Trump's 100 Days -- The Good, The Bad & the Ugly | Yaron Brook Show
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The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Euron Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Euron Book Show on this, what is it? It's Tuesday, April 29th, and I am in Midland, Michigan. Now, I know you probably don't know where Midland, Michigan is, but it's way up north. We're really close to those...

Those foreigners, those Canadians, those Canadians who just voted for a liberal government. And you might wonder why Jennifer's not in the chat. She's late or something. No, she's actually here in studio. She's right here in front of me. So I'm in a studio that belongs to Northwood University where I spoke this morning and I'm speaking tonight. The studio is actually in downtown Midland. You wouldn't believe the skyscrapers here in downtown Midland.

I'm kidding. It's a small town in the middle of Norway. It took me, I don't know, 40, 45 minutes, an hour to get here from the airport. Not because it's far, but because no taxis. Uber was like, yeah, we don't service you guys. I finally found a Lyft after about half an hour of waiting. Anyway, the university is amazing. It's pretty much a free market dedicated university. It's called Northwood University.

It's mainly a business school, I think. It's like all a business school. It's all business oriented, but free market principles. And the professors, a lot of the econ people, a lot of the people who teach here were trained at a place like George Mason. So trained by Austrian economists. And, you know, really, really good people. And the students who come here come because they know it's kind of a free market leaning place.

And as far as I know, it's a good business school. I had lunch today with the president of the university. That was nice. So not often do presidents of universities invite me to lunch at the local country club. So that was nice. That was nice. And yeah, this is my third time here in Midland.

Jennifer, I think, has arranged all three. Yeah, all three events. Jennifer's arranged with the university here. So thank you, Jennifer. And I've been here once more. So this is my fourth time in Midland. That's hard to believe because I was here, I don't know, 20 years ago speaking at the Mackinac Center. The Mackinac Center is the free market think tank here in right across the street here in downtown Midland. So there you go. Let me know how the sound is.

Because I am using their studio. You know, it's all new equipment. It's, you know, I think it's all working. And it's all good. What else do I want to tell you about my visit? Oh, yeah, I'm giving a talk tonight at, when is it? At 7, 7 p.m. If you're in Michigan and you feel like driving and you can make it by 7 p.m.,

It's at Northwood University and it's it's gonna be on Western civilization The nature of it the defense of it and really it's about the enlightenment So the I think the title is something about the enlightenment, but it's gonna be about defending Western civilization What is Western civilization? It's gonna upset some people I think because religion will come up but that's okay. I do that all the time It's like almost like that's that's my point in life is to do that I'll add to that that today

My Starcel interview came out. So you can find, if you go to Starcel's YouTube channel, you can find my interview, an hour and 10 minutes, fairly long for Starcel, the full interview with me. I think you'll enjoy it. So check it out. Please check it out. It'll be good to get the views up on that interview. Also, funnily enough, there's a professor, a local professor here who has invited me to come and speak. It turns out that his daughter works at Starcel, and she's the one who wrote the article that's being published today

I think the New York Post, maybe, about my interview. So she's the one who wrote it. So I met her last night and gave her feedback so she could edit it. So the interview should be out today as well. Please share, like, share, share, share. Particularly the interview, the video, please share it as widely as you can. Let's get the views up. I mean, it would be nice that, you know, the viewers,

to get a lot of people exposed to this and to get it exposed in the context of Star Soul and me. Anyway, it'll be good. All right, what else did I want to tell you before we get started? I've got one piece of news that we're going to get to in a minute. All right, so today we will be talking about Trump's first 100 days, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I'll start with the good because it's short and we can get that over with quickly and then we can get to the bad and ugly, which I'm going to mix up because I don't know how to differentiate the bad and ugly. It's all bad and it's all ugly. All the stuff I'll talk about that. Not everything is bad and ugly. So that's going to be the topic. You know, it is a normal show. So it will be going. We'll see how long we go. Possibly it depends on your questions. So please feel free to ask questions about anything you want.

I've already got a couple of people asking questions and Jonathan Honing has generously stepped in with a sticker. So please do that. By the way, the title of my Star-Sos thing is your own book.

the full you're on brooke i don't know what a partial you run book looks like but the full you're on brooke selfishness immigration war love liberty and of course i meant that's a pretty good title and those are the topics we cover basically selfishness immigration war love and liberty so uh that all goes together all right i guess the piece of news that i wanted to give you which is um really uh uh fitting for the show right now that is it's it's appropriate for the show

is what I read on Facebook about an hour ago. I mean, literally an hour ago, I think. I read this on James Valiant's website. This is the Leonard Peikoff Study Appreciation Group that James Valiant runs. And I'm just going to read you what he wrote. And he wrote, Leonard Peikoff has, quote, soured, unquote, on Trump officially and says he would not have written about him as he did had he known what we now do.

I don't know if I really have to say anything other than, anyway, some of us knew. Some of us knew. But yeah, I think that's great news. The fact that Leonard Peikoff changed his mind, the fact that he's willing to admit publicly that he changed his mind at 91, he continues to be admirable in that regard. So good for Leonard Peikoff.

I'm glad he changed his mind. I think it's I think that's good. I think it's good for objectivism I think it's good for all of us and Let's talk about Trump's first hundred days. So let's start with the good. Oh, I don't want to say this, right? So I've heard this complaint that I am way biased on Trump that I am too emotional that I call him stupid too often and other similar descriptors

And then I need to be more objective, like Ben Shapiro is objective about Donald Trump and I am not. And so let me just say this about it. No, I don't think Ben Shapiro is objective about Donald Trump. I think Ben Shapiro is whitewashing much of what Donald Trump is doing. I think Ben Shapiro is way too nice to Donald Trump in spite of the fact that he's able to criticize him.

I am unequivocally critical of Donald Trump. I think he has the first hundred days of his administration have been the worst of any administration in my lifetime. Maybe FDR was worse, but I don't know of any other president that was worse. All those descriptors of Donald Trump, insulting descriptors that I pronounce, I actually think are very objective. I think they're all true. I don't think any of them is a falsehood.

And I think that they reflect my actual views on him. And the reason I get angry and frustrated is because it upsets me. And it's frustrating. Frustrating is the right term. That this, everything about, you know, Trump was known.

And this goes, it was not, it was, none of this is a mystery. I indeed, almost everything Donald Trump has done, I predicted on the show and you can go back and test it and figure it out. And I've told this to people for eight years now. So it's frustrating that I have to keep saying it. It's frustrating that there's still resistance to the message. It's frustrating that the world just rationalizes everything he does.

And I see it over and over again. You know, I saw a comment, a number of comments on my Stasso video. Fascinating. I mean, the comment was basically, I agree with everything Iran said until he got to that tariff thing. Doesn't he understand? And then I get the usual comments on tariffs, sort of complete BS. So I'm just frustrated. So to the extent that I call Trump names, it's not because I think they're wrong. It's not because I think they're non-objective.

They are. Maybe they're not the best way to communicate in terms of my views on Trump. Maybe you'd listen more if I didn't call him names. But the reality is I am angry and I'm frustrated and I'm pissed off that this is the president of the United States of America. I love this country way too much to be unemotional about it. I love this country way too much not to be angry and frustrated and pissed off that this is the guy running the country. Now,

The choices were awful. The choices were horrible. And that's part of the frustration. The frustration is, you know, it's there's very little we can do as long as these are the kind of choices. These are kind of options we have. So I will try to use fewer. I'll try to call him an idiot less often than I do. But just remember that I really think he is.

that I really think his understanding of economics is that of a five-year-old. I'm not just venting. I'm not just being emotional when I say that. This is what's frustrating about it. What's frustrating about it, okay, so he doesn't have this understanding of economics. What's frustrating is how many people buy into it. Twitter is filled with people who are rationalizing, justifying, emoting about how Trump is right on tariffs.

even when just a few months ago they thought tariffs were awful and evil and horrible. And it's seeing America descend into this kind of mindless abyss, which has been descending granted for decades, but it's more obvious now than ever, is frustrating and upsetting and all of that. So there you go. That's my explanation for whatever it's worth. I do not think there's anything non-objective or unobjective about what I say.

And if all I do is complain about Donald Trump all the time, that's because he deserves it. And it's also because he hogs the news. And there's almost nothing happening in the world right now that is not somehow related to Donald Trump. True, Pakistan, India is not related. So I did cover that without mentioning. All right, let's get to the 100 days. So let's talk about some good things that have happened and some really good things and some small good things.

I still think the best thing so far, and hopefully this will be outdone as we move into the future. The best thing Donald Trump has done so far is the executive order in which he reversed another executive order that established affirmative action. Affirmative action was an executive order that Johnson signed in 1960, whatever, after the Civil Rights Bill was passed.

that basically required government contractors to not discriminate, to not show that they're not discriminating by having employees, having contracts with people who racially reflect the population, whatever the hell that means. And that law, that executive order, basically morphed into what we today know as DEI.

It starts with government and originally it was pretty narrowly applied, just government contractors. But as government has grown, almost everybody is a government contractor. What tech company does sell something to the government?

So it's grown and grown and grown. And then once it's established as a norm among all the companies that deal with government, which is a lot of companies, then other companies start doing it just in case one day they will deal with government or because now it's the norm and that's what you do in business. You do affirmative action. So it's become, it became the standard, I think the best description of the process by which affirmative action, well, actually the Civil Rights Act, then affirmative action,

Became DEI was written by Richard Hanania. I reviewed that essay a couple of years ago. So Trump, to his credit, and I think this is inspired by Hanania and who inspired people around Trump, not Trump directly, who got this done.

Trump, in a sense, is the first time went to the source, didn't just try to argue against the EI, but eliminated the origin, the fountain, if you will, of the whole DEI movement, which was at least its fountainhead, not ideological, but its fountainhead from a political perspective, which was that executive order. He did away with that executive order.

