A Real "America First" Foreign Policy | Yaron Brook Show

look like? I think America first was was even a term maybe I rand used, but it's definitely a uh, the right perspective for a phone policy for America. It shouldn't be the French phone policy. That should be French first. So we want to look at what that would entail. And today's show is sponsored by Troy Troy, Australian Troy who's who's been such phenomenal supporter of the Iron Book Show. And he's got a few questions just get me going, but basically he's left it up to me. But but

he's asking what does it mean? How does one operationalize, if you will, a self interested a self interested phone policy. What does it imply in terms of the actions one must take in terms of other world governments and aid US AID, and particularly in the context of USAD. So we are going to look at all of that and I will I will tell you what I think and what I think the right kind of America first foreign policy should be and how it should be oriented for

other countries. It's going to be slightly different. There's going to be a different emphasis, a different focus to a large extent, because there is a uniqueness to being a country with the as rich as the United States is and as powerful as the United States. We have the largest, most powerful military force in human history, and that means we can do things other countries can't, and that is significant.

Other countries might not be able to stand up for their interests quite in quite the way that the United States can, but the principles are going to be the same, all right. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. As always, the super Chat is open, and I encourage you to ask questions only because that is a way to support the show, which is amazing, but also because it is a way for you to ask questions. And this is a big topic I think I'll be able to cover today, but a big topic

with lots of concrete applications. So what I'm really interested in is a lot of questions around this topic or a lot of questions about the concrete applications, a lot of questions about what should we do with the X, what should we do with Y? How would you treat this? How would you treat that? Having you take all those questions, it will help make sure that I kind of do a thorough job in covering Eavy aspect of the topic. And as I said, it's a big topic, there's a lot,

there's a lot to cover. And of course you can't ask me about Gavin Newsom if you want liam, but priority we'll be given to those who ask about the topic we are talking about. And if you are on a different platform like x or Twitter as it's called, you can come over to YouTube and ask questions over there, So feel free to do that. All right, let's jump in. So what does it mean to say that American's phon policy should be self interested? And that is my position

and that is the objective's position. American's phone policy should be for self interested? But what does that mean? What constitutes this self interest of America as represented by its government. For that, we have to ask the question of what is the responsibility, what is the role, what is the purpose of government? That is, what is government instituted to do? And of course I think most of you know the

objectives to answer to that. The role of the government is to protect the individual rights of Americans, of citizens and residents within America. And you know, maybe that's more expensive citizens, less expansive for residence, but generally is to protect their lives and property of the people who live in America. That is the job of government. That is what a self interested government means. That's what American interests are.

From the perspective of the government. The government has no zero, zilch, no responsibility in any way to tell you what your interests are, to dictate to you what your interests are. It should in no way hamper your ability to pursue your values, as long as, of course, you are not

infringing on other people's rights and other people's freedoms. So the job of them government is to secure freedom and in farm policy for Americans, and in farm policy, that is what the government is there to do to secure the freedom of Americans. In other words, to secure the ability of Americans to not have their rights violated, to to live, I eat, they shouldn't be killed, and their property should be protected. So what is that, you know, how do we how do we apply this principle? What

does that actually mean? Notice, the US government's interests are not to secure the freedoms of other people unless the freedom of other people is necessary for the freedom of Americans. And we can think maybe they're scenarios in which that's true. The job of the government. US government is not to bring democracy to the world. It's not to be the world's policeman. It's not to cure every disease in the

world out there, even if it can. The job of the US government is to protect the interests of the American people, which means to protect the lives and property of the American people. And that's what we have a military for. And that's what we have a phone policy for. Now, what does this imply, that is, what actions, what behaviors? How would we treat foreign governments, for example, if we took such a position, Well, I would say, and I've

said this in the past. I've covered this in past programs, that the United States should have a strategy and a phone policy strategy. I don't think the United States has had a power phone policy strategy at least since World War Two, and I'm skeptical where it had one even before that. That's why it got kind of roped into World War two without expecting it got woped in the World War One without expecting it. It's like the US is reactive. It does not have an actual strategy. So

the United States should have a strategy. It should define the threats to US lives and property. Is there anybody who is a threat to invade the United States? If so, who are they? Is there anybody who is likely to kill Americans? For example? You know that these could be regimes, It could be terrorists. Is anybody likely to in large scale steal Americans stuff pirates for example on the high seas?

Are there regimes out there who are likely to support the pirates, the terrorists, the countries that might invade the United States? And of course invasion is not the only thing today. Are there any countries that might launch missiles into the United States, whether nuclear or regular? But are there any countries out there that have the capacity and

are inclined to attack the United States physically? And you know, I think you need to do an assessment of the world, and you know, what is what is the likelihood that any particular government would do any of these things? And to do that, I would suggest basically thinking about the world in terms of categorizing every country in the world based on three, say three parameters or into three categories, categorizing everybody into three categories one the good guys, friends

or potential friends. And here you would categorized countries as basically free countries. Countries that are basically have a respect for rights, property rights, and otherwise. Countries that are not do not you know, invade their neighbors, are not hostile to their neighbors, have not engaged in military adventurism call it, have not funded terrorist groups, have not funded pirates and

organized criminals. Yeah, countries like as Jennifer points out, Canada or Western Europe, Israel, you know, in Australia, Thailand, I don't know. You could come up with different countries, India, potentially, you can come up with different countries around the world who basically exhibit those characteristics and they're all not They're

not going to be perfect. We know that we're not perfect, but certainly many of these countries are not going to be perfect, but who are in the right direction, leaning moving presently in the direction of liberty. Then a second group of countries as a group of countries that is

not free, clearly not free. They are unfree countries. And these countries that might have kings, or might have dictators, or might have all kinds of different authoritarian regimes, but they do not constitute a threat to the United States. This could because they're too small, it could be because you know, they're just not interested. They might constitute a threat to their neighbors in a particular region, but as of today, they have no ambitions towards the United States.

I mean, you could think of this as, I don't know, Vietnam is an authoritarian that is not a threat to the United States. You know, they're probably a lot most of Africa or a lot of Africa authoritarian regimes, but don't pose a threat to the United States. And so these are not friends but not enemies. And then a third category is regimes that are not free and potential

or real enemies of the United States. These are regimes that are aggressive, that have the inclination or the potential to attack the United States, or to disrupt ability of the United States to trade or the ability of the United States to pursue its interest in the world. You know, so certainly countries like right now, countries like Iran and Russia, North Korea, which keeps threatening the United States with its ballistic missiles, you'd have to think, and you'd have to

figure out if China qualifies or not. But maybe China at least certainly potentially they have nukes and and and they can certainly reach the United States, and they have threatened interests of the United States. But whether they actually are a risked to the lives and property of Americans. That that's the kind of analysis you would have to do.

