Well, folks, we had a lot of interviews, a lot of sit-downs with a wide variety of picks for President Trump's cabinet. And today, we're going to go through some of the best moments from the Ben Shapiro show that Sunday's special on the search featuring leaders of the next Trump administration. Here's what it sounds like. Here's some of my conversations, Vice President-elect J.D. Vans.
I really think that Trump's major appeal more than anything else is something that he has said many times, which is they don't hate you because they hate me. They hate me because they hate you. And I think that's right for so many Americans. Yeah, I think that's very smart.
And it extends like further, it's not just about criticism of them personally, which I do think a lot of people feel to their core. It's also about the things that they hold dear, right? This wasn't true when Bill Clinton was running for political office. It wasn't true, by the way, when Barack Obama was running for political office. Actually, one of my favorite lines to give in speeches
is that I give a paraphrase line from a Barack Obama speech in 2007 or 2008 when he was running for president, where it's basically the quote goes something like, you know, I really don't like it when people bring non-American flags to protests in America. When I see a guy waving a Mexican flag in American protests, I get a flash of resentment.
And, you know, you give that speech to college-educated audiences in 2017, 2018, and you see people shift in their chairs. They're like, oh, where is this going? This guy is a little uncomfortable. And then you say, well, Barack Obama said that like, you know, eight years ago, 10 years ago. And they're like, oh, wow, that's surprising. And it just goes to show how different it is that people are talking about these issues. But to go back to this sort of
People feel insulted personally, but they also feel insulted, I think, about core parts of their identity. So my grandparents, again, classic blue dog Democrats, but like, when you talk to them about World War II,
And they were kids in World War II. Like my grandma's older siblings and her father were in the Navy. My grandfather didn't fight in the war. He just missed the sort of age cutoff. I think it was 16 when the war ended. They would get like teary-eyed, right? I mean, it was this incredibly proud moment of American history. And that moment was important to them as people, right? Their identity as Americans who felt that their country was good was really important to them.
And of course, there are all kinds of things that America has done wrong. You sort of have to issue that caveat. But people like, you know, they recognize that there are a lot of things wrong with their family. They still love their family. They still think things are good. The American nation is, in a lot of sense, a sort of extended family for a lot of people. They care about its history. They're proud of its history.
And if your operating assumption as a potential leader of American politics is not that America has made some mistakes, but America is fundamentally terrible, then a lot of people are going to feel personally insulted because America is something they actually care about. It's not just fake. And I actually think that this sort of reveals the cynicism of a lot of our sort of leadership class in the country.
is I don't think that they were caught off guard by the reaction that a lot of people had to this because they really don't think that patriotism is something that folks actually feel. They think it's all manufactured. They think it's all like Koch brothers or somebody else's propaganda to make people feel good about America. But a lot of people actually just feel good about America because they care about it and it's theirs and they love it. And if that feeling is genuine, it's very often, I think, foreign to a lot of folks in America's leadership.
Now take a listen to a bit of my conversation with Secretary of Homeland Security nominee, Kristi Noem. The broader mission which is to fight an overwhelming left change in the country. That's not relegated to President Trump and I think he made that clear in your speech. I did. I talked about why America needs conservatives and it's a belief system that this country was founded on that we believe and that we want to protect because it really is what has given us the opportunity to be successful and the most exceptional nation in the world for hundreds of years. The left has gotten extremely
far out there. I tell people all the time that I knew I served with extremists when I was in Congress. What's changed the last couple of years is they're so proud of it. They're so boldly declaring their embracement of socialism and communist principles and values that that is a dramatic shift that we've seen in the last few years. And that's why Republicans are united around the conservative message and will continue to defend our history.
are leaders that led us through challenging times. They had flaws, but they also did incredible things for us and our children and grandchildren and that we need to continue to talk about the value that that applies to today's culture and our government as well. There's a very specific reason that our founders gave the federal government very limited powers. They wanted the vast majority of the power to remain with the states and with the people.
