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A huge congratulations to Larry Ellison. The data center build out and the AI boom has a vaulted him. We can put up this first elements involved in the third richest man in the world. You know, I love it when good things happen to good people, don't. We'd love to celebrate success here.
We call it karma.
We do absolutely beautiful. His net worth went up I think seventy billion dollars in the last month, modest because he's you know, he really he woke up earlier. You know, he put in the hours and when you do that, you know success comes your way coming out of that. What he'd like to see is uh. Stenny Hoyer, the longtime representative from southern Maryland who was the number two in the House for really many decades, wants to see
him replaced by an Oracle lobbyist. Larry Allison. Of course, Uh the founder of the CAA linked Oracle and Adrian Boafo, now running former Stenny Hoyer campaign manager, has been a lobbyist for Oracle for data centers for the last five years and is now running with Hoyer's support to replace him. Standing in his way, Harry Dunn is a Capitol police officer but also Prince George's councilwoman h Wallable Gay. We
are joined today by Wallable Gay. So your your opponent's b US made seventy billion dollars last month, but you know anything can happen, So thank you for being here in the studio.
We really appreciate it, right, and we have no tolerance for the billionaires living big in the United States while the rest of us are suffering.
And that's why I'm running.
What's so crazy is we could have minted seventy one new billionaires in the last month instead one billionaire's worth seventy one billion dollars more.
The richer are getting richer. It is getting out of control. It is in our faces and it's like they just don't care anymore. And that's why we are we have we are ground zero for the attacks. It is amazing how we have billionaires who are getting richer, but yet
and still we're ripping. Our federal workers have gotten the jobs taken our federal contractors anything di you understand, Maryland's fifth Congressional district has two of the wealthy as African American communities in the country that have been torn down because contracts have been taking Anything DEI in this administration has been snatched. Like we literally are hearing weekly from people looking for new opportunities because they can barely make payroll.
We have federal workers who are peacemeialing side jobs to get the jobs to get the income that they have before, which they're barely getting. We are dealing with the highest grocery bills, utility bills. I'm as you mentioned, one of my opponents is a lobbyist for Oracle and we have data centers that are on our grid we are on the same grid as the capital of data centers just about yessue. It is a huge issue in Prince George's.
I stopped the data center in Prince George's. We have ones that they just stopped in Charles County, and Calvert is not having it. So we have at least three of the five jurisdictions within Congressional five fighting data centers. And yet and still we're looking at Oracle possible. And they even even before the four million dollars that's coming from AI, Crypto Oracle, all of these things, they were
getting money from Oracle Data Center folks. And I would just tell you this, Our bills are going up high.
We are on the same grid.
We are on the thirteenth state grid with the same grid as the capitol data centers Virginia. So that's why our bills are even higher than other areas. We are struggling to stop. We have in Prince William County twenty hyper skilled data centers coming up. And if that and our pjam our administrator told us, if the hyper skilled data centers keep coming up, we are going to have blackouts. So we are in trouble, and it's because of data centers.
We have got to pause data centers. I am full support of Senator Sanders bill pause moratorium one data centers. In back, I introduced one in Prince George's county when we were going to have one at the Landover Moore Mall and Senator Van Hollins build that we're requires them to bring their own generation. Their pressure on the grid is making it worse for everyone. And then if you elect a lobbyist that is a data centered lobbyist, it
will get worse. You're almost like asking for increasing utility bills, and yet instead we have, as you said, the oracle man is now more richer than he ever has, and we have seniors that can't pay their bills.
In fact, my office, we're paying bills.
I feel like if Howard Zenn had been immortal and was around today, like writing and writing a new book, it'd be like Larry Ellison oracle lobbyists trying to replace Stenny Hoyer in southern Maryland. Now. The thing that makes this race interesting though, is there seem like they're two hundred and fifty five people running. How many people running in this race?
It's twenty three now we had one dropout for the Democratic side doesn't include the Republican side. And it's because hor who stayed in office for almost He's stayed in office longer than I've been born, so it is he has been forty forty five years in office, and that has caused people to have to say, this is a moment.
And I will tell you this, the suffering.
I know that we have people I'm running against that I don't know very well. But what I know is that they're mostly laid off in federal workers that are just sick of it and deciding they want to get involved. It is the suffering that's going on that's costing the twenty four people to run because people are seeing we've never seen this before. Like twenty years ago, this was the Middle America where they were taking away those factory jobs, and those factory jobs were leaving the country.
Now it's us.
We are little federal workers are losing jobs and they cannot find anything that would pay them or give them anything before and the ones who've keeping their jobs, they feel that they have been pretty much nobody appreciates them. And meanwhile, this is happening. We're spending a billion dollars a day in the around war. While we've got peopleeople who have been told their jobs were cut to save money.
Oh, go ahead, correct me if I'm wrong. In your district, whenever there's a government shut down at a lot of your workers are contractors, and the actual employees will get back paid, but the contractors get stiffed usually.
