Glad to have Connor here on the show today. Thank you for making the trip down. It's good to be in person. For one. I know, I feel like it's weird looking across and like you're right there instead of like staring at it. You can actually have a conversation, I know, actual conversation. What I'd like to do is you just kind of talk about how you got uh where you're at, what you believe, and just kind of your pathway to that. So yeah, so excuse me. We touched on a little bit, I think in one of our first episodes, But generally speaking, I've always sort of grown up in a position with with you know, single mom. Dad was in the picture, but infrequently so, you know, raised by her, and growing up on a she worked at Shenando University. So growing up on a liberal arts campus, getting to experience a whole lot of things, meet a whole bunch of people, getting to know people from all walks of life all over, not just the US, but the world really sort of shaped a diverse viewpoint of the world around me from a very young age, and getting to understand that it's not just me and my neighbors, it's it's everyone down the street. It's everyone, you know, just all over the place, so so many different people going through so many different things. And throughout my life it was an opportunity to see outside of my world, and I'm very fortunate for that. I was able to learn a lot, get really good education from both you know, elementary, high school and college, and a lot of thanks to her for that. But it taught me to look outside of myself. But from there it's you know, I through our conversations, you know, I tend to fall on the liberal side of things when we discuss these these topics that we get into, and for me, a lot of it was always this sense of if you can help someone, help them, it's, you know, there's always someone in a worse position than you are, There's always someone who could use a little something here and there, right and and it it just makes for a better community, a better growth of individual and I've sort of you know, co opted that throughout most of my life, and my view on the world around me is it's it's our job as people with to help people without. And I think that a lot of that gets gets lost in our current situation of divisiveness. And you know, if I'm not getting ahead, you can't get ahead, and what's in it for me? And where's you know, my tax dollar going, or this that and the other. And people have very justifiable and understandable views on things on where what is important and what isn't. But I think so so often when the conversation comes up, humanity gets forgotten and it becomes more about who's right who's wrong, not admitting that my view might not be one hundred percent accurate or these sorts of things. And I think, you know, the conversations that you and I have had over the last couple of months, I think hopefully help people understand that there are two perspectives to things, there are more than one right answer, and it's also okay to say I don't know. It's okay to say I wasn't quite right on that. And so growing up, you know, and even at work, you know, I always stand on the side of like, you know, I would rather tell me you don't know, but you'll find out than to make something up right. So when you apply that, like what do you look at? So I think there are a lot of different things that happen in the world today, but based on that bring what do you look at from a as an American? Like, what is our what? First of all, let's talk about all the stuff we've talked about Minneapolis and places like that, So like, what is your view? Cause I think like the first thing everyone wants to say is like, like we talked about, migrants want to get these benefits, they want to do this, they want to do that. But like, for you, in a perfect world, with your view of view of things, what would the United States of America look like with the immigration that we have right now? I think a lot of it. The simple answer is open arms, welcoming. Okay, you know, obviously there are reasons that we can't do it exclusively that way. There are people who will always try and take advantage of the system. We have issues with cartels, we have issues with you know, the sleeper cells, or people that want to do America harm for America's stance in the world. So we can't just be open armed, come on in. But I've always looked at it in this sense of the backbone of the US is immigration. We have always had some group coming here that brings something new to our culture, to our growth. I mean, when we're the thirteen colonies. We were the melting pot. You had, you know, Germans in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania, Dutch Deutsch. You had all these people up and down the East Coast, your Puritans up in New England, and Georgia was a penal colony from England in the beginning. So we've always been this mixed bag of people. And so to sit and have a stance of closed off, unaccepting, unwelcoming, stay out. This is my land, this is my country. Whatever I think just inherently goes against how we started. And again I recognize that that is a romanticized view on how could be, but I don't think it's necessarily far off on possibilities. So one of the things I think about when I hear you say that is, I think, you know, when we talk about how things are supposed to be in the world, I think, I think any well meaning person can come in with the purest motives, But then the actual execution of the plan. We've talked about that before. So how do we open have a welcoming Because my view of it is open arms means anybody that wants to come here can come here, And to me, at some point I agree like, there were tons of people that came into this country and they contributed. I think the problem comes is when you try to establish like a satellite of Somalia in another country, in the state and the you know, a state in the United States. And so for me, I understand what my view obviously of immigration is there are people that contribute every day that aren't here legally. However, they contribute every day and they're working towards the American dream, not trying to What I see in some and I keep saying Somalia because it is like little Somalia in Minneapolis, is I see a group of people that are trying to create what they their vision of I don't know any way to say that other than like it is like a different world, and I don't know that that's a good thing. And I don't think. I think if you take somebody from the United States and drop them in Somalia, they're not going to go, hey, this is really cool. Let's try to do more of what they're doing. And I think when you go to a country and you go, Okay, I want to be part of this, you look at that and you go, what can I bring to this country to make this country better, and I think in a lot of ways it has been backwards. It is I'm coming to this country because the country can do all this for me, And I think that's where my side gets I feel like the people on the right say, that's a problem, you know, because we have all these people, and I think, again, take politics out of it. I think the concept is really good to allow people to come here. There are people that really need that help. But I think one of the examples I saw on a podcast was trying to get all these people out of Afghanistan because they're in a horrible place, and like, I think everybody would be like, oh, absolutely, but let's think about it. If we take all the people that are friendly to the United States and like us and we bring them. Here, what have we created. We've created a vacuum of people that would actually support us going forward. So I think that's That's one of the things. I've struggled with is that it's a fine line because you have nation building that can go well obviously go terribly wrong. But also I think it was Massud's. Son was saying that in Afghanistan, and he was like, no, we don't want you to take all these people that supported you, we want you to support us as we go against the Taliban and other people. And so I think my question is, is is it kind of a combined effort of