And we're going to have to continue to educate folks on why that is important and then show to them that it really does work and create a better situation for their families. That's what we did here in South Dakota. We've talked for years in this state about our conservative values. We put them into place this year and we're showing that it really does work and it really is the best path to success. There's a previous discussion I had with Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hagseth.
They're going to start to return back, I would think, for many of them, to what they really were supposed to be doing in the first place. Oh, the incentive is having more ammo and more training, not more diversity trainings.
How about we do that? I do think it's the type of institution that can turn differently than say a department of education, which we should just get rid of completely. Or if you weren't going to get rid of, you couldn't pull the roots out fast enough or hard enough. Because I think the core of that Pentagon would be with all of those moves. Most of your O6s and O7s and O5s and E7s and E8s who fought these wars and saw the nonsense and
serve with people who were killed will say, yeah, yeah, let's get back to the real right now. And they would do it. And then you switch the military academies and you say, we're not teaching DEI anymore. And then more importantly, I think you go back to standards across the military and say, whatever the standards were in 1986, those are the standards.
You know, like whatever it took to pass Ranger School or Airborne School or become a Marine or whatever. I mean, I just, and that doesn't mean going backwards. It means returning to colorblind standards, returning to gender affirming or gender recognizing standards to use the wrong phrase. Like men and women are different. There's a whole chapter on that. You know, one of the examples I use in the book is the Marine Corps, when Obama wanted to push women in combat, the Marine Corps did a study.
And this study was, let's test 400 male Marines versus 300 male Marines and 100 female Marines together and a grueling exercise of test. And shocker, the 400 male Marines crushed the whole thing. And this was a 300 and 100, not a 200, 200. I mean, this is, and what did Ray Mavis, the Secretary of the Navy do?
you know, throw the study out because it's not what the political folks wanted. Even though they were told, if you do a study and it shows differences, whoever was involved in any of those types of things, you can see the door and you'll be replaced by a junior officer who can be promoted more quickly.
I mean, I didn't get into it in this book, but there's huge issues with a promotion system that, yes, it's a meritocracy, but there's incredible limits on who could move as quickly. So you've got little Eisenhower's out there who are stuck at Captain Rank for six years, even though they should be a lieutenant colonel based on what they're capable of doing. So there's things you can change there too that are long haul, but a lot of firings and then
hire the whoever made Maverick the movie and say, make me a dozen ads for every branch of the military that showed his bad dudes getting to work.
and get ready for an influx of young men under a commander in chief, they respect, they come on it. And guess what? Don't bring any of your racist crap. It's not already an issue. That's my point is like, that's not an issue, so we don't have to worry about the issues. The reason I say that is because that's what the left is saying.
The left is like, oh, it's Donald Trump's shock troops coming in. Donald Trump's shock troops are the guy you went to synagogue with or the guy I went to church with who decided not to join the military, but instead now is working for the power company or doing construction. But otherwise, would have joined and they go to church and they have families and kids and they're productive and they work hard and they're good, honest people.
lay out in the book, those types of guys I went to school with in high school, some of which probably would have been toxic males, if they hadn't been forged through the military. And then they moved in combat, silver stars, like just amazing guys. Or they were just patriotic and they were kind of wimps. But they went in the military and then they served 20 years and now they're Lieutenant Colonel's and they're large and in charge and military forged them too. Right now we're not recruiting either of those groups.
So you recruit those groups with a different ethos of the entire military. You could be back in the game. Moving on to a conversation I had with Trump's UN ambassador nominee, Elise Stefanik.
