Congressman Mike Simpson Talks America’s Energy Future and Josh Hammer on Defending Israel and Fighting Anti-Semitism
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with yours Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Congressman Mike Simpson, now serving his 14th term representing Idaho's 2nd Congressional District, chairs the House Interior and Environment Subcommittee on Appropriations and also serves on Energy and Water Development Subcommittee and Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. He is a busy, busy man. Mike Simpson, welcome back to the program.

Good to be with you. So, Congressman, you were watching a PBS special and you found out that there's all these missing and murder indigenous women and children and the number that came out, 6,000. First question is, were your constituents mad you were watching PBS? But more importantly, what have you found out about that now that you've dug into that?

Well, you know, you talk about watching PBS. In Idaho, we actually like PBS, and they have some really good programs. But I was sitting down watching this report, and they had this story on with some women who had from the tribes that have been involved in this.

And they started talking that there are 6,000 murdered and missing indigenous women in this country every year. And I was stunned. I mean, I've been on this committee forever and I had never heard that. And if there were 6,000 people, I mean, this is twice as many people that go missing and murdered on Indian reservations and so forth, indigenous people. That's twice as many as died in 9-11. And this happens every year. And...

It is obviously a real problem. So we put together a hearing and called in some of these women to tell their story. Some of them, one of the most fascinating ones is this woman told her story about how she was a young girl and she was kidnapped and she was held in a house or a cabin or whatever on the reservation.

And she was held there for like six months. She was abused and raped and everything else. And then they disposed of her by dropping her off the reservation.

And then the challenge comes up that we find out is who has jurisdiction over that? Is that the county? Is that the tribe? She couldn't identify the house that she was kept at. And so anyway, this went along. She knows who the person is that held her. And in fact, she's now on their tribal council. And one of her constituents is the guy that held her.

Oh, my. This is crazy. And 90% of it is due to the fact that, A, oh, they're just Indians. What the heck, you know? Right. We don't take them as seriously as we do any other segment of society. We're taking it seriously. And we're going to get to the bottom of this. We're going to get the FBI. I noticed that Pam Bondi just surged in.

a whole bunch of FBI agents to reservations to address this issue and see what needs to be done. It's going to be a big task, but it's going to cost us some money and stuff. And the problem is on reservations, they don't have the police force to do some of these things. Some of these reservations are huge. They'll be the size of the state of Connecticut and have two officers on call at any one time. And if they get a domestic violence call, all of a sudden,

It might be an hour, hour and a half, two hours before an officer can get there. And by then, the issue is all over. So we've got to do more there in helping our indigenous population address this problem. And we're going to do it. Let's talk about –

Are they debureaucratizing it and getting those agents back into the field where they can actually do their jobs? Is that part of how they're achieving that surge?

Absolutely. That's what they're doing. And the other thing is, as I mentioned, we've got to solve some of this jurisdictional issue. You know, for years it was you had tribal law enforcement and you didn't have the agreements between counties and the state, MOUs of cross-jurisdiction and that kind of stuff. That's changing now.

they're starting to realize that police officers, the tribal police officers go through the same training that every other police officer does. And they're starting to recognize each other and stuff. But the jurisdictional issue is is enormous and it's just complicated. We're now in a boom that we need a bunch of new energy sources for data, for AI, things of those nature. Can this even be accomplished unless America gets back to nuclear power?

No, it can't. You've got to have firm power. Everybody thinks, or not everybody, but the left thinks that we can replace all of the energy that we produce either through hydro or natural gas or coal or whatever, that we can replace it all with wind and solar. That's not going to do it.

Wind and solar are an important aspect of the all of the above energy policy. But for firm power, you've got to have nuclear power. And I just spoke at a conference of communities that are interested in nuclear power in Idaho last week when I was there. And it is, I asked them if, say you've got a, you're a city council or a county commissioner in a county and they come in and they want to put in a data center.

and data centers take a huge amount of energy. I'm shocked by how much energy they take.

could you deliver the power to them if they located there right now? And most of them couldn't. And so that's the problem. And what they're looking at is the new types of reactors, the advanced reactors that we're developing now, the small modular reactors. A lot of these data centers will propose a data center and then they will say, "We're going to put our own power here. We're going to have a small modular reactor to produce our power and stuff."

If you want to spread out the wealth of this country and get it out to communities and stuff, uh, you've got to have nuclear power and whether you agree with nuclear power or not, you're involved in nuclear power. That's the reality. Uh, whether you get your power from nuclear power, uh,

or whether you want to have access to nuclear power in your communities, you're involved in nuclear power, and that's going to be a huge part of our future. How long does it take to build one of these many nuclear reactors? And is it a permit process like the typical five, six years? Or what can we do to expedite it so we can get these done? That's one of the things that this administration is trying to do is to streamline our activities

approval process and permitting process. Right now, if you were going to build like an AP1000, one of these large reactors like they had in Georgia that they just opened, the last ones that they opened and stuff, what we're looking at now is much more streamlined approval process through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and

For these new types of reactors, a lot of them, I mean, we haven't got to yet because they're still being developed and stuff. There's about four or five that are being worked on from different organizations and companies and stuff. And we're funding the research on that. We do that all the time. But we would like to see it down to where it's only a year or two year approval process to get this done.

Congressman Simpson, I have a question. Years ago, I spoke with a Navy admiral who said, listen, we actually already have a bunch of small modular reactors. There are old submarines that are sitting in ports, primarily in Washington and on the West Coast.

All of those, from what he said to me, are capable of being plugged into the grid. They've actually done that, I think, in Puerto Rico or on an island. Has there been any consideration ever? A, is that correct? And B, has there been any consideration for rolling those out perhaps to some of these cities like in California where they're having rolling blackouts in summer as a stopgap measure until these newer reactors are available and online? Yeah.

Well, could that be a possibility? I'm not sure. I haven't really looked into it, but I do know that the Admiral's absolutely right. We do have small reactors all over this, all over the world because we have a nuclear... Nuclear Navy. Nuclear Navy. And, you know, it's kind of interesting as all of those reactors were developed at the Idaho National Lab, which is in my district. In fact, my wife worked at the INL for 20 some odd years before she retired. But...

and we store all the Navy, uh, spent nuclear fuel in Idaho right now. And so when the first submarine, this is an interesting statistic. When the first submarine, uh, first nuclear powered submarine, uh, went to sea, the fuel on it lasted for about two years is all. And then they had to refuel it. And if you've ever looked at what it takes to refuel a submarine, it is very expensive and very extensive. Uh, and so, uh,

Now, when we build a submarine and we put it, it's a nuclear-powered submarine or aircraft carrier, we're looking at life of the ship fueling. So when you commission the ship, it's fueled. When you decommission it, it's defueled. You save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of trying to refuel these ships all the way through. That's the advances we've made with making the fuel last longer with the research that they've done at the Idaho National Lab. It's fascinating stuff.