And that's kind of thinking you'd have to do. From the perspective of a phone policy, you'd have to You know, the people in charge have a lot more information about Chinese's intention than I do. They are not a lot of countries like this, By the way, there might be others. I don't know, Yemen because they have the houties and

the uties have obviously attacked US shipping. You've got terrorist organizations all over the world, and then you've got governments who support the terrorist organizations, so isis L Kaida and in many of their offshoots, and in that you'd have to say, well, is Qatar and the enemy of the United States, given that they support these groups, they house these groups fromases is housed in Qatar. You know Syria, Syria houses these groups, and Syria's in the midst of change.

Is an enemy? Is a not enemy? Clearly, it's not a free country. You'd have to evaluate. You know, Afghanistan, you know Pakistan. Pakistan is an interesting case that you'd have to really think about. And it's a nuclear powers it has nukes and potentially could fall into the hands of Islamists, maybe already supports Islamists. Again, you'd have to do the intelligence and figure out who's who. And then generally I would say I would say this the first group,

the group of friends, should be declared as such. I think that is a group that you have full diplomatic relations with, You cooperate on stuff, You have treaties. You might even have a u n of free countries, and you work together on issues that were late or maybe

even have. You could even imagine a certain defense treaties or all kinds of other arrangements between free countries that would be pursuing america self interest to have those agreements, because there's an advantage of having you know, other people scanning the world for enemies and and helping us if we do get in trouble. The second group, you know, I do not believe that one should have diplomatic relations

with UH. You know, it doesn't mean when it's hostile towards and suddenly in terms of trade, trade should be completely open with such countries and there should be no

restrictions and trade or movement. But for example, American businesses should come to understand that if you do business in these countries, the American government cannot guarantee your safety and these regimes and not regimes that could be trusted, and your property could be confiscated, and depending on the circumstances, there is a real possibility the United States government will not come and protect it. Because you have been warned

these are dangerous countries. Don't go in and work with them. They are not free. That means something that's a designation that has significance, and it has meaning, and you should expect from your own people and understanding of what that means and how that you know what that implies, and that they should behave accordingly, They should be careful when traveling and engaging and doing business with countries like that. When Freeman says, you are don't go to Russia. Not

going to Russia, don't worry. But you know, I have been to Russia, which most of my critics cannot say. And I've been to Ukraine, which most of my critics cannot say. So that's the second category. The third category I think there it really depends. Let me just give you a couple of examples of the second category that I think is meaningful. So, for example, Cuba. Cuba, in my view, is in the second category. Cuban does not pose a threat to America. It is not going to

invade Florida. I mean, it did during the Cuban missile crisis, but that's gone. And you know, there's some reason to believe that they're working with the Chinese, and you'd have to get intelligence on that and everything. But Cuba, quak Cuba, independent of China and Russia, is not a threat to the United States, and therefore, you know, we should not

have an embargo on it. We should allow Americans to trade with Cuba, even though we should discoverage it, and we should again tell them you engage with Cuba at your own risk. The same thing is true of Venezuela. As much as I hate Venezuela and the regime there, and I mean don't hate Venezuela, I hate the regime of Venezuela, They're not a threat to the United States. Now, again, there's an argument to be made, and I'm open to it. And this is the kind of debate you would have

in PHM policy. If Venezuela is being used by organizations like Risbela to train fighters who might one day then engage in a battle with the United States or be destroying US interests overseas, then maybe it may be of Venezuela because it is a base for such terror organizations. Becomes in the enemy of potential enemy category. So again, you have to really know the concretes, You have to know what's going on. You have to have proper intelligence

and and really figure it out and have a policy. Now, what is the third category, the third category? I'd say you could even the third category you would divide into two.

There are enemies, people who are in a sense at war with the United States, right now, you know, threatening to launch missiles killing Americans overseas, doing things like that, and I think that they are you know, probably three countries like that in the world you're on in North Korea and Russia that are clearly engaged in acts of violence. Now Russia, you know, Ukraine is not America. Russia is not directly engaged in violence against America, though it has

taken a few Americans hostage and and so on. But you know, they shouldn't have been there to begin with, is my view at this point. So with the gout, Iran and North Korea, they are enemies. Now my view is enemies need to be destroyed. I think Affghanistan was in the same category. They need to be destroyed. They shouldn't be tolerated, they need to be defeated. So my view of Iran and certainly if it's possible that is they don't have nukes, and you know it's not that hard.

Then you know, it's obvious that the United States should take out the North Koreans and the Iranians. Now, the North Koreans a little trickier because they have nukes, so you'd have to figure out how to do it without allowing them to launch those nukes. I don't know if it's possible. I'm assuming it is. Take him up, take out that regime, unify the Korean peninsula, certainly take out Iran, replace that regime. That would be an American self interest.

They are a threat to the lives and property of America, a real threat, not a hypothetical, not a potential. They've killed Americans, they say they will kill Americans. They're actively developing weapons to kill Americans. They need to be stopped. Stop cold. Russia is a potential enemy, but it has

not attack the United States or its allies entreaty. But it has, through invading Ukraine, made clear their offensive imperialistic intentions, and therefore there's certainly a potential enemy, real potential enemy of the United States. I think, by the way, with the first two, at the very least before you stop them, at the very least, your self interest requires that you're not trade with them. So those are countries that should

be involged completely. Russia is not a country you want to go to war with because they have nukes, and it is a country that poses a threat. So you have to figure out ways in which to deal with Russia, given the fact that it's a threat, but it is not. You're not You're not going to go directly to war with them. And I'd say the two things that should be done with Russia, given its you know, engaging in war.

I think one is you should boycott it completely, no trade, one hundred percent cut off from all trade with the United States and its allies. And second, we should wholeheartedly support those who fight against them, because the potential enemy, to the extent that they can be weakened dramatically, they will become less of an enemy. We know what they want. They want to go after our allies. They want to go after people we have a defense treaty with. We

must stop them. Now. You know, in a different world in which we were not members of NATO and which Europe was responsible with the security of Europe, maybe it would just be Europeans who would do this. But given the world in which we live, absolutely legitimate to fully arm the Ukrainians, not to put American troops on the ground, but fully on the Ukrainians to do whatever they can to degrade Russia's military capabilities. That is fully an America's interest.

And the same is to a Israel. Asrael as fighting an enemy that the United States should be fighting, an enemy of the United States, that is Islamic totalitarianism, Islamic Islamism. And as such, we should support Israel in its military fights, in its ability to destroy our enemies. Now, in this case, given nine to eleven, given all the terrorism since nine to eleven, we should destroy them ourselves. And going after

Iran would do a lot towards that. Going after Qatau would do a lot towards that, And it wouldn't cost that much, and it might be actually cheaper of for Americans to just get it done with that, to keep supporting Israel with ongoing endless wars. If America did it, it would end Ramas wouldn't Existsbellah wouldn't exist because they depend on support for places like you are in Qatar. And if that goes away, and if America asserts itself, there is no Ramas, there is no Risbela to worry about.