There's nothing racist about wanting a secure border. There's nothing racist about opposing mass amnesty. And Democrats are the party that's been advocating very publicly for decades now that they want. One of the reasons that they want to pursue amnesty for illegal immigrants, giving them the right to vote is to have a permanent liberal election majority. And I want to quote the Center of American Progress in 2013 said quote,
Supporting real immigration reform that contains a pathway to citizenship for our nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants is the only way to maintain electoral strength in the future. That's from center for the American progress. They say this explicitly every day they have for two decades. For me to call and put up an ad saying, we want border security and we want to oppose amnesty. That's where mainstream Americans are. There's nothing racist about that statement
You know what this really is, Ben, as you pointed out, Republicans are winning across the board. We are growing our base. We are growing supporters of the Republican Party. We have earned historic support among Hispanic voters, among African-American voters, among Asian-American voters. And on the issue of immigration, on the issue of securing our borders, on the issue of opposing amnesty, Republicans are winning by double-digit margins because the American people don't want these failed open border policies.
Democrats are going to lose. They are getting desperate. They are doing smears to anyone and anything. And they are just, again, this is what they have said themselves, that they believe that, again, look at Politico, they published, pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that if current trends would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states, they now win easily. This is what those same publications have said themselves.
Now take a listen to a bit of my discussion with Harvey Dillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights nominee. In your opinion, what is the state of election law in the various states across the country? How much will we be worried on the one side about voter suppression, which is what Democrats claiming on? On the other side, how much should we be deeply worried about? Heavy levels of voter fraud, not occasional voter fraud, which of course is going to occur in a country with hundreds of millions of voters, but really heavy election shifting voter fraud.
Right, so the place to start that conversation is the fact that the United States Constitution reserves for the states the time, place, and manner of elections are meant to be determined by state legislatures, not state attorneys general, not state Supreme Court justices, but only legislatures. So that's the basic bedrock principle around which all of these decisions must flow.
So, everything that is happening in Congress right now to try to federalize our elections, unfortunately, both parties have gone along with some aspects of that already. We already do have two federal election laws, National Voting Rights Act and Help America Vote Act, well-meaning laws that in fact are either ignored or simply are funding mechanisms for some of the disasters that we saw in the 2020 election.
So in terms of your question about, is there widespread voter fraud in the United States? There is voter fraud. The question is, is it of a sufficient degree to change the outcome of an election? And I certainly I think we've seen at the local level, and in some states, some of the practices that we saw in the 2020 election were truly outrageous.
The left is trying to tell us that voter suppression is a current issue in 2022 in this country. And I'm an immigrant to this country. And I can tell you that this country has the freest access to the vote.
for people of all colors and backgrounds and even uh... you know places of origin like myself of any country in the world and so that is true of people in georgia that is true of people in any place in the south that is true of people in uh... minority communities in california it is it is all i would say it is because of the fact that we don't monitor our voter rolls very well it is almost too free to vote it would be much more legitimate to require
some form of ID, as many states do legally. We don't have that, so it is all too free to be allowed to vote in this country. And so the myth of voter suppression, or race-based voter suppression in this country, or voter suppression because partisan poll work, partisan activists cannot give out gifts in the line to vote. This is a foul lie being pushed by the left.
that is truly shocking, and the people who are saying it no better. We'll get to more on this in just one second. First, in an uncertain economic landscape, smart investors are paying attention to the side. With increased tariffs reshaping our trade relationships and sweeping changes to taxes and regulations, there's just one investment vehicle that tends to stand the test of time. Gold. That's why I'm excited to tell you about a groundbreaking resource for my trusted partner, Birch Gold Group.
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Moving on to an insightful conversation I had with R.F.K. Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee. I wanted to ask you about what your solutions are to that because we can talk about the defense budget, but the reality is two-thirds of the American budget is entitlement programs that nobody wants to touch. Well, the biggest...
The biggest cost is our medical costs, and the medical costs are preventable. And this goes to another issue, which neither have ever talked about, which I believe is the biggest issue, which is the chronic to the even bigger than the budget.
which is existential which is the chronic disease epidemic when my uncle was present six percent of americans and chronic disease today sixty percent have chronic disease and uh... and that more than any country in the world i mean one of the reasons we had
During COVID, we had the highest death rate, the highest body count of any country in the world. We had 16% of the COVID deaths globally were in the United States. We only have 4.2% of the world's population. And a lot of that was mismanagement. But a lot of it was also because we have the highest chronic disease burned in any country in the world. The CDC says that the average American who died from COVID had 3.8 chronic diseases.