And there have been, we have just about three minutes left in this segment, but there have been, people don't realize, amazing advances in nuclear technology and efficiency in the ability to re-enrich uranium and now into starting to get to the point of recycling it for other purposes, correct? Right, that's true. And, you know, we used to do recycling, then we kind of quit it and that kind of stuff. I liken it to if you put a log on a fire,

and then after it burns for a while, uh, you throw the log away, but all you've got, you've got, uh, the charred embers on the outside. What we're trying to do is scrape off the charred embers and put the log back on the fire. Uh, it makes sense. And we will do recycling here in this country and stuff. Uh,

because it's vitally important, because we're going to need new types of fuels. There's what's called HALU fuel, which is the fuel that most of these new reactors are going to require. So part of our job on the Energy and Water Committee is to do the research and make sure we have the ability to develop and deploy the new types of fuels that these reactors are going to take. So that's been a big part of our budget.

Two minutes left in this segment. So Trump this morning says he's going to revoke the tax exempt status for Harvard. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm glad that they're going after these colleges that have not been doing their primary responsibility, and that is making sure that students, all students on their campuses are safe. And I think I've been sickened, just like everybody else has, at some of the protests that have been going on and the treatment of Jewish students on those campuses. We've got to end this. And maybe this is the only way to get it done, is that we have...

There has to be a penalty for some of these universities. I'm all in favor of free speech. I don't mind protests and that kind of stuff. But when you block other students from going to classes or to the library that they have paid for with their tuition dollars, that's absolutely wrong. And these people need to be punished. I look at this and I look at how the reaction would be different if the roles were reversed. So if you had a wall of Jewish students...

screaming and blocking Muslim students from campus, the reaction in academia would be, I mean, it would be epic. They would lose their minds. Or LBGT or whatever. Yeah, any of that. Yep, you're absolutely right. And I am, I got to tell you, I'm kind of shocked at how many of these protests there are going on around the campus and the foothold that they've got. The other thing I will always say is when I watch one of these protests,

If you are protesting something or advocating for something and you've got to wear a mask to hide your identity, then probably you're wrong, you know? Absolutely right. And we are coming back with more from Congressman Mike Simpson here on Breaking Battlegrounds in one moment. All right. Imagine this. You're running for president. Yes, president. What

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Folks, this is Sam Stone for Breaking Battlegrounds. Discover true freedom today with 4Freedom Mobile. Their SIM automatically switches to the best network, guaranteeing no missed calls. You can enjoy browsing social media and the internet without compromising your privacy. Plus, make secure mobile payments worldwide with no fees or monitoring. Visit 4FreedomMobile.com today for top-notch coverage.

digital security, and total freedom. And if you use the code BATTLEGROUND at checkout, you get your first month of service for just $9 and save $10 a month for every month of service after that. Again, that's code BATTLEGROUND at checkout. Visit 4freedommobile.com to learn more. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're continuing on now with our interview with Congressman Mike Simpson. He is...

a friend of the program, but also serving now his 14th term. That is a long time. You've seen a lot of changes. One of those changes has been how we view it, where our resource critical resources in this country come from. 14 years ago, we weren't in the kind of pickle we are now where a lot of critical resources are coming from overseas.

Congressman, how much does the influence of countries like China, Russia, Iran around the globe on these critical mineral supply chains put America at risk right now? I think it's one of the greatest existential threats this country faces.

because most of the critical minerals and precursors for drugs and those types of things we get from countries that don't really like us. I don't want to be dependent on China and have them be able to cut off our medical supplies, which was threatened during the COVID epidemic and stuff. And I think people were surprised at how reliant we are on some of these foreign countries for these things. In terms of critical minerals, you know, it's interesting. We get most of them from overseas,

But we have them here in this country. The problem is getting to them. They're on public lands and again we're back to permitting and development of those resources. It takes so long that we just bought them from overseas. Most of our uranium comes from Russia. That's our nuclear reactors, our nuclear weapons, other things. You need uranium.

we've got it here in this country and we ought to be able to get to it. So that's one of the things that I think I've been focused on for the last 10 years or so. Now I think a majority of members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, say we've got to break this supply chain. We can't rely on foreign countries. And that's one of the real important things that Trump, his administration, is going after, is trying to not rely on other countries for things we have in this country. Isn't there a bunch of Ukraine?

Uranium down in southern Utah? There's uranium down in southern Utah and a couple other places in this country, but we don't get a lot of our uranium from there. Congressman, talking to you today reminds me, I was talking to a consultant this week who's managing a gubernatorial race in North South Dakota, and it's not Dusty Johnson, who we've had on the show many times. And he said, you know what Dusty's problem is? And I go, what? He goes, he actually wants to get stuff done. And I feel bad because I think that's you. Just hearing you've been talking about something 10 years ago.

Which you think nine and a half years ago, there would have been a bunch of your colleagues say, you know what? This is a problem. We probably need to be self-sufficient in this area. I'm all for free trade, get our toys and consumers and things. But things like pharmaceuticals, you know, these relevant materials we need to buy.

be a self-sufficient nation? Why has this not been alarming to your fellow members of Congress when you've been talking about 10 years and you obviously know what you're talking about? Well, it is. I think some people just haven't focused on that. And sometimes you have to hit Congress between the eyes with two before. And that's kind of what COVID did. And

People would, I would hear people say, you mean we're relying on China to get us the antibiotics that we need for these diseases and that kind of stuff? And I think people were really surprised. And that woke people up. So I think it's kind of bipartisan that we've got to get our own things. But, you know, one of the things that's really important that Trump is doing, if we get back to energy, is he's trying to make us energy independent again. Yes. We were in his last administration, and then we started...

becoming dependent on other countries. We can't be dependent on other countries that some, that is for something that is so vital. And if you want to get our economy booming again, it has to be with energy that's developed in the United States, because that's what it takes. I've been told that the critical factor of the future and our growth in the future is not going to be, uh,

the available of resources and that type of stuff. It's going to be the availability of energy. That will, that's what will limit our growth. And so we've got to get on top of that. And that's what this administration is doing, even though I know it's causing some heartburn with what they're trying to do. Uh,

We're trying to make sure that our trade deals are fair with other countries. They haven't been in the past. And with the tariffs and stuff, I know that's very disruptive to people and worries them. And I talk to them all the time about it. What he's trying to do is lower tariffs worldwide, which is the only way you can do it is to make other countries understand what they've been doing to us. And that's by saying, hey, if you're going to tariff us at 100%, then we're going to tariff you the same thing.