like, hey, we understand because I mean Iran, I mean that's that right now, That's a tough place to you know, navigate because obviously we don't want to do what we did in Iraq, which was create a create a power vacuum and it's filled by a group of people. So I don't know what is your thought on that, with all the things that are involved with with immigration and things like that, is it should should we be a country where we attract all the people that are struggling in their country, or should we be a country that says, okay, let's let's help people in other countries sort of sort of like so like what I look at is in a in a church environment, you can you can you can send missionaries over there, you can provide them food, help, Samaritans, purse places like that, the dow a wonderful job overseas. Would would that type of. Help be more beneficial than actually bringing them to the United States? Well, And so for the sake of the for the sake of the answer. They interfere all the time. You smack it around a couple of times. For the sake of the answer to the question. I'm going to acknowledge that there is fraud and abuse within various. In government, government just where everywhere. But for the sake of the answer, I'm going to set that to the side and say that that is what we've done in many ways. And you look so, you know, to kind of peace through what you said there, Like you talk about Somalia in you know, Lil Somalia in Minneapolis. That's been the thing in the US from the beginning, and and not just with Somalians, but with any group. And I think because of modern social media and the ability to just hyper focus and ramp people up in one hundred and forty characters, it makes this seem like something new and insane. But you think of Little Italy, Chinatown, Korea Town, like all these places. In every major city, there are the you know, you look at Hell's Kitchen in New York. There are these pockets where first generation immigrants go because it's safe, because it's their own culture where they can communicate, and it's normally those second or third generations that start to expand out of those neighborhoods. But there's always this jumping off point. If you were to you know, go to Somalia, presumably if you came across another American you're probably gonna buddy up with them because you can communicate because they might know something that you know. So moving forward through that, you know, this focus on Somalia in Minneapolis, Yes, there's a huge population there. For whatever reason, an African culture ended up in one of the coldest states in the US. That's just interesting to me. But yes, it's there. But when you look at going you know, expanding out of that, you start to get into this realm it's called salt diplomacy where we aren't sending troops, we aren't doing a military coup, we aren't doing any of that. We're helping people in different nations through funding, through medical support, through doctors without borders, these types of things. And that was something that an organization that has since been closed, but USAID, which I know was a huge point of contention early on in this past year, that was something that they focused on. And sure, we can absolutely debate where some of these funds go. You know, why do we send it there and not somewhere else. But in big picture terms, again you know acknowledging that there was fraud and abuse within various aspects of the government. But in big picture terms, you look at and you go, okay, USAID funded aids clinics in African countries and those have now been shut down and people will die because of it. There's an estimate that estimate that came out that because of funds and services provided by USAID being removed, somewhere in the realm of two to two point three million people may die as a direct result. Now, when you look at stuff like that, we get into what is the US's job as a global force, as a global presence. And so if we're talking about how to keep countries other countries in our favor without military presence, to me, it is that soft diplomacy. It's going in and saying, here is something that we have that you all don't that we can provide. Weirdly, I've been watching The West Wing recently, which was a show that came out fifteen years ago. You could turn it on today, upgrade the computers and cell phones, and it's one hundred percent what's happening right now as well. And one of the episodes I just saw, they were talking about pharmaceutical pharmaceutical companies in the US providing medication at a discount price to African countries, like this was something they talked about twenty years ago on an hour long show on ABC or whatever it was. So this idea of soft diplomacy is that answer to how do we stay positive in other countries' eyes without being a military presence, without being a physical force there. And I think with our current administration and some of the approaches we've had that have essentially just been screw you guys, we're not helping because we don't believe in these liberal policies that division. We're taking an entity and we're we're you know, USAAD, and we're focusing on, oh, we've gave forty seven thousand dollars to help support a gay pride parade in Nicaragua, you know, wherever, random talking points like that, and we're focusing on that as opposed to here are forty AIDS clinics in Africa that we've helped that have helped millions of people. I think the problem from my side on that is I think you've got to pick. I don't think you can invest in a country you can't like put it all. I think that's the biggest complaint I would have, is like, if you're going to do that in Somalia, then there's no need to bring How are many thousands of Somalians into this country? It just doesn't like it doesn't You've got to pick. You can either support them in their country support the country itself. But I think what I hear in all of it is is that, like my perception is, people have these wonderful motive motives and they're like, hey, this is really going to be good, and then what happens is people learn people that know how to work the system hijack them and turn them into like slush funds. One of the things the left is fantastic at is coming up with really good ideas on paper, and then we forget about the fact that you have to trust humans to execute it and not take advantage where they can see it. And that's where you then end up in these positions of you know, all the fraud in Minute Minnesota, or you know, whatever's happening in California. I just had a friend of mine send me something pointing out that he's like, oh, this is going to be the next big fraud that you see. And it's this fact that in California there's like I want to say, it was something like it's called six point three million people over the age of sixty five, and in Florida there's four point one million people over the age of sixty five. In Florida there's two hundred elderly care Medicaid style facilities. In California it's twenty one hundred. So it's like one point three times the population but ten times the amount of medicare facilities. And in looking into it, because you know, he asked, he's like, so, you know, is what do you think of this? And then looking into it, what I found was like, Yeah, this is probably another fraud that's coming up. This is probably another loophole that's going to be taken advantage of. So instead of like name calling and things like that, why don't why don't both sides come together and say, Okay, we think this is a really good idea. It's not our idea, but it's an idea. Let's look at it in six months and see what happens. Because they'd have to let's let someone else win, and that's the and that's. I think that's what's funny about it, though, is that when I look at Obamacare, you know, they, for lack of a better word, I mean they there were some really good parts of it, but really realistically, they took that and just drove it down the American public's throats. And the way they did it is they made agreements with the pharmaceutical companies and medical facilities and things like that. And I think that's why