Even Trump's Biggest Supporters Can't Deny This...| DSH #2095

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Digital Social Hour
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Micah Irfan
Episode Title: Even Trump's Biggest Supporters Can't Deny This... | DSH #2095
Date: August 6, 2026

In this episode, host Sean Kelly interviews Micah Irfan, a law student and vocal political commentator, ahead of his debate with Kai. The conversation covers the Trump administration’s second term, focusing on issues of corruption, the economy, foreign and immigration policy, government spending, AI impacts, and more. With unfiltered candor, Irfan critiques prominent Republican talking points and provides a deep-dive into why he identifies as a liberal, how the U.S. should handle welfare and taxes, and pressing issues like national debt and global aid.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Trump’s Second Term: Corruption, Economy, and Pardons

• Micah on Trump’s Track Record:

  • "What has actually gotten better since Trump became president? Unemployment is higher... Inflation is higher... Business bankruptcies are up... Credit card debt's up. And then for what? Tremendous corruption." (03:53)
  • Trump is criticized for pardoning January 6 participants and convicted fraudsters, some of whom resumed criminal activity after release.
  • Noted that Trump’s administration is "literally selling pardons" and cited stories where million-dollar donations were allegedly followed by pardons (05:11 - 06:14).
  • “He’s pardoned, I believe, 70 convicted fraudsters... collectively owed the American taxpayer $1.3 billion... said, you don’t have to pay back any... money you’ve stolen.” (05:32)

• Memorable Quote:

  • “If you are a two-time fraudster, you should keep your ass in prison.” – Micah Irfan (05:32)

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2. Economic Policy: Inflation, Tariffs, and Deficit

• Tariffs and Inflation:

  • Tariffs imposed by Trump are labeled unconstitutional, put in place without congressional approval, and blamed for the majority of inflation (06:37–08:38).
  • “He literally pressed a make prices higher button and we've had to pay for that.” – Micah Irfan (07:17)
  • Tariff refunds, since tariffs were struck down, will benefit big corporations instead of consumers: “This is one of the biggest scams in modern American history, in my opinion.” (09:18)

• On the National Debt Crisis:

  • National debt now at $40 trillion and interest payments surpass Medicare and military budgets (10:35–11:54).
  • Micah: “Trump alone is responsible for 27% of the national debt.” (12:26)
  • “By the end of his term, he’s estimated to be responsible for one third of the entire nation’s debt.” (12:26)
  • Democrats cited as having decreased the deficit in recent decades, while Republicans increased it (12:49).

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3. Social Policy: Universal Basic Income and Taxation

• Universal Basic Income (UBI):

  • Strong support for UBI as a simpler, more effective welfare solution (13:13–14:53).
  • “You look around on the street, there's a ton of poor people all over the place. So obviously the way that the government is trying to fight poverty is not working.” (13:19)
  • UBI described as more dignified and less bureaucratic, empowering recipients: “Instead of having all these complex paperwork... We’re just gonna send every single person a monthly check.” (13:52)
  • “It gives the power towards the actual person.” – Host Sean Kelly (14:11)

• Tax System Critique:

  • “The tax system is bullish... before we impose new taxes, let's make everybody in this country, especially rich people, corporations... pay the taxes that we already pay. Me and you pay these things. Let's make them pay them, too.” (16:40–18:17)
  • Outlines tax loopholes, write-offs, and how billionaires often pay a lower effective tax rate than average Americans (17:30–18:17).
  • “I think I pay more than Trump in taxes.” – Sean Kelly (18:40)

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4. Immigration and Law Enforcement

• ICE and Border Policy:

  • Trump’s heavier border enforcement praised for addressing voter concerns, but ICE harshly criticized for abuse and overreach (19:09–20:34).
  • Stories of ICE detaining legal immigrants, citizens, and neglecting detainees’ medical needs.
  • “I believe that we should deport criminals... but we should do it while following our laws and while treating people with respect, especially American citizens and legal immigrants. ICE is not doing that.” (21:20)

• Immigration Philosophy:

  • Micah’s moderate stance: supports immigrants who “love America... want to speak English... contribute to our economy” (22:58–24:49).
  • “We can’t take every poor person in the world... We should try to help those countries be richer.” (24:41)

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5. Foreign Aid and the “America First” Doctrine

• Aid Cuts and Global Impact:

  • Trump’s foreign aid cuts decried as catastrophic for global public health and America’s image (25:07–26:52).
  • “He basically ended USAID. The effect of that has been hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, already being dead...” (25:07)
  • U.S. now mainly sends aid to Israel and Egypt, not for humanitarian reasons, but to buy stability (26:55–27:18).