And ultimately, countries, as you see, are going to start coming down. They're lowering their tariffs to match ours. And it's going to be, I think, good for the economy in the long run. But there is a period of pain that we're going to go through. And that's what we're doing now. But as we know now in a social media environment, we don't like pain. It's like on our social media, on our page, if I put a screenshot of something that's like 40 words long,

hundreds of likes, thousands of shares. If I put an actual thoughtful article, say, on energy independence, you know, I mean, no one's reading it. Three likes, one share. Yeah, we have a share. Let me switch to taxes. So what happens if we do not expand the 2017 tax cuts? For example, it's said that if this does not

Idaho, it will cost $2,647 per tax filer every year in Idaho if we don't renew them. What's going... Go ahead. It would be the biggest tax increase in American history, and it would devastate our economy, frankly. So what's the delay? Okay.

Trying to get it done. Everybody always wants to, I mean, this is kind of a bill that all Republicans want to get passed, the reconciliation bill. Right now they're negotiating, each committee has been given directions on how much they have to save or whatever in this thing to extend the Trump tax cuts.

So that's what they're doing. And there will probably be some other provisions in there like no taxes on tips, no taxes on Social Security, that type of thing. But it's vitally important to our economy. And people will say, you know, if you're trying to address the budget deficit, why would you be talking about tax cuts? Because the best way to address the budget deficit is to get the economy growing again.

That will bring in more revenue than anything that we do in terms of spending cuts and stuff. So we've got to do all of that. We've got to do the spending cuts. We've got to do the tax, reform the tax code or extend the tax codes, Trump tax cuts. And that will help our economy. And I think you'll see things come out. I think you'll see them start to start to turn around in the next few months.

Congressman, we have only two minutes left. I want to follow up one thing on that really quickly. We just had an economic report came out. Wall Street reacted very badly initially, but then kind of turned around. Democrats are crowing about the top line number of reduced growth, but the underlying numbers are getting stronger in a hurry, actually. Yes, they are. Uh, if you look at, uh, the, the job growth that came out, uh, today, uh,

I thought it was a very encouraging report. In fact, it's your building on the growth that we've had in the last couple of months. And I think the reports that are coming in are very, very optimistic about what's going to happen with our economy. And my big thing is, you

you know, there's two ways, I guess you could look at trying to balance the budget. One is just by raising taxes and raising taxes and raising taxes. We can't raise taxes enough to address our budget deficit. You've got to get the economy growing and that's what we're trying to do. And you get the economy growing by, uh, reducing, uh,

and regulations and all that kind of stuff. And also by letting consumers keep more of their money so that they spend it and that grows the economy and you'll get more revenue in from that than anything else. So I'm very encouraged by the economics, uh, numbers that are coming out. But like I said earlier, there's going to be a time, uh, a period of a few months where it's a little painful and people wonder what the hell is going on. Well, I think it's, I think everything, uh, is, is going exactly as we anticipated. Uh,

and that in the long run, this economy is going to be great, is going to be much stronger than it otherwise would be. Absolutely. Thank you, Congressman Simpson. We love having you on the program. Look forward to having you back here again in the near future, folks. You want to stay tuned. Coming up for the final two segments on air, we have Josh Hammer. He's another friend of the program, senior editor at large at Newsweek. So you're definitely going to want to catch that.

But remember, if you're not already a podcast subscriber, go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or anywhere you get your favorite podcasts. We're there. Get signed up because you're going to get that extra content every single week, including the fan favorite, Kylie's Corner. Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back. Support American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium made in USA gear. Don't settle. Wear your patriotism proudly. Visit OldGloryDepot.com today.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with yours, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Thank you to our previous guest, Congressman Mike Simpson. And up now, friend of the program, Josh Hammer, senior editor-at-large at Newsweek and the host of The Josh Hammer Show. He's also the author of a new book, Israel and Civilization, The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West, which reached as high as number three on Amazon. Follow him on X at Josh underscore Hammer. Josh Hammer, welcome back to the program.

It's a pleasure. Thank you guys for having me again. So you have your new book out and you make a, you know, quickly going through it. You make the point that Israel is the West's man on the spot, our soldier at the gate, who's basically the tip of the spear against the battle of Islamic terrorism. Explain to our audience why that is, because people miss the obvious on this.

Sure. So that part is pretty obvious, right? At least I think it ought to be obvious, which is that just strictly limiting this to a geopolitical calculation, you can look at the fact that there are three –

massive forces that I identify in the book that threaten to overrun, subjugate, and God forbid, destroy what we refer to as Western civilization. And those forces are, in no particular order, wokeism, Islamism, and what I call global neoliberalism. The latter most essentially referring to the United Nations, the whole economic form. It's kind of the song –

imagine from John Lennon playing out on a geopolitical level. This idea that you're going to eradicate all borders, I call it the great homogenizing imperative. So you have wokeism, Islamism, and global neoliberalism. And my argument in the book is that the state of Israel, and indeed, actually, the children of Israel, the Jewish people, are the tips of the spear, the canary in the coal mine on both of these threats. So when it comes to radical Islam, it's

It's pretty self-explanatory. I mean, Israel is right there, the state of Israel that is in the heart of the Middle East. They are the West's man on the spot. For instance, last year, Israel took out two high-ranking Hezbollah commanders by the name of Ibrahim Akhil and Fuad Shakur, who were responsible for, respectively, the 1983 bombings.

Beirut embassy bombing in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, those two jihadists literally had $5 and $7 million U.S. State Department bounties on their head for decades, and they managed to escape unscathed until the Israel Defense Forces did, quite literally, did America's dirty work for it, and that

particular respect there. So it's very much the tip of the spear when it comes to fighting back against Islamism. I think that Israel is also the tip of the spear when it comes to fighting for the nation-state, against the forces of globalism and global neoliberalism there. And in the book, I argue that there's actually a deep, profound reason for this, which is that

Going back to biblical times, when King David united the tribes of Israel in Jerusalem about a thousand years or so B.C., that was actually the antecedent to the modern nation-state. Back then, actually, that was the nation-state model from the Bible that was in contrast to the imperial model of geopolitical relations that was being, at that time, spearheaded by the Roman Empire.