to me, our our medical thing is just horrible right now. I mean, just if you don't believe me, you know, get injured and go to your r and see see if you get in there anytime soon. It just doesn't. It just doesn't happen. And the same thing with with prices on healthcare. But then we have that decision, people are like, this is really sucks. It should be. It should be a clue to the average population of like, hey, here's these huge corporations and suddenly they're agreeing to this. How in the world did we get them to agree to it? And we got them to agree to it because they were like, you give us enough time, we'll figure out how. To screw the American public over well, I think that's excuse me from the left, one of those like I can agree that the ACA is. Inherently flawed in many ways. There are aspects of it that from the get go were excuse me, changed or augmented or made lesser than they were planned to be. But you also look at it and go it also got twenty one million people off of uninsured onto insured. It also put in protections for you know, I was born with a genetic defect and because of that, I'm ineligible for most insurance. No, I don't, I don't. I don't disagree. I think all it did is just shifted it. It didn't because I mean the medical you know, say, I think one thing we can both agree on is no insurance company suffered because of that program. No, they still made their money. And that's that's where it will always come in, is the corporations will always still make their buck. What is that? Because that's just that's capitalism. People forget the capitalism is this aspect of you want competition to provide the best product for the American people at a fair price, but it's become profit and stock market driven over or we actually get it. But I don't even think it's profit anymore. I think it is stock's stock park. That's the modern profit. Yeah, it's the modern profits. Stocks are going up, it doesn't matter. Yeah, that's that's how I value a company, not how much money it makes. How effishent is. And in a pinch, if I need that stock price to change, I'll just fire twelve hundred people to get my bottom end down and get my stock price up. It's it's one hundred percent the you and the me get screwed because they got to make sure they hit their buck. And and it's also the other flip side of that coin, or the other factor of that coin is it's it's become a competition. It's your team versus my team, not how do we make America better? But I think that's what's funny is I don't I don't think we're part of either team. No, Like, honestly, like. We've turned into we've got we've got two teams that are like they act like they're in competition. But the people that are in charge, the coaches, are making a hell of a living. Oh yeah, and I mean that the game. Yeah, they're coordinating the game and they're doing everything that they want and I think I think that's why they they squaw so much on each other is because they're like, Hey, they're doing this, and it's like, don't pay attent. If you pay attention to that, you can't pay attention to what we're doing. And so. There's also just not a way. So, you know, on on my drive down, I was I was listening to a podcast and they started talking about the New Deal under was that Roosevelt, and one of the aspects of it was they were providing electricity and infrastructure across the US to place that Yah. But what they also realized back then was what the government was able to do. And part of it was because we didn't have OSHA and all these other three letter regulatory bodies. But what they did was, Hey, this is what we're doing. We're going to do a brief hire, you know, a couple like they had roads getting built in months, not years, and they just said, this is what we're doing it, or this is what we're doing, deal with it, and they just went for it, and it created jobs, it created infrastructure. It's credited as being, you know, one of the best policies in US history and brought us into the modern age. And then you look at that now and you go, you know, you take the Infrastructure Bill from the Biden era, which in theory was supposed to help ev infrastructure building, you know, charging stations in harder areas to get to you know, is seven point five billion dollar project that was supposed to bring essentially it was the twenty first centuries New Deal. But immediately it got hamstringed with oh, well, you have to do an environmental impact study and all these understandable things to make sure we're not hurting you know, the world around us. But then it was built as this big failure and it never got off the ground to start because of all of the stuff, you all the hoops you have to jump through to get it going. And but that was then spun in this political game of look at this big failure and you're like, is it a failure if we never actually gave it a shot. So here's the question that I'll probably get in trouble for. But it's it's been in the news a lot for Virginia. I've heard the arguments back and forth. What is the purpose of a moderate Theoretically, a moderate Democrat running for governor in Virginia, and with everything that's going on, you have what I believe to be vm I, which is a school that is thriving. At least two people high in the administration or being my graduates. They talk about the rate of them getting just I think I heard somebody the other day talking. I think it was a Delegate Garrett, And what he was saying is he's like, look, he's like, the school is in the top fifty, like nationwide, not like fifty. And he's like, for a state school to be that high in engineering and things like that, why would a moderate governor come in and say, Hey, the first thing I'm gonna do is stick it. To law enforcement. I'm going to put a bill in that takes away immunity and not complete immunity, but just like civil community, you know. And then on top of that, I'm going to put a former governor who should never even breathe air from people that actually work for a living and for all the Northam governor Northam just just like if he was removed from the history, you know, he did all these he did some really stupid things and screwed Virginia up right and he did all this stuff at vm I. He was a via I believe he was a vm I graduate. But anyway, long story short, this dude is they actually put him in charge of coming in and addressing issues at vm I. Like, why target a university that's thriving. So from my understanding, because I I've heard a little about this, I think I was talking to a friend of mine about this week or so ago, at least as far as VMI, because I think part of it is they are and correct me if I'm wrong, but they're looking at state provided funding to vm I, but on the condition of addressing some racial allegations and some like hazing allegations and discriminatory allegations within the school. So this is the funny part about it in part correct, all right? Yes, And Governor Northam, the reason he got in trouble is unknown how but he was in a yearbook with blackface. So you're gonna put somebody who is called into question about their motivations racially and bad decisions, You're gonna put them in charge of seeing whether somebody is racial. Yeah, I mean, at face value, that seems like a poor plan. On it just to me. What it does is it makes it look like it would be for me. Good example. A good example I think is like, why would you put some It would be like putting Hillary Clinton on a panel to decide whether Donald Trump stole the election in twenty sixteen. It seems like there's an innate bias within the people involved. Yeah, I see that, But well, put the hard thing too with it when you look at Virginia, because again I've had buddies of mind that no, I'm on this side of things, send me stuff. And where it's important to keep in mind is that there have been fifty something bills proposed in Virginia regarding taxes, regarding vm I regard a whole bunch of different stuff. They're proposed, they haven't made it through. Now. Virginia currently is Democrat pretty much in every part of government, so there's a strong possibility that