Yeah, but understand don't because the employees, if they hear this, they will just cringe, right, because the reality is that as you're waiting, there's a late bill, there's bill payments that need to be paid back. Yeah, and then they are looking at back pay. But the reality is that getting all those late fees waiting for things to come,
money come. I mean, there were people that called and said, I know what's to shut down, but while I'm about to get my LFE turned off because we're already behind. So is that then the federal contractors, Yes, they don't get job and federal contracts even worse. We have about in Prince George's County alone, we have about a seventy five thousand federal workers, and in each county they have
a big number. But what's even bigger is a federal contractors and federal contracts don't have the same protection, so they don't get the notice. They don't get a lot of them are getting last minute notice that they have been the contracts have been ended, and they don't get all of these packages and all that that's required with a federal worker. So we have federal contractors who are just getting quick notice that they've been laid that they're going to be laid off, and no money to really go.
Like, people are struggling.
We did put out something about paying bills from my with the nonprofit because we fund a nonprofit and we had to say no to a lot of people.
So it is struggle right now.
I think that it is something that many people are not used to, so they're trying to kind of go through it. So right now, what a Horrior endorsement ten years ago would have sealed to deal right it would have been, it would be over.
Because I've been a.
Council member for four years now in Push George's County, and prior to that, I was a labor lawyer involved in the community.
I had a show chat with the lawyer.
I've run against a ticket before, and when I ran against a ticket that with normal times, people just say, look I know these people. I'm going to vote for whoever they recommend. Now, we went door knocking yesterday. People are asking questions. They say, we got to research candidates because the hurt.
Is too much.
Yeah, and I was gonna ask. I mean, so your opponent might say data centers. If people are struggling in PG County, they need jobs. Data centers bring jobs, data centers bring tax relief.
We've been played before, right.
So tell us.
And I was also curious, when you're talking about this on the campaign trail, what you're hearing from people, because we're not being told by Kevin O'Leary and others that this is just a giant Chinese psychological operation on the American public. China is making us mad at data centers.
What are you.
Hearing, Well, we're here, so we're put it like this. This was before this election. People found out in Prince George's County they have fast tracked data centers, that Prime administration have fast tracked data centers. The Council done counting executive. When we came in, we didn't even know about the fast tracking. But what happened was all of a sudden, the work out to the community that one of the data centers was at permitting and we found people called
the office demanding screaming. We had an event where people took over. About almost a thousand people showed up screaming and yelling, and they were like, why why do we have this? We were already looking into the issue, and I think we had a qualified data center task force to look into the issue. But then I did a pause because I was like, no, fast tracking, everything has to stop the reality is that what's getting people the bills.
People are seeing a thousand dollar bill a month at people who I used to have.
A bill that was less than one hundred dollars.
Even I myself and admit to you, yes that I got a six hundred dollar bill in January, and so if you were getting that I had an eighty five, I mean it is really I had an eighty five year old woman who said that she's got a fifteen hundred dollar bill. She doesn't know if you have an older house, it's even worse. That's what's really driving the frustration, and I think people are feeling like what a data center. They're seeing a lot of things, a lot of the
information online. They want to know, how does this impact their life, how does it impact their environment, how does.
It impact their water?
So what we know is my opponent has been quiet on what his work is with data centers. He even says it's education. But the reality is that Oracle is building data centers.
So he's not even trying to own it and say, listen, I was bringing jobs.
He's just someone that doesn't want to talk about it.
We know that the job count for a data center, for a regular data center, is about twelve to fifteen, and so we are talking about it, and they even said that what's even worse is that a lot of the jobs are remote, so arguably they can hire somebody from another state and so you might not need someone in town. Now, the unions will argue, and I know that because they were the ones that I found out that my opponent worked for data center.
I found out through the unions.
The unions actually says, well, this is unionized jobs, but the reality is that the construction jobs, those.
Are temporary jobs. I am pro labor. I am a labor lawyer, so I am I.
Believe any data center built should be built under a labor agreement. However, is this good for the residents the answer is no, no, no, no.
So you also made news in Prince Georgie County as you were pushing a ceasefire resolution, or talk about what you did you know after October seventh, what the pushback has been and how that's playing into the rate because Adrian Boff of course, because this is a Howard Zen story also has a support of democratic majority for Israel. I don't know if apacs officially gotten in yet, but they have the APAX. Yes, DMFI is basically an apex right.
Right right, yeah, So we when October seventh, and of course I am in no support of killing of Harma's actions. However, the story, the visuals of those killings in Gaza got to me. We had we did a ceasefire resolution. I tried to lobby my colleagues to do a permanent sea cease fire resolution. A lot of people were afraid because of Abac, but I wasn't because I felt strongly that this was wrong.
On all sides.
We don't we shouldn't have Hamas killing people, We shouldn't have an Israel government killing people. So we did a ceasefire rally with the Muslim community and Christian community.
We had pastors.
We had everyone come out and so now of course, and we're not for putting our money into a war that makes no sense, especially when our federal workers are not back to work. We are not for just giving arms with no restrictions. And that's not being anti semitic, that is just being That is just the position that America should take.
They will take you with any other country.
Right right, Wallible gay candidate for Maryland's fifth congressional district. Where can people find more?
Go to wallablagaye dot com. W A L A B L E G A Y. I've been an activist, you know a lot in Prince George's county. They know me and my work has been known around the community. So we're on the ground and what we see. Don't let the the the four million dollars of AI crypto and all that. So that's what that's the number week at fool you into thinking that this is over.
This race is over. We're talking to voters.