So a real self interested phone policy would have America do it, annihilate its enemies, and then it wouldn't need to support Israel. I do not believe the United States should give one dollar to Israel other than to fight a common enemy. But if that fight is over, Israel gets zero zilch nada, so uh, and then you get China, which is as difficult to categorize. It is not engaged in military action against the United States. It is not yet engaged in military act against any of the United

States allies. It is not yet invaded Taiwan, although it does threaten to do so. It has not invaded Japan and it doesn't threaten. It is not invaded South Korea. It's not stopped shipping from various countries of goods to the United States. It has not prevented US ships travel from the US to various places in Asia. So it is definitely a country in which I don't think we should have diplomatic relations. It's not a free country, but it's not a country I think we should embargo. It's

a country we should watch carefully. We should continue to assess that when does it go from a potential enemy to an actual enemy, And if it goes and becomes an actual enemy, then it is completely appropriate to embargo their goods and to they trade with them and to start preparing for war. An invasion of Taiwan potentially could be something that moved them from one category to the next.

So again, what is the standard America's interest? What America's interest the protection of American life and property, not American interest in the sense of we want American corporations to rule the world, and therefore we're going to hamper the ability of other countries to their businesses, to to trade, not beef a production, or have some vision of how the US economy should be structured in the future, and therefore, you know, and try to manipulate through trade policy what

gets built in American what doesn't. Now, how do we protect the license property of Americans? Period? So uh, you know, one of the questions Toy asks is what should America do about really just horrendous regimes around the world, like iraqu Saddam Hussein. I don't know, like the genocide in maybe in that's going on right now in Sudan, or you know when the Hutis and the two D's slaughtered each other and two million people died. Should American intervene?

Should it stop horrific regimes, the Kami rouge whatever from doing what they do to the people, to their neighbors. And my answer to that is no, As brutal as that might be, you cannot expect and you shouldn't expect. And we have no duty to sacrifice our lives and our treasure for the sake of somebody else's freedom. And again, the only reason I think we should support Ukraine is one it is tilting towards the West significantly, and two it faces a country that is a potential, real enemy

of the United States. So uh I Iraq, you know, said almost have killed his own people left and right. He was in war for eight years with Iran. I think the United State should have stayed out of it completely. Iraq was not funding terrorism against the United States. Iran was, but Iraq wasn't. There was no self interested reason to go to Iraq. There was no self interested reason for the America sold yet to die. Any of our fighting for eyukis. If Iraq wants to be free, iraqis need

to make it free. The job of the United States is to preserve the freedom of Americans, and Iraq was not impinging on that freedom. Now you could argue about the nineteen ninety one war, if the United States should have gone and liberated Quit. Did we have a strategic interest there? You know, we're American lives in danger because of the oil fields. Is oil a strategic value such

that we should preserve it? You know, we have a defense treaty implicit I think, not explicitly implicit with Saudi Arabia? Should that really be? And I'm skeptical about whether we should have gone. I'm skeptical about it, whether we should be protecting the Saudis. But you know, those are the kind of line crises where you have to really you have to think it through. And I think because of the strategic polances of oil, particularly in those days when

an American didn't quite pump as much. But how much worse would it be for America if Saddam Hussein I don't know conquered Quait and then conquered Saudi Arabia instead of the kings of Saudi Arabia? Does not really make a difference to the lives and property of Americans? Probably not, Probably not. It would be awful, a lot of people die, but probably not America's interest. So you go to war only when the lives of Americans are at stake, only

in protecting. Just like everything else, violence can only be used in self defense. So somebody is a real legitimate threat. They're building nukes and they're saying they're gonna use it against you. That's a legitimate threat. Take them out. They've got nukes and they keep saying they're going to launch missiles into Canada, into California, that is North Korea. That's a legitimate threat. You've got a regime that has ambitions of empire over much of Europe and you have a

treaty to defend that Europeans. That's a legitimate threat. You gotta deal with it. Wonderfulleman says, Iraq was useful. There's a launch pad for dealing with you on. No, it wasn't because we never launch padded into Yran. We did nothing with regard to Yon. So Iraq was just a waste of American lives. Nothing else, nothing else, nothing was achieved. Indeed,

quite the opposite. Iraq became an Iranian satellite and allowed Ion to ex spanned its reach all the way to Leven and now Israel has taken that away and the change in Syria has taken that away. But it never was the intention of the Bush administration to go to Iran. Never ever was their intention to go to Iran. They really believed that they would build a democracy in Iraq and it would be a model for the Middle East

and they would change the Middle East that way. That's nuts. No, then none of this is consistent with the way Trump views America first. There is no sense of individual rights none. There's no sense of protecting the lives and property of Americans. This simply is no categorizing foreign countries as free, are not free, friendly, are not friendly, Enemies are not in the enemies. Quite the contrary, Trump seems to be most

friendly with Putin, least friendly with Europe and Canada. Of all people, freedom has no currency for Trump, means nothing for Trump. So there's absolutely no relevance to the fact that Europe is relatively free and Canada is relatively free, and no relevance the fact that Putin is really is a dictator. And this is across the boat. You know, there is no farm policy strategy, and there's no conception of America first, because there's no conception of what America is.

There's no conception of what the world of government is. There's no conception of what it means to be America first. It's for Trump and Maga. America first is some chest thumping, you know, nationalistic, mindless patriotism. Mindless patriotism. That's all America First means to them. It's not a thought out, thoughtful strategy about the interest of American citizens. There is no

America free independent of individual citizens. So what America First means is individual citizens first, they rights first, their freedoms first. And part of the chest thumping is territorial expansion. So because America is not an idea, Jdvans keeps reminding us of that. America is not an idea. What America is is territory, land, blood, and soil. So why not expand it? Make America great again? Is make America bigger? No wonder we want Greenland? Not a great free trade agreement with