a lot of these are going to successfully go through. But again, a proposal is just that it's hey, let's vote on this, let's whatever. So until I try, and I've learned this a lot with President Trump is take a beat on what gets said, because, especially in our modern era, of how stuff goes on is until something at least is in the process of being voted on. We don't know, because you know, our president whether you love him or hate him, like he says a lot of stuff and a lot of it changes by the end of the day, and so to react to every single statement is hard. Now where that also comes into play as you then look and go, Okay, well, if I'm not what do I believe? Then, like, if we don't believe anything, what's left to go off of? And so you got to kind of pick and choose your battles. But with the Virginia stuff, like I said, I would I would wait to see, like what makes it to the next step. But with the like with the vm I issue, I don't necessarily disagree that if a a state funded university of any state any place is found to have discriminatory behavior, discriminatory actions, that is grounds to look into their funding and see, you know what, where where are these funds going? You know, if I'm if I'm giving you one hundred bucks a month and then I find out, you know, you do something that I don't agree with, well maybe I think about it if I'm going to give you that money. So you know, because at the end of the day, VMI is a military institute and it's about making soldiers right. So here's the thing. Soldiers don't matter. If this is the coolest thing about our discussion, I went ahead and did the groc for you on this and so full fairness. On her first day in office, Spanberger appointed five new board members to vmi's board of visitors. Michael Dick he was actually a alumnus from nineteen seventy seven, Lester Johnson who was in nineteen ninety five, Ralph Northam in eighty one. This is the side note for him, a notable and controversial pick, as as a VMI alumnus previously ordered a twenty twenty twenty twenty one state investigation into allegations of racism and sexism at the institute. And then you have Alan Williams. Anyway, So fairness, so I stepped off. I should have looked it up on GROC ahead of time. So she did put Northam on the board, but she also put three or four other people on there. Bad pick. You can still look and say maybe maybe. I wasn't the best decision, but she also put other alumnus on there that should be able to balance it balance it out. I know that there are people at VMI though, or that are concerned about them pulling state funding. But I wonder if it's maybe like somebody hasn't had a conversation and said hey, or maybe we don't have all the information, but like I know, they have a huge, huge support from alumnus. So I just what I hope is I hope people look at stuff like that and they go, hey, yeah, she did appoint somebody that was questionable, but these other people don't seem near as questionable, and they also have ties to the university, and maybe he's one person. Well, and that's that's something too that I think we've touched on it in previous conversations and you mentioned it today, is it's this kind of like, you know, how did we end up sort of where we are? Why is it seemingly one team versus the other? And I think it's these moments of you know, being able to pull a talking point before and not specifically this, but like when you look at things on the higher levels of left v right, it's who gets the headline, who gets the one up on someone? And how can we divide people? I know, like I'm left of center, but I know that for a lot of situations, I'm more conservative than other Liberals that I know, and so because of things like that, Like one of the criticisms I have of the liberal side is we infight too much. You know, we crazy things and you go. And that's crazy to think, because I think it's just the opposite. Like from my views, y'all always seem to figure out a way to get along, and people the Republicans remind me of Baptist Like they're fine until they all get together and then they start fighting each other, which. I think is the exact way. So that's the way you feel about the Liberals too well. So I think it's a perfect demonstration of the world we live in. Is because I would my stance has always been Republicans will nitpick it. You can go back and find Ted Cruz or Rubio or jd Vance, you know, talking smack about Donald Trump, and then he becomes their person and they lock up and they're all they're all in it, you know. Lindsey Graham is another one who's Donald Trump's best buddy. But you can pull up shortly after jan six, Lindsay Graham just tearing him apart for his involvement one way or the other. So I've always said that Democrats in fight too much and Republicans. Once you guys pick your guy, you lock in. So it's interesting that we both have the same viewpoint of the other side, the other side. Because I look at it and go like, there's why can't you'll stick together? Yeah, Like I sit there and go like, there are conversations that come up where I go, Yes, this absolutely is a thing that we need to address, you know, these social issues whatever. But should this be our primary focus right now? Right? You know, is this the big picture fight we should be having or is this something that once we you know, quote unquote win, we can then take a step back and start the minution, the fine tuning, the nuances of other stuff. Because there's sometimes where it's you know, I look at how how we did you know, our last two elections. You know, I look back to the Hillary election, and you go the the Democrats shot themselves in the foot because they picked Hillary when the clear primary winner was Bernie Sanders. So they divided the Rome Party right then and there and essentially gave the win. Made it easier for Trump to win that one because the majority of especially my age demographic at the time was on board with Bernie. But do you think that lesson learned is fast forward to today? Is why it. Is seems like it's it's going so far to the extreme of left for the candidates they have, like the governor or not the governor, but the mayor in New York. I heard something the other day that like Streamer is going to get primaried out by AOC or one of them is, So is it? And I do want to talk. We'll get to that in a little bit. The there's a recent lawsuit that came out which I thought was really interesting about the transgender discussion. But go to go, go, let's go. We'll get to the transgender thing in a minute. Talk about transitioning. We'll get to another. But anyway, like from my standpoint, like when you look at that and you look at the stuff with Bernie, and do you feel like that your party is like kicked so far left because they saw that from what happened with Hillary and what Bernie stands for. Because I think some of those other people are like they've spun way past where he was. I don't Again, I think it's that aspect of what we see because again, you know, I can sit there and spin it to be like, is the Republican Party Ted Cruz or DeSantis or some of these people that I see as more of an extreme right? And I think the simple part of it is the far left and the far light far left and far right are just loud and it's not actually representative of I think there's far more of you and me's than there are. Us. No, it's because we're quiet and respectful and we have the conversation. But it's that aspect of I don't think the Democrats learned their lesson because they pulled essentially the same thing this last go around where they let Biden do his thing for six months and then dropped Kamala Harrison and didn't set herself, didn't set her up for success, and also kind of presented it in this way of like, well, Democrats, this is who you get, even though for a lot of people myself included, she would not have been my first pick. But you look at people and you go to like, you take an AOC and you go, is she really that extreme? I'm not super familiar with I like, I'm aware of her, but you look and you go Is she really that extreme or is she just not backing down