Senator Ted Cruz | The All-In Inauguration Series

(0:00) Besties intro Senator Ted Cruz; history of the "Come and take it" flag (2:21) Texas vs. California: how to approach building and entrepreneurship (10:25) Thoughts on immigration, serving in the Senate, over-politicization (16:55) How to create a bipartisan consensus on immigration, increasing prosperity through opportunity (23:54) How Sen. Cruz would approach Trump's first two weeks of his second term (29:02) DOGE's two major challenges, unlimited Congressional terms, ideology over party, the great political flip (35:22) Trump's strategy on Greenland/Denmark, Panama Canal, and Canada (42:45) Thoughts on Senate confirmation hearings Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Senator Cruz: https://x.com/tedcruz Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Jason Calacanis?

  Hey everybody, welcome back to the All In Podcast. We're here at the inauguration of our 47th President, Donald J. Trump, and we have a very special guest joining us on our coverage. Senator Ted Cruz, from the great state, now my great state, of Texas. Welcome to the All In Podcast.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  And welcome to Texas.

• 0:23Jason Calacanis?

  It's pretty great. Where'd you get the boots? Any chance I could get a recommendation here?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  So, that's easy. These are Lucchese. Lucchese, the factory is in El Paso. They're handmade there. They're beautiful.

• 0:33Jason Calacanis?

  Okay.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  And these particular boots, the front of them have the Senate's seal on them.

• 0:39Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  That's strong. And the back of them- That's really great. Have the "Come and Take It" flag.

• 0:46Jason Calacanis?

  Whoa.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  Which, I don't know, do you know the history of the "Come and Take It" flag?

• 0:49Jason Calacanis?

  I was about to ask you.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Okay, since you're a new Texan, this is important. And he started saying "y'all," so he's adapting, but he needs to learn.

• 0:55Jason Calacanis?

  Y'all gotta stop giving me a hard time about that.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Alright, so Texas in the 1820s and 1830s, we were part of Mexico. And the dictator of Mexico was General Santa Anna. And there's a little town in South Texas called the Town of Gonzales. And General Anna sent an order to the Texians, which is what we were called back then, Texians, to hand over their guns. And there was a cannon that guarded the city. And General Santa Anna said, "Hand over the cannon." And the Texians responded by making a flag with an image of the cannon, and underneath it, the legend "Come and Take It."

• 1:32Jason Calacanis?

  Hmm, wow.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  And they flew it over the town, and that was the beginning of the Texas Revolution. Now, the epilogue is Santa Anna came in with about 6,000 soldiers, and he did in fact take the cannon. I mean, Gonzales was a tiny little town. And the Texas Revolution was very much like the American Revolution. We lost every damn battle. The Alamo was a slaughter, Goliad was a slaughter, much like Washington, where every battle he lost and lost and lost. And then at San Jacinto, we won, defeated Santa Ana, General Sam Houston. And we became our own nation, the Republic of Texas, from 1836 to 1845.

• 2:06Jason Calacanis?

  Says something about resiliency, doesn't it?

• 2:08Speaker 01

  It does.

• 2:09Jason Calacanis?

  Let me ask you a question. Having lived in New York and grown up there, and then done 20 years in California now, my second year in Texas, or starting my second year. It's amazing to me that you're allowed to build things in Texas, like homes or factories. And the price of homes has gone down two years in a row. And then the other two places I live, the price of homes go up every year, 10%, 20%. And then you don't have state taxes. How is all this possible, when you look at it just from first principles? How are you able to accomplish so much development in Texas, when in California, the NIMBY-ism, like, literally, if you want to build... Yeah, it's a great question.

• 2:53Jason Calacanis?

  A cancer ward for children, they'll stop you because it throws shade on a protected species of flower.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  So California used to know the answer to this. 50 years ago, California was the economic engine of the country. And unfortunately, you're cursed by idiot politicians, who are destroying this mighty economic engine. You know, none of this is rocket science. In Texas, we believe in freedom. We believe in low taxes and low regulations. And to understand the state... Texas was basically founded by a bunch of wildcatters, who were guys with 4th grade educations, that began drilling holes in the ground. And one after the other, became the richest men on earth. And the ethos of Texas, you know, it was interesting, a number of years ago, I was

• 3:42Speaker 01

  visiting with a CEO and an executive team of a company that had moved from California to Texas. And they didn't have any Texas ties, but they were just fed up with California, they moved to Texas. So I was asking them, they'd only been in Texas for a couple of months. I said, "All right, what's the biggest difference?" And I thought maybe they'd say taxes, or maybe regulations, or maybe lawsuits. Those were the three things I was going to guess. Their answer blew me away. They said, "The biggest difference is the culture." And what they said is in California, if you're in business, you're a pariah. They said, look, there's an exception for tech and an exception for Hollywood. Not anymore. Well, I mean, that was their view, but they were not in tech or Hollywood. They were in sanitation, which was not a sexy business.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  And the way they described it, they said, if you're at a party and someone asks, what do you do, and you say, I'm a businessman, they said, people will turn around and walk away. And I gotta say, as a Texan, that is weird. I mean, we lionize entrepreneurs.

• 4:38David Friedberg?

  But California was a pioneering state, the gold rush. What happened? Because it's, you know, it's always easy to blame idiot politicians, but in a democracy, those politicians are elected by the voters. So that something, where did the voters go that caused this change in that state compared to where the voters went in Texas? When they both came from, and all of America, all of the United States, all the states of the republic came from a pioneering origin.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Well, there is a cause and effect. And you go back to 1987, and 1987 is when Ronald Reagan signed amnesty into place. And at the time, there were 3 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. And Congress went to the American people and said, all right, we got a deal for you. We're gonna secure the border, we're gonna fix the problem of illegal immigration forever. And in exchange, we're gonna give amnesty to the 3 million people who are here illegally now.