That is phenomenal. That is wonderful. That is probably the best thing he did. And as a result of that, he could then launch an anti-DEI program across the entire government and shut down DEI programs left and right throughout government and stop the process, fire the people responsible for it. And that will have the most positive long-term effects,

of any of Trump's actions, as far as I can tell, on the future. So if I had to say, the best thing he did was the reversal of the executive order regarding DIP.

And with that, of course, the attack on or the kind of elimination of DEI, government run DEI programs, which I think I think is pretty is really, really bad, really, really bad. And if kind of, again, filtered into the private market and affect all of it. What else has been good? Well, some of his appointments. We've talked about this. Energy secretary.

what's his name, Interior Secretary, have been good. These are good people. These are people who are responsible. These are people who believe in free market and believe in deregulation. Interior Secretary has a lot of power because of so much of the land is owned by the government and Interior Secretary is responsible for that land. So a lot of the leasing to energy companies, leasing to mining companies is done through the Department of the Interior.

I think Bogram is going to do a decent job there, is going to open it up. Now, a good job vis-a-vis a decent job, an excellent job would entail selling it all. That is taking that land and selling it all. Now, that's not in the cards. It's not on the table. It's not going to happen. So I'll take a decent job. And a decent job just means being open to leasing it.

and to mining and to drilling and to doing all that, which the left and the environmentalist movement so, so, so, so oppose. So I think that appointment is good. The appointment of, uh, uh, of, uh,

I forget his name now, Chris Wright, I think, to Energy Secretary is really good. Again, a lot of deregulation is going to happen there. It's happening already. Although, again, it's slow to implement, but that's not his fault. It's the fault of the process. You got to get hearings. You got to get public comments. It just takes some time. But I think all of that is in play. I think we're going to see significant dramatic deregulation on the energy front and hopefully some real investment in things like

um our energy infrastructure and particularly here i talk about electricity and the grid and things like that uh and and uh we kind of emphasizing that part of the business

Other than that, I'd say EPA, his appointment to the EPA. I don't know this guy myself. He's a former congressman. But Alex Epstein says he's good. And so far, what I've seen in terms of deregulation at the EPA is super exciting. So far, even more exciting than energy because this is where rubber hits the road. I mean, it's the environmental regulations that stop pretty much all pollution.

big construction projects. It stops all what I call civil engineering projects, big infrastructure projects. And if we can get some of these environmental regulations eliminated or dialed back, then I think people will start investing in infrastructure again. I think you'll see a boom in infrastructure. Everything else held constant, of course.

assuming people have money to do it. And that could be very exciting and really crucial for the future of this country. So I'm excited about deregulation and environmentalism. Also, the idea that, hey, we might be able to survive even if, I don't know, some little insect or some little fish or some little toad or I don't, I don't, I don't know. And I,

you know, animals, rats, the desert rat in California, even if they are not protected somehow. And I don't know how this will happen because it's really, really hard to contemplate. Human beings will thrive in spite of that. So it will be good just to show that, not that I think that'll change environmentalist minds, but maybe some of the people in the middle who for some positive reasons think that all this environmental regulation is justified. Let's get rid of it and let's see what happens when we get rid of it.

So those are good things. What else in terms of domestic policy? We'll get to foreign policy in a second. What else in terms of domestic policy can we say

Donald Trump has done good. And I'm happy to get your comments if you want your comments about good things that Donald Trump has done. Please use the super chat to write them out. You know, I'm really racking my brain now to think of other good things that he's done. But other than I don't even know if we've seen any significant deregulation in other departments. Right. Have we seen deregulation? Oh, yeah. I mean, this is pretty good.

He did close down POTS and has expressed interest in completely shutting down the Education Department. Now, it's partially good because, A, you can't shut down the Education Department without an act of Congress, and he hasn't really tried to do that. And, B, most of the things that the Education Department was doing, the government is still doing. It's just now...

Some other department in the government is doing it, not the education department. So I don't know how good that is and whether that is really good. Ed says Doge. God, is Doge good? Is Doge good? I mean, Doge is good in theory. Doge is good in intention. Doge, I think if you say the good, the bad and the ugly, Doge would fall under the ugly category.

the ugly and a little bit, well, I can't say that word. I said I wouldn't say stupid. So it's mainly great intentions, great idea, awful execution, but more importantly, awful strategy or tactics or however you want to define it. No strategy, really. And not going after the right things. No after the right things. No one else has tried to take on the bureaucracy. That's not true.

Many presidents have tried to take on the bureaucracy. Many presidents have appointed commissions to try to deal with the bureaucracy and almost all of them landed up in a very similar position to Doge. Doge did land up firing a lot of people and most of that is good. But if you fire people, but then don't shrink the government, don't shrink spending, don't shrink the responsibilities of government, all you get is inefficiency.

So, for example, they shrunk the number of employees working in Social Security. But they haven't shrunk Social Security. So if you're expecting to get a... If something happens in Social Security that's not right, you want to check, you want to call them up, you want to complain, and you call up Social Security, nobody's going to answer the phone because there's nobody there to answer the phones because they will be fired. So, yeah, fewer people work in Social Security than...

But as long as they're still doing Social Security, all it means is we, the people, get less quality service. And that's true about a lot of these agencies. So you fire a lot of people to the IRS. I'm all for that. I think that's beautiful. That's great. They're not going to come after me. But the reality is that a lot of people are challenged by filling out the IRS forms. A lot of people call up the IRS. I know my accountant sometimes spends hours with the IRS trying to figure out some complicated thing that she's trying to do.

Now, forget it. You're not going to get any response from them. Now, it's also true that maybe they won't come after you if you, how do you say, misrepresent your income. How about that? By accident, of course, not fault of your own. They won't come after you. That's good. But it's also true that you're probably not going to get your refund check very quickly. It's going to take a long time to get that refund check. You know, they're taking the money out of your pocket.

So paycheck, that happens very quickly. But the refund checks did not have people to pay it. So how about we shrink the IRS as we simplify the tax code and make it really, really easy for people to fill it out? And then we don't need as many people in the IRS and then we fire them all.

But this is why I say no strategy. How about we fire a bunch of people from, you know, any one of these departments once we figure out how to restructure them, once we figure out how to shrink their responsibilities, shrink what they do. Ed said he got his refund check in one week. That's good. That's because they were still there when you got your check. I've been waiting forever.

Got it. I'm still waiting for my refund check from last year. Now, granted, I only filed my taxes what was in November because we got an extension. So I've been waiting almost six months now for my refund check to

And it's not coming. And it's a five-figure amount. So it's not a small amount. And it hasn't come. And it's on the... I go to the IRS website and I see it there. And it says, yeah, you've got a $10,000 refund check coming to you. And good luck collecting. That's in small fine print, the good luck collecting. So it's not the right way to do it. The right way to do it is to...

eliminate the functions of these departments and they fire people. Now, I'm okay with the firing. You know, that's why Doge is not bad. It's just ugly. But Doge has also gone through and what have they done? They've cut government spending on science. They've cut scientific grants. Now, I agree completely that government shouldn't fund science. But is that the first thing you would cut? Like, science, we want it to be funded. Our future depends on it. And

Now, government doesn't do it efficiently. It does it pretty badly, but it's better than nothing. Significantly better than nothing, I think. And we haven't made Americans wealthy yet, worthier yet, and we haven't reduced their taxes yet. So who's going to pick up the slack? Like what I would do is deregulate, lower taxes, deregulate, cut spending, cut spending, cut spending dramatically, shrink the government, shrink taxes, and then eliminate government spending on science.

with the idea that the private sector would step in because they have more money now. I would cut corporate taxes to zero when the first thing is I would do as president. And then it's a great idea to cut government spending on science because corporations have more money. They can afford to do it. So Doge, I think, falls in the ugly category. It's a mixture of good things and some bad things. And mostly...

Not well thought out things. Not strategic things. A lack of strategic planning. A lack of strategic planning. That's Doge. Anybody else have any good ones? Good things Trump has done in the first hundred days? You know, first hundred days, you get like almost a free pass. You get to do whatever you want. And Trump has done two good things. I mean, there's significant two good things. Two good things that no Republican president has ever done before. Like get rid of affirmative action and...

and reduce regulation significantly. Maybe other presidents have done that. But what else? What else? Ed says, what are the chances you could get that passed? Get what passed? Get cut in spending? Well, first of all, you have to try. So if you don't try, you're never going to get it passed. And Trump is not trying. When was the last time Trump literally drove down to Capitol Hill, went into Senator's offices and twisted some hands? Never? It's not what he does.

He likes to twist Zelensky's hand. He likes to say no to Netanyahu. He likes to twist CEOs hands. But does he go to Capitol Hill to try to actually get legislation passed? He doesn't do that. That's not what Trump does. So how do we know if it could get passed or not if we haven't even tried? And by the way, you know, under Jimmy Carter, we did a lot of bills that deregulated the economy and we had a Democratic Congress.

Ronald Reagan got the biggest tax decrease in American history passed by a Democratic Congress. He went down and he twisted arms and he cut deals and he got it done. Now you could argue the deals weren't that good, but he got it done. So Trump cannot do it. Trump has hurt woke. Woke was in a decline before Trump. Woke has been in decline for over a year now. I called peak woke Trump.

about a year and a half ago, two years ago, so it's been in decline. Yeah, he said it woke primarily through DEI. That is the thing that has, is really, will manifestly hurt woke. But that's it. As I said, affirmative action, I-E-D-E-I, and, and, and,

There was one other thing which I forgot, right? And deregulation, which is still ongoing and we'll see, but in some areas is pretty significant. But that's it. That's it. So I have to say it's overwhelmingly disappointing, even in a sense for me, who thought all the bad and the ugly, I expected, I predicted on this show. You can check it out. I predicted. I thought he'd do a few more good things.