The election is two weeks yeah roughly. All right, so we'll be watching it closely. Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you.
We're joined now by Orrin cass He's the founder and chief economist over at American Compass or in thanks for coming back.
On the show.
Thank you guys for having me fresh.
Off an interview with Treasury Secretary at Scott Bessett last night at an American Compass event and disculture. I'm an American Compass member and a big.
Fan of American Compass. Of course, what does it mean or I go to events? It means we get a free dinner.
Every once in a while.
No, no, it's there's no financial relationship. We just we are trying to support a network of policy professionals, journalists, lawyers, folks in government who are nerds like you.
Remember it means like you get an AMA for free or something.
We should have something like that. But no, it means we're hopefully working together on improving the policy environment.
In this talent.
Right.
And now you are out with a new initiative on American citizenship.
We can put this up on the screen.
American Compass has this new reclaiming American Citizenship initiative announced last night, And we might have to add this in post, but just announced and or we're going to ask you all about what you're trying to do on the right to build a sort of initiative or to build a framework for how the right should be thinking about in ship right now, especially as.
Let's put F one on the screen.
This is protests erupting outside of Delaney Hall in New Jersey, and Ryan, you could probably tell us more about the left's mobilization here. Obviously this is over the treatment of people detained, which again it gets us back to this conversation about what it means to be a citizen and the like.
But the left is outside of Delaney Hall. It doesn't seem to be going anywhere right.
There are there are hunger strikes going on inside over on the one hand, over conditions, also access to different kinds of food, also over the protesting kind of the entire apparatus. We could actually roll F four because Hassan Piker was there recently. Earlier on the show, we talked about Adam Hamoy, new Jersey congressional candidate who just won.
Last night, Hammoey and Hassan Piker went to the Delaney protests and here's Piker reading out some of the demands from the hunger strikers and protesters inside.
What are these Lady Hall hunger strikers demanding? Many people have questions about what is happening inside of the Laney Hall. The detainees on hunger strike have stated that their demands are Number one, to meet with the governor. They want to meet with Governor Mickey Cheryl to go inside of the facility and meet the actual detainees. Number two, they want the release of the medically vulnerable people. They demand the immediate release of those with serious medical conditions. Number three,
release young and elderly detainees. They demand the immediate release of young and elderly people. In number four, freedom, We're not striking to demand better conditions and treatment. We're going We're doing this to demand our freedom. And they've said that they're going to continue the strike until they get hurt. The hunger strike is not about improving the conditions of the facility necessarily, but to meet these demands.
Most recently, they want medical attention at.
Play for and protesters have altered only accused New Jersey Governor Mikey Cheryl of either you know, collaborating with with ice here or abandoning them, but meanwhile put up F three here. She has sued the sued the facility over unsanitary conditions and in particular for barring access to health inspectors. She has said, you know, if there's actually nothing to hide, if everything's fine in there, why are you blocking state
health inspectors from from going from going inside. About ten ten thousand plus people have gone through this facility, most of them, I think the medians stay is about nine days. I think seventy percent or so have no criminal record, which means it's some thirty percent due and so foreign. You know, thank thanks for being here. The piece, the piece that you wrote, you know, it's it's this an elevent you can describe becase, this elevation of the idea
of citizenship. As I and as I was reading it, I was thinking, like, as far as I understand, as far as I remember, the idea of citizen kind of originates sort of with the French Revolution, I think the
American Revolution which inspired the French Revolution. But people, you know, people in the streets of Paris were calling themselves like citizen so and so, citizens so and so, And the purpose was to do pretty much what you're suggesting in the in the essay here, which is to establish kind of a level of baseline humanity and equality among the people, and to say the Republican. Yeah, well there's that too, and to say that we write and a call back to that, to say that we we have duties and
responsibilities to you know, to the to the state. There are things that we are obliged to do for the state, and there are things the state that is obliged to do for us because we are citizens. And it's a and it's a two way street. I don't know, how do you like, how do you think about it?
I guess I would put a little differently, I think, for one thing, to Emily's point, you know, the citizen concept goes back to Rome and the Roman Republic, and it was certainly very central to the American founding.
I guess it's a contemporary issue.
Well sure, I mean French Revolution. French Revolution is a strange place to go as the start. You're right, they called each other's citizens. But I think also, you know, this captures a way in which the French relation is obviously less successful. I think most people would say, and how you're describing as kind of just a fundamental claim of equality of things that that the people owe to
the state. I think this is what's most important about citizenship, which is that it's a it's a reciprocal obligation among the people. And and that goes back again to this notion I mean of what is a republic? Right. The one thing that's so unique about the United States is that it's really, you know, the nation that was brought into being by the sheer will of citizens who wanted
to create this thing to serve them. And I think, you know, if you go back and you look historically really up to very close in the twentieth century, certainly you know in the US there was very much an understanding of citizenship. You again, it has its legal meaning who can live where, but citizenship really meant something much broader. It meant full participation in communal life, in economic life,
in national life. It meant a sense of solidarity. It meant, you know, ultimately that you also had this connection between generations, that you were inheriting something from the people who had invested to give it to you, that you in turn had an obligation to invest and give it to the next generation. And it seems to me that and what we're really focused on American compass, is that that's just fundamental to human flourishing, to a well functioning society, and
I think it's something that we've lost. And you know, we obviously do a lot of work on economic policy, I think in terms of what do policymakers need to do better, economic policy is a huge piece of it. But the reality is that you also need a political culture that's going to be able to make those kinds of changes. You need people who are bought into the system.