• 5:31David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  And in 87, the American people said, okay, that sounds like a reasonable deal. They took the deal. Now, we now know what happened, which is the amnesty happened, but the border never got secured. What did that mean for California? The highest concentration of illegal immigrants was in California. 1988, California voted Republican in the presidential race, as it had for six consecutive years, six consecutive cycles previously. 1988 was the last year California ever went Republican.

• 6:02David Friedberg?

  Well, Schwarzenegger.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  For president.

• 6:05David Friedberg?

  Oh, for president.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  In the presidential race.

• 6:07David Friedberg?

  Oh, in the presidential.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  And so I think the amnesty law played a significant part, the federal law, changing the voting composition of the state.

• 6:14David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  And then, and look, you guys would know the state politics more, but it also seemed to me that you have the public employee unions in California that realize that they could vote themselves more and more of the largesse.

• 6:28David Friedberg?

  The ultimate failure of democracy, right?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  And it, um...

• 6:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  So Jason brought up a really important question to kick this off. I just want to give you a chance to maybe expand on it, which is, there are so many examples, Texas is one, you can look abroad, the UAE as an example is another, where there's a high degree of quality of infrastructure and, you know, civility, social services, education, security, but you don't have the traditional taxation.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And so, how is Texas able to actually keep the wheels on and states like California, which has, you know, $322 billion budget, is just completely falling apart? What is, what happens? Because you then see everything at the federal level, but when you go back to your state, you see, hey, we don't have, and your real estate taxes aren't that much higher, are they, in California?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  The real estate taxes are a little bit higher, but we have no income tax, so it more than makes up for it.

• 7:33David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 7:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Two percent, one and a half.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  That's the principal avenue of taxation. You've got real estate taxes and sales taxes are where the state and local governments get their taxes. But no income tax. Look, some of it is government does less. I mean, there's a philosophy that government doesn't have to spend and provide everything. Government does police and firefighters and roads and does the basic responsibilities of government.

• 7:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  But it's not engaged in funding every pet project of every politician.

• 8:02Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  That's part of it.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  You know, you look at across the country, I mean, it is not a complicated migration pattern. That people are fleeing bright blue states with high taxes and high regulations.

• 8:19Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  And they're coming to red states with low taxes and low regulations.

• 8:23Jason Calacanis?

  And safety.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  So we've had, it has now been more than a decade that we have had over a thousand people a day moving to Texas. So when I was first elected 13 years ago, we had 26 million Texans. Today, we have over 31 million Texans. So we've added 5 million Texans in 13 years. And, and the biggest state folks come from is California. It's interesting, the migration pattern, you get a lot of California to Texas. New Yorkers tend to go to Florida more. We get some New Yorkers, but, but for whatever reason, west coast folks seem to prefer Texas and east coast folks seem to prefer Florida. But I actually think the competition, in terms of where we lose people to, we lose people either to Florida or Tennessee. Those are about the only two places if someone's thinking of leaving.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  And I love that competition. I want Florida and Tennessee to be out fighting and saying, we can create an even better environment for small businesses and jobs. And, and part of it is, the number one reason people come to Texas is Texas where the jobs are. And you want an environment where you have small businesses that are doing great, but people also want to be safe. And, and so, you know, you look at things like, like defunding the police or Soros prosecutors that let murderers go.

• 9:38Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And that gives people a pretty acute incentive to get the heck out.

• 9:42Jason Calacanis?

  We were involved in the recall of Chesapeake Dean.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:46Jason Calacanis?

  Our podcast, and David Sacks, our compatriot who couldn't make it, he's, he's busy working with you guys here.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:53Jason Calacanis?

  But yeah, this, this crime issue seems, people have seemed to lost, they seem to have lost the script on... Who the state is working for? The taxpayers or the criminals? And in Texas, it's just extraordinary that you've figured out that you could prioritize the people not committing crime and not cater to the people committing crime. I mean, I'm saying this in the most facetious way possible, but it's just common sense. And I think it feels to me like Californians have had enough and it's just going to take a decade or two to unwind it. But let's double-click on immigration since the great state of Texas has to deal with this more than anybody.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:30Jason Calacanis?

  But this is a land of immigrants. We are all immigrants on this land.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:35Jason Calacanis?

  And so that's our tradition. In fact, you're sitting next to two extraordinary immigrants. My besties, Chamath and Friedberg. What do you believe at this point in time? Is America for the Americans or here? Or do you believe we should be getting the best and brightest to come to this country?

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Look, absolutely both. I have, for a long time, described my immigration views in four words. Legal, good, illegal, bad.

• 11:00Jason Calacanis?

  Okay.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I think most Americans, most Texans, agree with that.

• 11:04Jason Calacanis?

  And most immigrants.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Look, there's a right way to come to this country. There's the way you came to this country. There's the way my dad came to this country. My dad was born in Cuba. He grew up in Cuba. He fought in the Cuban Revolution. When he was a teenager, he fought, was thrown in prison, he was tortured when he was 17 years old. And he came to Texas in 1957. He was 18, couldn't speak English. Had $100 in his underwear and he washed dishes making 50 cents an hour. But he came legally because he had applied to the University of Texas. He'd gotten in. He came on a student visa. And he was an 18-year-old freshman and he started going to school here. And he came legally and he worked and got a job and went on in time to start a small business and worked towards the American dream.

• 11:46Jason Calacanis?

  Was he able to see your success? Is he still with us?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  He is. My dad is 85.

• 11:49Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, my God. What a dream for him.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  He is my hero. It is... He's an incredible... I will say, when you have lost freedom...

• 12:00Speaker 01

  It's personal to you.