Now you take these quantities individually. I'm juvenile diabetes when I was a kid.
A typical pediatrician would see one case of juvenile diabetes in his lifetime, his entire career, his 40-year career. Today, one out of every three children who walk into his office, this pre-diabetic or diabetic, the cost of diabetes now in this country is higher than the defense budget, one disease. And that doesn't even include Alzheimer's, which we now know, which has now been reclassified as type three diabetes.
Alzheimer's coming from the same cause that's causing the diabetes, which is food. It's poison food. We have 1,000 ingredients in our food that are banned in Europe and other countries. And they're killing us literally. The autism rate in our country has gone from one in 10,000. In my generation, 70-year-old man, one in 10,000 has full-blown autism.
In my kid's generation, it's one every 34 kids according to CDC, one every 22 boys. Oh, this is a national security issue. It's the cost. Mark Black, so just published a peer review application that shows that the cost of treating autism alone is a trillion dollars a year.
of this is, like I say, this is existential for us. And then there's all these other disease that suddenly appeared around 1989, all these allergic diseases, food allergies, peanut allergies, eczema, asthma exploded. We had that early, you know, when I was a kid, I knew people with asthma.
But today they're in every classroom, there's albuterol inhalers in every classroom, there's EpiPens in every classroom. Nobody is talking about this and explaining why the neurological disorders, ADHD, speech, lay language, like ticks, Tourette's syndrome.
narcolepsy asd autism or these are are are diseases that we never heard of when i was a kid nobody ever knew about them they were unknown you know to any except for esoteric specialties and and the medical profession
The autoimmune diseases that suddenly exploded, I mean, the great bulk of my followers are young people. And I do selfie lines after every speech. And they wanted a time they come up to me and say, I have pods. I have ADHD. I have all these autoimmune diseases. And rheumatoid arthritis, human diabetes, lupus, Crohn's disease, things that we never heard of when I was a kid, suddenly they're exploded.
And then all of these other, you know, the autoimmune, the allergic diseases and neurologic diseases and obesity. My uncle is present.
13% of kids were obese today, it's almost 50%. And that this is killing us as a country in so many ways, not only national security and our ability to find people who will actually defend this, who are in shape enough to defend this country, but the cost of it is $4.3 trillion a year. So it is five times our defense budget.
Now take a listen to a bit of my conversation with FDA commissioner nominee Dr. Marty McCarry. We need good research on the microbiome. We need to repeat clinical trials that were only done once before we create entire guidelines. Sometimes up to 40% of everything we do in medicine gets reversed when a second study eventually gets funded. But pharma is not interested in a second repeat study if the first study shows some marginal benefit. And the old guard dinosaur professors at the NIH
are set in their ways. I mean, we saw a little glimpse of that during COVID, a group of doctors in their 70s and 80s deciding what's going to get research and what's not. And it turns out there was no research funding for natural immunity or vaccine complications or actually study the effectiveness of cloth masks or even require a clinical trial on COVID vaccine boosters. So they weaponized research and it's a much bigger problem beyond COVID. I don't talk about COVID much in the book. It's too tribal. People are sick of it. But
This is a peek into a broader medical establishment. Maybe we need to talk about
treating more diabetes with cooking classes instead of just throwing insulin at people. Maybe we need to talk about school lunch programs, not just putting every kid on ozempic. Maybe we need to talk about environmental exposures that cause cancer, not just the chemo to treat it. We need to talk about food as medicine and general body inflammation and the microbiome. Let's move on to two great conversations I previously had with Vic Rameswamy, Department of Government Efficiency co-lead at nominee.
So what does Americanism look like definitionally from where he's at? Yes. So look, I do fall in the camp of believing that thing that makes the United States of America unique is that we are bound by a set of ideals. And that's different than the blood and soil vision of American identity. And I do think that that's gaining currency. It's popular. I'm empathetic to it.