Greenland that would solve the problem. Imagine if we had a great free trade agreement with Greenland and American companies could go into Greenland and mine rare earth materials there and send it back to the United States. What do we need to actually occupy Greenland for that? All we need is free trade. Same with Canada, exactly the same thing, Canada becoming a fifty war first state. I mean, it keeps going on and on about this that's just blood

and soil expansionism, nothing else. It's on America first, to America last. Okay. So that's how you deal with other governments. And look, if another government becomes a threat to the United States and you think that by changing the regime in that government, and it's an authoritarian government, you can eliminate the threats of the United States, then regime change is appropriate. I think this idea that we cannot assassinate

falligen leaders is ridiculous. So America would take an active position if vis a vis authoritarians and saying, look, we want it to be but if you become a threat to us, we will crush you. There's a song in there we will we will crush you, something like that. And if there are horrific things happening in the world, it's sad. And in some cases, if the US government doesn't object, you can volunteer and go and fight for justice. You can go to Rwanda and to save the I

can't try who is killing who? I think the hoodies? Who killing the two chees? Is that right? Well, the chu cheas, the hoodies whoever, you can go save them. But that is a personal thing, Okay. So let's talk about US aid and how US aid should be. US eight in a sense is like welfare. It just should not exist unless unless there is a clear American interest. That is, the US eight is necessary for the protection of American lives and property. So, for example, US aid

to Ukraine and Israel fighting our enemies. Ukraine in particular, given that we won't fight the enemy directly because of a nuclear risk, let U Crane do it. We should be giving them a lot more aid than we have. USA to Israel, probably not necessary if America took care of business after nine to eleven, but it didn't, so it was stuck with a relatively inefficient way to defeat Islamism by using a proxy, which is Israel, but better than not fighting them at all. But what about all

the other found aid. We give three billion to Egypt and a billion to Jordan, primarily because we bribed them to sign a peace deal with Israel. We shouldn't do that. Countries shouldn't need a bribe in order to sign a peace deal, and the United States shouldn't be doing the bribing. It should be in Egypt and Jordan's self interest to have a peace deal with Israel and if it's not, then they should suffer the consequences. We shouldn't as a government.

As a government, we shouldn't be sending food aid, we shouldn't be sending military We send aid to one hundred and twenty something countries. We also have troops in one hundred and thirty countries, which is absurd and ridiculous. Now what about like USA that is basically preventing the spread a polio HIV malaria in different parts of the world. Well, here again you have to think of what is the life How you protecting the lives of Americans? Take HIV

for example, HIV cannot be contracted easily. American interests are not being directly at the lives are not being threatened by HIV ravishing f So, while there's no question the USA D and its age program has saved maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, that is not the job of the US government. It could be a fantastic thing for

private charities to do. And indeed, the US government can mention that this is happening in Africa and encourage private charities to do it, not not you know, with subsidies or anything like that, but just by saying so, but there was literally no threat to America of HIV spreading in Africa. I mean there's some marginal, small risk, but again, to get AIDS, it doesn't just require breathing. Malaria is the same way the SPA in Milary in Africa does

not threaten Americans. And therefore the American government, hua government has no business funding malaria programs. I mean, Bill Gates funds a lot of malaria programs, and that is, you know, to his credit. You know, I guess if that's his values. Right, charity is fine. So to the extent that individuals want to engage in charity to help prevent diseases in different countries and save people's lives, fine, if they're doing it for the right reasons, good for them. And yet there's

certainly value in saving people's lives. Now, I don't know much about enough about polio to know if polio qualifies or not. Again, a lot of the walk on polio is being done by people like Bill Gates, so I'm not I don't think the government money is necessary or needed. Now, if it's a easily communicable disease, travels easily, is easily, you can easily get affected and you can get on a plane and travel to the US and easily infect

Americans with it. Then yeah, you could imagine that you could argue that there is a direct the CDC, a kind of the kind of the same entity that would deal with pandemics in the United States hasn't prevent an interesting going out there and preventing sudden diseases from developing and getting to the point where there were threats to the US. You could yeah, I mean, I think that's

a legit argument. You would have to clearly identify what the diseases are and what the threat they post the United States is and how they're transmitted and all of this. You'd have to do the hard work like everything else, But that is it. Every single piece.

The State Department or the Defense Department should have some pool of money to deal with specific situations in which, you know, spending money could prevent a war, or which the United States would have involved in, or spending money could prevent a disease from spending to the United States or spending money. They should have a pool to be able to do that, but it would have to be on an ad hoc basis related to real threats. All right.

So again interests, interests are not Yeah, you know, it's it's our hemisphere, and we want everybody to be good guys in our hemis feed to like American that's not interest. The interests of the government related only to American citizens protecting their freedom, protecting their rights. So we have no direct interest in what regime is in Chile unless Chile is gonna align with China and put nuclear weapons in Chili.

The threat in the US, I don't know. You can imagine a scenario where it becomes a threat, all right, Then it becomes a threat, and if we believe that they're going to do that, we could preempt it absolutely, But no, just going in and intervening in these countries and shooting up regimes and in the name of we want freedom, not America's job. Shouldn't get involved. That is way too broad a definition of interests, lives, and significant property.

That's it. When Iran and Arab countries nationalized oil, strategic acid, a necessary strategic acid there was confiscated from American private companies by these governments. Should the America intervene, Yes, that was a direct interest. That was a direct attack on property owned by Americans and of strategic interest to American citizens that help preserve their freedom. But they're not a lot of those kind of things. Not a lot of

those kind of things. The fact that American industry has sudden interests unless they are a strategic as oil, they should have never gone there. So American interests by by according to their pharm policy, realist is way too broad of a term. And according to that it's elationists, way too narrow over to and and I'm not saying I have all the answers. One has to really think about

particular cases. What happens if for free country uh and which Americans have invested heavily in, suddenly becomes authoritarian and all the ascids that Americans invested in it when it was okay to invest in it because it was free, are now going to be confiscated. Does that constitute an American interested in protecting the property of Americans? Yeah, probably under the right circumstances. Yeah, it could. What kind of action does that necessitate? It would depend on the circumstances.

So again, none of this is easy, straightforward. You can plug it into formula, it comes out. You have to think it through. This is the country have nuclear weapons? Could you know, could we put pressure on the country through sanctions to an embargo to get them to at least compensate American citizens for their property. What can we do? Do we have to invade? Probably not. Could we eliminate the regime at a low cost and return them to

freedom in order to preserve the assets of the Americans. Maybe, and maybe it's justified in that case. So again, complicated, that's life. You have to be able to take principles which is what I've given you, and apply them to the various concretes in the world out there, which is not necessarily easy. All right, I hope that this gives you a little bit of an illustration the extent to which this is not the policy of America first today,

of MAGA and Trump. By the way, one of the principles is one of the principles is you do not negotiate with an enemy. You do not negotiate with an enemy, not if you're strong. Now, if you're weak, you might not have any option but to negotiate. But if you're strong, you do not negotiate. You do not negotiate with evil. So you do not negotiate with Iran, you do not negotiate and suck up to North Korea. You do not

negotiate with Putin. There's just no talking. There's no discussion, you know, unless you're on the verge of a nuclear war. And and and this is the only way to get everybody to calm down. So deals are not the standard. Deals are not good. Peace is not a good in and of itself. Peace with Whoman for what? And there is no such thing as some kind of amorphous American interest doesn't exist. And the CIA and America, the NSA, I mean, I challenged the NSA. You know, NSA said

we listened to drug hotels in Mexico. Drug hotels are not a security threat. To the United States. NSA should not be listening to them. NSA also listens to the Old Company in Brazil because, you know, because they want to give an edge to American businesses in terms of up pricing. That is not in the interest of Americans.