• 12:02David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  You know, people ask sometimes, you know, why, why do you do politics? And, and I grew up as a kid, I would sit on the floor along with my cousin Bibi, with my dad and, and Bibi's mom, my tia Sonia. And she also, she was also imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. And we would sit and, and sit and listen to them tell stories.

• 12:23David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  And all I ever wanted to do from when I was three, four, five years old was, was be a freedom fighter. I mean, it was, it's inspiring because what they said and still say, and they're both still going strong, is, is look, if... The only thing that prevents us from tyranny is having good people in office, who will fight for our freedoms. And so, I gotta tell you today, I, I literally jump out of bed every day. Because I, I look at the US Senate and I, I think it is basically the Roman Coliseum. And, and you strap on some armor and you grab a battle axe and, and you go fight the barbarians. And, and that is, that, that's an amazing opportunity. I, I feel blessed and fortunate every day.

• 13:06David Friedberg?

  You are in the arena, yeah. Do you think it's become, we were talking with Ro Khanna, congressman from California, earlier today, and we talked about how there might be good policy put forth by one of the two parties, but the other party's intention is always to get more seats, get more attention, get more votes, and hurt the other party. So we end up having conflict over policy. Do you feel like there's too much of that in DC? And a lot of people talk about the, you know, everything has become too politicized as opposed to, you know, I always think about the show, I love the show The West Wing, and he always talks about the great debate. You know, like, we never have the great debate anymore. We don't talk about the fundamental, you know, policy decisions. We talk about the Republicans said this and so and so did, it gets personal and it gets political.

• 13:51David Friedberg?

  As opposed to like, let's all take our hats off and talk about what's the right thing for the country. Doge being a great example, in my opinion, but I'd love to hear your point of view on how things operate in DC today.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Well, listen, I, I agree with your point at the outset, which is that we need to talk to each other. I worry that we are too... Polarized and tribalized that the left only listens to left-wing media, the right listens to right-wing media, anyone who disagrees, you scream at them. The sense of community that we used to have has been badly, badly unraveled. You know, on social media, if someone disagrees with you, you unfriend them. And we're all in this little echo chain.

• 14:32David Friedberg?

  But we're all patriots, is the sad part.

• 14:33Chamath Palihapitiya?

  All Americans.

• 14:34David Friedberg?

  All Americans.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  But we're living in alternate realities. And so, look, what y'all are doing is really important. I'm grateful for this podcast. We gotta talk to each other. I do a podcast every week called Verdict with Ted Cruz. We've got about a million unique listeners that listen to the Verdict podcasts. And we do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Every week, my podcast is beating CNN.

• 14:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, it's incredible.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  And I think the reason is the same reason people listen to you guys. Because you're actually talking about issues and you're not just screaming at each other. You know, it's not Jerry Springer, go grab a chair and fling it at somebody. But it's have a real and substantive conversation. And I'll tell you, one of the things that I've done and enjoyed is I've taken the podcast on the road to college campuses. And so, a couple of-

• 15:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What has that been like?

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Well, for example, we did one at Yale a couple of years ago. And had about 700 students come out, and I didn't know how the reaction would be. And interestingly enough, about a third of the students were left of center. And I know that because it was right after Katanji Brown Jackson was confirmed. And I made a reference to that. And about a third of the room began cheering. And I stopped and I said, hey, look, the fact that you're cheering at that shows that obviously we're coming from different places on the political spectrum. I said, I want to thank you especially for coming here. Because you may not agree with me on everything, or even most things. But thank you for coming and being part of a conversation. And so, we did about 90 minutes of all Q and A.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And we had a rule, we said, if you have a hostile question, if you have an antagonistic question, come to the front of the line. And we spent 90 minutes having a real conversation. Afterwards, I went out with an Orthodox rabbi on campus. And we got a drink. And he said, Ted, you know, I've been working on Yale's campus.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  For decades, he said, "This is the biggest group of students I've seen have a positive, civil, constructive conversation on conservative ideas," he said, "in 20 years."

• 16:36Jason Calacanis?

  There's something about the podcast format where you're taking a little bit of time, you're not rushed in six or seven minutes like you are on the weekly shows where I see you all the time, and that's sparring.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:48Jason Calacanis?

  And you're just trying to get a message out in three minutes, five minutes, but here, you know, you can open it up, maybe listen to each other, invite guests in with different opinions, learn something. With the, specifically with the immigration issue, which seems to be the one that's tearing us apart a whole bunch, there's so much consensus, "Hey, we want the border closed, we want it legal, but we also want to bring in a certain number of people and we want a system." And, you know, I did my research on this, and places that have consensus like Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, just, they seem to understand that you need to match immigration to the reality of unemployment and which jobs you need. But the one criticism I have of politicians, which I think you're one of...

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Sadly, guilty as charged.

• 17:29Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, is, you all don't talk about it in numbers. We need this many nurses, we need this many doctors, we need this many construction people, we have 4% unemployment record, great job to our politicians in helping that out. You know, we can bring in 2 million people this year. Hey, if it goes up to 5%, we're going to bring in 1.5. I wish that the discussion could be more granular and with numbers, and you guys could actually say, "It's not 500, it's 450." Because if we were in a business decision here, and we do business together, and we say, "Hey, we have to deploy these resources to get this outcome," but it's so contentious and polarized and not fact and number-based. Why is that on this issue that you guys can't just put some numbers on paper?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  So, well, look, there are a lot of numbers that matter intensely. Let's start at one where you talked about low unemployment. As you know, that number can be deceptive, because we also have among the lowest labor force participation we've ever had.

• 18:23Jason Calacanis?

  62% right now.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And so there are millions that have just dropped out of the labor force altogether. They're not measured in top-line unemployment, but it's still a real challenge. We have healthy, young adults who should be working who are not working.

• 18:37Jason Calacanis?