But I think that that fails, the blood and soil vision fails. First of all, our national identity will always then be thinner than that of somewhere like Japan or Italy for that matter, right? Or Israel. Like these are countries where you have deep blood and soil connections, genetic lineages dating back or religious ties. Like that is not the United States of America. So if we pretend that somebody's more American because they've been here for seven generations versus somebody who's only been here for two or one,
Well, guess what? Our national identity is always going to be a weaker form than that existing in most other countries. In fact, most other countries have not only a strong acclaim on that national identity, but it also denies the possibility of American exceptionalism, which is this idea that the United States, which I would actually buy into, this idea that the United States of America is exceptional relative to all other nations across time and space because of the common ideals that otherwise brought together and divided, and even in some ways polyglot group of people, religiously diverse group of people in a way that's never been done in human history.
And so what are those ideals? I think that their foundational ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, I think the idea that we the people actually can be trusted to govern ourselves for better or for worse, which acknowledges that we're going to be trade-offs and those will get it wrong, but that is who we are. That's what made America great the first time.
The idea that you get to speak your mind openly and express any opinion, no matter what that opinion is, no matter how heinous it is to me, the fact that you get to express that opinion as long as I get to in return, the fact that you get to practice your religion, whatever that religion is, as long as you're not hurting somebody else in the process.
as long as I get to in return. The idea of merit, merit I think is at the heart of the American identity. And what is merit or what is a meritocracy? I think it's a system that A recognizes that not everyone, in fact, decisively everyone does not have the same God-given gifts. It acknowledges that and yet still says that we create a space, a nation that allows you to achieve the maximum of your God-given potential, even though that's different from mine or anybody else's.
You're God-given potential. You can maximize that God-given potential in this country without any government or system standing in your way. That, I think, those, I think, begin to form the beginnings of an American identity, grounded in the rule of law. Something that we say is, you know, a nation without borders is not a nation, but that's an extension of the fact that we're a nation founded on the rule of law.
So I think those basic ideals, free speech, open debate, free expression, free exercise of your own religion, meritocracy, the best person getting the job, regardless of their genetics, the commitment to self-governance for better or for worse, the idea that the people we elect to run the government are the ones who run the government rather than unelected or enlightened bureaucrats, as it's been done in most nations across human history and even most nations on earth today.
Those are unique American ideals, and that's what I believe makes American exceptionalism possible. That I believe is our identity.
I think that there's a phrase that's been used on sort of the post libertarian right that, you know, I don't agree with them on a lot of things, but I think the phrase is correct. You have to know what time it is. I mean, the fact is that people on the right very often refuse to acknowledge what time it is. Of course, they've been arrayed against them. And so they get very nervous about the idea, listen, I'm nervous about the idea of the government utilizing power on behalf of, quote unquote, right-wing interests as well. Because again, my congenital belief is that the government should stay out of these things, but
If the only ability, if the two choices are, we lose, or we fight it back to a standstill with the hope that eventually we get back to the libertarian agreement, I'm going to pick the second every single time. I agree with you. So I think you and I are actually even more similar than I do in a really similar perspective. So there's another interesting observation to make about these two branches of the conservative movement here.
We just talked about the content of the differences. I think there's another difference so that it complicates this. If I heard between the lines correctly, tell me if I did, was your implicit critique of the post-libertarian right might relate to this, which is that the libertarian right can argumentatively joust according to first principles. There's a set of principles that maybe at risk of being
completely blind to present realities and a combination of not just the blindness but the lack of courage is actually what I call it to take up the full extent of what you actually believe right okay somehow the civil rights acts and the predicted classes are sacrosanct and we can't touch them but we're gonna pretend like
But the free market starts with those end, while actually having the law create the very conditions for viewpoint-based discussion, deep platforming, firing, whatever else it is. And same thing, by the way, we'll take the ESG-driven control of capital markets as given, but then somehow any force against that movement. Outside of that free market that we have to flash freeze the present and then assume here and forward. That model doesn't work. So we talked about that.