I thought he'd try at least to cut government spending. Not even tried. If you look at the bill passing through Congress right now, his big, beautiful, massive, great, greatest bill ever passed that Congress is working on right now. It's got his extension of the tax cuts in it, but it's got increased spending and it's got increased deficits. I thought at least he'd give it a shot.

to cut some spending if it was going to get the tech stuff a pass. But no, none of that is happening. So yeah, I see nothing good except what I just mentioned. All right, if you have... I need to stop looking at the comments. So if you have...

Bob Hill is giving Trump an A-. Awesome start. That's amazing, Bob. It's good now that at least Leonard Peikoff at least disagrees with Bob. That gives me a lot of peace of mind that at least Bob or Scott, depending, I don't know if it's Scott, but I think it's Bob Hill or Scott. At least now Leonard Peikoff's not on Bob Hill's side. That gives me some. Those of you who don't know, Bob is officially president.

turned on Trump, if you will, turned against him. All right. So Lickin' Riley, they want me to say something about Lickin' Riley, which was the bill about, that came after the illegal immigrant killed that woman. And that, what does it do? If I remember right, it increases penalties on violent illegal immigrants. Maybe it makes it simpler to deport them.

Given that crime from illegal immigrants is trivial, it's small, given that we already have plenty of penalties for people who commit crimes in this country, I don't know why that bill is of massive significance. To me, it is virtue signaling by Congress to say, look, we care, we've done something. But that's about it. In terms of the good for Trump, eh.

barely barely functions if i have to give trump a grade um probably an f plus or d minus but probably an f i'd say a solid f is is and here i'm being objective if i wait at all those good things versus all the bad and and the the impact that the good will have versus the bad

is clearly enough. The affirmative action, unfortunately, could be reversed by an executive order of a future president on day one with a signature, an auto pen, as they like to say. You can deport them before Lankland-Riley. You could deport, you could send them back home. If they were legally here, you could send immigrants back home. Laws in the past, so it didn't really add that

So it really added nothing. An F plus because of affirmative action. Affirmative action is a big deal. Affirmative action is a big deal, and I give him credit because no Republican since the 1960s has had the balls, the guts to actually strike it through, to actually reverse it. So that's why I'm even contemplating a D minus. It's why I even contemplate going into the Ds because otherwise this guy has fallen flat on his face

and brought America flat on its face because let's talk about the bad. Oh, let's think about is there anything in foreign policy that's good? Has he done anything in foreign policy that's good? One thing that I can think of right now that is a, God, a D plus, that's at least not an F. You know, he's bombing the hoodies. He's bombing the hoodies quite significantly.

It's useless to bomb the Houthis the way they're doing it. They're bombing them in a way that America fights wars. It's bombing. Defense spending, I don't know if any of that is changing. We're not so far increasing and we're not reallocating defense spending as far as I can tell. We'll see what happens. It's a little early to tell. Anything else in terms of foreign policy?

he hasn't taken us out of the UN that would be cool I'd be awful getting us out of the United Nations but he hasn't done that so the radical stuff you won't do um he supports relocating Garzons does you really support relocating Garzons

Does he really? I mean, it's a great one-liner. He got him a lot of attention from the press. A lot of kind of right-wing Jews celebrated and thought this was phenomenal. But while he was saying that, he sent Witkoff to twist Netanyahu's arms to sign the ceasefire agreement. And in the meantime, he has refused Israel's ability to... He's refused Israel's wish to attack Iran. So...

Nothing good other than bombing the Houthis and even that it's half-hearted. It's not that great Trying to think of other positive foreign policy stuff, you know, he's oh He's eliminated the arms embargo that existed somewhat under Biden of Israel. He's released all the arms to Israel He seems to be somewhat half-heartedly supportive of Israel mildly better than Obama we'll see again how that plays out in the future and

In terms of his foreign policy in Asia, a disaster. Foreign policy in Europe, a disaster. Foreign policy with regard to Russia and Ukraine, a disaster. Foreign policy with regard to the UK, nothing. Foreign policy Middle East, eh, he's too much enamored with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Foreign policy, where else? China. China, nothing.

Nothing, nothing so far. So no, no real positives on foreign policy other than a little bombing of the Houthis here and there. All right, let's talk about bad. Let's start with bad when it comes to domestic policy. So let's start with economic policy. And really the number one economic policy that Trump has embraced, supported, promoted, tried to sell is tariffs.

And I'm not gonna do a whole song and dance or why tariffs are horrific, horrible, the stupidest, well, I can't say stupid anymore, God. The most economically ignorant policy one can engage with. Why all his explanations for why tariffs make sense are nonsensical and being debunked by economists left and right. And...

And so, you know, tariffs are just an unmitigated disastrous policy. There's nothing good about tariffs. There's nothing virtuous about it. We were told there would be deals. So far, there are no deals. And the deals that we had, which Trump negotiated with South Korea and with Mexico and Canada, have all been reneged on. So it's not clear why anybody would sign a deal with Trump.

And there's just no upside. There's no positive in all these tariffs. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. And indeed, there is a good chance. I mean, I don't like to make economic predictions, but there's a good chance we're heading towards a recession. There's a good chance that our cost of living is going to go up. Our standard of living is going to go down. That seems to be in the cards.

Cronyism has increased dramatically. That is one of the consequences of tariffs. We saw that again today with the auto industry going begging to Trump and they got two things today. One is he said that he's going to exclude tariffs on certain things like the auto industry will start to pay the 25% tariff but not the 10% plus the 25%. So the 10% is off just 25% which is insane and then

There's going to be some things about auto parts that are going to be excluded, some carve outs here and there. So, yes, lobbying, lobbying and everything else is is working. Bribing Trump is working unequivocally working. So so that is a good thing.

Were the Founding Fathers bad using tariffs to fund the federal government? Yeah, it was wrong. It was absolutely wrong. It suppressed economic growth in the United States. It hampered U.S. competitiveness. There's been a ton of studies showing this. This is the difference between the Founding Fathers and Trump, beyond all the other obvious differences, is that the Founding Fathers, you could say, were innocent.

Indeed, they should have known because Adam Smith told them, but it was still very much at the beginning of capitalism. Even England still had the corn laws, still had high tariffs on certain things until the middle part of the 19th century. So at least you could say they didn't know. But the reality is that every economist knows the unbelievable, horrific damage that tariffs cause. We've learned that through the 19th and 20th century. And it's one of the few things the economists understand.

The 19th century tariffs in America were a disaster. Now, let's also remember, and I can't believe I have to say this again, but I taught two classes this morning and I made this argument this morning. Tariffs, and before you say this, tariffs cannot replace the income tax. They cannot. Mathematically, metaphysically, in reality, there's just, it's like gravity. The math doesn't work. It just doesn't work. You cannot replace the income tax at current levels with tariffs.

The income taxes would have to go down by 80%, maybe 90% for tariffs to be able to replace them. So that is a metaphysical impossibility. And the fact that Trump says it many, many times over and over again doesn't make it true. The fact that Peter Navarro says it at all is enough proof that it is impossible. But that's not the proof I'm going to use. Like everything Peter Navarro says is, I can't say stupid, is wrong, is bad, is wrong.

So tariffs cannot replace the income tax. Doge plus a tariff cannot replace income taxes. No way, no how. Even if, like Doge now says they'll cut $150 billion, which I don't believe. But let's say they'll cut $150 billion. That's nothing. That doesn't affect. Now, even if they cut $2 trillion, which they've given up on, even if they cut $2 trillion, they still cannot replace the income tax.

So I encourage you guys, you guys know mathematics. This is arithmetic. This is not calculus. It's not advanced math. It's not set theory. This is just addition and subtraction. Is there any division involved? I don't think there's any even division involved. So I'm sure all of you can do it. Just do the math. Figure out what the government spends.

Just for fun. Take out $2 trillion. Let's assume Doge can do this fantasy, which is impossible again. Also impossible because they won't touch the security and Medicare, so it's impossible. Take out $2 trillion. So take out the $7 trillion budget. Take out $2 trillion, $5 trillion budget, and try to fund $5 trillion with tariffs. See what the tariff rate has to be.

And then do this thought experiment. If the tariffs are that high, I think about over 100%, what happens to imports? Do they go up and down? Well, if you raise prices, economic theory, and this is not Keynesian economic theory, this is just plain vanilla, straight economic theory. Prices go up, demand for those goods goes down. So you raise prices because of tariffs, demand goes down. Demand goes down, fewer imports come in,

the amount of tariff goes down. The more you raise the tariff, the more imports go down. So they're working in opposite directions. The more you raise the tariffs, the more imports go down. I would bet that there's a certain amount of money that you can raise some tariffs and not a dollar more. It's like this optimal, like in the Lafaco, for those of you who know what that is, a sweet spot, a spot where every time you raise tariffs, the amount of revenue you actually get is the same because even though the rate is higher, the quantity is lower.

All right, so this is like econ 101 kind of stuff guys, so please don't give me doge plus tariff equals income tax. Just like go online and take an econ 101 class instead.

It's just basic education in this stuff. You cannot replace tariffs, the income tax with tariffs. It is a matter of... Now, if you shrink government by 80%, if you cut government spending by 80%, you get rid of Social Security, get rid of Medicaid, Medicaid, then it's possible. Then fine. It's still the wrong policy. It was wrong by the founding fathers. It was wrong in the 19th century. But at least it's possible then. The right policy, by the way, the right policy...

is a consumption tax. Or what the Europeans do. I hate to do anything Europeans do. But a VAT, which is a consumption tax. That is the right economic policy. Do away with income tax, corporate taxes, wealth taxes, everything. Do away with all taxes and base everything on a sales tax. Then it's doable. Then it's doable. But not with a selective tax on just consumption of imports. That is...