  Why aren't they, in your mind? Is it because they have the resources to not do that?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Um, look, I think it, and I think it varies state by state, but I think when you have a welfare state where you get paid for not working...

• 18:47Jason Calacanis?

  It's bad incentive.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  People end up not working, and the statistics are really crushing that if anyone doesn't work for a year... The odds of their going back to the workforce drop precipitously.

• 18:59David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  That once someone gets the habit of dependency. I've said a bunch of times, you know, I try to think of every policy from the perspective of easing the means of ascent up the economic ladder. And I think about, you know, my dad, when he was a teenage kid in Austin washing dishes. Thank God some well-meaning liberal didn't come to him and say, Rafael, let me take care of you.

• 19:23David Friedberg?

  Right, totally.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Just stay home, let me send you a government check, don't work so hard. And it's utterly destructive. It breaks your self-respect, your individual responsibility.

• 19:35David Friedberg?

  But it comes from an empathetic place, Senator. So, and I know this, like in, you know, in kind of a liberal setting, you see people in need, you want to help them, and you use government as a tool to help people in need. And the fundamental issue is that in many cases, that creates an incentive model that makes it very difficult for that solution, for that situation, to find a solution on its own, a market solution. And over time, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you have cascading effects that I believe we're now realizing in this country with what I estimate is somewhere between 40 to 50% of people that are employed in this country employed by government or government service providers.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  And you're right that much of it is not from ill will. And, but we do need to have a real conversation about what works to lift people into prosperity. And by the way, all of us know this in our own life. If your kid, let's say you have a kindergartner who's struggling with math. There's not a one of us who would do our kid's math homework.

• 20:32David Friedberg?

  Yep.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  We know that's not helping them. That if your daughter doesn't learn to do arithmetic, it's going to hurt her for the rest of her life. So you've got to work through that problem with her, even if it'd be easier for you just to finish it for her.

• 20:45David Friedberg?

  Yes, right.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  We know that in our lives. You know, the old adage of give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

• 20:53David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  We know that with people we love. But yet, when it comes to public policy, you have a lot of people who don't think about it more broadly. I'll say back in 2017, I did three different CNN Town Hall debates with Bernie Sanders. And listen, I like Bernie because he is an unapologetic socialist. And I'm an unapologetic capitalist. And we had 90-minute Town Hall debates on which system was better for maximizing human prosperity and abundance. And we didn't insult each other. Neither of us called each other a son of a bitch. We talked about the facts. And I'll point out something. Let's take socialized medicine. It's interesting. The advocates of socialized medicine,

• 21:37Speaker 01

  when I pointed out all of the problems socialized medicine produces in every country in which it's been implemented, the United Kingdom, Canada. Bernie's answer was, "Well, it wouldn't be that way here." So the reality would not be here. Every year, about 50,000 Canadians come to America on what they call medical tourism because they can't get the medical care they need in Canada. And I will suggest to you a question, particularly for those of y'all that are Californians, that I love asking advocates of socialized medicine. Why don't California adopt it? You've got a Democrat governor. You've got a Democrat supermajority legislature. There's no constitutional impediment. California could adopt socialized medicine today. It's not the mean old Republicans that are stopping them.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  And as you know, the legislature looked at it and realized it would bankrupt them. By the way, Vermont, Bernie's home state, they could adopt it. And the reason you don't see California, or New York, or Illinois, or Vermont, or any blue state in America adopt socialized medicine.

• 22:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It wouldn't work.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  It wouldn't work, and people would flee their state. And so their answer is, "We want to do it to everyone in the entire country, so you can't flee. Unless you're willing to leave America, you're stuck."

• 22:48David Friedberg?

  And I think what's challenging, Senator, is that then you have compromises. That get you to a point where the federal government has a big enough role in healthcare.

• 22:55Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 22:56David Friedberg?

  My opinion is much of the inflation in healthcare costs arises from the federal government's role. In the same way that the federal government has a role in student loans that has driven up the cost of education. And the federal government has a role in providing loans for housing, has also driven up the cost of housing.

• 23:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Education.

• 23:10David Friedberg?

  Education across the board.

• 23:12Chamath Palihapitiya?

  It distorts the free market.

• 23:13David Friedberg?

  But the empathetic solution is we need to provide access to those who can't get it. And then at the end of the day, it inflates the cost of all of those services. And ultimately, the quality of those services erodes. And I'll give you the anecdote real quick.

• 23:24Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 23:24David Friedberg?

  My brother lives in England. They just had a child, him and his partner. And they went to the delivery room and they couldn't get a bed for late. She was in labor. They could not get a bed to have the baby. I think it took them 36 to 72 hours to actually get into a bed while she was in labor. It was the most insane, he's calling me, he can't get a bed. It was, I'm like, you're living in the frigging UK. This is supposed to be one of the wealthiest nations on earth. That's the outcome of socialized medicine. And along the way, you get the inflationary effects that we're dealing with in the United States today. I'm with you on.

• 23:53Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Chamath, you're the quarterback.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:57Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Quarterback the next two weeks of the Trump administration.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Well, on Monday, we're going to see a flurry of executive orders. I think it'll be in the neighborhood of 100 executive orders. I'm optimistic about them. That's the number they're talking about.

• 24:10Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wow.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  It's going to be in that neighborhood.

• 24:13Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Shocking, huh?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  And I actually, I'm pretty happy about that. Now, look, will I agree with all 100? I don't know. My guess is I'll agree with the vast majority of them, but I don't know everything that's in there, so we'll see.