It's not protecting the lives and property of Americans. So American intelligence services in American military are used in a variety of different ways all over the world that have nothing to do with the real the individual rights interests of Americans. The NSA is probably listening now. As I said, I've been to the NSA discussed this with them, so they know my views. So it's the problem when you have when you don't define interests, then everything is an

American interest. That's how we intervene everywhere in the world. There's no limit to it. We sacrifice American troops, we sacrificed the American lives, we sacrifice a lot of treasure because it's an American quote interests. This is why interests need to be defined. I defined it as the lives and property property you know, of significance, lives and significant property of Americans. That's it, all right, So that is my view of American first strategy. You know, Iinrand was

very clear. America should have never been in Vietnam. It had no interest in Vietnam. Vietnam was in northern Vietnam. Was never a threat to the United States. Its victory did not constitute a violation of rights of American citizens, not involved the confiscation of any substantial American property. We should have never been in Korea. As good as it might have turned out for the Koreans that we were, and the South Korea has blossoming, we should have never

been there. Korea, the Chinese, the Russians taking over the entire Korean peninsula does not did not post a direct threat to the United States. A lot of we should never been in any rock. We should have never gone to the First World War. So we should have never got into the American Spanish War and taken the Philippines and Puerto Rico having out right now in Cuba. None of that should have happened. All of that was in the name of these ambiguous American interests. But in the eighteen

nineties it was motivated by imperialism. Later on it was motivated by bringing peace to the world. Being the bulls policeman all kinds of motivations that have everything to do with America's interests. So those are some examples of things that should not have done and we should not be the welfare provider for the rest of the world. Even though I don't think USAD was the first thing you

would shut down in the government. I think they are much more egregious horrible things that the government does than

a USAD. It ultimately should have been shut down. Now if you want to, if you want to understand Iran's perspective on American interest and what Americanism is and what America first is, I mean this there essays where she talks about from policy in capitalism, not know an ideal in some of other essay books, but one important source is the Textbook on Americanism UH and and her essay on Americanism in that textbook, including other people's essays including mine,

which you can find in at Amazon. That is uh That is a great textbook. Thank you Jonathan for editing it, Thank you for supporting the show. That is a great source to understand what Iran man when she talked about America, the value of America, the the the what Americanism as an ism actually means all right, So again, thank you Troy for the opportunity to talk about this, Thank you for sponsoring today's show. Let me know what you thought.

What you think and if the additional questions. Happy to do another show on this where I answer particular questions that maybe I didn't cover up this time. All right, let's let's jump in. Reminder, we have goals even on Saturdays for the show. Right now, we're about fifty dollars short of our goal for the first hour, so you know, a couple of twenty dollars questions and a ten dollars question we'd cover that. We've got quite a few five

and ten dollars questions. Well, we need now are twenty and fifty dollars questions to get us for the first hour, and then of course there was a second hour. So please consider consider supporting the show, consider jumping in with a question, and of course you can do a We've got a lot of people watching right now. If you're not a subscriber, please consider subscribing. And if you have never supported the show, please or have but would like to do some more, please consider doing a sticker like

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fifty dollars from Brazil. Q two Santos. Trump shift towards US isolation reduces growth by harming competitiveness, limits innovation by restricting global trade, weakens alliances by fueling conflict between free nations, empowers authoritarian regimes by enabling coosion. Yes, but that's just the beginning of it. I mean, the biggest problem where Trump's move towards US isolation is that it constitutes a massive violation of American individual rights. So it is an

Americans that he is hurting more than anything else. He's hurting Americans buy, restricting their ability to buy whatever they want to buy by employing whoever they want to employ. He's restricting Americans' freedom by turning the world against America and making it such that Americans are not going to be welcomed in big chunks of the world. I'm making investment American, but even American tourism. And he is harming

the US economy, which hurts Americans individually. I mean, we heard how what is it common, Secretary of Treasury secretary say yeah, Americans, it's not part of the American dream to buy cheap products. He wants to make products more expensive artificially, which is a violation of our rights. I should be able to buy products at whatever price the market will bear. None of your business, stay out of it, stop taxing it. So I agree with you completely. It's

harms competitiveness, which harms producers and consumers. It limits innovation, and it hurts our allies, which again is a violation of the individual rights of Americans. Alliances are there to protect us. Weakend alliances mean we are less protected, which means our means are stronger and can hurt us more.

Hurt us means hurt whom hurt individual Americans. And maybe most importantly, it empowers as you say, it empowers authoritarian energy is by enabling, by enabling them, legitimizing them, sanctioning them, and emboldening them, and that could have just horrific consequences in the United States. Trump is leading us to World

War three faster than any other president. Trump is leading us to World War three faster than any other president by exuding weakness and and and by being so thoroughly unprincipled, and by sanctioning and uh supporting and uh promoting the worst authoritarian dictators in the world. People thought Biden was driving us towards World War three. Trump is that on

steroids in space. All right, Michael Donald Trump will go down in history as the first American president to have willingly betrayed his own country, his own country in service of a foreign enemy. His active treason will be taught in history books by generations to come. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there have been no other really really bad presidents. Woodwar Wilson got us into World War One for no real reason. A lot of Americans died as a consequence of that, and did a lot of

bad things domestically as well. So there mean others that have done horrific things. But yes, I think this is going to go down. Just the first forty days are going to go forty five days are going to go down as some of the worst in all of American history in terms of what the president has done. And he is up there now with some of the worst presidents ever. Normative randoid normative randoid. Wow, isn't should the president be able to deploy military without a declaration from

Congress first? Additional thoughts on the war powers at No, he should not. Now you could imagine, given the speed at which things move in the world today, that American president would have to deploy some military force quickly and assertively in order to prevent a catastrophe without going to Congress first. But he should immediately get congressional authorization as quickly feasible. If there is an imminent threat and secrecy is not an issue, then he should convene Congress immediately

to vote to authorize the use of force. If that is not possible, then you use the force to mitigate the immediate threat. But before you start acting, in order to eliminate the threat completely, you've got to get Congress's authorization to go to war. So the Constitution is pretty clear where the authority lies. The authority lies with Congress, not with the president. And we have seen just like with immigration, and with tariffs, we have seen Congress abligate

it's responsibility. It started, I think with the Vietnam War and basically let the president get away with anything I think that is wrong, despicable and anyway, So that is that is I definitely do not like the idea that the president could just kill anybody of approval to do whatever he wants to do. And no counterbalance this indefinite declaration of war, even after nine to eleven, which allowed the US to you know, the US presidents to basically