This thing we spoke about a lot with Secretary Bessett last night that especially when you talk to young people, you know, the problem isn't that they don't have enough stuff right like that we have more material abundance than ever, I think, but they're very well founded. Frustration is that
it's not clear what any of it's for. And so when we think about reclaiming American citizenship, and the reclaiming is very important because I think there really is something that was sort of stripped away that over really the past generation, we've degraded that kind of relationship into something that is just more you know, you are a consumer, not an actual productive participant necessarily in the act to me, you know, you are sort of this individual with radical
autonomy to invent your own truth, not somebody who is a member of a community and lives within those obligations, and at the national level, to some extent, even you know, outright shame or disdain for what is an incredible heritage that we have inherited and should be trying to carry forward. And so I think in substantive terms, I mean, there's a lot of policy that canct that has caused some of these problems, that could address.
Some of them.
But also just as a matter of how we approach our politics, I think, you know, what is really missing out there right now is an aspirational, positive vision that's not you know, the traditional rights center message has just been like, well, we'll just get government out of the way and everyone will flourish. That that's obviously not sufficient.
You know.
The message from the left of center tends to be more, you know, we'll hear the things that are lacking that we will therefore give you. I don't think that's sufficient either, and so we're trying to figure out, you know, what is the message that actually acknowledge and speak to the very real problems, but in a way that actually reclaims some of what we've lost.
And the Delaney protests remind me of a distinction that I think has been raised, whether it was in Minneapolis or elsewhere. And I actually don't mean this in the context of Delaney, because I believe people in our detention should be treated humanly, of course, but there has been
a blurring of the distinction between resident and citizen. That I find very interesting is sometimes it seems as though, yes, we should be affording certain rights people who are in detention, people who are here on green cards, visas and the like, especially if we said we were going to But also there is a distinction between somebody who's living here in the United States legally or in some cases illegally, and
a citizen. And I think the meaning of citizen is why, I mean, the degraded meaning of citizen is probably why that distinction has been blurred.
I don't know if you have any thoughts on.
Foreign No, I think it's a great point. I think, you know, so much of what we're seeing in our struggles with illegal andration now are really way downstream of okay, but what is citizenship in the first place, Because I you know, I don't think it would be controversial to say on the left of center there has been much more a view that anybody has a right to come here, and the reality is that for citizenship to work, for that sense of solidarity to exist, it's actually incredibly important,
both in theory and in practice, that the people who are the citizens of the nation have the right to decide who becomes a citizen. If you're telling me, I'm supposed to have some relationship to the other people, but also I have no say in who those people are going to be, that breaks down very quickly, and so that's not necessarily an argument for or against any level
of immigration. Right you could have a very well functioning system that has many immigrants coming in, but it needs to be happening in a way that citizens who already here feel like and in fact do have control over. And then it has to be happening in a way that actually imposes obligations on those people as well. That says, if you want to come and be a part of this community, you know it is not simply having that
piece of paper. There are obviously enormous benefits and privileges that come with being here, with being a citizen, and that also then comes with obligations that we have to be willing to uphold. And so when I see, you know,
the Hassan Piker protest. That to me, it's just a perfect illustration of you know, look, if the approach you're going to have is, well, all of these people are, you know, entitled their freedom, I think it's safe to say also, you know, anybody who's concerned whether they can speak English, anyone who's willing to embrace and share a culture, that these are somehow you know, racist or uncouth things to demand. These are actually the core things to demand.
And one thing we really want to focus on is like, and by the way, even if you are sort of a you know, more to the left of center, you want a much larger and more generous welfare state, you should almost be more concerned about demanding those things. I mean, it makes some sense. The libertarians are crazy, but they
have an internal coherence. Right libertarians will say, like, we want help in borders, and we want no welfare state that provides anything to anybody, Like, well, that's a terrible idea of like that sounds awful, but also like at least like you're putting your money where your mouth is
sort of. And I think what's been a huge problem for the left of center is to say no, no, we are going to uphold all of these things that we must give to everybody, but we absolutely reject this idea that we are going to, you know, impose anything that's going to maintain the kind of solidarity and bonds of genuine citizenship. And that's where then in turn, you just see trust start to break down. You see both at the community level, trust in the government. You see
people feel like, why am I even paying taxes? What is this going to?
And real Grand Valley Hispanics voting for Trump, and then.
You see it is a really important point that a lot of you know, people who have immigrate to this country it have become citizens the right way, or often those who get this more than anybody and are especially frustrated by people who are not doing those things.
And so, you know, I.
Think it's really important to think about this as really at the root of a lot of the problems we're having here, but also to divorce it from what has been the fight about immigration for so long, which is like, well, either your pro immigration and that is the sort of humane we care about every rights, or you're anti immigration
and that's somehow xenophobic or racist or whatever else. Either you're pro a good concept of citizenship which can absolutely incorporate immigration, but does it in a way that's going to work, or you're against that and you're ending up where we are today, which is a giant mess.