• 24:25Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And in some ways, it'll just make it almost impossible for the Democrats to react, because where do you focus?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yes, and Chamath, that's actually a point. You know, I think back to, so my wife Heidi and I met on the 2000 George W. Bush campaign. And so we both served as young people in the Bush administration. And I think there is a quantum of outrage, and I call it the arsenic quantum of outrage. If you remember the beginning of Bush 43, one of the first things he did is his EPA revoked a rule on arsenic. And for like six weeks, the media saturated the airwaves with the evil Republicans want to poison our children with arsenic. And I mean, it was, it dominated forever, and they beat the living daylights out of him for it. Now, look, Monday, when you get 100 executive orders, I think that's how much outrage there is.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And that arsenic quantum of outrage will be directed at everything.

• 25:20Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Smear'd.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Which makes it very hard for them to oppose anything coherently and directly. And gives an opportunity, I hope, for this administration. What I'd like to see is really delivering on the mandate of this election. The outcomes in November were clear.

• 25:38Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let's ask that. What were, yeah, what were the, if you had to distill, what are your specific takeaways as the mandate in priority?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  So number one, secure the border. And I believe that'll start on January 20th. And it will start by ending catch and release so that when people are apprehended, they are detained and they're sent back to where they came from.

• 25:55Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  I think that will be followed up by going and arresting criminal illegal aliens, going and arresting murderers and rapists and child molesters and gang bangers. I think all of that will roll out very, very fast. I think there is also a mandate to end the federal government's war on energy, on Texas oil and gas. And that will lower prices at the gas pump, at the grocery store. Every bill people are paying. And I think if you look at the top two issues in this election, it was illegal immigration and safety, and it was inflation and the economy. I think we will also see

• 26:38Speaker 01

  a lessening of the job-killing regulations on small businesses. A return to thriving, booming economic growth.

• 26:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What would those be?

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Look, there are a host of them. Energy is the easy example. Where the Biden administration's put in over 90 different regulations and executive orders, all designed to drive up the cost of energy.

• 26:58Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right, so the input gets higher and everybody suffers. Got it.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  And so I expect, I expect pretty much all of those to be reversed.

• 27:05David Friedberg?

  Hydrocarbon. And then subsidies for, quote, "green energy."

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Look, I think on energy, we ought to pursue all of the above. Beyond that, I think, I think there is also a mandate on the economic side. The 2017 Trump tax cuts are expiring this year. We're going to extend them. My hope is we make them bigger and bolder. That's going to take some time. We'll do that through what's called the reconciliation process. And then on foreign policy.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  I think under Biden, we have abandoned and alienated our friends and we've shown weakness and appeasement to our enemies. I think that will stop on Monday as well.

• 27:45David Friedberg?

  Senator, you just said five things, but what you didn't say was Doge. So, cutting taxes, there's an inflation problem. There's no way you're cutting taxes and not cutting government spending and not tampering inflation down. Don't we have to cut federal spending? How important is Doge? How real is it? Is it a marketing gimmick from your point of view? How much can actually be done? Is it a real, you know, is this kind of require legislative authority and it's going to be a longer form process? Or is there going to be a lot of very quick action?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  So, and I'm happy to answer that directly. Let me just say one thing you just said there with respect is incorrect.

• 28:20David Friedberg?

  Yes.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  You said, "There's no way we're cutting taxes and not cutting spending and having inflation stay down." And I just say that's objectively false because that's exactly what happened in the first Trump term, which is the 2017 tax cuts, CBO had these apocalyptic projections.

• 28:37David Friedberg?

  Forecast, yep. You're saying tax revenue went up as the economy grew.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Tax revenue went up every single year. After we cut the taxes, the revenue from the federal government went up. So, we cut taxes. Sadly, we did not cut spending.

• 28:50David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  I tried mightily to cut spending.

• 28:53David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  But we did not have the votes to do it and inflation still stayed down. So, if the economy is booming.

• 28:59David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  You can turn things around. Look, Doge-

• 29:02David Friedberg?

  But is there a deficit mandate?

• 29:03Speaker 01

  So, I am excited about Doge. Elon is a good friend. I admire the hell out of him. I'm thrilled that he's a Texan. You know, I've joked with Elon that he doesn't just think outside the box. He doesn't know there is a damn box. That's a great thing. Now, Elon calls me periodically going, "What the hell is this government thing? How does this work this way?" And I'm trying to give whatever guidance I can on that, but I think how you deal with a disruptor in government is going to be an interesting challenge. Vivek is very smart, very creative.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  I will say a couple of challenges. Right now, look, I'm excited about Doja. I want to see some big, bold, creative ideas. I'm gonna give you two warning signs. Number one, the phrase waste, fraud, and abuse. Anytime someone talks about waste, fraud, and abuse, they don't really want to cut government spending. You know why? Because there is no Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Caucus. There's no one that says, "I'm for the waste." So it's the easy place to go. We'll cut the waste. If you actually cut real government spending, there is always, always, always a constituency who's pissed off, who likes the thing they're getting. And so you have lots of politicians that say-

• 30:25Jason Calacanis?

  That are gonna lose, they're gonna lose their votes.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Right. Somebody will be mad.

• 30:29Jason Calacanis?

  That's right.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  And, and so that is a challenge. I will say, secondly, at least in the first term, Donald Trump did not campaign as a small government conservative, and he did not govern as a small government conservative. And in fact, I will relay a story. At, at the end of the first term, you remember we're in COVID and, and the government is in the business of sending out checks and more checks and more checks to people all over the country. And Trump wanted the checks to be even bigger. And a lot of the folks in the White House, they asked me, they said, "Ted, can, can you go try to talk him, talk him down from this lynch?"

• 31:06Jason Calacanis?

  Yep. That's a tough job.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  So, so I went on Air Force One. And, and I'm sitting there with the president, I'm trying to make the case that we don't need these gigantic stimulus checks. And he goes, "Ted?" And I get the back of the hand. He goes, "Ted? No one ever lost an election by spending too much money." I said, "Yeah, but they did bankrupt a country." So, I did not succeed then.

• 31:30Jason Calacanis?