It's just an unbelievable fantasy. Whoa, Troy, thank you. Troy came in with his 500 Australian dollars. Thank you, Troy. Really, really appreciate that. So there's something called the fair tax, which I hate the name, but the fair tax, there is no such thing as a fair tax. That's kind of contradiction in terms. But there is the fair tax proposal in the House of Representatives that I would vote for that would replace all our taxes.

death tax, wealth tax, well, we don't have wealth taxes, a corporate tax, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, income taxes, all of those taxes were replaced by a straight, straight sales tax. And that is the right approach, not tariffs. Tariffs are, I'm really picking my words because they're words I'm not allowed to say anymore. They're just a really economically ignorant, bad idea. They make us poor. They do nothing but suppress the economy and they make American businesses less competitive.

because they are now not competing with foreign competition, which is one of the impetuses, one of the incentives to get better, to stay productive, to stay, you know, that incentivizes productivity and growth. So tariffs are an unmitigated disaster that will make America poorer, that will make America poorer, that hurt all of us, hurt our pocketbook, hurt our businesses, hurt our companies,

uh it's bad policy short term and it's bad policy long term it does not reshore manufacturing it doesn't create jobs it destroys jobs it destroys jobs in manufacturing oh by the way today this is the other thing about auto industry i wanted to mention um where is this uh yeah so uh lutnik the the litnick it's such a perfect name letnick it sounds like a nudnik litnick who is the commerce secretary

said today that tariffs are going to apply to foreign carmakers building cars in the United States. I just want you to just let that sink in. Tariffs are going to apply to foreign carmakers building cars in the United States. Even if you buy a BMW built in the United States, you will have to pay 25% tariff. Now, just note that 150,000 Americans work in factories of foreign carmakers.

in 13 US states, 150,000 Americans, many of whom are going to lose their jobs now. Now, will Ford and Chrysler, whatever Italian company's name it is, or GM pick up the slack? Are they going to hire more people? No, no. And if they are, it's going to be different people.

And they're not going to hire 150,000 people. They're not going to hire to make up for those losses. Americans are going to buy fuel for new cars. Americans are going to keep on to their old cars longer. They're going to buy used cars. Used cars, they're not tariffed. You can get a BMW used without paying a 25% tariff. Prices of BMWs, by the way, are going up. Don't sell yours. You know, it's hard for me to express how, I can't use that word again, how just awful this is and ignorant this is.

It's interesting. I'm watching kind of the number of people watching the show and a bunch of people show up periodically every few minutes, maybe because of Stossel or maybe something. And then they hear me speak ill about tariffs and they all go away. So it goes 150, 125, 150, 125. The viewership. Interesting. Yeah, I know it's Fiat, but then it's Stellantis, Stellantis, something like that. Anyway. So, yeah. So tariffs, disaster, disaster.

That's only going to get worse. Trump keeps saying he's going to soften the tariffs on China, but hasn't done it yet. It's already too late. Now, I know you're not feeling it yet. I know you're buying everything as if it's normal. But just wait a few weeks. I think you're going to be very unhappy in like three weeks. I think mid-May is when it hits. When you start having empty shelves and you start not being able to get certain products.

You're not going to be able to fix certain electronics or certainly Christmas season toys are going to be a problem, at least if the tariffs go away. And I'm going to make a prediction that we're going to get very few, if any, trade deals because Trump doesn't want trade deals. He wants tariffs. He likes tariffs. He wants everything to be produced in the United States. He does not want trade. He doesn't believe in trade.

So I doubt you'll get very many deals, particularly not with the big countries. You might get with some little countries. Yeah, it says Amazon is going to list tariffs and costs on all items, which is an excellent idea to show us the price. Here's what Charles Payne says about that, right? So this is about Amazon now listing the tariff on every one of the items. And Charles Payne is a commentator on Fox. He used to present himself as this champion of capitalism. I think he was on a show once.

So he's like this champion of capitalism. This is what he says. And you tell me, if I hadn't mentioned Charles Payne, you tell me who this sounds like. Just forget the name. Just tell me who this sounds like. I wonder if Amazon will also explain to the American public why its profit margin must increase every single year and how much Jeff Bezos' $500 million wedding will cost each customer. They are playing a dangerous political game. Now, who does that sound like?

I mean, to me that sounds like AOC.

That could be AOC, right? Envy of Jeff Bezos' $500 million wedding. Wouldn't you love, Charles, to have a wedding $500 million? I wouldn't, by the way. God, if I had money, the last thing I'd do is spend $500 million on a wedding. I don't know enough people. I don't like enough people to invite the $500 million wedding, I don't think. But $500 million, God. But why is it any of Charles Payne's business?

Imagine saying something like, Jeff Bezos' wedding will cost each customer. What a convoluted Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Bernie Sanders way of looking at corporate profit, of entrepreneurial profit. Jeff Bezos didn't earn that $500 million. Did he earn it by providing their customers with the service that they have? The world would be a different place if not for Amazon. A completely different place and not as good of a place.

500 million is damn cheap. It's nothing. It's a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what we all benefit from Amazon. And then Amazon will explain to the American people why its profit margin must increase every single year. Do you know what Amazon's profit margin is first? It's very, very low. Does it increase every year? Imagine if Amazon's profit increased every single year. It's been around for 30 years. It would be over 30% today.

Not even close. It's under 10%. And this is Charles Payne who comments on economics, who claims to be the friend of capitalism. He's now AOC and Elizabeth Warren. I mean, one of the worst things that Trump's had done, or maybe it's a good thing. Maybe this is under good. He has revealed to us the unthinking zombie nature of so many people on the right that presented themselves once as people

pro-capitalism, pro-American, pro-markets, pro-anything. And now it turns out they're quite willing, happy even, to embrace Elizabeth Warren, to be Elizabeth Warren and AOC's best friend, because that's what supporting Trump requires of them. And maybe that is the most depressing thing about the Trump presidency. So it's good in the sense that we now see who they are, like Charles Payne. Okay, I get him now. But it's super depressing. It's unbelievably depressing.

So tariffs, tariffs not only have destroyed destroying the U.S. economy or destroying aspects of the U.S. economy. You know, people will get around the tariffs. Don't worry. They'll get around the tariffs. Yeah, I mean, Ed makes a good point. Amazon doesn't make much money on the stuff they sell you online anyway. They make most of their money on cloud services. So the profit margin on stuff they sell on Amazon is probably higher.

About 1%, 2%, 3%, like most retailers. Retailers make very little money on stuff, particularly mass retailers like Amazon and Walmart and Costco. So yeah, profit margins are very, very low. But not only is it going to disrupt your quality of life and standard of living, what tariffs have done is they have made cronyism great again. They've made the swamp bigger than ever.

They have established the swamp as much stronger, much richer, and many, many, many more swamp animals than even under Biden. There's much more corruption, much more cronyism under Trump than in any other president in American history. Here I'm more than under JFK for sure, more than under Biden, more than under Obama. This is the most crony administration ever.

So that's bad. What else is bad? Tariffs, domestic policy, just the complete, and this is again related to corruption and cronyism, the complete negation of the rule of law. It's like really just not caring. It's like power, just the use of power, constitutional, within the power of the president or not. One of the most outrageous things that Trump has done

is go after these law firms that have been involved in lawsuits around him in the past. There are over 10 lawsuits now that he has signed executive orders to go after. So these are not civil lawsuits. This is the government going after them, which is going to be constitutional suspect if it ever gets to the Supreme Court. Almost all the law firms have signed deals with Trump, deals with Trump that are allocating $1 billion. I'm not kidding, $1 billion on the law firms

Two causes that support Trump's agenda. Now, this is just straight and out in, you know, completely out corruption. This is I'm going to use the Justice Department to go after you unless you give me money. And the law firms are doing it. Sadly, there are only two law firms that are resisting Trump.

and are suing him and are sticking, staying in court and maybe they will go to the Supreme Court and hopefully they'll rule it unconstitutional. But what Trump is doing is blatant corruption. And again, that has grown the swamp, sets new standard for swampism and you know, is the end of the American system of government if it continues like this and if it's not reversed by the courts.

No, businesses are going to be still in business. Businesses survive. Let's not get hysterical. We're not heading into Great Depression. Businesses are not all going to go out of business. This is just overwhelmingly harmful to business, and it's going to lower our quality and standard of life. Conservatism is rationality? Wow, that's a reach. Conservatism, rationality, don't... Not what I usually think is going hand in hand. All right, let's see. Um...

New definitions of leftism are rising online. Now leftism is associated with free markets. That's pretty pretty weird. That's that's pretty good. This is this is the way This is the way you write the nationalist conservative, right? Defines anybody who is not with them as the enemy as a leftist. That's how you define the leftist Anybody who's not a Christian nationalist is a leftist. Okay, I

What else is bad? Well, I know this is the one you'll hit me the most on. Immigration. Just horrific. Again, no respect for the rule of law. No respect for individual rights. No respect for human beings. Just round them up and send them out. And when you can't round up enough illegal immigrants, well, if you throw in a few legal immigrants, that's okay. Or if you throw in a few people that have...

You know, have court orders not to deport them. That's OK. Who cares about the courts? Who cares? And by the way, we're going to deport some of them to a brutal dictatorship where they will be in a brutal jail for the sin of having the wrong tattoo. Because the thing we do in America is we emulate El Salvadorian dictators.