So if you care about the nation state as well, I argue, and you resist globalism, which I certainly think everyone should do because the world is better when it's run by nation states. That's kind of the imperative of nationalism. If you care about that, then you really ought to care about Israel as well because they are the tip of the spear when it comes to fighting back against the UN World Economic Forum and so forth, globalizing imperative.

And then also when it comes to the final threat, which is the threat of wokeism, essentially this modern form of cultural Marxism that divides the world into oppressor and oppressor classes, I think the key insight here is

It's recognized when the DEI, the Wokoradi, the far-left neocultural Marxists, when they're coming after both the state of Israel and the Jewish people, which we increasingly see, tragically, on university campuses there, just like anti-Semites have done for thousands of years throughout history, the end goal is never the Jewish people. The end goal is always something much greater than that. Karl Marx would be a perfect example here. So Karl Marx, horrible anti-Semite, writing in the 1840s. He had a deeply anti-Semitic

essay called On the Jewish Question, but we all know that Karl Marx's end goal was not just the destruction of the Jews. His end goal was the destruction of Western capitalism and Western Christendom. So, you know, as is often said, they first come for the Saturday people, then the Sunday people. So the

You know, for all these reasons, the state of Israel, but also just the children of Israel, the Jewish people, the original people of the book, they really are the tips of the spear here, the canaries in the coma. We have just one minute left in this segment, then we're going to be coming back with more from Josh Hammer. But Josh, on that front, we had a guest on the program a couple of weeks ago. Shea Kateri was talking about how the Gulf states...

and even the Iranian population are kind of starting to lean away from radical Islam. The Gulf states have even taken steps to sort of de-radicalize their mosques. Is the push by the radical Islamic sects to infiltrate U.S. colleges kind of their last stand if they lose that fight?

Well, it depends on which state we're talking about. So Saudi Arabia, under their crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, has indeed done yeoman's work to crack down on radical strands of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, strands like that. Qatar is really the number one issue when it comes to foreign funding of radical Islamism. Qatar is the number one foreign funder of American higher education.

They are the home of Al Jazeera, the number one supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and various other Islamist movements. So it kind of depends which Sunni Gulf they were talking about. Iran is really the head of the snake. Iran continues to be the number one issue throughout the region there. They really are kind of the ultimate wellspring of pretty much all the jihadist evil in the region. And sadly, unless and until there's some resolution there, we're not going to have peace and stability in the Middle East. Absolutely. We're coming back with more here from Josh Hammer in one moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. We're continuing on now with our interview with Josh Hammer, friend of the program and senior editor at large at Newsweek. Follow him on X at Josh underscore Hammer and be sure you go to Amazon or wherever you'd like to get your favorite books and pick up a copy of his new book, Israel and Civilization, The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.

Josh, you've been writing about the Harvard situation and the Trump – now they have said they're going to get rid of their tax-exempt status. But you had a great line in your Telegraph piece where you said, if it walks like a Hamas-occupied territory and it talks like a Hamas-occupied territory, then what is it? And this is reference to Harvard and these other college campuses. Right.

Do you think the Trump administration has taken the correct approach with these colleges? Oh, 1,000%. I think that this...

This reckoning between the American people through our duly elected representatives in Congress and the executive branch, this grand reckoning between we the people and higher education is literally decades in the making. So, I mean, you referenced my Telegraph piece. I had a new piece at the Telegraph, the British newspaper, this week. I also had a column, my syndicated column, a couple weeks ago. And in the syndicated column, I was talking about how

It was William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review Magazine. In many ways, he's considered one of the intellectual godfathers of the modern post-World War II conservative movement. I mean, let's not forget that before Buckley even founded National Review Magazine, he wrote his first well-known book, God and Man at Yale, which is exactly what it sounds like. It was essentially a 1950s-era creed decor against liberal secular tyranny in the ivory tower at Yale University. He wrote this book.

back in nineteen fifty one memory serves so they've been a problem for a very very very long time and here here at how i think that because generally when i when i approach

political, public policy questions like this. I try to think not merely of kind of the superficial baseline assessment, but I try to think of conceptually what's going on here. And conceptually, my understanding here is that we, the people, through our representatives long ago, made something of an implicit quid pro quo with higher education. Because when you look at the

at the treatment that higher ed gets when it comes to the American taxpayer, it's extraordinarily beneficial. So for instance, for ultra wealthy universities like Harvard, their endowments are taxed at a rate of 1.4%. I mean, utterly astounding. That is a tiny fraction of what that exact same institution would be taxed if we're operating as a hedge fund or frankly just any other kind of business.

consider the fact that the federal government again through in theory our our elected representatives has given carte blanche to a monopoly on student loans and the federal government having a monopoly on student loans has done incredibly horrific work to engorge these universities and specifically their increasingly woke bureaucracies when it comes to dei and so forth there and then we also just directly subsidize a lot a lot of higher education institutions through billions and billions of dollars i think a lot of people are probably shocked

with these headlines over the past couple of months talking about how the Trump administration is pulling $400 million from Columbia, $2.2 billion to Harvard. I think a very reasonable reaction for most Americans to be, what the heck? I mean, when did I sign up for that? And, you know,

Again, the implicit understanding is that we're subsidizing higher ed because we think that higher ed is a good thing. We think that they are ultimately instilling sound values and ultimately producing young men and women who are going to be patriotic citizens and conduced to the common good. But the point here is that higher ed dropped their end of the quid pro quo bargain a very long time ago.

And Donald Trump, just like he's the first person since Richard Nixon to try to reassess U.S.-China relations, so too is he the first person in decades to try to reassess the relationship between U.S. taxpayers and higher education.

I think it was Linda McMahon the other day who said, you know, look, we we cannot you cannot be a country or continue to be a country if you're teaching your kids to hate that country. Yes. Right. I mean, fundamentally. But that now extends all the way literally K through university. Right.

How do we start breaking down those barriers? And, you know, I grew up in an era when maybe the American tale was told a little too positively. But I think that's a much better outcome generator than our current education system, which is just tearing this country down.