engaged in military activities without any limitation. But generally the US has not declared war in a long time, particularly before military action. All Right, Daniel came in with fifty Canadian dollars. There's still such a thing as Canadian dollars. There's still not the fifty first state, Daniel says, Canadian business owner here. Our number one supply is based in California. They make products using components from Europe. They get tariffed

coming into the United States. Canada hits them again. Coming to me, None of these policies are targeted just rights violation, absolutely absolutely, And of course you know it's there's more and more and more of that all of the world because with such a I mean, it's a beautiful thing that the global economy is so well integrated. And ideally everybody just dropped Tavist to zero. It would be a lot if just America dropped Tavist to zero. But this is one of the why NAFTA is so good. At

least for many goods. I don't know if your product, but for many goods, taists between Canada and the United States are indeed zero, and that's a beautiful thing. America has benefited from it, Canada's benefited from it, Mexico has benefited enormously from it. And this is what Trump is strying to undo, a system that's actually working. If anything,

we should be insisting that more things have zero tariffs. Instead, Trump is leading the world towards a situation where there's more and more and more and more and more tariffs. And you know, it's hard to see how this ends because it, you know, it just goes. Nobody in politics at least have us an incentive to make it stop. Thank you, Daniel, really appreciate the support, and uh, yeah, sorry, you're good. I mean, imagine how many tariffs are embedded

in the iPhone. How much cheaper this would be without all the different tariffs. I think the pieces of the iPhone are made of fifty different countries fifty five zero, and many times when they're crossing borders there's attacks as they move back and forth. Horrble a friend of Aristotle. My vision of a Commis department would be to make sure state laws are not impeded interstate trade and to advise foreign national nations on laws that do not impede

international trade with the US. Thoughts. Yeah, although I don't think that's a full time job, So I don't think you need a Commas department. It could be an apartment within the Treasury that basically advise foreign nations and kept an eye on the states and make sure that their states are not doing anything anti competitive. I don't think you need. I would shut down the Commis Department. I mean, basically,

what do you need. You need a defense department, you need adjustice apartment, and maybe and you need a Treasury department. That's it. All other government departments should be shut down, all of them, Health and human services, education, Commerce, God, I can't even care, you know, I don't know what else there is. There's a lot oh interior energy, all of those who shut down the interior. The only job of the Interior Department should be to sell off all

government land and property out there. There's a lot of it. You could do a lot to reduce the debt by selling it. They could stop by selling the bitcoin that they own. Andrew, I want to believe that peaceful discourse can still will turn things around to freedom, but the bullies emerging don't respect reason. If not discourse, it will come down to physical fighting. Only a matter of when so be it. Yep, I mean that is certainly possible.

Ultimately we could descend into authoritarianism and into physical controls. Ultimately we will rise on the ashes. Whether that will require revolution or whether that can happen peacefully hard to tell, but yes, I mean there is a real challenge. Given how mindless so many people are left and right, how yeah perceptual level mindlessness they are. It's very hard to see a path to convincing enough people to avoid what

seems to be the inevitable descent into authoritarianism. Michael, in regard to these trade wars, why do they want us to be poor? Why don't they want us to be rational? Rich and happy. Well, they don't hold it as they want us to be poor. They hold it as they want us, they want to control us. They hold us as this isn't some collectivistic interests, This is an American interest. This is better for us, even though we don't know it. You don't know authoritarian actually says, no, I want you

to be poor. I want you to all die. They all claim some mystical knowledge of what is good for America, what is right for America. So they don't. Yeah, you can't think of it as they want us to be poor, because that's not how they hold it. Not how they hold it. They believe they're being rational. They're not, of course, but they believe they are. Liam. Did you see the Gavin Newsom interview with Charlie Cook. No, I can't stand Gavin Newsom and I can't stand Charlie Cook, and it's

a bad combination. But Gavin Newsom, from what I read, shifted dramatically to the rights on a lot of the social issues. And yeah, I mean he's running for president in twenty twenty eight, there's no question about it. So he realizes, as a lot of people in the Democratic Party realize that they have to move to the right on a lot of these issues, and I think they will. I don't know that Gavin Newsom can convince anybody he

actually believes in that given his track record. I do think the Democrats are going to have to look for governors who don't have that kind of a track record, you know, Against Shapiro in Pennsylvania comes to mind. There's probably some other Democrats Democratic governors who don't have a woke, d you know, crazy left track record. I'm not sure who those are, but they're probably off you Otherwise they

wouldn't get re elected. Likely. I don't think a New York governor of California governor, given given the track record, has a chance of really winning in the US. Happer I noticed in n never chose to live in a real American red state. She lived in the bluest of area Chicago, New York City. LA. Well, I mean Chicago was accidental. That's where her family was, and LA was. She didn't like La. La was where her career was.

She had to be there for carea. The only place she actually chose, the only place she actually wanted to live in is New York City, and that's not because it's blue or red. It's because it was skyscrapers, and it was culture, and it was the energy, and it was the finance center. It was the economic sense of the United States. It was it was that. Now, why is all of that blue is a good question, right, but I you know, look, the reality is, no, she would never wanted to live in a in a red state.

I mean, it's just the culture is not her culture. And back then the South was racist and and uh and and there were racist laws in the book. I mean, she she just tested all of that and she would have never wanted to be associated with any of that. She was fully in most in Western civilization, and Western civilization is not at its best in the South, at least back then. Arguably there's some cities in the South

today at all, but back then it certainly wasn't. Uh. The best of the West is indeed represented in California and New York, the most ambitious states, the most productive states, the most innovative states. Wait, most innovation happens not that the state of his innovatory. And that has a lot to do with the value of cities. It has a lot to do with the attitude, which is based on not the least religious states New York and California, also

the least religious states at least New York City. That's important. I think it was very important to her. She couldn't have survived surrounded by people who took religion seriously and embedded it into their lives. I don't think she could have survived in that environment. Yeah, James, how do we show people that narcissism is in selfishness? I had a hard time differentiating the two when I first began to

under STANDARDJA activism. Yeah. I mean it is hard because the ultruists have done a lot, spend a lot of time, put in a lot of effort to equate the two, to present the two it is the same. And what you need to do is unpack that. And to do that you have to explain what selfishness actually is and what it implies. And the first thing the selfishness really implies is rationality. Reason is a value, and you really have to hammer that home. Selfishness is to be rational.

Selfishness is to elevate reason above all else. And then you can ask the question, are the narcissists do they do that? And I think then it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty clear. So from a just from a what is selfish people do? They think they act only based on thought, based on reason. Is that what narcissists do? No, So I think that's where you need to focus, Matt. Libertarians hate the West's intervention in the same way leftists hate

how producers alter the environment. Both come from an anti life perspective. I agree completely completely. They you know they they in some Yeah, so you know, libertarians hate the idea that some states are good and some states are evil, and that the good should win and we should should be supported by other good people. So so, yes, libertarians because they hate the state. They hate the state. They hate more than anything else. Good states because good states,

relatively good states, are a refutation are their entire anarchist ideology. James, We're living in a political climate that rewards narcissistic types who promise magic. Hopefully the business community isn't affected by this mentality. Well, we know it is. We can see it with all the support that Trump got this time from many within the business community. So it clearly is affected.