That's what we want to do in America. We want to emulate the dictator of El Salvador because he is such a good guy. He is so consistent with the founding fathers. He's so consistent with ideas of the founding fathers. We're going to emulate that. So sorry, you know, some of you will argue that I'm not being objective because to be objective, you have to argue both sides of an issue. That's not what being objective means. What being objective is telling you the truth based on facts of reality. This is me being objective.

Trump is really this bad, really this bad. And I wish some of you who voted for Trump will just acknowledge, whoops, we made a mistake. We were fooled. We were fooled. We thought we'd get the better version of Trump and we got a really, really bad one. All right, let's see. Immigration, awful. And by the way, legal immigration is way down. Trump does not want legal immigration.

MAGA, even if Trump wants legal immigration, MAGA doesn't want. Stephen Miller and Bannon and the MAGA group do not want legal immigration. They would love to just ban immigration from this country for 20 years. That would be their ideal. So they are anti-immigration through and we're seeing a decline in immigration.

Trying to think what else domestically. I mean, there's a lot of little, oh, I forgot some of the good stuff. Here's some good stuff. Here are two good things that Trump has done. He has revoked the regulation that limits the flow of water in your shower. Now, to me, that's really important because I'm big on showers, having real, you know, intense water pressure. So that's gone.

We'll see how long it takes that to be implemented. I think some of the regulations at the state level and there's nothing you can do about that. And even more importantly than that, maybe one of his biggest ones was I think he's banned the banning of plastic straws, which I love plastic straws. I love plastic straws. So I haven't seen that really hasn't changed in in in Puerto Rico yet. We still have those stupid paper straws that I hate.

But hopefully we'll get those plastic straws back. I'm really excited about plastic straws and shower water pressure in the shower Maybe that's why the F gets a plus or the D gets you know We get into D minus territory because of the shower and that stuff foreign policy wise. He's been a complete and utter Disaster he has basically turned his back on American allies. He has stabbed Ukraine in the back and

He has more than stabbed Ukraine in the back. He has completely sided with Russia. Now, maybe he's starting to realize the mistake that was.

We'll see. But he is basically, basically wants to side with Russia. He wants to deal with Russia. He wants energy deal with Russia. He wants to, he wants the war to be over so he can cozy up to Putin. And he's done the cozying up to Putin at the expense of Ukraine. And that is just, I don't think you guys realize just how badly that has hurt America.

in terms of its reputation in the world. Now, you might not care about America's reputation in the world, but if you're in the tourist industry, you might. Tourism is down 30, 40 percent, you know, which is a lot, which is a lot, particularly from Europe. But it's also our allies are looking at us and saying, we don't trust America anymore. That's going to have consequences. Going to have consequences when next 9-11 happens. Going to have consequences whenever we want.

to align ourselves with other countries they're not going to trust us and they're not going to want to work with us so uh he's hurt our relations with other countries they don't trust us he's also presented us as weak so china is looking at ukraine and we get to israel in a minute looking at what trump is doing and saying um god if if the united states would stab ukraine in the back if the united states causes up to putin we don't have to be afraid of the united states

And if we invade Taiwan, what's the probability that the United States would intervene? Well, I think today it's about 50% less than what it was on inauguration day. I think the probability that China does something around Taiwan is much higher now than it was four months ago, even with weak Biden. Because the reality is that the way Donald Trump has done his foreign policy, he is now presents himself, presents America as weak, or at least as unwilling to do anything.

That signal chat between with Hegseth and JD Vance only made things worse because JD Vance is basically saying, "I don't want to go after the Houthis. Who the hell wants to go after the Houthis? This is other people's problem. It's not my problem." Which means, yeah, Taiwan's not our problem. Why is Taiwan our problem? Let the Russians have it. So, let the Chinese have it, sorry. Let the Chinese have it. So, America is much weaker today than it was. I'd say on foreign policy,

It's an F minus if there was such a grade, right? There's no plus. There's no hinting with a D. On foreign policy, it's all negative. Slight positive with Israel. He's a little bit friendlier to Israel than Biden was, but he did stop Israel from attacking Iran. He does not want to attack Iran and he wants to deal with Iran and he will get a deal with Iran. I think they'll ultimately set off a deal with Iran. I think the people within administration who do not want military action vis-a-vis Iran

far more significant and powerful than the others. Yep. Our weakness in Afghanistan definitely, so weakness definitely matters. Weakness in Afghanistan definitely encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. And that weakness in Afghanistan starts with Trump, who signed a peace deal with the Taliban in his first term.

And then continued with Biden with that pathetic, you know, evacuation of Afghanistan, which, by the way, was set to happen by the Trump peace deal. And then on top of that, what Trump is doing right now with the Afghans is, you know, there were Afghans who were America's allies who were...

what do you call it, translators and guides in Afghanistan for the Americans. And they were promised that when the Americans left Afghanistan, they would be able to emigrate to the United States. These are people who know English, who support America, who are friendly to America. And many of them are on this interim status where their visa has not been approved yet. Their status has not been approved yet. Well, Trump has just revoked that status and is basically sending them back to Afghanistan. So now...

People in hostile countries who might want to help the United States now know that we will stab them in the back, betray them because of Trump. So on all these issues related to foreign policy, it's a solid unequivocal F. There's just, I can't think of a single foreign policy thing that he did well. Think about Canada. Think about Canada. Canada was going to go conservative. Canada was going to vote for Polivar, who among the conservatives is pretty good, pretty good.

And since Trump started his nonsense with 51st state annexation, Governor Trudeau, all of that BS, which serves no positive purpose, no positive purpose, nothing good comes of it. Since he started doing that with Canada, the conservatives have plummeted in support. Liberals skyrocketed. And the consequence of that is that

from a lead of 20 points, the Conservatives actually lost yesterday. And Canada has another Liberal government. Now it's a weak Liberal government, but it's the Liberal government. Polyvo himself lost his own seat. He is now not a member of Parliament in Canada. And everybody in Canada, why did they not vote for him? He sounds too much like Trump. And we hate Trump. And this is one of those unforced errors.

This is one of those shooting ourselves in the knees. Who would we rather have as a neighbor? A conservative party dedicated to economic growth in Canada, dedicated to private property, dedicated to national defense, or a liberal government run by a nothing, an empty suit, who is turning Canada slowly into a socialist country? I think the answer is pretty obvious, but there's another false loss, another F.

foreign policy to Trump. There's no, there's just no reason in the world other than trolling, which has consequences, we saw them in the election yesterday, to keep talking about the 51st state of the United States being Canada. Canada might be a losing country, it certainly is electing a liberal, but Trump is a bigger loser than Canada, whatever that helps you. All right, what else? Foreign policy, I'm just scanning the world.

Nothing vis-a-vis China. If anything, Trump is going to walk us closer and closer to World War III. Much more, much higher risk of a war with China than before because of Trump's weakness. He's got, oh, yeah, you have to point out the nominations. Worst nominations ever. Secretary of Defense, who has no experience, no knowledge, no strategic thinking.

Nothing. He's a Fox commentator who loves Trump. I guess that's enough for Secretary of Defense, not a spokesman for the Department of Defense. Maybe that would be an appropriate role for Hickson. But Secretary of Defense, it's hard to imagine. I don't think even people who supported Trump could imagine such a bad Secretary of Defense. And then he's got a lackey as State Department, Rubio, who just do anything Trump says. He's just like a little puppy.

And the rest of the foreign policy staff is just either unbelievably incompetent or they're really, really bad. Oh, Vicky reminds me. This is a fun fact, which is true. Less than two hours away from where I sit right now, President Trump is doing a rally in celebration of his first 100 days. So I am in the same state as President Trump is right now. I'm in Michigan. Trump is in Michigan.

I'm talking about his first hundred days. He's talking about his first hundred days. The only difference, the only difference is our assessment. He gives himself an A plus probably. I'm giving him an F. That's the difference. A small difference. Other than that, we're in the same geography and that's what matters, right? Geography matters, J.D. Vance has told us. America is not about an idea. It's a place and a people. That's all. No ideas. Ideas don't matter.

Farm policy. And then his other appointments, Justice Department, FBI. Oh, my God. We haven't even gotten to RFK and, you know, to the people at the FBI and the Justice Department. Yeah. OK. I would send my D plus my D minus. It's a solid F. Maybe I have plus, but I would send the D minus.

It really is bad. It really is really as bad. Again, I'm really looking for positives. Ben Shapiro, if you're listening to the show, send me an email with the positive you think that Trump has achieved because I've heard Ben Shapiro's objective and I'm not. So, Ben, please, you know, send me an email. Just, you know.

I'm curious. What do you think? What do you think Trump has done well? What do you think is good under Trump? Other than DEI woke stuff that's good under Trump, that he's improved the situation in America. Other than the DEI woke affirmative action stuff, I cannot figure out anything. Somebody's throwing stuff around back there. Oh, it's the wind? Yeah, we've got like really bad wind out there, which is weird because...

It's Michigan. It's not the tropics. We don't have hurricanes. And, yeah. Oh, I'm being accused now of not loving America. So Trump is the man who hates America, who doesn't know what America is, so therefore he can't love it. So, you know. All right. We're done. Is it to break the economy? Says Ben made a video about it today. So I'm curious. What did Ben say were the pluses?

I'd like a list of the Ben Shapiro positives that Trump did. Because, you know, I want to really try. I want to try to understand and I want to try to be more fair to Trump. I don't know, fair, fair. Yeah, I mean, there's an unbelievable wind up there. Is there a door that's slamming or something? Is there any way to lock it? Maybe Jennifer's going to try and lock it. We'll see if that helps. Yeah.

But that's because the wind is really bad out there, which again is kind of weird. It doesn't look like a place that has a lot of winds.