The problem with much of the, you know, the post-libertarian right, or what you could call lowercase p-populist right, or whatever, is that it doesn't rest on a philosophy or set of principles. It's an emotion that is frustrated, correctly so, by the way, with the failures of courage and the failures of eye-opening, of opening one's eyes of the classical conservative
sort of neo-liberal right, neo-libertarian right, but also frustrated with the actual victory, the winning that you refer to on the left. And so I think what we need, the future of the conservative movement demands is bringing the intellectual rigor of actually having a principled, ordered world view from the historically classical right, but applying that to a starting point and a status quo that recognizes the fact that we're not starting from neutral territory. We're not starting with a whiteboard.
And we as a movement have not done the hard work of defining what that affirmative vision actually is, as opposed to saying that, you know, fight back in the neutral, like, you know, yeah, I mean, like, okay, that might be like a short term like strategy to a stalemate, but like where from there, okay, the libertarian classical liberal, Milton Friedman worldview had a vision of what that society looks like, okay?
for whatever reason the people who have espoused that mantle do not have the political courage will or ability to drive and recreate a world view by undoing the damage that's been done for for the last sixty seven years of policymakers fine if we're then going to take that as given what is our ordered world of view that we will advance as a north star guiding set principles of the conservative movement that was
I will not claim to have done that in my new book, but that was a project that I at least attempted to begin in my new book that's coming out next month. But this is the conversation we need to have. Now take a listen to parts of a stimulating conversation I had with Elon Musk, the co-lead nominee for the Department of Governmental Efficiency. What do you see as the obstacles to companies being successful increasingly in the West, if there are obstacles to that? Well, I think excess regulation.
Yeah, taxes do rush out every year, making a little harder every year as taxes rush out. But the regulatory creep is, I think, a massive danger. So laws and regulations are immortal. But the regulators and the lawmakers make new rules and regulations every year. And so every year, you've got this sort of another layer of laws and regulations.
It's also getting to the point where everything's legal. You can't get anything done. You say, well, how do they deal with it in the past? Well, the way they dealt with it in the past would there be a war. And the war would wash away the old rules and regulations. That literally would take a war to change things.
you know, like Napoleon, you know, establishing the Napoleonic Code from the old law systems, sort of the lords and peasants, and, you know, for all that the bad that Napoleon did, I think he did more good, actually. So, the evidence is in that, I think, maybe a third or half of all countries on earth still run on the Napoleonic Code.
And I would prefer to have some cleanup process for laws and regulations that doesn't require a wall, that would be nice. And I think that's something we need to institute, like basically garbage collection for laws and regulations.
And one of the things that has been suggested is a book called The Sovereign Individual, written in the late 90s, that basically suggested that we are entering the era of avoidance, that people are going to be able to be sovereigns. You talk about sovereign health earlier, you're not king of something, but you are the head of your companies. And so in the future, people will just be able to move money around, locate where the regulations are the friendliest. And so the United States right now thinks that we have the advantage, because we historically have. But that doesn't mean that that's how it's going to go in the future. You're seeing more and more companies, for example.
going to Singapore or going elsewhere just to move away from those regulations. So avoidance, which wasn't a strategy in 17th century France, where you're going to go exactly, is now a very real set of possibilities for a lot of entrepreneurs. Yeah. Well, regulation in the US barriers by state as well. California is the most regulated state. So increasingly people seek to do things outside of California or outside of New York. Those are the two most heavily regulated states.
so you know given all those things it's do you think that there's going to be a backlash to regulation in america or do you think that the west is sort of america being a stand-in for that sliding into this morass of regulation based on honestly looks like to a certain extent jealousy it looks like trying to tear down success in the name of fairness uh... as opposed to this this this regulations were intended to serve the public good
You know, rules against one thing or another. Like the car industry gets, you know, has lots of rules in how to make a car. I mean, there'll be like piles of books in this room to cover just the US regulations, orders required to build a car. Those are, at least ostensibly, they're aimed for safety. But, you know, in terms of other regulations,
Yeah, I think generally we want to be averse to any regulation that is anti-meritocratic. The point of fighting racism, sexism, and whatnot was not to replace it with another form of racism and sexism. But it was rather to get rid of racism and get rid of sexism, not to change it to another form. And DEI is fundamentally racist and sexist.