  Well, you know what you should have done? You should have asked him to keep the same number, but just make the check larger and the signature bigger.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  That's a good idea. Look, I'll, I'll go with it.

• 31:37Jason Calacanis?

  He likes big.

• 31:38David Friedberg?

  Are you a small government conservative?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 31:40David Friedberg?

  And is, what percent, i- i- if there, if no one was gonna be able to run for reelection, what percent of Congress do you think would support a massive reduction in government agencies? How much of this really is driven by this kind of, "I gotta get reelected"?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  So, look, it's, it's a good question.

• 31:56David Friedberg?

  Versus what I, versus what my principles tell me?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, listen, I, I am also a passionate advocate of turbulence. So, so I have introduced- In every congress, a constitutional amendment that would limit senators to two terms, limit house members to three terms.

• 32:09David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  I think term limits would change that dynamic in a very significant way.

• 32:13David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  And the career politicians in both parties oppose it. Look, on any big spending bill, you unfortunately have a bipartisan coalition in favor of spending. You have essentially all the Democrats and about half the Republicans. There are about 20 of us who will vote against a trillion-dollar spending bill. And, and, and we are frequently begging our colleagues. And to be honest, I don't think we will ever see real spending restraint without strong presidential leadership.

• 32:44David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Which means it will never come from a Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. And, look, if, if Elon and Vivek convince President Trump that he's gonna lean in aggressively on, on cutting spending, great, but that hadn't happened so far.

• 32:57David Friedberg?

  What would it take for the voters to eventually get there? Because it would require the voters backing a candidate with that message. And it seems like no one sees that because what everyone sees is, I want to get X. And the only way I get X is if I get the government to do X for me.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, it, it varies. It takes electing strong leaders. So, I, elections matter. And, and I engage, so, so I think I probably campaigned for more candidates for senate, house, and, and governorship than any Republican in the country. I mean, I travel all over the country. I endorse candidates, and I follow the old Bill Buckley rule, which is I support the most conservative candidate who can win.

• 33:33David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  And that varies. Look, look, a candidate who can win in Texas is different than a candidate who can win in Maine.

• 33:39David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 33:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  And, and so, but, but I can say, the problem is, you get, I can tell you, in Texas, I mean, when I ran, 2012, I ran for senate. I'd never been elected before.

• 33:51David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Never been elected to nothing.

• 33:53David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Literally, the last thing I was elected to was student council. By the way, Chamath, you may not remember this. You actually wrote me a check in that race.

• 34:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I was gonna tell that story.

• 34:02David Friedberg?

  We looked it up.

• 34:03Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Which is, we were together in Utah.

• 34:05David Friedberg?

  Yep.

• 34:06Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Peter Thiel had an event, or he does this thing. And we had a breakfast. And Ted was surrounded by sort of a handful of us who were speaking to him. And then, what I would say is like, every traditional Democrat from Central Casting. And he went through the firing squad, and he came out the other side, and I thought, wow, this is really great. And so then, I was very happy to donate.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Well, I was...

• 34:32David Friedberg?

  You were a Dem donor back then.

• 34:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I was a Dem donor. But, see, here's the thing, like, and I think what you're getting, what I think what the senator speaks to, which is what I agree with, is ideology matters. And so, when you make decisions about how you think the country should run, you should stay loyal to that. And I think what happens instead is, people stay loyal to a party.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 34:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And it's the minute you do that, that the whole thing breaks. And this is what's broken. And I think what the great thing that Donald Trump did was, he basically conducted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Undoubtedly.

• 35:06Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah, and then the Democrats committed sabuku. And that's the most important thing that happens. I mean, all parties are reset. You don't have to go and kick the coax ring. What will they say? What will all this infrastructure say? What does Soros say? All of that is done. The whole thing's flipped over.

• 35:22David Friedberg?

  Hey, Senator, you...

• 35:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's very powerful, I think.

• 35:24David Friedberg?

  You had an anecdote for me two nights ago. I don't know if you're willing to share it, about a conversation regarding Denmark and Greenland? Do you want to tell us what you think...

• 35:32Speaker 01

  So...

• 35:34David Friedberg?

  Happens here?

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Look, my view on Denmark and Greenland, so I did a podcast two weeks ago on Denmark, Greenland, and Canada. And I did all three of them on my Verdict podcast. And I put them in a spectrum. But let's start with Canada. I think the President's Canada remarks were just trolling. I think he was just screwing with Trudeau. I think he was sitting at the table and decided to, you know, "Why are you even a country? You ought to be a state. You should be a governor."

• 35:59David Friedberg?

  It's not that I send J Cal texts like that all the time.

• 36:01Jason Calacanis?

  I love it.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  You know, I would have paid frankly to be sitting at that table just to see Trudeau's face.

• 36:06Jason Calacanis?

  In fact, in fact.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Look, it was reminiscent, if you remember the 2016 campaign on the debate stage, where Trump turned, Rand Paul was at the end, and he's like, "Why are you even on this stage? And what is it with your hair?" I mean, it was the same sort of comment that was just messing with him.

• 36:24Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  I put that in one, and by the way, that may be the most epic troll of all time, because I think that literally pushed Trudeau to resign.

• 36:32Jason Calacanis?

  Exactly.

• 36:33David Friedberg?

  Crazy, huh?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  I mean, it's a fairly...

• 36:34Jason Calacanis?

  Why would he not, why would he do that? Go to Mar-a-Lago? I mean, such a stupid thing to do. He just should have been like, "Yeah, you know, we're our own sovereign country, thanks."

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Well, he was already, I think, weak.

• 36:43David Friedberg?

  He likes to go with the trend, so that was the trend.

• 36:46Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, that's what happens when you're a weather vane.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  I will say, I couldn't resist tweeting and said, you know, "Trudeau's lasted really long for a son of Fidel Castro."