One kind of adjacent disagreement I would have with you guys talking about that we would treat citizens and nonsense. Is it's Differently, I think it's kind of a fundamental American thing that the Constitution says, you know, all people who are here, however they're here, even murderers in prison, like have the Bill of Rights applies to them? Our Constitution applies.
I just mean like non citizens voting in DC elections something.
Like that, right, right, And yes, and we could that that's an interesting one too, because like if you if you live there and you have a stake, you want people to have a stake in the society. But I feel like, and often when I'm reading American compas stuff, I'm like, how is this right wing? I agree with all of this stuff for the most.
Part, like the libertarians who are or.
In critics, Yeah, real, there you go. But so I do feel like there is a a compromise that kind of reinvigorates the kind of Bernie Sanders kind of a fl Cio mid two thousands kind of position, and one in one place I disagree, somewhat disagree, and maybe I'm wrong, but it particularly during the Biden administration, and there's a belief on the right that the Biden administration deliberately unleashed and pulled in a massive wave of mirants because they
wanted to destroy the country and that they thought these people are going to then become Democratic voters and they're
going to lock down the country forever. Like I think that is a genuinely held view among a lot of people on the right, which I just think is incorrect and to your point, like analytically, like a lot of people who come in and are immigrants and become citizens, they voted Republicans, like like even from even on its own terms, like this idea that millions of people coming in is automatically and Matt And also they can't vote, and let's say, okay, their kids are going to vote,
and let's say it's Chuck Schumer's like twenty year plan, Like it's not. There's no guarantee that they're going to be Democrats, Like you're going to cheat to like, you know, take over the country. This would be the craziest way to go about doing it. I think what actually happened is that Trump did slow immigration significantly in his first term, and then COVID shut it down completely in like March of two thousand and and you had.
Border crossings were going up.
There were caravans that were sending a lot of migrantce border crossings were growing up.
I don't know about the net, but yeah, I.
Mean, but and then you had the economic collapse in Venzuela and Cuba, and you had this mass push to the border and then it pours over. But my point is whether, however you feel about that. I think it's crazy to think it was a giant conspiracy. I think it happened, and they like, because I knew people involved with they like they were just overwhelmed at what was going on and wasn't something and they were trying to
just deal with it. Regardless of that, I feel like Democrats overall, maybe not the activist groups, but Democrats overall are at a place where they're like, Okay, you know what we were wrong about that, Like that was bad policy, It didn't help the migrants, it didn't help workers, didn't help anybody, and it hurt us politically, and so fine, you know, we need a stronger border, but we're not
going to do that again. At the same time, what's happening in Delaney Hall and at these ice attention facilities across the country, and you know, thankfully they're not sending ice as viciously through places like Minneapolis as they were before. But that that kind of thing where you're where you're.
Jump in here because I really disagree with a few elements. First of all, the idea. I think you're right that it can be overwritten as a sort of elaborate, multi decade conspiracy theory. It is unquestionably the case that the Biden administration could have controlled immigration and chose not to difference. And the way that we know that is because six months before the election, when they realized they were going
to get crushed, they did they did. So this was a choice by the bidenstration and it was a disastrously bad one. The segment, I think it's very important to say about now the challenges that we're having and enforcing the law is that this is the inevitable downstream consequence of what the FIDE administration did you cannot say we are going to lawlessly allow millions of people into the country and then when the voters, as you say, even the Democratic Party is ready to admit, Wow, that wasn't
a really good idea, say, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't believe. Now it's hard to actually enforce law and do something about it. And you know, I don't know about the details in cleanning Hall. I think to your point, you know, humane detention and so forth, it is critical. But I also really take issue with this idea that you know, oh well, ICE is like viciously going to Minneapolis. Because here's the thing. Most ICE activity and detentions and deportations
are happening in states. We don't hear anything about why is that.
Well, because they're going to U VISA appointments or.
No, they're because they're doing it in states where the governments in the states and the cities agree to work with ICE and enforce the law.
Maybe like New Orleans or Memphis in Texas.
What you are seeing in a conflict in place like Minneapolis is a sanctuary city. You're seeing a city that is saying we refuse to support the enforcement of the law. And in fact, we're going to obstruct it in all sorts of ways. And in that context, yes, it's going to be very messy. And so to your point, oh, will democrats understand this now? Sanctuary cities is question number one.
When I see the sanctuary cities reversing those policies, I'll believe you that in fact, we're ready to get serious about this. And if I don't see that, and I think the American people don't see that, it's going to be very hard to take seriously this like, no, no, we want to just do this the right way. We want to do this humanly. Unfortunately, it looks like you don't want to enforce the law at all, and that's a huge challenge.
Yeah, I guess the point is that, like, if we're really going to take this idea of citizenship seriously and if we're all citizens first, then it has to get beyond this left verset right, Democrat versus Republican. I think somebody like Stephen Miller, who even Trump has said, you know, if you had your way, there'd be one hundred million people here and they'd all look like you, and that that is then expressed as as policy where he's you know,
mandating these you know, three thousand, four thousand whatever. It is a day, and it's and it's and it's producing you mean deportations, right, three three thousand deep?
Yeah, Now do you remember how many people were coming across the border.
There's a lot. There was a lot, it was right.