anymore? Because a lot of what I see when I see the clips that come out of her in these congressional meetings, is her just not being bullied? Is her just not letting a known falsity go unchecked? And I'm sure that there's some performative nature of it. Same way, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green was loud when the cameras were on, But you look at these aspects of. Things until Trump spanked her, and then she hadn't been right. But even then, what's we're from the left is I start hearing things from Marjorie Taylor Green, I'm like, I don't like the fact that I agree with her on some of this stuff, like what happened. It's it's worrisome. But you look and you go, Okay, what I see there is a chameleon changing to a more approachable base because her original approach wasn't there anymore. And where you look at someone like Bernie, I think what has won him a lot of respect from the left is he's always been that way. He hasn't chameleoned, he hasn't changed, like he's not really pro fitted from his political career. He's got his book deals and people have read him. He's got a few New York Times bestsellers. So he would probably be the only Senator that hadn't become a millionaire since they got there. If you actually go through and look and try and take a step back from. How far back there? I mean, I mean, we have the headlines, just to step back from the headline. But I think, look, I think with all the senators, if we wanted to ignore anybody in the government that thinks that they don't benefit from their position financially. They do. But when you look and you go, you know, take the last fifty years of or yeah, like last fifty years of presidents, the average presidential gain in total has been like forty two million while a president was in office into I'm talking Reagan, Carter, every like all these people. They're total earnings while in office, it's like forty two million. Until the current one, right, and well while in office, I think that's. Yeah, a lot of them. You know, you look at Obama and he's done tons of talking deals and this and book deals and stuff afterwards, and has made money. But when you look at the profits while in office, you know conservatively. Right now people are saying that, you know, Trump has made one point three billion dollars while in while in office on the conservative vent. So you look and so this is what I mean when I say, take a step back from the headlines and you start looking. You go, Okay, you know Elizabeth Warren, Yeah, she's made money, but not tens of millions. You look at AOC hasn't really made like she's made her salary. She's made some money, but it's not tens of millions of dollars as the claims tend to be. But then you flip it and you look at some of the Republican center. There was a Senator Hawley from Missouri tried to put a bill up. They originally called it the Pelosi Act. They then changed it essentially to cut off senators and congressman's ability to trade individual stocks. Because again I'll knock Pelosi for it, like clearly you seem to have been doing that. But in this presentation, in this I think it was like the Commerce Committee or something, you had multiple Republican senators. There's and I wish I could remember his name, but one of them was sitting there going I'm not voting for this because it takes away an incentive to do this job, you know, to not be able to trade stocks based on what we know. And Hawley wasn't saying don't trade stocks. He was that you can still have diversified funds. It was just individual because they had information that we as normal people don't. So I think that a lot of the divisiveness that we see is these headlines and this lack of understanding or a lack of willingness to acknowledge the faults within our own side. I'll sit here in knock Pelosi all day for taking advantage of the situation. But that's where you know, you look at things and it's is this a Fox News or MSNDC headline? Is this, you know, verified or is this misrepresentative? Is this amped up a little bit to get the click? And then you read the actual article and you're like, oh no, this isn't quite right. So so that that's what I think is the curious part about it is is that I think one of the reasons why things are so divisive is people don't read the news anymore. They read the headline, and that, like you said, I mean, I think it's all set up to just like roll through it and people to like it's something. That long reels and stuff like. That, and it attracts your attention and you get into it, and then nobody understands why everybody's pissed off at everybody else, And it's because you've read these headlines that are generated towards you based on your history, and you're like, I'm not that extreme. There's millions of people that think just like me, but it's not factual, you know it. And it's just. We try and pick it, you know, pick each other to or push each other to find that more middle ground source. Right, you know, I know that when we send each other articles like I'll typically you know, mine will be. New York min. They're different. They're different, then sounds that was a political statement. Yeah they're different. But then it's finding that middle ground of something that is nothing's ever going to be perfect, but reliable. And the other aspect of it, too is at a certain point you have to pick what you want to believe and pick where you want because if everyone's saying don't trust that, don't trust this. So let's talk about that believe So what do you believe we can do as a country to deal with the problem of what I believe to be a problem. How about I not do it. I'll do it like Grock. I'll try to be neutral. How do we deal with the massive amount of people that we have in this country who are not here legally? How do we do how? Because I think one of the things that's flawed on that side, the side that says we need to help everybody, is the ability to understand that we do not have unlimited resources, and so you can't help everybody, And so how would you deploy resources to deal with immigration? And then how would you deal with resources? So we don't get in this situation again, because I do feel like I think we both agree that the the last administration did not do a great job of I don't even know if it's secure in the border, because I don't I don't know that that's the right. I think there was there was an influx going into well. There was a huge group, there was a huge there was a vast number of people that came into this country. There was obviously a push to get people into this country. And so like that's where I struggle was, like you were saying with USA, well, we already had those programs. They were big back then. And so if in a perfect world, how do you provide services but limit because you had we don't have unlimited resources. How do we how do we deal with the immigration problem? Because I think we're both in agreement from an immigration standpoint of. What we talked about. I mean, I'd like to say we were the first ones to say the best thing to do is like for them for the agents to say, we will leave if you start turning the information over, which is it looks like that's what I think. That's what Tom bohen Homan Homan Homeny Homan, Yeah. Started starting. Well, I think the start right off the bat is honest conversations and not a left conversation, not a right conversation. Not Trump said like where I look and I'm seeing damage done? Is the credibility of government entities right now? Because you're seeing things happen. You know, we've talked about it with like the Alex Pretty and the Renee Good shootings and stuff like that, where you're seeing Christy nom come out and say things that are like right off the bat, factually inaccurate. So immediately it's that boy who cries wolf type situation of calling everything into question, right, you know, you look and you go. I was watching something the other day from or reading something the other day from the FED talking about how there are now concerns that the reported jobs numbers are inaccurate and actually overshot by sixty thousand