• 36:55Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, wait, wait. It's close to home.

• 36:58David Friedberg?

  No, no, no, keep telling us about Denmark.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Canada's a troll.

• 37:01David Friedberg?

  Yeah, Denmark, Greenland.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Greenland, on the other hand, I think is a very serious policy proposal. And I think there are, you know, Trump mentioned this in the first term, and a lot of people dismissed it. "Oh, this is just Trump talking wacky."

• 37:14Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  But I think there are enormous national security and economic reasons why acquiring Greenland makes a ton of sense. And you look at Greenland's location on the Arctic. It has incredibly prime location on the Arctic. If, from a national security perspective, God forbid we ever get in a shooting war with China or with Russia, ICBMs are coming right over the Arctic. And Greenland is a prime location to deal with that. We're also seeing more shipping lanes coming in and around the Arctic. And China and Russia are both competing for prized, prized access there. Greenland makes an enormous sense from that perspective. It also makes an enormous perspective from critical minerals and rare earth minerals.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  They have vast amounts. And so what I said is, look, I think we should pursue this seriously. I'll tell you, I had a conversation this week with the Danish Ambassador to the United States. And, and look, Denmark's a little freaked out by all this conversation. And I'll tell you what I told the ambassador. I said, "Listen, Denmark is our friend. You're our ally. You will continue to be our friend and ally. But friends and allies can have conversations." And the ambassador said, "Well, Greenland's not for sale." I said, "That's fine. Everything's for sale. We're gonna have a conversation." And by the way, if you maintain that, one of the things this has produced is a growing independence movement in Greenland.

• 38:37David Friedberg?

  Totally.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  And if you do nothing, you may end up getting nothing for Greenland because they break off on their own.

• 38:42David Friedberg?

  Totally. Right.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Now, look, for it to happen, I think you would probably have to have a referendum on Greenland.

• 38:49David Friedberg?

  Yep.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  I find it quite plausible that the Greenlanders, about 50,000 of them,

• 38:54David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  would say, "Wait a second, I get to be an American?"

• 38:56David Friedberg?

  Their poll just showed positive results. They just did a survey there.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  I mean, to become an American is in many ways the greatest gift we can give anyone on planet Earth.

• 39:05David Friedberg?

  Totally.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  And the billions in investment, if Greenland became an American territory, the difference it would make for Greenlanders.

• 39:12David Friedberg?

  Well, Senator, we could pay $200 billion for the territory to Denmark. Their federal debt, or their national debt's about $150 billion. They'd have a $50 billion surplus. They could build a pension plan around.

• 39:21Jason Calacanis?

  That's why we have...

• 39:22David Friedberg?

  You could spend another 10 billion to put everyone in a great situation for the rest of their life that's a resident of Greenland, and that becomes an American territory.

• 39:30Jason Calacanis?

  This could be like a whole new philosophy. I think we just go right to 60 states. Let's just make an open offer.

• 39:35David Friedberg?

  No, but, and sorry, how does the president and the administration, how are they gonna tackle this? Or do you have any insights into what's gonna happen here?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  So, look, Ken Howery, you guys know, I know, is a good friend who has been nominated to be ambassador to Denmark. I've talked with Ken...

• 39:46David Friedberg?

  Good friend of ours, yep.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Talked with Ken just yesterday about this.

• 39:49David Friedberg?

  Yep.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  I think we need to lean in and try to negotiate, both with Denmark and Greenland. I'm certainly from the Senate, gonna push it. But I wanted to contrast it. Is Canada gonna become a state? No, but Greenland, listen, we acquired...

• 40:03Jason Calacanis?

  Make it a protectorate.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Louisiana Purchase. We purchased from France. Alaska, we purchased from Russia. I mean, there's a long history of this.

• 40:10David Friedberg?

  Totally.

• 40:11Jason Calacanis?

  Puerto Rico next. Let's go. If they wanna come on board, why not?

• 40:14David Friedberg?

  What's an American territory?

• 40:15Jason Calacanis?

  It's already a protectorate.

• 40:16David Friedberg?

  It's already a American territory.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  And so Panama, I view as kind of in the middle of the two.

• 40:21David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  And Panama's a little more complicated. Look, I think Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal remains one of the most spectacularly stupid decisions a president has ever done in all of us. I think it was profoundly harmful to US national security interests, to our economic interests.

• 40:38Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  That being said, it's been long enough that unwinding it is really tough.

• 40:45Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  However, President Trump, if you listen to what he's saying on Panama, he's got actually some very sophisticated legal arguments that he's making. Number one, when we gave the Panama Canal to Panama, technically sold it for a dollar, we had a binding agreement that laid out the terms of that transfer.

• 41:03Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  And one argument that President Trump has put forth is that Panama is in violation of that agreement because they have allowed China to effectively seize control of the canal. How is that? Because a Chinese state-owned enterprise owns a building on one end of the canal and on the other end of the canal.

• 41:21Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  And should we be at a point of conflict, military or other, with China? It's not difficult to imagine those Chinese state-owned enterprises using that location to try to shut down anyone traversing the canal.

• 41:34Jason Calacanis?

  Sounds like they voided the contract.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  That's a pretty powerful argument. The second argument, and I had breakfast this morning with President Trump. He had breakfast with all the Republican senators, two and a half hours. He gets sworn in tomorrow and he spent two and a half hours

• 41:47Jason Calacanis?

  He's got stamina.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Stream of consciousness talking. We talked about Panama. He's pointing out, the president said this morning, said US Navy ships pay double what any other country's Navy ships pay.