Yeah, his VP pick, but that was before the election. I'm talking about stuff he's done as president of the United States. The good, bad, and ugly. Okay. So, you know, I think that's it. I think I've set out most of what I want to say. I'm sure that if we thought about another, every minute I think I'll come up with more stuff. Mostly bad. Oh, the border. Border. Yes, I hear that a lot. I've heard that a lot. Trump.

has, what do you call it, has cleared up the border. It's quiet at the border. There's not a huge number of crossings. Those millions, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of people crossing over. The mayhem, the panic, the craziness at the border. That is true. He indeed has shut that down. But it wasn't him. It wasn't him. The reality is that that border was already shut down by Biden.

When Biden realized that he was going to lose the election because of the border, which I think is the main reason he lost the election, that and inflation, he already shut it down. Now, it's true that Trump has kept the chart, but the border was already quiet in the last six months of the Biden administration. Very few people came across, very few asylum seekers. And, you know, I love immigrants and I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for people willing to risk their life crossing the border and trying to come into this country illegally.

Oh my god, Iran likes illegal people. I do, I do. I like illegal people. Illegal people, just think about that to him. I like people who are willing to break the law in order to make their life better while not violating other people's rights. And since I think that crossing a border does not violate anybody's rights, even though it breaks the law, it doesn't violate anybody's rights. I don't think it's that big of a deal. I think when you violate a law, when you violate a law,

that doesn't violate other people's rights. It's not a big deal. Not a big deal. Those of you who don't believe me about Biden shutting down the border, just look at the statistics. Go look at the chart of the number of illegals coming in or the chart of, you know, the problems at the border. The numerical numbers to all of this, you can check it out about six months, maybe four months before the election.

Biden shut it down because he knew he needed to if he had any chance of Kamala winning the election. That's not propaganda. That's fact. The propaganda is the idea that Trump did it, that the day before Trump became president, there were millions of people flowing across the border. And the day after or a week after, a month after it was gone. That's just not true. It's just not true. But it doesn't. Truth doesn't matter to many of you. I know that. And certainly to Bob, it doesn't matter.

So just check out the stats for those of you who don't believe me. And I don't expect you to believe me. I certainly don't expect you to take my word on faith. Just go check it out. But, you know, I generally never thought the border was that bad of a situation. It was unruly, so it should have been managed better. But the way to solve the illegal immigration problem, I've told you this since I've had a podcast, is to make it legal.

to make immigration legal to the United States and easy and plentiful and bountiful, we would all be better off. That's how you get manufacturing jobs back in America, by increasing the population to actually work those factories. Because you know what? Any job that you add in the United States today, some other job has to disappear because you've got a finite number of people. So it's very hard to just add jobs when you're not adding people. All right. Um,

I'm sure there'll be more bad stuff to add tomorrow and the day after and the day after and some ugly stuff as well. Uh, so, uh, consider this show ongoing. Uh, maybe, maybe if, if Trump reverses some of the things that he's done, he'll be able to crawl out of having an F and maybe he'll get into D territory, but it's going to take a lot for him to actually, uh, do achieve that. Uh, but, um,

Immigration cannot be done legally. Certainly not under Trump, but it's very, very, very difficult. It's ridiculously difficult. It's absurdly difficult. And the way to get rid of illegal immigration is to make it very, very, very easy. Very easy. So go for it. Breaking laws that don't violate other people's rights is not that big of a deal. No, it's not. You have to be willing to suffer the consequences because you're breaking the law. So I speed...

And if a cop stops me, I don't yell at him that I'm not violating anybody's individual rights and I'm not going to pay the fine. I say, sorry, I know I sped. You know, I pay the fine. But I don't consider myself an illegal driver. I don't believe I should be deported for it. I don't think I should go to jail for it. It's a law. I broke it.

Nothing happened to anybody. No big deal. Now, because it's a law, I'm willing to pay the fine because I respect the law. But I'm not respecting it that much that I'm willing to not speed. Although in Puerto Rico, I almost never speed, only in California. And I'm sure you speed too. I'm sure you guys speed quite a bit as well. Oh, Zane says, I see xenophobia is alive and well.

Welcome to Iran Book Show, where a small minority of people on my chat are quite xenophobic. Quite xenophobic. Absolutely.

All right. What? Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's call that the day. That is my assessment of Trump's first hundred days. I don't think any of that was a surprise to any of you. And again, I'm waiting for that list from Ben Shapiro about the good stuff. Immigration granted. He would view the border as good. He probably doesn't like deporting non-gang members into a high security prison. Knowing Ben, Ben is better than that. I,

I assume he doesn't like the idea of taking people who've not been accused or found guilty, but even accused of anything, and putting them into a high security jail in Venezuela. I assume he doesn't like the rounding up of sometimes legal immigrants and sending them and deporting them. So I think on other immigration issues, he's probably closer to me, but I do get it. Do get it. I am not a sovereign citizen. That's interesting. Yeah.

I don't know what makes me a non-sovereign. Yeah, I mean, I have a view on how you would do speeding, how you do... First of all, in an objector's world, roads would be private and the rules of the road would be determined by the owner of the road.

And secondly, I think speeding, I think, would be determined by your insurance company. That is, I think your insurance rates would adjust based on how you drove. So they would put a sensor in your car. And if you drove irresponsibly, if you were doing things that were endangering yourself or others, your insurance rates would go up dramatically. And then if you really drove responsibly,

in a way that threatened other people like drunk or crazily fast in a way that clearly was endangering other drivers, then the police would stop you and arrest you. But that's not speeding. Speeding is something else. You know, going 80 and 70 miles an hour highway, that's flat, open road. Give me a break.

All right. What do we want? Yes, let's move to our super chat. Thank you guys for the super chat, particularly Troy. Thank you for the $500. I really appreciate that. It takes the – it really – I appreciate the support from you guys, particularly on a day when all my haters are up in the chat because they saw Trump's name in the title.

Let's see, what do we want to do? Yes, let's go through the super chat. Now, you know, I think we're doing well in terms of super chat, but if you want to ask more questions, there's probably time, particularly if you ask the $20 questions. Let's start with Michael. Michael, it seemed in the 80s and 90s, Rand had her foot in the door in the Republican Party. I thought the GOP would move towards capitalism over the coming decades. Instead, they embraced populism and fascism. What happened?

Well, I mean, the reality is that Ayn Rand had her foot in the Republican Party more than at any other time in the 2000s. Recently, I'd say during the Tea Party. I mean, do you remember Ted Cruz reading long passages out of Atlas Shrugged from the floor of the Senate? Lee, Senator Lee, Rand, Ayn Rand.

You know, and there were several others, not to mention Paul Ryan and others who expressed views sympathetic to Ayn Rand during that period. And of course, the Tea Party, which was Republican, was all over Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand. And what happened was it was always superficial. It was something they held, but held very superficially. And when they realized that that something that they held was not going to win them elections,

And to win elections, they had to become populist. They had to become leftists, in other words, which is what the Republican Party is today, economically. They shifted. The Tea Party was never... They kind of admired Ayn Rand, and they wanted Medicare, all at the same time, with not seeing any contradictions between the two. Reason, individual rights, capitalism, a difficult concept. They're real achievements to get what they mean, to really get what it means. And...

They were achievements beyond the ability of the Tea Party. And they turned against them. They turned against capitalism. They turned against reason. And they turned against capitalism. And they turned against individual rights. And the consequence of that was an embrace of Trump. Trump is the replacement, the anti-capitalist, anti-individual rights, anti-reason candidate. He is the emotional populist, tells the people what they want to hear, and anti-reason.

That's what we got. So Ayn Rand is going to get you in trouble if you understand her superficially, because she advocates for very controversial ideas, for radical ideas, true ideas, but radical. And if you don't understand exactly why, if you don't understand the philosophical foundations of them, it's easy for you to fall under the kind of social pressure and the pressure of reality.

to abandon these ideas for the sake of power, for the sake of popularity, for the sake of not pissing off your neighbor or your kids or your grandparents or whatever. And that's what happens. And that's what's happened to a lot of people here in the chat who love Donald Trump and yet claim to like Ayn Rand. They don't understand Ayn Rand. And they will, over the years, you will see this, over the years, they will become less and less and less and less interested in Ayn Rand.

because their ideas will move further and further and further away from mind-mind. Because they don't understand a philosophy. They superficially, emotionally like their books and some things appeal to them. But when it comes to actually living their lives, they can't apply it. And they become second-handed. They become Peter Keatings by just completely embracing that which will achieve power, that which will make you popular, that which will make you among the cool kids.

So, you know, reason is hard. It requires effort. It's not hard, hard. It requires effort. And it requires standing on your own two feet. It requires thinking for yourself. There's a challenge. Thinking for yourself and not being one of the cool kids and not being popular. Because often the conclusions you come to when you use reason are,

are not the ones everybody else has come to using their emotions or their second-handedness or their faith or whatever you want to call it. That's what happened. It was always superficial. Hop up. Are we at a point where enlightenment forces will always re-establish dominance after temporary setbacks into heavy statism? Fascism is such a pathetic coalition that it unwinds fairly quickly as we're seeing with Trump. Yeah, but what's the alternative?

What are the American people going to embrace after Trump? So let's say they reject Trump right now. What are they going to embrace? Are they going to embrace AOC as the alternative? Or are they going to embrace, I don't know, the founding fathers? Much more likely they embrace AOC. So they go from Trump to AOC to Josh Hawley, something like that. They'll bounce around across the different irrationalities.

The Enlightenment forces are the forces of reason and rationality. Are we seeing a rise in forces of reason and rationality around us? Like people are rejecting Trump now. Are they going, huh, okay, capitalism is good after all. Individual rights, that's what I should pursue. Or they're saying, oh, no, this is hurting this business and we should, you know. They're not against statism. They're against Trump's version of statism. That's my fear.