Right, So at what rate would you like to deport the millions and millions of people that we agree with?
Theistry I think shows I think this would be the interesting place where if we're serious about a compromising, a compromise, I think it would look something like violent criminals and.
Let but as citizens come together and say, look, we're going to focus on deporting violent criminals. That's the first thing we can all agree on this. So we're going to focus on that as citizens of this country, people who are following the law, and we're gonna and we're going to close the border in a serious way as you as you guys want, and people who are following the law and who who love our country and are here for the right reasons, we're going to find a
pathway to make them citizens. If we can't come to that kind of agreement, then we'll just do every two years war back and forth, and uh, so what it is?
So I just want to put out the irony heres you were telling me there was no Biden conspiracy. These people aren't going to be able to vote anyway, But now the only acceptable compromise is no. No, with the exception of the violent criminals, they should all be given citizenship.
So I so I questioned that the common sense compromise. Secondly, it seems to me there are some other things we could do here, for instance, workplace enforcement right if we just if right because in fact, every one of these people who are here legally and working, uh, there is a violation of the law there as well. And so you know that that's one place I think, you know where publican party is overwhelmingly in favor of mandatory you verify.
I think that's a great place we could be taking much firmer action.
Well, I'm curious to actually here's some contrast between both.
Of you on the labor question, you know, on the and yes, and on the citizen question. Let's say, really worried that these people are going to vote for Democrats. I think it's I think it's overblown. But you could say, okay, here's the pathway to citizenship is here's a legal work requirement you have to work for you can work for twelve years, but that's compliant with you verify that that it's not a second class kind of workforce that it is working in the shadows.
Fake social security, right, So the also and then but they are citizens or they after say twelve years.
Okay, let's roll this clip of Scott Bessett, and I'll get your take on this orn because you interviewed him last night. But Scott Bessett gave what he's what a lot of people are reacting to as a major economic speech at the Reagan Library last week, and he was talking about economic security as national security and how we've kind of the way he sees it, that we've sort of divorced these two things when they should always be
thought of together. And citizenship and labor are obviously a huge component of this.
So let's roll the clip.
Well, America's slept our vulnerabilities grew, but under President Trump's leadership were alert to the risk we can no longer ignore, and a tune to the responsibility we can no longer defer. Under President Trump, we have awoken to mourning again in America and our best days I believe still lie ahead.
So not to interrupt the conversation you were having, but to continue it, Ryan, you would say, our birth rate is a serious problem, you would say, and Orin you would probably agree with Ryan on that. You would say also that we need people to work more of these jobs. We have a huge chunk of actually, like working aage man, ten percent of working age men outside of the labor force. But also it's hard to fill some of these jobs.
So Orin, if we're bringing manufacturing back to the United States, first of all, are we the Second of all, is that going to do we have workers for that? If we're also engaged in mass deportations.
Well so I think we certainly are breing manufacturing back. Wall Street journals. Greg yp has been calling it a stealth manufacturing boom, because the reality is step point is you actually have to build new factories. Right, You're not going to see the actual hiring for some time. But you know, to your point, we certainly have plenty of people outside the labor force. We have plenty of people in much lower productivity jobs that might be well served
by jobs in the manufacturing sector. We also have a lot of technological change happening that people think of going to vastly increase productivity. If anything, they're concerned that, you know,
we won't have enough work for everybody. And so you know, I think both on this question of sort of immigration, forcement on this question of the labor market, and reshoring it again all comes back to this idea for me of the first question here is what sort of nation do we want to be, and you know, what sort of model do we want to go forward on? And then questions of economic policy, questions of how much growth
are you getting? These questions you then decide those within the confines of the kind of country that you want to be. And so you know, the phrase jobs Americans won't do, I think is a quintessential example of the problem here. The idea that we're going to have a whole class of jobs in our economy that the people who live here won't do is sort of simultaneously demeaning to the people who absolutely will work if there are
jobs with good conditions that pay a living wage. And it's ridiculous to suggest that employers in business models should be operating in ways that create jobs that don't meet those conditions. So I think you know, we really have to focus on is saying there need to be some constraints here. Citizenship, in one respects is a constraint. We have the citizens of this country for whom the market operates, right, it is not the point. It's not for citizens to
serve the market. The point is for the market to be serving citizens. And so how do we change policies to actually generate those kinds of results some of the things we're doing with trade and industrial policy as a way to drive more investment, you know, get more of a focus on creating these kinds of jobs. I think an element of the immigration policy definitely has to be Okay,
you know, what is the premise of immigration policy. If the premises we just need to add people to do jobs, that I think very much demeans the notion of citizenship as as a community in a nation first and foremost. And so you know, I actually appreciated, you know, Ryan, you mentioned sort of the Bernie Sanders a fl Cio view of the you know, maybe mid two thousands on something like immigration.
Teams to responsor the team series.