jobs a month, and we've actually been in a deficit for the last three months. And you look and you go. During the shutdown, President Trump canceled the jobs reports for three months, and so you start to look at these things and you go, Okay. So the first answer to immigration is how do we trust the information? How do we trust the data, and how do we communicate honestly about it. So, for instance, I'll give Trump credit. If you look at the border crossing numbers for the last six months, they had started to drop under the last year of Biden, but they have plummeted. And whatever he's done for funding at the border for security has been highly effective. Now is that people just afraid to come here so they aren't even trying? Is you know, there could be numerous factors, but credit where credit is due. The border crossing encounters have plummeted. He has met and I also you agree with the goal, yeah, and. Whether you agree or disagree with the if the goal if he believes he was elected with a with an ultimate, not an ultimatum, but basically saying, hey, we support deport as many people as you can. They're talking well over a million people that. Have self deported, which I've heard that, yeah, yeah, and so like that's effective. It doesn't take this. And I think, excuse me, I think the ICE numbers as of right now are sitting at about six hundred thousand for twenty twenty five deportations. But that you heard the same thing as well, over a million people, Yeah, self. Deport It's like one one point two something like that. But I think and as a as an officer, you can speak to this. But the other aspect is when you look at Stephen Miller going into this election saying we're going to deport a million people. Once you put a quota on it, that then changes what you're doing because if you're trying to deport a million worst of the worst and you're not hitting that number because you're not finding them, well, that worst of the worst starts to get real open ended. And because now you're trying to hit a quote. You know, it's not always that joke amongst non non police people like myself of must be the first of the month or the last of the month, because I'm seeing a cop at every turnaround point because they got to hit their quotas or whatever. But so you when you start to talk about these these communication factors, it's not a you know, win or lose type situation. It's what's the honesty of it. And you look and you go, okay, there have been six hundred thousand deportations. You look back. You know, my side always like to say, well, you know, Obama deported people. And we talked about this the other day. When you look at ICE provided or CBPD provided data under the Obama administration of the three point something million people he deported over his eight or so years, I forget the exact timeline that he hunkered down on, but eighty six percent of them were classified as Tier one, you know, had a violent criminal record of some kind within the ICE tier system. Under Trump in the last year, six hundred thousand, seventy six percent of them don't even have a criminal charge in the US minus you know, civil or criminal immigration issues. But like, in terms of a violent criminal charge in the US, they don't have them seventy six percent, it's something like four to six percent have a Tier one classification. And so to have the conversation about immigration, because you're absolutely right that we don't have unlimited resources, but people want to come here. Nonetheless, but you look and you go, okay. You know, according to a memo put out by a Republican senator back in July, undocumented undocumented workers provided eighty nine billion dollars in tax revenue to three hundred and twenty billion dollars in GDP the country. Those two things are positive. But he also went on to say that throughout the course of the average undocumented individual's time in the US lifetime, they end up costing about sixteen thousand dollars or sixty thousand dollars sorry, over their lifetime in the US in terms of whatever that may be. I forget what the exact details were, but they were a net drain as an individual. So it's having those that part of that conversation of like, okay, what is what are the facts and how do we approach them? And it's not about are you right or am I right? It's about let's look at the numbers. What would that so? What would that policy look like? Let's just say that there are five million people like let's just say, from a performance standpoint, we need to reduce the number of people. Do you say we don't say a number, or and if we don't say a number of how many people we want to remove from the country, what do we say? What do we say this? I think we can admit that a flood of people has been poor. It has not been great for us, whether it be fraud or any other reason, has not been great for us as a country because it hasn't It hasn't been been a it hasn't been a net gain. So how to without using numbers? Because I don't disagree, I agree one hundred percent. Once you start attaching numbers to them and you give an employee and you're like, hey, you got to you got to hit this, They're not going to go I'm gonna go out here and work twelve hours to hit that. They're going to go, hey, I can do it in two hours, and in those two hours, I'll knock it out. And I won't I won't be efficient, I'll just be I'll just take the low, low hanging fruit and it's easy. I just think about it. For us, like in investigations, one of the things that frustrates me more than anything is I hope I don't get a ticket for this. But like anybody can write a ticket. But like if you want to actually put somebody that's committing a crime in jail, it takes a lot more time than it does to sit out there, run your radar and write a ticket. There is a reason, so I don't get a ticket. There's a reason for people out there. We need to slow people down. It helps with the accidents, fatalities and things like that. But like, just thinking our job is to go out there and write somebody a ticket is not it's it's it's easy, easier, But I don't know that that's the best way to do law enforcement. In the same way, I don't agree if if they were going by numbers and if their plan was we're just going to go in there and it, like you said, like I would be extremely offended as a citizen if somebody came if if somebody came up to me and said, hey, we need to see your ID because you look like somebody that's not supposed to be here, Like I would find that offensive, which is. Something that's yeah, and so I don't so I think, and again you know credit where credit is do. I don't disagree with President Trump's approach from the beginning, which was worst of the worst. If that's the goal, great, Like I said, Obama's three point one, eighty six percent of them were Tier one. You know, that would be a serious question. Is of those three point one or whatever the number is, how many were turned over before sanctuary city started. So in other words, what they're talking about in Minneapolis, like and that's where I think the numbers get all. So let's just say they locked up a thousand, right, and on those mass things where they go up identify you, you're not supposed to be here, boom, you're gone. But then they go and go by the way, we have seventy Well, let's say we have seven hundred people in our jails that we're going to turn over to Ice because they are here legally and they have committed a major crime in their Tier one. Like to me think anyone on my side would be opposed to that? Then why I have a sanctuary city where you don't cooperate with law enforcement. I so sanctuary cities for me, straight up, I don't fully understand the parameters with which they approach things. I understand like they but what they say is from an execution standpoint. It's just very simple. Is in law Enfoce and Felt law enforcement. What they do is, if you're here and the federal government wants to take you in custody, they they issue what is called a detainer. They send it to the local jail and say, when this person is supposed to be released from local custody, we the federal