So I don't see that these bad policies lead to better policies automatically. Now, it could be that there's still enough enlightenment values out there in America that they will go for a better candidate. I still think AOC cannot win an election. I'm hoping that a more centrist Democrat runs in 2028 against whoever the, you know, the Trump has put up.

And that centrist Democrat wins. If it's a MAGA Republican candidate, there's a potential, but it's a very small probability that the Republican Party will wake up from their nightmarish dream of Donald Trump and elect in a primary somebody dramatically better. And then I'd hope for him, they win. But I just don't see that happening. I think this is going to, this is, the Republican Party is finished for the next decade at least.

Why won't you answer my question? What is the ultimate? Ed, why don't you use the Super Chat like everybody else does? If you're asking me. If you're asking somebody else, then I don't know. But I don't know what your question is. And if you want to ask me a question, then we have a feature for that. It's called Super Chat. Thank you, Hopper. And yeah, we're still not at the ultimate goal that we want. Clark.

I know some people who own property in Orange County and Puerto Rico. They live in each place six months of the year so they can still get the tax benefit while being able to enjoy California half the year income tax free. Yeah, I mean, I would do that too, but for two reasons. One, well, three reasons. One, the state of California is nasty. And if you live in California more than three months, they could come after you.

So people are doing that, but they're taking a risk. They're taking a risk that the state of California will come after them. And it's a real risk. It's not a pretend risk. I know people who've had that happen to them. And once the state of California gets their teeth into you, God, they never let go. It's a complete and utter disaster. So that's one reason. Second reason is maintaining two homes that far away from each other is just hard work.

It's just a lot of energy. You know, we've had problems with ducks in our pool in California. And to try to deal with that remotely from afar, even with a pool guy and whatever, is really, really hard because you have to almost be there every day to deal with these stupid ducks. And you can't kill them. If you kill the ducks, you go to jail in California. So you have to find ways to distract them. You know, we used to have these fake alligators in the pool.

And initially it worked and then we found the ducks sitting on the alligators having a good time so they figured that out. It's really hard to get rid of the ducks. Anyway, little things like that, like the roof leaks or something else happens. So just that. And then third, I can't afford it. It, you know, having two homes, paying up for two homes...

Paying two mortgages if you have a mortgage, I can't afford that. You guys are not that generous. You're generous. You're very generous, but not that generous. It's not that you guys are not generous. That's not nice because you guys are generous. It's that I don't have enough of you. If the show had a million subscribers and a fraction of them supported the show financially, then yeah, I'd have at least two homes, maybe more. But yeah, I don't have enough following. Don't have enough following.

All right. Yeah, Josh Shapiro might be. I don't know enough about Josh Shapiro other than he's a centrist Democrat. So he might be a good candidate. You know, I know those of you who live in Colorado won't like this, but, you know, the governor of Colorado is not bad in comparison to what is available out there. So there are others. There are centrist Democrats out there that could be a decent president, not a good president. None of them would be good, but better than Trump, dramatically better than Trump.

That doesn't take much, by the way. Now, there are lots of Republicans who would be much better than Trump. Governor of Georgia would be higher on my list. He was the first one to walk away from the lockdowns during COVID. I don't really like the governor of Texas, but the governor of Georgia would be good. There are probably other governors that I can't think of right now that would be really good. I think Nikki Haley, as I said before, would be a million times better than Trump.

But what can you do if the Republicans refuse to elect somebody of value? Then there you have it. All right. That doodle bunny says Leonard Pickoff is officially turned on Trump. Yeah, I saw that. Good for Leonard. I'm you can imagine. I'm pleased. Oops. Liam, why isn't Millay...

Having a positive effect on the American right is Trump's flooding of the zone, drying him out. No, I just think they don't understand what Milley is doing. And Milley is hurting himself and hurting his message by associating himself with Trump. So he is presenting himself as Trump's ally, as Trump and he are buddies. They're on the same program. And that is confusing things for people. But I think it's because the Republicans, the American right, all they care about

And this is true of the people on the chat. All they care about is hating the left. Millet hates the left. They hate the left. Millet slams the left. They slam the left. Millet has cut, you know, government...

he's got government spending and America hasn't, but he's cut, he's fired government employees. We've cut, you know, those fired government employees. They can't see beyond that. They can't see the melee relative to Trump as a principled ideologue who believes in something. And he's a professor of economics. He knows economics. He really knows economics. He's not pretending. And he really believes in free market. He's not pretending. So,

They don't get it. All they care about is Millet's anti-left, their anti-Trump. And that's all that motivates them. They're not interested in the economy. They're not interested in economics. I mean, they've literally said over the last few weeks, as the consequence of tariffs have become evident, they've literally said, it's okay if my standard of living goes down. We got the left. It's okay. It's okay. So they're not open to it.

They've locked themselves out of capitalism. And you can see, watch my interview with Stossel. It's on YouTube. You just put it up. And read the comments. Most of the people who watch Stossel are from the right. Some libertarians, some conservatives. Watch the comments. And you will see how people are thinking about things right now in the world. On the right. Not to average algorithm. We are drowning in information while starving for integration. Absolutely. And that is the service that I provide.

So thank you for paying for that service, Not Your Average Algorithm. Value for value, a trade. And by the way, that reminds me, we've got a lot of people watching. You know, do a sticker. Value for value, a trade. And show your support for the Iran Book Show. I do try to provide you with the integration. Got lots of stuff thrown at you. The news is overwhelming some days.

I'm trying to do the job of integrating all that and helping you out. So please show your support by doing a sticker. It can be $2, $1, $500, like Troy did. $500 is what Troy did. That's great. Michael says, the loss will be good for the Conservatives in Canada. No, it won't. It will absolutely not. They can restructure away from tariffs and tribalism.

But the Conservatives that try in Canada weren't for tariffs and tribalism. They were good, relatively speaking, good Conservatives. Conservative parties throughout the West will try and distance themselves from Trump. Will they? Trump won. Why won't they try to emulate Trump? And indeed, Conservative parties around the world are losing. So Canada, but the other one is Australia. The Conservatives were actually in the lead in Australia, and then Trump happened, and now the Conservatives are losing in Australia.

So this is a worldwide phenomena. Trump is bad for conservatives. And by the way, conservatives in other countries, for the most part, are better than American conservatives. They're more focused on markets. They were more focused on particularly the Canadians. Canadians don't have the kind of conservatives, anti-immigration, pro-tariffs, pro-tribalism mentality. So no, nothing good has come from the loss in Canada. The conservatives will not come back better.

I'm not sure they can find anybody better than Polyvore. Harper Campbell, can we flirt with fascism without collapsing into fascism? Sure, but it also depends what you mean by fascism. There's a sense in which we're already kind of a little bit fascist, right? Because fascism is the control of industry without the state owning industry. And we've got a lot of controls in industry, a lot. James Taylor,

Rand Paul allegedly has the votes to block Trump's tariffs in the Senate. Yes, I think he does, which would be amazing. If a vote ever came in the House, I think they might have the votes in the House because the Democrats would vote for it. And then all you need is like three Republicans. And I think you've got at least three Republicans who vote for it. The problem is that the leadership in the House, the House works differently than the Senate. The leadership in the House won't bring it to the floor.

So we'll never know. Even if by some miracle it passes the Senate and the House, Trump will veto it. And I'm not sure that Rand Paul has a veto-proof majority. But look, Rand Paul has woken up in the last few weeks. He has been very good on a number of Trump issues, particularly tariffs. He's been vocal, he's been aggressive, and he's been willing to go out there and actually work against Trump.

pass legislation like this against Trump. He wasn't willing to do stuff like that in the first term of Trump. So Rand Paul, I think, is woken up by how bad Trump is. And that is a good thing because we need people like Rand Paul on this issue standing up to Trump. So it'll be great if Congress passes it and forces Trump to veto it. And then maybe they could get a veto-proof majority. I don't think they can, but maybe we can at least try.

uh michael will things get as bad as the 70s where we only able to rise out of that because rand was still alive i don't know if it'll get as bad as the 70s there were a lot of things in play in the 70s but it certainly could um remember we're in many ways in worse shape than we were in the 70s government debt is out of control today it was in a manageable range in the 70s so things could get a lot worse a lot faster than in the 70s so i don't know it could

Did we only get out of the 70s because of Rand? It wasn't just Rand. Milton Friedman was around back then and was quite popular and quite active. There was free market economics had a platform in the 70s. I'm not sure it does today. I'm not sure it has enough backing today. I'm not sure there are enough intellectuals who are publicly acknowledged today. There's no Milton Friedman even, never mind the nine Rand out there. Now there's

people like me and others, but we're all pretty small. There's no somebody with a massive platform like like Malcolm Friedman had an influence on other intellectuals. Clark, do you ever get sick of flying all the time? If you didn't have to do it for work, would you still travel as much as you do? Or would being in Puerto Rico year round be too boring? So I hate I hate flying.

There's nothing about flying that I like except getting to where I'm going. I like the work that I do. So it's not so I like what I do when I get there. I don't like getting there and I don't like going home. They're flying home. I like getting home, but I don't like. So my favorite invention of all time would be the beam me up Scotty transporter.

If I had a beam me up Scotty, I would travel as much as I do now. And I go home to, I go home to sleep and I, you know, it would be instantaneous. You'd see the world without, without having to fly in an airplane. If I didn't have to work, right. If, if, if I had FU money, I'd probably travel less for work, but I would still travel. You know, I, I'd still spend summers somewhere in the world, you know, or hurricane season somewhere in the world, but,

I would get bored if I had to spend 365 days in Puerto Rico or any place for that matter. So I do like traveling. I do want to travel. But it would be more... The traveling would be more relaxed, leisurely. And yeah. And it wouldn't involve jumping around like I do now where every day I'm in a different state or in a different country or in a different city, which often is the way my travel goes. So I would...