100% tearing down. If you teach young people that they live in a den of iniquity, that they live in a bastion of racism and misogyny and xenophobia and whatever other types of modern phobias you want to throw in there. I mean, you're going to produce a generation that is not going to want to succeed, they're

You're going to build a generation that's going to want to tear down and destroy that which our forefathers have built. So I don't have any necessarily panaceas for how to fix education in America because this is a very multifaceted, complicated issue there. Certainly, I live in Florida, and I happen to view my state as something of a bit of a role model for when it comes to turning around education.

education, both public education and private education. So if you kind of look at what we've done in Florida here, our governor, Ron DeSantis, along with reformers in the legislature, have gotten very, very involved with local school board races there. And just trying to encourage young patriots to actually run for their local school boards. You know, I get asked a lot. A lot of people say, how can I get involved here? How can I make a difference there? And there's a lot of ways to answer that question, but I always encourage people to try to get involved in local politics.

And oftentimes that's actually going to entail your school board and literally just trying to get there and have a say when it comes to what the local public school curriculum is teaching there. Now, increased school choice, more vouchers, more educational opportunity is definitely part of the equation. And fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has had a number of sound cases when it comes to school choice. There was actually a very interesting case argued just this past weekend of Oklahoma. So we're probably going to get more good jurisprudence on that front.

But the majority of Americans still go to public schools, not private schools. So you really have to be willing to get your hands dirty when it comes to running for school board, when it comes to trying to get people in education secretary at any level there who are going to actually shape the curriculum. Because ultimately, we hear a lot from folks on the left about banning books,

But no, the basic reality is that a school curriculum is going to be a zero-sum exercise. There are literally only enough hours in the day. You actually cannot teach anything. You actually do have to make value judgments as to what is being taught there. And it's deeply important that we elect and are able to put into power the right people who will make the right decisions as to what is taught and what is not taught.

I love your comment that people need to run for local office, especially school board. And I think what's something your audience and our audience need to recognize as well as the following. You know, 39 percent of Americans are introverts and 31 percent identifies both extrovert and introvert, which probably means they're more introvert. You know, just showing up at your school board meetings.

can have a tremendous result. Same thing for city council. They just simply get stacked with public employee unions and they just ramrod everything down. And you see all these clips. One of the social media is going to show clips of parents showing up at meetings and how it has changed things. So it will be interesting for all of us to go push more. Show up at your meetings Tuesday night, right? Just go get involved.

Totally, 100%. That really is the highest bang for your buck approach as far as actually making a difference. You know, earlier in our conversation, we were talking about my book, Israel and Civilization, and one of the things that I do in the book, and I promise I will take it back to education, but one of the things that I do in the book here is I talk about how so many of the everyday-to-day moral and ethical norms and really just the ways that we think about our legal system

and our politics really does stem from the Bible, from the geochristian tradition there. And one of the things that I cite is I cite the book of Jeremiah, actually, from the Hebrew Bible, from the Old Testament, which talks about the imperative to seek the welfare of your city, because there you will find your welfare. That's paraphrased, but that really is kind of the biblical antecedent to this localist imperative, to this idea of being active at a local grassroots level. Look, national politics is...

It is contentious. It is fractious. It gets a lot of headlines there. But if you want to bang for your buck as far as what you, the citizen activist, can do there, you're typically going to find that more at the local level. Yes, we're with Josh Hammer. He's the editor-at-large at Newsweek. Josh, what do you think of the Trump administration's negotiations with Iran? Well, I'm skeptical, but –

I'm not literally dead opposed either. So here is my concern. My concern is that you have some titans of real estate. Donald Trump's a titan of real estate. Steve Wyckoff, his Middle East special envoy, another real estate billionaire. And when you think about what the modus operandi, the mentality of a real estate guy is, it's deal, deal, deal, show me the deal. I mean, Donald Trump literally wrote the art of the deal. Steve Wyckoff has been a real estate prolific dealmaker his entire life, including here in Florida where I lived.

And my worry is that when you prioritize the deal at all costs, you're going to get a little less concerned about what's actually in the deal. But my new column that I published at Newsweek and elsewhere, my syndicated column for this week, basically tries to remind people that, no, a deal is not the goal. A deal is a possible – is one of multiple means to a goal.

it's a preferred means to be clear everyone prefers a deal with everyone literally everyone prefers diplomacy to the alternative of kinetic or military action but we have to be very clear about what our means and what our ends here the goal is a non-nuclear iraq because iran is a fanatical islamist terrorist state that shan't get to america in the legislature every single day that he killing americans every opportunity they they've had willie since the hostage crisis that ended jimmy carter's presidency back in nineteen seventy nine

And we have to make sure that the world's most fanatical jihad-supporting regime does not fire the most dangerous weapons known to man. That is the goal, period, full stop, end of story. If there is a way to achieve that via a deal, I say great. But color me skeptical because the mullahs of Iran are known for nothing if not known for their ability to deceive and bamboozle the Western masses. So I'm skeptical. I'm not outright opposed, at least at this particular juncture, but I just really, really hope

That the negotiating team and ultimately President Trump himself really just recall the difference between means and ends here and will not lose the forest for the trees in understanding that the goal, the actual goal is a non-nuclear Iran.

Let's talk about Marco Rubio for a minute. How many more jobs can he do? I mean, what is he, USAID director? He's National Security Advisor now. There was a funny tweet last night. I sent it to you, Sam, where a guy says, it's 2041. Marco Rubio is the only person in the White House. He turns out the lights, knocks on the wood for a job well done. How do you think he's doing as Secretary of State?

You know, I have to be honest with you guys. I do this for a living every day. I genuinely had forgotten that Marco Rubio was also the acting administrator of USAID. I literally had forgotten that. So, yeah, I guess he's doing that in addition to becoming the first person since Henry Kissinger to be simultaneously secretary of state and national security advisor. My goodness. I don't know how that man finds time for his wife and children and his wonderful family.

I think Rubio is doing a great job thus far as Secretary of State. Now, look, the Trump foreign policy agenda remains a work in progress, partially because of the Iran issue that we were just discussing. I mean, let's not forget that Trump on the campaign trail also said that he would come in and get peace in the Russia-Ukraine theater within one day. And that obviously has not happened. And in fact, both sides are continuing to shell the other there. So that's very much a work in progress as well.