government want this person detained. They're not honoring these detainers in sanctuary cities, so these people are getting let out. It doesn't really matter what they were charged with or anything else. What it says is we're not going to worry about your status when you're When you're when you have paid your penalty to the locality or to the state. You're going to be released. We don't care if the federal government wants to detain you or not. So that would be that aspect of the sanctuary city would be something I'd be interested in educating myself more on, because that seems counterproductive. It's one hundred percent counterproduction. The aspect of sanctuary cities that I was aware of beforehand was this this essentially protection for yes, you're here illegally, but you're just you know, washing dish is, you're just helping farm or just doing whatever you're doing. You know. I always laughed of the you know, they're they're taking our jobs, this, that, and the other. It's like I worked in restaurants, and we we would have open employ employment for all these it was always our you know, janitor, dishwasher, like the lesser positions. I didn't see many people that looked like me repeatedly coming in going yeah, i'll do that. They come in and get an application so they could get unemployment. Yeah. But so when you consistently see the groups that you're saying taking are taking the jobs, but they're taking the jobs that people think they're too good for. That job's always been there, you can go have that job, but it's people say, no, that's below me. And so what I remember from like sanctuary or from my understanding of sanctuary cities is the people that are here, you know, the other greater percentage of of individuals who may be here illegally, but those people contributing the eighty nine billion in taxes. They're the ones doing those jobs. And so rather than you know, having ice come in and rip your dishwasher out of your kitchen, it's we're going to protect the people that are here working and doing the best they can for whatever. Now, again that was my understanding of, like a key proponent of sanctuary cities, the aspect of not going after detainers, especially if it's for violent criminals, like that seems like something that's counterproductive. It is, and that we actually had it in Charlottesville where a guy was in court and the federal agents said, we're picking him up when he's done with court, and they made a big deal out of it because they were like, oh my gosh, like they're they're rounding them up at the courthouses, and like, no, they had already coordinated it. They were just there to pick them up. And I think that's that's part of the problem with for me, with sanctuary cities, just a little little food for thought. Of like unintended consequences. One of the things you talk about jobs that people don't want to have, and I'm going to describe something for you which a lot of people don't believe, but it's one hundredcent truth seeing it happen. CDLs. One of the things if you're here illegally and you're driving a motor vehicle, you're not licensed to operate a motor vehicle in the United States, so you could be charged with that. Here's a crazy thing. If you have a Mexican driver's license because of trade agreements that we have, if you have a Mexican CDL, so a big truck, you can drive a truck inside the United States of America and your training was conducted in Mexico where you probably just wrote it. Not everybody, but there are people that just stroke out a check to the government and they're like, you now have a CDL and to think that, like we think that that that's it to me. That is a classic. Example of what happens when the government gets involved and they go, hey, here's a good idea. We don't have enough people to drive trucks. Let's just import these people. So people from other countries are allowed to drive trucks like they would not even get a driver's license in the United States, but they're allowed to operate this really really heavy vehicle that you know, and they had the fatality down in Florida, And you know, that's another example. I would almost guess I'm not gonna go into that one because that would be a guess, but I would say that if he went through it and went to Mexico, he could. Probably could have got a d he was a Indian. Yeah, but I'm saying like he could say, hey, I'm from Mexico. As long as you have. All they needed is a border crossing thing. Because I like, for me, honestly, I know my side will never do it because they don't want people to have IDs, but like the best possible thing is they should have like a mass We're gonna give you an if you have an ambassy period for the next sixty days to go here and get your biometric information, fingerprint, DNA, whatever, and we're going to hand you a government ID. Not to vote, not to do anything else, but we're going to hand you a government ID. We will whatever whatever the and because if you have everybody identified, then there's no question and so that. That stuff already does exist under your like asylum seeking programs and stuff like that. There are degrees of that. But but I think if they did that with everybody. Then you wouldn't have the unknown. You would have like, Okay, you have a sixty day amnesty period if you if and then after that sixty days if you make contact with law enforcement and you don't have an ID, then you're then you're gone. Sure, yeah, I mean that seems very reasonable. But I would also uh to cycle back a little bit talk about the the CDL stuff. So that's your your point is well taken, but I would say, okay, let's take a step back from it and look at a narrative aspect of it, which is, let's say I'm just a Mexican truck driver from the top of t O factory and Tijuana or wherever, and I have to make a delivery to El Paso. I need to crawl the border, so my CDL and all that stuff is still valid. I'm still just doing my job. So these I think it was part of like the NAFTA or the m the trade agreements. So it makes sense logically for there to be for my CDL that I got in my country that is a neighboring country to apply equally to this country because I'm making deliveries to this country. That's to me that's a very reasonable thing. It's not necessarily nefarious. I don't think. I don't think it was CREATI to being nefarious. I think what it is is like, as the general public, there's this expectation of like, no, I mean, if you if you're not, if you're illegal, you can't be driving a car. And then you see them operating heavy vehicles. Well it's not like an honest conversation because they are operating vehicles that are a whole lot more dangerous than. But it also comes again from the narrative perspective. It comes down to a an assumption that that person's illegal. Again, I could just be a truck driver here making a delivery and I'm going to turn around and go right back across the border. You know, I make this trip three times a week, and that's it, Like I'm not here doing anything. But then also it comes down to let's take a step back from the illegal immigrant or immigrant viewpoint at all and just say everybody, because I look at it and I go, okay, I remember what at you know, fifteen and a half going and getting my learner's permitter or I didn't get my driver's license right at sixteen because I just walked around Winchester. I got it at nineteen, but when I went back to get it, my driver's license test was go down here, turn a left, make a right, do a U turn, come back park. You're good. Like it was a joke. And so to look at it and go, Okay, do we have a bad driver because they're illegal, or do we have a bad driver because we have bad training? And take that step backward. Yeah, I don't disagree that the tray. I'm just saying I hesitate when. Any topic comes up to narrow the scope to be about, oh, it's just illegal somalis in Minneapolis. It's like, no, yes, they could be doing it, But is this indicative of this one group or is this a bigger issue that everybody abuses legal, illegal, you know, white, brown, black, whatever? And are we just focusing on a scapegoat group because