• 42:00Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  He said that American commercial ships pay 58% more

• 42:06Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  than other nations pay. Look, we need to drill down into those facts, but on the face of it, I think there's a powerful argument that that's inconsistent with the terms of the agreement. And is the final outcome of this, that we get total control of the Panama Canal back? Probably not. I think that's a high lift. But in many ways, I think Trump is negotiating on price. And I could easily see an outcome where both Navy ships and commercial ships that are American pay much, much lower rates, number one. And number two, critically, that we get China the hell out of the canal. And that, if we accomplish those two, that would be a massive improvement from U.S. interests.

• 42:46Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Have you, I'm sure you've been paying attention beyond the things that you've been a part of, the confirmation hearings. Can you give us the sort of blow-by-blow of where you think things have gone well, where there is room for improvement, whether there's going to be some spotty weather ahead?

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Look, I've been really happy so far. I think the array of cabinet nominees has been very, very strong.

• 43:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Were there a couple that were you thought going in, we have to, this one will be a little bit harder than the other?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Well, look, clearly, the most bumpy was Matt Gaetz, and they withdrew Matt Gaetz. He was not going to get confirmed. There were multiple Republican senators who were going to vote no. But I will say, I mean, they withdrew that nomination pretty quickly.

• 43:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  I think that was strategic. They sent him up the hill to take the first two. And Pam Bondi seems amazing.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Pam Bondi is going to be terrific. She's going to get confirmed easily. I think, right now, every Trump cabinet nominee gets confirmed.

• 43:37Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's great.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Pete Hegseth is clearly who they're shooting at the most. I don't think they've scored real blood. I did a whole podcast on the Hegseth confirmation hearing, where it spoke volumes that the Democrat, virtually all of the Democrat attacks were personal attacks based on anonymous charges, typically with no evidence, and with no one coming forward and putting their name on it. And they had virtually nothing to say about the job to which he'd been nominated and what he intends to do as the Secretary of Defense. I think that fundamentally is a flawed strategy. So I think everyone gets through right now.

• 44:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Do you think that you'll see any Democrat senators support any of the candidates?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 44:22Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Rubio?

• 44:23Speaker 01

  So Rubio will get 90 votes. He could get north of 95 votes. It'll be a huge bipartisan vote for Rubio. John Ratcliffe for CIA, he'll get significant bipartisan votes. Sean Duffy at Transportation, he'll get a bunch of bipartisan votes. Howard Lutnick at Commerce, my guess is he'll get bipartisan votes, although he hasn't had his hearing yet, so we'll see. So there will certainly be some. Pam Bondi, I think Pam is terrific. Brooke Rollins? Brooke will get bipartisan votes. Part of it is, alright, let's take Sean Duffy. So I chaired the confirmation hearing for Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation. It was a love fest. Why was it a love fest? Because everyone wants a bridge or a road in their state.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  So if you're a Democrat, you're like, wait, you're Santa Claus and you're giving out hundreds of billions of dollars? I want some. Yes. And so everyone wants it. And so Brooke Rollins at Department of Agriculture, again, everyone wants stuff for ag and farmers in their state. So in that sort of role, it's easy for it to be a love fest. Pam Bondi, even though she did very well, I'd be surprised if Democrats vote for her. Just the nature of Attorney General in this politicized environment. My guess is, I think on the committee, the Ds are gonna vote no, but I think Pam will hold every Republican. And so I think she gets through easily. Bobby?

• 45:43Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Senator?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  I think he makes it through. I spent an hour with him. It'll be interesting, I was talking with him about this, will any Democrats vote for him? Obviously, he's been a Democrat his whole life until like 12 minutes ago.

• 45:56Chamath Palihapitiya?

  They hate him.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  And they really, they do view him as a Judas for daring to change. All of us across the country. It's still, look. J. K. L. too. You look at like red dye number three, you look at what Bobby is doing, I am re-

• 46:11Chamath Palihapitiya?

  He needs more change before he's become HJJ Secretary.

• 46:14Jason Calacanis?

  I mean, the food system is so screwed, like, let him cook, let's see what he can do.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  And his willingness to take on corruption. Corruption of big pharmaceutical companies that get in bed with big government, that they perpetuate their monopolies using government power. So I talked to Bobby, for example, about a bill that I've been fighting for a long time that I call the Results Act. The Results Act says that if any pharmaceutical, any medical device is approved in another major developed country, so approved in Canada, or Japan, or the EU, that the FDA has 60 days to approve it here, or it's deemed automatically approved by Operation- Love it. Brilliant. I'm gonna fight, I have been fighting for that, but I think now I'll have an HHS secretary that agrees with it.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  And I do think if you look at these cabinet nominees, the most striking characteristic of virtually all of them is that they're change agents, that they're going to fundamentally change.

• 47:10Jason Calacanis?

  They're disruptors.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Disruptors, and that's exciting, we need that.

• 47:12Jason Calacanis?

  All right, listen, your people have been trying to get you to end for 20 minutes, but you know what?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Let the man cook!

• 47:19Jason Calacanis?

  I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you. I'm not the president. Our bestie, Phil Hellmuth, every time he sees you, comes back to our poker game, says, "What a great poker player, what a gentleman." He drops your name, "I can get him on the phone right now, I told him, call him right now." He never does it. He was 100% right. You are amazing, great to have you on the bottom left.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  You are tempting me with poker chips.

• 47:39Jason Calacanis?

  No, we're gonna get you in a game.

• 47:41David Friedberg?

  Senator, I know you don't make it to California much, but when you do, come play.

• 47:43Jason Calacanis?

  Just so you know, the boots play.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  And we need scotch and a cigar, and I am perfectly at happy.

• 47:49David Friedberg?

  Maybe we'll go play in often.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I can't stand all these dang balls where everyone's in tuxedos, but my happy place is sitting around the poker table with good conversation and good scotch.

• 48:00Jason Calacanis?

  So great to have you, and congratulations on the big win, and thank you for your service.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 48:05Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you very much.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Thanks a lot.

• 48:07Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  That was great.