I think Rubio himself, though, from what I can tell, says all the correct things and does all the correct things. I consider him to be a voice of clarity, certainly when it comes to the Iran issue. I think that he is someone who understands geopolitics and foreign relations very well. In many ways, he was a former senator who I think was destined for this exact office, Secretary of State, and I've not been disappointed thus far. I simply hope that he has time for his wonderful wife and children is really it.

Wrapping up here, we have just two minutes left. You had a great piece, Trump's life work culminates in confronting communist China.

You were talking about all the conflagrations that Trump walked into in his second term with Ukraine, with the Middle East. But would getting a reset in our China relations and a reset in our economic relations there be the ultimate accomplishment of his second term? I think it would be. And it would be a continuation of the work that he did in his first term. So when you think about Donald Trump's foreign policy in his first term, I think a lot of people probably think

about the middle east i think about point out of iran nuclear deal from brocco bomb although think about the abraham accords peace deals between israel and then bahrain that the u_a_a_ morocco and sudan and

Don't get me wrong, those are very, very important developments there. But you could argue that Donald Trump in his first term, which I actually talked about a little bit in his column that you just kindly fled from a few weeks ago, he really did begin in his first term the work of unwinding the great U.S.-China bear hug that Richard Nixon commenced with his visit to Mao Zedong in Beijing in the early 1970s there. And

He really did slap a lot of punitive tariffs on China. Those tariffs have very much continued and been amplified and escalated here in the first few months of this administration there. Trump is a true believer on the issue of reassuring manufacturing, of increased supply chain resilience, of increased tariffs, trying to make American manufacturing great there.

I think when it comes to China in particular, he is on extremely, extremely firm ground for having those beliefs there. He's the right man at the right time to try to extricate the U.S. from this awful U.S.-China bear hug. It's painful now, but I wish him nothing but the best mid to long term. I think he'll be successful. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Josh Hammer. We always love having you on the program. Breaking Battlegrounds back on the air next week.

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Welcome to the podcast portion of Breaking Battlegrounds. We're going to be getting to everybody's favorite segment, Kylie's Corner, here in just a minute. I know folks, I actually had literally three folks DM me last week, Kylie, and they were like, where is Kylie's Corner? Were they bitter? They were bitter. I was out of town collecting all the evidence out there. I mean, you were doing the research, you were doing the work, but they want delivery. They want product. Yeah. Product. Product.

Like Americans want dolls for Christmas. They want product. Cheap dolls made with terrible chemicals that will be in your bloodstream forever. I don't know. I listened to a Robert Kennedy thing the other day. I just can't help myself. You know, I wanted to bring up something. Sam and I have this group chat with some consultants, and there was this thing on Axios which –

I got last night, and the title of the article was U.S. Press Freedom Falls to Historical Low. Now, Kylie, if I was telling you U.S. press freedom falls, what comes to your mind? That's a great question. I would say the freedom of the press. Like they can't be reported, right? If you and I went on the street and asked 100 people today, three would say, what's the press? Right, right.

It might be four or five these days. Tan would say, I don't know. Tan would say, I don't know. And the rest would say, well, that means that you're not being allowed to report. You're being censored. Yeah. Are you being censored? Are you being arrested for trying to do your investigative work? So it's all this article in our first friend, Chris Cisolo, also did this as well. And it comes down to this, that they're having financial problems.

So, you know, for example, they use reporters without border sites that Trump administration ever covered to cut funding for public broadcasters, which is bunk because PBS can fund themselves. And there are basically there's no need for them anymore, such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe. Now, I talked to Shea, we know, and Shea just says, first of all, the article's bunk. They do this every time Trump's elected. Right. The only time they do it. Of course. But he said, you know, Voice of America, he goes, that's what they get in Iran. He goes, it's a big deal. So, you know, but.

Should they be doing it differently? The answer is yes on that, right? It also cites non-government factors, which is the biggest thing, as threats to funding journalism, such as dominance of major internet platforms over the advertising economy.

Such constraints have led to consolidation globally amongst media outlets. How is that restricting press freedom? You don't have a product that wants buying. What the heck consolidation are you talking about? There are so many more media sources, press sources, information sources today than there were 20 years ago. It's insane. And then the economic indicator worldwide.

has reached a new low point with 160 of 180 nations surveyed experiencing difficult to know financial stability. Again, how, press is talking about free speech.

No one's stopping that. I don't see Trump administration jumping on the free press. I don't have him jumping on the crap that's on Substack all the time, including our crap. Compare what was going on. I mean, so if you want to talk about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, compare what's going on under Trump who dismantled the government censorship complex to Joe Biden and the Democrats who were building it furiously. Everybody involved with this article –

would absolutely embrace the return of CISA and all of these censors. Here's another point they make. The report also cites the conflicts in areas like Gaza and Haiti as examples where political instability has, quote, plunged the media economy into chaos. Second point. This is one they mentioned that made me laugh the hardest. The gutting of the United States Agency for International Development, ICA,

it says, has thrown hundreds of news outlets into critical state of economic instability and some to shut down, particularly in Ukraine. So basically, these were all government mouthpieces. Yes. These are all these are all propaganda. They're propaganda. This is this thing is just such a joke. And what they don't understand is this is why we got Trump. Yes. People are just sick of this. This article is a complete underline because you don't put a product that

that people find interesting. I mean, for example, if you took away the legal reporting mechanisms in Arizona Republic, would they be in business, Sam? No. They have nine columnists, eight are Democrat, and one's sort of a Republican. And you're in a red state. So you would think at the minimum, even if you're a liberal paper, like, okay, I'll have five liberal columnists and four Republican. They can't even do that. So don't talk to me about freedom of the press when you have no desire to be an objective person

Arbiter of press, of freedom, of information. So here in Arizona, for instance, right now, if you look, like 53 percent of the population leans right, right of center. Right. You do not even try to get to that audience or have them buy your newspaper. No, because they all think they're Nazis. There's the last point. This is just too comical.

Countries like China, Uganda, and Ethiopia are now classified as, quote, very serious, end quote, in terms of press freedom threats. Really? China? Oh, I'm shocked. Can you imagine China has press freedom threats? No. Did you need a report for that, by the way? No.

Did not. So anyway, folks, Axios, whose publisher and editor came out and had this lukewarm blaming some of his colleagues for not reporting the Biden cognitive cover-up, has now put out an article today by Sarah Fisher that U.S. press freedoms fall to historical low because, quote, we're basically not giving local media enough money because they don't provide a product that anybody wants to read. Right.