Responsor the gaalast Night teams. I think, you know, are are much less beholden to some of the more left wing activist groups. At this point, the reality is that the afl CIO no longer has the nfl C oppositionion, Bernie Sanders no longer has the Bertie Sanders position. And so I think you're absolutely right that there is a point of view on what immigration should look like that
Democrats historically talled and Republicans historically held right. It did not used to be nearly as contentious an issue, and reality, I think it was the Financial Times had had some wonderful charts on this a year or two ago where they showed, you know, with various measures, you know, what was the republican, independent Democrat or conservative moderate liberal perspective on immigration, And what showed was the right of center
and center's view just sort of proceeding without any real change, and the left of center view veering way off. And you know, look, you can say and the left center view was right to do that they should be pulling
everyone over. But as a descriptive matter, the divisiveness of this issue, the shift in how we talk and argue about it and ultimately are i would say, sort of loss of that concept of citizenship to the extent we're in the immigration context that veer on the left is the thing that is causing the change, and I think we really have to grapple with But then I would just say that also that you know, immigration is one obviously very relevant piece of the citizenship conversation, but it's
certainly not all or even most of it, right. I mean, even if you completely fixed all of our immigration problems, we would still have this broader breakdown in communal life, in economic life, in national life. And so, you know, it's unfortunate some respects to the extent that because of the direction immigration has gone it it has become as
central a focus as it is. But moving beyond that really requires is not just making sure we have a stable, insane immigration system, you know, it just as much requires thinking about what is the pathway for a young person into adulthood? Right, you know, the way that we did sort of college for all, I think it's been a disaster. We've sort of said, either you're somebody who's going to go to college, succeed there and head off in life,
or we just kind of have nothing for you. And so, you know, how do we think about the role of education, How do we think about transitioning into adulthood all that. It's a big piece of discussion. I think you know, place and just caring about it and not saying webron can move to opportunity and frankly, we're going to strip mine all of the most talented people out of a lot of communities, say saying that place is the most important thing in a lot of ways, in a lot
of people's lives. And so how do we make sure you know, the economic growth and opportunity the vitality of communities is getting out everywhere instead of saying, well, here are the enclaves you can come to if you want it. Those are the kinds of things we're really going to have to address and and prioritize over the next quarter's GDP number.
Well, what I mean, one thing that keeps people in places is you got to have a hospital. You got to have a hospital. You gotta have a rural hospital. You got it. And it helps if you have a college or a university, even a small one that just statistically like that's going to keep people.
Who Yeah, so I totally agree with that. The problem is what's special about those two things, It's that they attract massive amounts of government spending. In other words, the.
Hospital health no, no, but but they're important in its own right.
Is that's absolutely true? But but economically what's going on here is that as you'vell it used to be well, of course you'd have a hospital there, because if you have a vibrant community and people who are doing well and prospering, you would want to have a hospital.
You're saying it would follow the.
Right You didn't used to have to worry about Wait a minute, why how do we get healthcare to this place? Because if it was a vibrant place.
Of well, you have a doctor that had likes.
Them at at some point. You know, that's right. Our healthcare system has obviously evolved, and you know in rural communities you also just have a scale problem. But the extent to which we now think, oh well, in a lot of places you have to have a hospital and you have to have a college is because those are the two things that you can put there that simply by enrolling people or admitting people entitle you to massive amounts of federal money.
Right, and like Land Grant University is being a critical linkage.
Well, and think what's upon TIMEO was Lang Grant universities. Now it's just anybody whose students are eligible for financial aid and student loans, many of which will never even be paid back.
But that's the vicious cycle, because you were saying people can't exist in some of these areas without the federal spending. At the Royal Hospital now because they don't have private sector insurance, they're the big factory that employed people, it's gone, and so there basically we're in a vicious cycle kind of as how it's.
Very hard to attract companies to move to an area if there's no there's no hospital, and a university helps too.
Yeah, I think certainly. And you know, one thing with the respect at university, I think that's very important is we concentrate all of our you know, federal research spending for leading edge research in a very few places. There's no reason we have to do that, especially in the sort of modern communication and so forth. It's not like you need all the best scientists of every kind living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or you know, Palo Alto, California, or
even New York City. There's no reason you can't take that sort of funding and direct it more towards having great labs in every state university around the country and start pushing things back out that way. The reason I just emphasized the sort of public spending of eds and meds as they call it, is just to say, you know, the reason that's how with the landscape books today is because we've hollowed out the rest of it so completely.
And you're right, given that the vicious cycle that we're in, bootstrapping it the other way requires a lot, a lot of attention to these things. But I think it's very important that the aspiration not be well. As long as we have enough funding for healthcare and higher education, all
of these places can survive. But rather to say no, no, the long term goal has to be that these are productive, flourishing places that can also support a healthy hospital system that wants to have a college and so forth, but that first and foremost is a viable community.
I would just finish one practical and pragmatic point that if we want to get to a place where as American citizens, we're actually discussing among ourselves how we're going to solve some of these problems, because I agree with you, it's not sufficient to get to bed meaning and citizenship to deal with immigration but it is necessary to deal
with first. I would just say to the millions of people that came across during the Bide administration, like their policy or don't like the policy, it was the policy that was in place, and they actually did follow the
rules of this policy that was in place. If if there's insistence that it has to be a Stephen Miller approach, where you know, mandatory detention is required for people who haven't committed any crimes, like not even not even bail while they're like contesting that these asylum claims or anything else, they are just locked in these detention facilities and they're
getting scooped up off the street. If that's going to be the way that Republicans, when they're in power, insist on dealing with immigration, then Democrats are never going to come around on the other parts of it. They're never going to say, Okay, we're wrong on this, wrong on this, let let's let's let's do let's do a comprehensive type of reform that gets us to a place where we
can have a rational policy. That's just my guess, this is not very hopeful that if that Republicans have to say, okay, well, let's focus on violent criminals, then let's focus on but they have Republicans have their own agency if they just want to like.