Whether it stacks, whether they'll wake up from the spell, I don't know, but clearly this magical thinking is starting to dominate our culture, and of course it's the way all authoritarians come to power. It's always about magical thinking. And this is why religion religious areas. Religious people are the core the base of any authoritarian because they already have as part of their thinking and epistemology of an authoritarianism.

Not do you have your algorithm? Do you think Democrats will win huge majorities in the House and Senate in twenty twenty six? Will there be good signed for the America sense of life? Do you think Trump will explicitly start ignoring Congress. I don't know, because a lot can happen between now and twenty twenty six. I do expect Democrats to win a significant majority in the House. I mean, the Republicans are bare. They have a majority in the House right now, and usually in midterms, the party in

opposition wins. And given what's going on with Trump, yes, I think, and given how ineffective Republicans are in the House, I think the Democrats will win the House. The Senate harder to tell. I don't remember which senators are up in which states. Senator is harder. The country has definitely moved in a Republican direction in terms of the Senate,

so many more states are red than blue. The blue states are the most populist, are some of the most populist populists large population states, but they're just most red states. And therefore, since every state gets two senators, you know, it doesn't matter who's more populist dated than who. If you have just more states that are red, you're going

to get more people than the Senate. The Senate is going to be hard for Democrats for a generation unless something really shifts, and it could, I mean, Trump could really piss off a lot of people. Clark, do you see Israel ever going to war with Iran on its own? Potentially? I don't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say it's impossible, but you know, it keeps getting pushed into the future and

it keeps getting more and more likely. And now it could be if Trump's negotiation with Iran fail, that he lets Israel deal with you on because he doesn't want to he doesn't want to go to war. You know, there a lot of scenarios there that could happen. But suddenly, if Trump negotiates a deal with you on, he will not let Israel attack Iran independent of that deal, right, he will, he will elevate the deal above all else. Jacob say, a country seizes Americans assets, a revolution happens

a decade later, and a free goverment is installed. Does the new government owe reparations. I don't know that it owes reparations. No, but what it does. What it does is it should repatriate the assets that was stolen. So it doesn't oh above and beyond that a penalty, but it should repatriate the assets. Yes, so Nazi stole art all that ought should be returned to whoever owned it

when they stole it. Andrew, what's the same conservatives who cheered when Trump withdrew from Obama's Iran deal cheer when Trump makes a deal with you on the same CONTEMPTI or pragmatic naiveta on display. Absolutely, but Trump's deal would be better. It would be the most magnificent, beautiful, amazing, stunning, phenomenal deal in all of human history. It'll be a clear victory and they'll have every reason to cheer. Right you believe that, Greg says, thanks Troy, Absolutely, I'll second that.

Thank you, Troy. A room YBS fans should swarm Destiny's livestream with five dollars super chats requesting an interview with you, Ron Brooke, I did this today. That would be great. Go for it. I mean, Destiny, who knows who I am? You know, I think he should interview me. It would be a good interaction. We will disagree, but it'll be healthy and it'll get you know, we'll gain massive exposure. So take a room's advice, go do it. Normative randoid

all weapons fake games during war? Yeah, basically, I mean it has to be strategically and tactically thoughtful. You have to think about, you know, how you want to deploy them. What are the consequences of deploying them? What are the consequences to you? Again your self interest? Where's the wind blowing? If it's radioactivity? Do you really want to do chemical weapons? Biological it? Does it give you an advantage? What does it do to the morale of your own soldiers? Can

it blow back on you? So a lot of things have to be thought out. The other is the enemy they're going to use these? But yes, there's no there's no uh. Moraley doesn't really say anything in war about how you kill the bad guy. What mechanism used to kill him. Jacob says invade the USSI after World War Two,

Patterns suggested. I don't know that that was necessary. If they, I mean, look, the earlier they would have listened to pattern the earlier the war would have been over, and the easier it would have been to America to just take Eastern Europe from the Germans and then tell the Russians, this is you know, you don't get even though we promised you in multi eastern Europe, you're not going to

get it. That's what should have been done. I've told the story about Patton could have taken Czechoslovakia way before the Russians ever got there. He should have. They should have allowed him to do that and should have told the Russians to go stuff it once they'd split Europe

into two and there was an agreement. And I don't know that, Yes, I'm not sure at that point they should have invaded USSL What they should have done again, not go to war with Russia, but they should have sped up in the conquest of Western Europe, which they could have done if Paton was in charge. If Paton was left alone and being able to take most of Eastern Europe that landed up in the hands of the USSR could have been saved from being oppressed under the Communists,

and they should have done that. But I don't think go neither war with the USSR. I mean again, the purpose of that would have been to save its Europeans as part of the war against Germany. They could have done it. Andrew, I heard that the comakers told Trump that cars were going to be twelve thousand more expensive the test went into effect this week. How is that going to change by April second?

basically that's the case. I don't know if that's your numbers real or just a scare Trump, but yeah, it's everything's going to be more expensive and unbelievably stupid, because these auto companies have designed their supply chain to be as efficient and productive as possible under the belief that zero tariffs on car parts with Canada and Mexico was

going to be with US forever. And changing that arbitrarily for no reason is a massive violation of the rights of the car manufacturers, a massive violation of America, of the rights of American business. Just unthinkable, just unthinkable. Normad Ever, Android, do you agree with Winchester versus Georgia when Justin Marshall made the Cherokee a sovereign nation within the United States? Was Jackson wrong to move the Cherokee reagnoring the decision? So I do not agree with Justice Marshall, and I

do not agree with Jackson. I think they were all wrong in the way they dealt with Indians. The Indians should everything should have been done to encourage which the Indians to be integrated into American society. Everything should have been done to treat Indians as individuals and not as tribes. Everything should have been done to secure property rights for individual Indians. And that property should have been valuable property, not just take them to the most god forsaken place

and drop there. But it should have been done. Whether they wanted to or not, it should have been. What they should have gotten is literal deeds on the land, and then what they if they decided to burn that and return to violence, then you have to kill them, you know, you have to deal with violence put them in jail, the equivalent of jail. But there was no attempt, particularly as we moved west, to deal with Indians, not

as nations, not as collectives, but as individuals. And to this day, to this day, Indians do not have property rights within the reservations the nation. The Indian nation has property rights, whatever the hell that means. So Indians have no property rights whatever wealth there is in the land or whatever goes to the nation. And Indians are still treated as wars of the states. And the way that American treats the American Indians is an absolute, unmitigated disgrace.