it's an easy out or rather than addressing the issue overall. And that's to me where like my frustration for my side of things. You know, I believe in accountability. I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. I don't care. It's been my thing with Trump is like I don't care what you say, just do what you're gonna say, like hold yourself accountable, and we need to hold these people account And I think that that to the question and way at the beginning of this was you know, how do we fix this? How do we change stuff? It's accountability across the board. It's not you know, I want to see the left condemn the left. I want to see the I condemned the right because what I see is this he's our fearless leader, and whatever he says goes from voices that are in a position to go no, that's not right, that's not okay. You know, I pull the viewpoint of He made the claim during the campaign of no tax on overtime, your paychecks are gonna be bigger. No taxes on overtime, you're keeping your money. Well, I just paid my taxes and fun fact, all of my overtime was taxed. My paychecks were not bigger inherently because that money wasn't taken out. And at the end of the day, what I was credited on was the point five of time and a half for that overtime. It wasn't the full full ten hour shift that I worked. That was all overtime on my paycheck or whatever. It was just the half. So what the comparison I make is if you're being promised the most delicious, gooey chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven, but then what you're getting is a stale oatmeal raisin that's been in the back of the cupboard for six months. And the argument you're being told is well, you got a Cookie's like, yeah, but that's that's not what we were promised. That's not what the and I think that that acknowledgment is is the step in the right direction of being able to look and say, yeah, you know, he made all these promises, These he didn't keep, these he's working on. These are misrepresented. When you look at immigration, you're like, okay, what is the actual problem? What is the issue? So when we're looking at talking about resources, like, Okay, throughout the course of the US there have been amnesty periods. Obama offered one, Reagan offered one. These come out of the woodwork, get right with people. And so from the excuse me from the left, you want to go after the worst of the worst, one hundred percent, I support you. That's that gooey chocolate chip cookie you're getting the people that we don't want here, that are violent out when I see you arrest someone at an immigration hearing where they're trying to get right and do it the right way. When I see you pull twelve people in Boston, thirty eight people in Minnesota out of their Oath of Citizenship meeting or Oath of Citizenship appointment and say you're no longer welcome here because you're Somalier, because you're Afghania, because you're whatever, you know, jumping out of a Penske truck to yank someone out of a home depot. That's that stale oatmeal raisin. That is not what we what should be happening. Maybe eventually you can start looking at those people, but that's where it becomes so hard. I think from the left is to sit and say what you told me is not what i'm seeing. But I agree with you one hundred percent to me, then the real question is is that how do we hold because what we're told from corporations, you know, your. Healthcare is going to get better, soccle be it's expensive. All the different things we're told by people that run for office, this is what I'm going to do, and there's never an explanation. I think that's I think that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is there is no accountability, and it's just there's so many moving the information is moving so much that I don't think people know what the truth is anymore, and they certainly don't know how to hold somebody ultimately accountable well. And I think that the answer that is impossible. But is the answer is it doesn't matter, like, don't vote for party anymore. Don't vote Democrat because you've always voted Democrat, don't vote Republican because you've always voted Republican. Vote for the person that did what they said they were going to do, even if, like I would even go so far as say, even if you don't necessarily agree with it, but I sit and go, hey, you said you were going to do this, and you're doing it. You know, vote that way at the bottom is we're so far past that. No, I agree, because it's it is we're gonna We're gonna hold the line. Because I know on this recent thing they were all complaining that I think it was a Schumer they're complaining about because they had senators that flipped on the other side to pass the budget, So I don't know. It's it'll take us longer than an hour to figure out how to how. To fix it. But I really do appreciate you coming on. Yeah, I'm always. Glad to make the trip. He made the trip up here. This is far comfier than just staring at a laugh. It's definitely better any parting, parting words of encouragement or or just something you'd like to tell people of like hey, you know all all is not lost, that the country is not gonna it's not going to collapse. It is. It is democracy. It's ugly, but it's working. No, I think I think exactly that. I think the the fortunate thing is some of the old head boomers that are locked and set in their ways. Eventually they're not going to be here for one reason or another. And I do think when you see people whether I agree with him across the border or not, but when you see people like Josh Hawley or some of these younger folks up and coming, or even some of the older folks like your Shapiro's or Kelly's, like there are there is a new era of approach coming and it's just getting to it, and it's it's holding people accountable. But I think for the general public, it's be okay being wrong, be okay learning something new and saying, oh, nope, my mistake, that's not what it is, and you know, hold each other accountable to be better. I know that yes I'm left of center, but I'm not always right, and I know that there are other other ways to to understand things. And I think at the end of the day, if you are unwilling to compromise and just blind loyalty for the sake of blind loyalty, right, nothing's going to change, nothing's going to get better, and it's just going to be more of the same until you're able to look and go, you know what, AOC had a good idea, where you know what, Josh Holly had a good idea. I might not agree with everything, but let's get behind this one, you know. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing is if we could just look across And maybe this is the best time to do it since we're sitting in person, but I think just to look across the AIW and go. We're not that different. We're both human beings. We both want the same things for the country. It's just the path that we're going to take to get there. And I think that too is don't forget about humanity. Don't forget that the people that these decisions affect have a parent, have a kid, have a husband, have a wife, and that Yeah, you might want to sit there and say, oh, they're taking my tax dollars. It's like okay, yeah, maybe, and we can talk about that. But they also need to eat, and they also need to go to the hospital. And so at what point, at what point did it not become about humanity anymore? I mean, I think it goes both ways, because the flip side of that is the people looking for them aren't Nazis. Yeah, no, absolutely, And so I think that's the thing. Is one thing I can say is it's always good to talk to you. It's always good to have the conversations because, like I leave it, I feel like a better human being just because I've opened my mind up and not close it down. As soon as we start the conversations. Absolutely, and I typically learned something new. Uh all you're like, oh my gosh, I'm starting to think like I'm just kidding. I know, you know, I'm not gonna drag you. And you're not gonna drag me Eve so far, but anyway, appreciate your time, thanks for making the trip down, and I hope everybody has a good evening.