I think there's the fundamental distinction between innovators and business people and people in the free market and the political class. The political class operates almost solely on the basis that the pie is fixed. Because if the pie is fixed, then the way that you get elected is by promising more of that pie to such and such a person. Or you promised that by seizing money from the private sector, you're personally going to grow the pie.
That the first mark of a politician you shouldn't listen to is, I can fix all of your problems. And that basically rules out in your way everybody. Because it seems like everyone in the political class is into the, I can fix all of your problems. When it seems like what I actually need is people who are entrepreneurial and innovative to solve this problem in front of us. So that we can then move on to the next problem that's in front of them. Yeah. Basically, the reality is that the government is really just a corporation in the limit. Government is the ultimate corporation.
It's not different for a corporation, it's just the ultimate corporation. And it's a corporation that is a monopoly and it can't go bankrupt unless the country goes bankrupt and has a monopoly on violence. So how much more do you want to give to the world's biggest corporation that has a monopoly on violence? Probably not, probably less. I mean, if you look at say countries like
East and West Germany or North and South Korea. Cases where there's just an arbitrary line that's been drawn, if they could use it in one country, arbitrary line is drawn because of a war. What is the productivity difference from one to the other? West Germany had a productivity five times greater than the East Germany. And it's not like West Germany was just the sort of bastion of capitalism. They're like half a socialist.
So even with, so whether it means that they have socialist and the other side is 100% socialist or communist, then you really have something like a 10 to 1 difference in productivity if something is done by the government or done by the private sector.
That's why, but I'm not someone who says abolish the government. I just say, let's have the government do the least amount because the less the government does, the more the economy will prosper because anything done by the government, it's going to be five to ten times less efficient. But think of the DMV. I'm trying not to. Last but not least, here's a lesson to a recent conversation I had with Representative Mike Waltz, Trump's nominee for National Security Advisor.
I served, I went to Virginia Military Institute, I served 27 years, a lot of it in the reserves, in Special Forces. I don't know, many people realize both the Navy Seals and Army Greenberries have reserve units. So I kind of have a day job, I built a company, I worked in the Bush administration and the Pentagon.
I had to be one of the only idiots that was writing the strategy, briefing the strategy, then I would get mobilized with my reserve unit and have to go actually do the strategy. And out there with my guys who would then say, who the hell thought this was a good idea, right? The interesting part, Ben, would then be taking the uniform off, coming back into the kind of policy apparatus.
and saying, hey, boss, this isn't working. I was just out there on the ground. You're getting fed a line of crap from the kind of blob and try to fix it. So I did that back and forth a number of times.
and both worked in the White House, worked in the Pentagon, worked out in industry. I've got more scar tissue from contracting officers in government and trying to do business with our own government than I do from the Taliban and brought all those experiences to bear, I think, in Congress when I ran for Ron DeSantis's seat when he ran for governor.
So that was the kind of the trajectory and I saw with President Trump that his instincts on so many things were absolutely right. Whether it was the pivot on China, whether it was, hey, we can shift to focus on Iran rather than Palestinians and bring people together in the Middle East. Whether it was Europe, you've got the same size economy the United States does.
Stop you know this great deal you've got with we're paying for your defense while you pay for your social programs and so I've been a hundred percent on on on board with his America first agenda and you look at what he got done on the Abraham Accords on China on the border on You know all kinds of reforms in the military that we've been asking for for years now, I think he
He gave me the nod to help pull all of that together for him on the book. First, the proceeds go to the green berets that I lost, and nobody hates wars more than people that have to go fight him. Well, folks, those are all people that President Trump has picked for his new administration. Can't wait to see what they do in office.