Well, look, this is why I say there are different ways to enforcement, and this is why I think the workplace enforcement is a much fair tests because I agree with you. You know, one thing we've found in certainly it shows from the polling data. We've had folks who had folks for people writing for Commonplace about this that that's right. The most sort of confrontational, aggressive approach to enforcement is
not popular with a lot of people. Workplace enforcement saying if you're not here legally, if you are not allowed to work here, you in fact can't work here. That has an extraordinarily powerful effect, again not in overnight detaining people and destroying their lives necessarily, but in creating a very strong pressure for people to depart in an orderly way. And so I think it's a very helpful litmus test.
Is your objection to the way they're doing it, or is your objection to the notion that these people really need do need to leave? And if it's if it's just you know, we would like to do this in a human way. Workforce enforcement offers that right, and so I think that's where.
Miller's approach requires the inhumanity.
That's and and and I understand that, I understand that Christian people Trump is doing today. I think the flip side of your point about what Democrats will accept is, well, if Democrats won't even accept workforce enforcement, if we can't actually get to a place where everybody agrees, I.
Think they would as long as there's a path for people who came here through the process to get a work permit, then that.
This is exactly what I'm telling you. This is the actual question is that people is the millions and millions of people who came in here who in frankly a very lawless way during the Biden administration.
Is the end just the Bide administration?
Your right point.
Even before one of my one of my good friends from growing up as a contractor, and he's like, give me a union haul where I can go and hire legal people. I'm happy to do that, love to pay the wages whatever. I don't care you you as in the broad you are our government, our society have built
a system where that is not possible. So then you go in and then you take all these workers, and then deport them without there being another option is completely I agree with a political guy who's like, like, this.
Is just I think this is an instance where this connects really to this richer sense of citizenship, which is one of the reasons you as a contractor can't go do that, because if you do, you'll just lose out to the people who are doing the other thing. And so it's fine to say, like the UNI hall doesn't exist, right, but one reason the union hall doesn't exist is because who would go higher from the union hall if there's a massive exploitable population of undocumented immigrants to hire instead?
And so it is a it is a prerequisite again to having the kind of economic life we want that does give workers power, that does create that out of the true let me just finish the point. It's a fantasy to have an economic life where we enforce labor law, have a tight labor market, and have good jobs for Americans.
It is a fantasy that you're going to be able to grab twenty million people.
Will you just use grab again? Why can't I just enforce Why can't I just enforce the law on the books against employers who employ people leegally?
Well, you're still gonna have to grab people. No I'm not.
I'm going to find employers and perhaps even arrest some employers if they continue to employ.
My point is you have to also support the other side like you have to.
But you haven't told me why that's a fantasy. Why can't I just require that employers follow the.
Law because all of the housing construction will stop.
So now we're back to jobs Americans won't do, and that's just not the way to get citizenship.
Or at least still be a temporary pause.
I'm just saying practically speaking, I'm not down. I'm not saying virtuous or not virtuous. It's just practically speaking, and then politically you lose. So there has to be some mechanism for people to hire people legally. I would say, give people who are here, who are following the law work permits. Why is that? What's wrong with that?
Well, for one thing, because they are not currently here legally and we should have been enforcing the law long and we can do that now. For a second thing, because the exact work start competing.
We've built the wrong system. Nobody else coming in, but the people here now are going to give them work permits and anybody who hires somebody illegally, like you're getting significant consequences.
Yeah, well, because a lot of the problem is that the exact class of people who these workers are competing with are the ones who have seen a very weak job market for a very long time, in part because of this competition, and we should be trying to tighten that job market aggressively. People in the upper half of the income distribution, people with college degrees. And this is again where we've had this divergence society. You know, take
for granted that this stuff is all fine. We should want the same kind of experience in the job market for the construction worker that you or I get to experience, and that requires a much tighter job market than we have had. And so, you know, to some extent, I guess I even question your premise that, you know, housing construction come to a stop. I think one thing we can do. If you want to say, you know, we need a transition period, we need to phase this out
over a few years, that's fine. But the endpoint should be essentially where we started here, which is that citizenship is about the American citizens. That is who this republic exists for. That is who formed the Republic and the question is what is the set of policies that's going to serve them best.
And my point you got to transition to it, and what we're doing now isn't actually going to transition to that.
I don't think we'll probably have to leave it there. But thank you so much, oron cast the American Compass. That was a really interesting conversation. We appreciate it. Folks can check out the new project in Commonplace on the Compass website.
Thanks for thank you guys.
Well that does it for us.
In today's edition of Breaking Points, we apologize the show is going to hit premium subs in boxes a little bit late because we had such a great conversation with oron casts.
Our producers were like rap rap, but we wanted to just no. I thought it was great.
I didn't want to disrupt the flow of that. But thank you everyone so much for joining us today. We appreciate it, and we run and I'll be back Friday with I think Crystal and Griffin.
All right, see you then.