That's not a press freedom issue. No. All those reporters could go put anything on Substack or social media and it's on. Right. That's freedom of the press. That's freedom of expression. Well. Get a product someone wants. Look, these papers still could have a major platform. 100%.

But they're choosing to throw it away. And I want them to have a platform. Sure. You and I would love to have just a paper that's objective and has both sides. When I grew up here in Arizona, that was the Arizona Republic, and it was a really good newspaper. Not anymore. It's a joke now. So, Kylie, we're done with our rant. What do you got? Who's killing who today? We're going to introduce the Kylie's Corner. Where's our theme song? Yeah.

in a world of sin and oh kylie's on a roll kylie's got a corner and she's gonna start spilling out all the true crime in the world we're living in so come and take a spin and listen in

Okay. Well, this first part actually kind of goes to what we were just talking about. So Chuck had sent me an email about this guy named Turtle Boy, Aiden Kearney. He's covering the Karen Reid trial. And he was like, do you want to have him on the show? And,

I have to be a little bit careful with that because he's actually... A judge is actually determining if he should be held on... For intimidating a witness held in jail without bail through the rest of the trial for intimidating a witness because he said... So Axios is not reporting on this freedom of expression. No, he said that he wanted revenge from one of the officers that is going to be testifying on the trial. And so the judge said...

that the issue is how far does the First Amendment take you and when does it become intimidation of a witness? The word revenge, some of those and other words of that are very, very close. So because he used that word revenge. But,

Back to my stories for today. The Karen Reid trial did start last week when I arrived in Boston. The very first day I arrived, I'm like, this would be the first day of the Karen Reid trial. I was unaware because kind of when you're out here on the West Coast, you don't hear about it as much. Well, and I love the description how she was dressed. Oh, yeah. They said she was dressed in a killer. It was like a killer pantsuit for her murder trial. Karen Reid shows up in killer pantsuit for her murder trial, something like that. That was from TMZ. But so...

I want to tell this story because I heard about this story when I was in Boston as well. It happened in the same exact town as this Karen retrial. And the Karen retrial, for those that don't know, if you don't know yet, she's the one that's being charged for killing her Boston police officer by hitting him with a car and then leaving him to die in the snow. She is saying it's a police cover up. And he went to this police party and they beat him up and then left him outside on the front lawn for him to be discovered the next day. Right. So.

That case has happened. And then prior to this, another case has happened with Sandra Birchmore, where she was a 21-year-old. She was interning at Canton Police. She was hooking up with one of the officers. He got her pregnant. He was married. He strangles her, kills her, and then they rule it as a suicide. But the family was like, we don't believe this is suicide. So they opened it up.

the FBI arrested him and this was all discovered last year as well. But then there was another case that happened in Canton that I haven't discussed yet, which was Craig Casey. So he was in his early 20s and this was in Christmas Eve in 2018. So he was in Stoughton, which was the town next to Canton, and he was driving his car home. It was around five in the morning. He sideswiped a car in Stoughton and then got to Canton and actually crashed his car in front of John O'Keefe's house.

Now, the police investigated. They said the car rolled three times and they could not find the body. They came, they cleaned up the scene, and then they left, right? They're there for two hours, however long it takes to clean up the scene. About 45 minutes later, they get a call from someone saying there's a body on a lawn, which is right next to John O'Keefe's house. The body was Craig Casey, the driver of the car, which was 90 feet from the car crash.

Which is the distance from home plate to first base. That's how far the body was. And Massachusetts State Police and Canton Police were both there. The same agencies that investigated John O'Keefe's death could not find this body 90 feet away from the car. So it was ruled that he rolled his car. But if you look at the car, there was no there's no scratches on the top of the car.

Which is what would happen if you roll a car. Yes. The windows would be shattered. They weren't shattered. Yeah. So the police ruled that he rolled his car. Yes. How? That's... And then couldn't find the body. And then an hour later or 45 minutes later, someone walking their dog found it on the lawn, on the front lawn. I am quickly Googling here. What's the damage if you roll your car? Oh, yeah. No, no. I mean, look, the whole roof...

The whole roof's going to be torn up. The windows are going to be cracked. I mean, yeah. No, that's not like... Even AI Overview says a rural car will experience significant damage ranging from cosmetic issues to severe structural damage and engine problems. Yeah. It looks like he got in a crash on the back of the car or the side of a car or something. It was a lot of damage on one part of the car. So, yeah, that's happening over there. But the real story I want to talk about today is...

is the possible fact that there's a New England serial killer. So the first day I get to Boston, I turn on the news and I see something. It goes, seventh body found in New England area. And it immediately catches my attention. I'm like, seven bodies are found. So now two weeks later, a week later, there have been 11 bodies found since March. So in two months, 11 bodies found in a two to three hour radius in Massachusetts, Canton and Rhode Island. They're all female bodies.

We don't know every female, we don't know every body, how they were discovered, but many of them have been dismembered. Some of them have been described as they found a torso of the body or... Do we know anything about the background of the victims? We know the background of some. They are brunette and tan-skinned.

So there's a pattern. Yes, there's a pattern. Are they? I would say they're in their 30s and 40s. Are they single women? Are they drug addicts? The three who we know most of the information were single women. One of them was a bartender and she was very loved in her town. She had so many messages on her obituary. Two women that they actually connected to missing women from 2019 and 2021. Wow.

Wow. The bodies have been found, discovered along the I-90 corridor. So there's speculation that maybe it's a truck driver, maybe what's going on. The police are actually very mad at social media and saying this is not the

the case. There was no serial killer. There's no connection between all of these deaths and that social media is causing mass hysteria. I will say out of the 11 bodies found one arrest has been made for the murder of one of the women, Suzanne, um, Warsmer. I think the rest was made yesterday. He admitted to it after being, um, uh,

three times and a third time he said yes I hit her in the head with a baseball bat and then zipped her up in a suitcase because she took $200 of my crack cocaine so that body is out of it but there's still 10 bodies that have not been you know

So, Kylie, this is actually before my time and well before your time, but I really think since the summer of the son of Sam in New York that authorities have been really reticent to admit how many serial killers are actually out there. Yeah. I want to – like is one sociopath better than 12 sociopaths out there? Exactly. That's right. Like we either have 12 or we have one. That was the question I was going to ask you. So we have 12 devious, murderous people walking among us or we have one? Yeah. Yeah.

