liabilities that we have in this country. That's what that is. This guy gets that joke.

And he's selling it. I think he's making forward progress on it. Don't you guys? I mean, that's the thing is everything he said was common sense. He gets it. He knows what the stakes are. I think he gets the job done. Well, yeah. And he has to have that sort of mentality because we got a razor thin majority. And he's got a lot of constituencies with divergent opinions on a lot of different component parts of this overall deal. But I think he's got the right personality to deliver on it.

Yeah, it seems like it. You know? Right? I mean, like, serious guy. Yeah. Unquestionably. Knows his stuff unquestionably. But is not, like, inherently a divisive figure. Right. Who's looking to pick fights with people. Like, he's...

take an input he's trying to twist dials to reflect people's intentions because he's got to run the table you know it's like that old game of hearts where you need all the hearts at the end yeah like he's got to shoot the moon on the thing right he's got to do it but we ought to have him shoot the moon because as he said failure is not an option that's right great great stuff here on the variety program we're not gonna get this stuff anywhere else you just don't get it nope you know

You know, I have a lot of grab assery and everything else, but like, that's some stuff. Every once in a while, we let you look through the crystal ball of the future on things like AI or tax policy. And we're a serious program. Yeah. Well, I mean, we can, we have smarts. We're smart. We have some smarts. Not dumb. Not dumb. Not like they say. Not like they say. Fellas, I think we did it. I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, again, thank you so much. Chairman Smith.

for all that knowledge. I learned so much. And thank you, dear listener. Remember, like and subscribe if you have not yet. So until next time, minions, keep the faith, hold the line, and own the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay ruthless.