It is a violation of the very basic principles of this country. And it's horrific. It's horrific.

of what is now Indian nation stuff. And they should they should get a deed for that property and figure out how to best utilize it. But that should have been done, you know, one hundred and fifty years ago Laban. When should the US annexed territory? Should we incorporate countries that want to join the US? Sure? I think we should be open to others joining. I think the only time to annex a two scenarios. One is somebody voluntarily wants to come in. And second a war in which

I don't know. If we went to war with Mexico, war with Canada and UH and UH, we could you could imagine annexing the territory that we occupy, but we shouldn't go to war as an aggressive Imagine one of those countries attacked the United States. Hard to believe, then in fighting them, in protecting ourselves in self defense, we

occupied territory. We will get a next that territory, which has basically happened in the American Mexico Wars was I'm not sure who started so I'm not going to say that they were legit, but I don't know who started them. As a Turk dichotomy here you on. Do you like cruises? No, not particularly I mean, I've only been on one, which was a small cruise, small cruise ship. It was a wind star with a big sale, small and really really nice, luxurious.

But the idea of going on to one of those massive cruise ships with a thousand people, of several thousand people and buffets and lots of people and yeah, no appeal to me. Zero was zilch appeal. I mean, I can imagine a small cruise doing the Galopolis island if I did them again last time we were at a hotel and won of the islands and then did exclusions

to others. I would actually prefer doing it on a cruise, on a small boat and every night sleeping off of a different island and then going and checking it out. It wouldn't mind doing the Greek islands again on a cruise ship, a small one, But that's about it. I'm just not Yeah. Plus I don't like getting seasick in a car. Follow up question, is there a connection how oversimplified process of manufacturing clothes offshore and oversimplified current style. No,

I don't think so. I think the style drives the production. I think the fact that the fact that this is what we want. It's kind of what we get. It's also true that we don't want to spend a lot of money in clothes. I mean, it's very easy for Americans to allocate a little bit more money for clothes and get better fitting clothes if they wanted to, and then production would change to adapt our demand. But we don't want to spend a lot of money in clothes

we don't want. We don't care that much about it. And I think as a consequence, production produces well in a sense what we want. So Brix and coal. Nationalism feels like a coping mechanism for the unskilled and unproductive. I think it's a coping mechanism for the unthinking, because

there's some productive and skilled people who are nationalists. But I think it's to the people who are are basically unthinking, who don't want to take responsibility for their own lives, who don't understand what is necessary not to achieve their own values and their own goals, that too, who avotates I think ultimately to nationalism the unthinking. All right, last question,

it looks like Jesspa from No Way. I've listened to every single show since twenty twenty three, Wow, and I would like to thank you for noticeably changing my thinking regardless from a student and objectivist in Bogen. No way, thank you. You should invite me to Bogen to speak at your university. I one year I got two invitations from Bergen and went to Bogen twice to give talks and actually did a talk. One of my favorite talks

wasn't Bogen. It was at the student union at Bogen, and I gave a talk on the evils of the Scandinavian welfare state. But if you could get some student group in Bogen Nowe to invite me to give a talk, let's say, in the fall in October, that would be fantastic. Bogen is a beautiful, beautiful place. I don't mind visiting again September October. That would be great. Nomative Vanoid with respect to phone policy, do you have a favorite American president?

What about historical figure? Oh, I don't know. Nobody in the twentieth century, literally nobody. I mean, at the end of the day, FDR did a pretty good job, but he certainly wouldn't be a favorite. God. Yeah, And I don't know enough about nineteenth century presidents to tell so I don't know enough. So no, I don't have one. Sorry, we'd have to ask an American history expert. I mean,

Jefferson was good. He terminated the pirates, but he also spent a lot of taxpayer money on buying the Louisiana territory, which turned out to be an amazing deal. But was it the right? Was it appropriate in terms of the role of government? Difficult to say. Andrew Trega, how would you evaluate the state of the intellectuals of the freedom movement compared to earlier, this century or any time period

you choose. Well, I don't think the freedom movement has the kind of giants that they had in the past. I mean, where is the Milton Friedman of today? Where's the Hyak the or the mess never mind dining rand. I just think it's it's of generally lower caliber and fewer who dramatically stand out. They're good people out there, they're good economists, they're good spokesman for various aspects of the freedom movement. But we don't have the giants that

we had back then. It's larger today, so there are many, many more people involved, but fewer people a few people who stand out as exceptional. And maybe it's because the freedom movement is very fragmented, can't agree on anything. Maybe that's why so nobody core leesses a bunch of people around him and built up. Friedman had a big following even outside of what you call the liberty movement, in the freedom movement, in among conservatives. You know, he did

a PBS TV show. I mean he he was a public intellectual of you know, I don't think anybody comes close. Maybe Tyler Cowen, but Tyler Cowen is not associated with freedom and liberty necessarily. He's a He's not as clear and sharp and unequivocal as freedom was on many issues. Yes, I think that's the best I can do. The more them fewer geniuses, fewer amazing public intellectuals who are who capture the imagination of the culture the way Friedman did, the way even Hayek and miss I don't think did

in that sense. But he was such a giant. I mean, who's written books like mess Who's innovated in economics like Mesas and then taught and taught and taught generation after generation after generation of economists. So they're just not there. Alisa is just feeling good today. Fifty bucks. Thank you, Ali really appreciate it. I really appreciate the support. That is fantastic. Thank you guys, thanks for the support, Thanks to all the super chatters. And I will see you

guys Monday. We'll have two shows usually as Monday and Monday evening is Greg Greg sold me Ry's back, So prepare all your philosophy questions. He has all to say about Trump as well, So prepare your Trump questions. Just prepare a bunch of questions. And you know, Greg is is amazing, He knows so much. He is so well spoken.

He always has a great perspective. But yeah, all the questions you're not satisfied about how I answered them, bring them on to Greg Let's and particularly the philosophical ones. So I'm looking forward to that. That'll be a lot of fun. Greg is always fun, and we'll have a news show earlier in the day, so two shows. Remember, the clocks change. My clock doesn't change. So whereas right now I'm in our head of East Coast time, starting tomorrow, i am on East Coast time and that changes my

schedule quite a bit. So I don't right now know exactly what time the shows are going to be. Are they going to be the same time? Puert A weekend time, which means an hour later for you, or will they be the same time East Coast time, which means an hour earlier for me. I have to work that out for the next week. The week after next I start my March travels and everything, everything, everything goes to the winds. So and I'll be in Europe and I'll be in Israel,

and I'm traveling quite a bit. So we will see how things go in March April may travel heavy months, travel heavy months. All right, guys, I will see you on Monday. Have a great Sunday, great weekend. Yeah, see you Bye.