Over there in New England. Keep your head on a swivel. Clearly. They are saying the bodies are found in wooded areas where people are biking and walking. And yeah, that's... So don't walk and bike by yourself. So there are... As of 2020, there were 3,613 documented serial killers in the United States. I never heard of one. Which is considerably higher. Well, yeah, that's what they're... But that's what they're guessing, right? So, I mean, you know, I mean...

There's just some odd people out there. Yeah. That's why you probably always need to park in a light spot. You need to follow Sam's example in the car. Use your car as a weapon. Women and men need to be prepared. Did we ever find out what happened to that male yoga instructor that they found his body at the – No, I haven't heard anything. What was it? A pit or airport or something like 10 days later? Here, yeah. Yeah. In Arizona. He was very new to the town. Now, I mean – Sounds like a date gone bad, frankly. Unfortunately. Yeah.

Looking out for yourself... The world is a dangerous place. You have to be prepared to look out for yourself, right? But at the end of the day...

I don't feel like the restriction of information in this case helps at all. No, no. I think more out there is better. Yeah. No, no. I mean, you want people to be a lookout for it. And I understand the police don't want to cause alarm. But Kylie made the point. Are you feeling safer with one serial killer or 12 nut jobs? Yeah. How many am I looking out for? Because I will say on TikTok, there are descriptions of suspicious cars that are going around. But it's like...

How many suspicious cars are we looking for? So the FBI says, I gave you this high number before, but the FBI says they estimate there's any given year between 35 and 50 serial killers. Wow. That's like one per state. Yeah. This is why we have, you know, this is why criminal procedure shows make such good money and we always watch them, right? Because there's so many nut jobs out there. Last Arizona serial killer I just Googled. What was it? I'm Googling. Generate quicker.

Folks, thank you for visiting with us as we do Google search that you could do at home, but we're going to do it for you. 2017. Who was it? Cleofus Cooksey Jr.,

I don't even remember that. He's barely a serial killer. He just killed his mom and stepfather. Why do they call him a serial killer? I think if it's more than one, maybe. It's the definition of a serial killer. We've got to define the serial killer. No, come on. That's cheating. Yeah, no, no, no. We've got to have a real number. We had the serial street shooter. Remember him? That was going around shooting the cars. I do remember that. Yeah, no, we did. And we arrested the wrong guy. And then, yeah.

Well, that's interesting. So if you're in New England or New England listeners, be safe out there. Absolutely. I want to talk about one last story. I texted this to Sam and crew last night. So this is to show the D.C. bubble. OK, so Politico has a story about a gentleman that's called the online rights favorite foreign policy guru.

Okay. So I would say Sam and I are fairly consistent news consumers. Yes. Okay. And so Politico does this whole story about this very influential online fan fest for this gentleman named Michael Anton, who people are pushing to be national security advisor. Then they quote some Twitter accounts that people have never heard. Okay. Okay.

So I sent it out to our group last night, this article, which was widely credited for aiding Trump's victory, that he wrote in 2016. It's a pro-Trump essay. No one we've talked to who's very involved in the elections had heard of this essay. I'd never read it. Well, it just – he had a great line that he says –

About 16 was charged a cockpit or die, right? Right. Which is the urgency of the Trump administration, which is a great line, but probably a bit sensitive for a lot of people. This goes again to the D.C. bubble. Literally. Yes. Literally. 95% probably of conservatives who are just on social media, who are always scanning news, could even name this person or what he's done.

I don't know how these folks just – maybe what means – I'll tell you one thing. What I suspect – For the world press freedom rankings, maybe one thing they need to start doing is if you're based in New York or D.C., you've got to go do a between-the-coast assignment for three years. Right. So you get to meet real human beings. Well, you know –

You and I have talked about we have this little group that you were referencing that we have a tweet thread with or text thread with with our friends who are in the same business. I get the sense in D.C. the left has a much larger version of that going on. Yes. So one of these articles gets in that network and then they all start obsessing over it when nobody outside that network is paying any bloody attention whatsoever. No, no, I agree.

Well, folks, thanks for joining us this week. Our great guest, Kylie, great job lining those up. It was fantastic. Again, I still laugh about the conversation I had with the general consultant in South Dakota this week when he's in a Dusty Johnson, friend of the show, is running for governor. And he said, you know, the problem with Dusty is he just wants to get things done. He's too serious. And I just thought, you know, I think Congressman Mike Simpson's in that regards. And

Folks, we probably need more people who just want to get things done. Yeah, look, if you have a boring geek as your representative, you're doing pretty well.

Absolutely. I mean, that's, you know, how many people that you could describe in D.C. in elected office as boring geeks are actually, left or right, are actually bad at their job? No, because they focus on the job. Yeah. And they're generally probably pretty brilliant at constituent services. Yeah, which is how they're still there. So on behalf of our guests and Jeremy and Kylie of Kylie's Corner.

Sam and myself have a fantastic weekend. We're going to end here with a clip of Trump's brief clip of Trump's commencement address yesterday at University of Alabama. It's worth your time listening to this and the other clips on it was quite brilliant. Actually, I thought Alabama K-12 reading is ahead of New York and California and Mississippi as well. Mississippi too. Amazing. Amazing when you focus on basics.

How does that work? Folks, visit us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote or wherever you get your podcasts or join us on social media or Substack. And on behalf of all of us, thanks a lot. And here's the clip for you. First, if you're here today and think that you're too young to do something great, let me tell you that you are wrong. You're not too young. You can have great success at a very young age. You're all very young. In America, with drive and ambition, young people can do anything.

I was 28 when I took my first big gamble to develop a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, the Grand Hyatt. And it worked out incredibly well. But I was very young at the time. I was like a very young person in sort of an old-person business. Steve Jobs was 21 when he founded Apple. Walt Disney was 21 when he founded Disney. James Madison, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson.

They were no older than 25 when they began the journeys that etched their names into the history books for all time. So to everyone here today, don't waste your youth. Go out and fight right from the beginning, from the day you leave this incredible university. Go out and fight, fight tough, fight fair.

But go out and fight. You're going to be very successful, because now is the time to work harder than you have ever worked before. Push yourself further than you have ever pushed yourself before. Find your limits and then smash through everything. Go and smash through. You've watched that football team smash through. You're going to do the same thing. You're at the age when you have the time and vitality to do really incredible things. If you give, just give it your all.