I would still travel, I would just travel differently. Supik ask: How patriotic for America are Puerto Ricans? I think it's very mixed. So some Puerto Ricans are quite patriotic. A lot of Puerto Ricans serve in the US military. A lot of them love America and are very patriotic and would like to see Puerto Rico become a state. Indeed, I think a majority of Puerto Ricans would like Puerto Rico to become a state because they love America and they think Puerto Rico would do well in America. There is a large minority

of Puerto Ricans who really dislike America and who want to become an independent country. And so there's a significant proportion of them. They don't like the fact that people like me are there. They would like to see me gone. But I'd say a majority, a very overwhelming majority, are very friendly because the people I interact with are super friendly. But there's definitely a large minority that

would like to be independent of America. Clark, why did Jordan Peterson move to Arizona? Is he in the Scottsdale area? I'm pretty sure he's in Scottsdale just because I think he said that. Phoenix or Scottsdale? Why he moved there? I have no idea. It could be weather. It could be that this...

suffers from asthma or something and and because it's so dry you don't get any of those kind of uh things but arizona's brutal in the summer i mean brutal 120 degrees day after day after day after day after day like three months of over 100 degrees non-stop right with no break but i don't know you know jordan peterson doesn't chat with me and tell me why he does stuff um

Sue Kasky, is objectivism, objectives, politician, an oxymoron? No, you can be an objectives politician. Just don't expect to win, but you can certainly be one. And I think we should have some. I think it's a great way to educate people. It's a great way to start participating in the process and showing people how we would approach political questions. So I encourage those of you interested in politics who would like to do politics to engage in it. You just don't expect to win anytime soon. Michael,

Do Bannon and Trump actually think tariffs will make us stronger and richer? They must know on some level it will only make us poorer and more beholden to thugs and tyrants like them. Well, Bannon certainly knows. He's a banker. He knows economics well enough. But he's the one of those people who doesn't care if we become poorer as long as we become more nationalist. As long as we... He's about authoritarianism and nationalism. Economics is less important to him.

Trump is not a thinker. Trump is ignorant. He's the word I'm not supposed to say. So I don't think he completely realizes. Now, he evades. He has to. But Bannon knows. Bannon knows. Esoteric dichotomy. Hey, Iran, even aside the tariff madness, prices seem to almost always go up. Shouldn't tech advances make basics more affordable, cheaper?

Yeah, and they do. Tech, for example, your computer is like 99% cheaper than it was 20 years ago. You just don't notice that because you pay the same for the computer. It's just a thousand times better. But most of us don't do that calculation in their head. You know, if you priced your computer dollar per gigahertz of speed or whatever the measure of speed is, it's 99% cheaper. But you don't think of that.

But it should make everything cheaper and everything would be cheaper if not for government printing money. Government keeps expanding the money supply so we have more money so we're willing to spend more on stuff that drives prices up. When you increase demand by increasing the amount of money and supply is finite, is steady, then you get inflation. So inflation, even at 2%, makes things more expensive every year. I like numbers. Why is Peacock souring on Trump money?

good for objectivism. Why is it good for objectivism? Why I think it's good for objectivism is because I think that Trump is really, really, really the opposite of everything objectivism believes in. I think he's a terrible, terrible president. And I think that having people affiliated with objectivism, in particular, having the

you know, the number one objectivist teacher, the person who taught me objectivism, the person who taught most of us objectivism, support Trump is, I think, you know, damaging to objectivism because it damages our political judgment. And it might cause some people to think that Trump somehow represents objectivism, which would be very, very bad. So,

I think the fact that, and it also shows that we're willing to change our minds, or at least that Leonard is willing to change his mind, that objectivists are willing to evaluate by the evidence and change their minds when they see evidence. So I think in every respect, I think it's good that Peikoff has soured on Trump. And I think, I wish that everybody who calls himself an objectivist, nevermind those who are objectivists, like Leonard, did that as well, that

repudiated Trump in one way or another. So that's why I think it's good for objectivism. It shows that we're connected to reality. It shows that the facts matter. It shows that when a president does something really bad for America, we acknowledge it. We acknowledge that fact. All right, Wes, thank you for the $50 sticker. Really, really appreciate that. Bonnie, thank you for the sticker.

I'm going to skip thanking everybody for stickers because I don't have time. Thank you to all the stickers. We've still got a few questions and I'll try to get through all of them. And then I have got to give a talk. I think I still have a voice. I did two and a half hours of speaking all morning and now a two hour show. And now I've got a talk to give.

Um, esoteric economy says I've gotten pay increases from gaining skills and degrees, but it feels like barely treading water despite tech progress. I don't quite understand. Well, I mean, partially it depends where you live and partially it depends whether your pay increases are faster. Your pay is growing faster than inflation. Don't forget inflation has been pretty bad under, under Biden. Um,

And it's still going. That is now with Trump's tariffs, you're going to see some prices go up significantly. Your cost of living is going to go up dramatically. So, yeah, it's hard to tread water in an environment where there's inflation. But make sure that when they give you a pay increase, they're not just compensating you for inflation. They're also compensating you for your increased productivity.

Michael, great interview with Starcell. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, my Starcell interview dropped today. So it's on YouTube. Please go see it. Share it. I think it's a good interview. Kirk, the Trump administration and MAGA are behaving like the version of Kamala Harris the conservatives warned about. Yeah, I mean, different policies, different ways, but the same basic kind of behavior. Disrespect for the rule of law being a primary. Marylene says, please say Trump is evil and stupid. He is.

Yeah, we all know. Ryan, keep being objective about Trump. It's appreciated. Don't worry. I will continue to be objective about Trump. Gail, sadly, did you see Barry Weiss has joined the religious right? I don't know if she's joined the religious right, but she's certainly floating and on the border of...

And look, she was always religious in the sense that Barry, she's Jewish. She always viewed religion as an important part of her life. She always viewed religion as an important source of morality. She always views religion as a source for her politics. But when she launched the Free Press, I was very impressed. I thought they would be super objective. I thought they would hold a certain position of objectivity there.

I started to see over the last six months, maybe before that even, just a tilt to MAGA on different issues. Not complete. They still have people who criticize MAGAs. They're still trying to have a balance. So they're not completely on the religious right, but they're certainly flirting with it. And Barry's always been religious. And I think she is going to embrace religion more. Like Anne-Hersey Ali,

People become more and more convinced that you cannot have morality, you cannot have culture, you cannot have civilization without religion. So even the better people start shifting towards religion. We will see the evolution of Barry Weiss and the free press is going to be super interesting. It already is a little disappointing, but it's significantly disappointing, but we'll see where it goes from here. Lone dissenter. Obama's idea that the U.S. is just another country weakened the defined American sense of life so as to expand statism.

Under Trump, we're now just another statist faction among others like Europe. I agree with your analysis completely. Obama was the first anti-American president. Trump is the perfect follow-up because Trump is even more anti-American than Obama was. Trump also believes we're just another country. He also believes there's nothing special about America. He also believes there's nothing unique about the American ideal and American ideas. So,

Trump has leveraged Obama's awfulness to turning America into another statist country, among others. So I agree completely. Ian says, one of Ayn Rand's plays is a Korean drama. Good idea or great idea? Great idea. Great idea. I would. Yeah, I mean, the Koreans would do a good job. I think even with Atlas Shrugged.

Because they take ideas seriously in a way that Americans don't. Americans want to turn it into either superficial, silly, or cynical. Koreans would, I think, based on the Korean TV I've seen, would at least take it seriously. And they have the qualities there. All right, guys. I am going to go off. I'm giving a talk on the Enlightenment and Western civilization. It's going to be interesting because a number of people in the audience will be religious and Christianity will not come out

positively in the talk. So we will see. That Doodle Bunny asks, suppose you've given your whole life to the business you created and it fails. Would suicide be the rational in that context? Yeah, well, your career is your central purpose. It's not your only purpose. And certainly at the end of your career, it's not just your purpose. There are lots of other things you could do. Success is never guaranteed.

Failure is always a possibility and you can't let failure destroy you. Okay? This career that I spent 30, 40 years on, you know, hopefully you enjoyed the process. By the way, that's another thing. This sounds like a fortune cookie, but it's true. It's not the end that is everything. The end matters, but it's not everything. It's the journey. It really is. Because no matter how you succeed in your career, every time you achieve a value, you

you will want more. And then you'll achieve the next value and you'll want more. I mean, we want always more. So even if you're successful, you want more. So there's no end to ambition. There's no end to success. There's no end to values. And failure can be caused by lots of different things. You can't destroy your life because of a business failure.

Remember there's plenty of more stuff to be done. There's plenty of more values to be achieved. There's plenty of more mountains to climb. However you want to, whatever metaphor works for you. Life goes on and nothing in your life is tied up to one activity. Like I know people whose whole career was dedicated to a business and then the technology, underlying technology shifted. They lost and the business went under. It was done.

That didn't mitigate what they did throughout their lives. It didn't mitigate the rationality. It didn't mitigate everything they actually achieved. And it didn't mitigate who they are. Business doesn't succeed. Okay, what's next? What else can I find joy and challenges and achievement? That's the approach to take. All right. Thank you. That is the last question. I will see you all, not tomorrow, because I'm doing that thing that... Who asked me about flying? I'm doing that thing called flying that I don't like.

All day. Well, not all day. It's all evening. So no show, but I will be back on Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday, I think. I think we'll have shows all those days. So, yeah, we'll make May a good month for the show because towards the middle of May I leave and then there won't be a lot of shows. May is going to be half the usual shows, I think, although I'll try to do as many as I can from London and

and wales i'm going to wales um all right guys hope you enjoyed the show talk to you soon bye