• On Aid to Israel:

  • “Trump’s given over $11 billion since he became president. He unfroze everything that Biden froze. I don’t think that we should be giving money to Israel at all.” (27:18)
  • Criteria for foreign aid: the recipient should be one of the “good guys” and the money should make a difference. Micah argues Israel doesn’t meet either. (27:31–28:09)
  • “Why do we have to borrow $11 billion to fund Israel’s military? Why can’t they borrow...?” (28:09)

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6. Culture, Media, and Conservative Decline

• Conservative Media Waning:
  • Daily Wire’s declining engagement and layoffs linked to the disconnect between GOP messaging and public realities (37:04–39:07).
  • “They are spending gobs and gobs and gobs of money on content that people don’t want... People don’t want to watch more propaganda about how the Trump administration is actually cool and nice.” (37:11)
  • Conservatives failing to deliver for working-class voters; GOP “all a scam, man.” (38:48)

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7. Reflections on Liberalism and Tolerance

• Liberalism vs. Historical Intolerance:

  • Micah emphasizes liberalism as “the idea that all people have dignity by virtue of their humanity...” (02:05–03:27)
  • Contrasts historical European religious wars with modern Western tolerance: “That would never happen today in the West. Because we have liberalism.” (03:27)
  • Middle East turmoil blamed on lack of separation of church/state: “If you could just have the Israelis say, you know, it's okay, we're going to let you be Muslims, and that’s fine... the fundamental issue is intolerance.” (33:04–34:34)

• On Illiberal Attitudes (on both sides):

  • Micah is critical of religious nationalism and supports only culturally compatible immigrants (34:51–35:30).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Lawyers write the laws, so we're going to write laws that make sure we don’t get replaced [by AI].” – Micah Irfan (01:20)
• “I think the national debt is the biggest crisis of our generation.” – Micah Irfan (10:34)
• “Trump alone is responsible for 27% of the national debt.” – Micah Irfan (12:26)
• “If you are a two-time fraudster, you should keep your ass in prison.” – Micah Irfan (05:32)
• “Before we impose new taxes, let’s make everybody... pay the taxes that we already pay.” – Micah Irfan (18:17)
• “ICE is not making us safer. ICE is making every Hispanic American scared about whether they're going to get detained.” – Micah Irfan (22:05)
• “He bombed more countries in one year. It’s over 8 now than FDR did.” – Micah Irfan (32:16)

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Important Timestamps

• Trump corruption and pardons: 03:53 – 06:34
• Tariff policy & national deficit: 07:16 – 12:49
• Universal basic income & welfare critique: 13:13 – 15:40
• Tax loopholes for the wealthy: 16:36 – 18:17
• ICE and immigration abuses: 19:09 – 21:56
• Foreign aid, Israel, and donor influence: 25:07 – 29:48
• Cultural decline of conservative media: 37:04 – 39:18
• Reflections on modern liberalism vs. religious intolerance: 02:05 – 03:27 and 33:04 – 34:34

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Tone and Style

Micah speaks with a blend of urgency, sarcasm, and frustration—often using phrases like “craziest scam,” “boneheaded politicians,” or “If you are a two-time fraudster, you should keep your ass in prison”—but remains data-driven and solution-oriented. Sean Kelly’s style is casual and inquisitive, keeping the conversation moving and asking clarifying questions that produce further depth.

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This episode delivers a sweeping critique of the state of modern American politics, especially under the Trump administration, and offers clear arguments for why policy must better align with democratic and liberal values. The energy, candor, and range make this a must-listen for anyone tracking the shifting landscape of U.S. politics and policy.

Transcript

[Micah Irfan]

I think he's been terrible. So, like, I asked conservatives this. What has actually gotten better since Trump became president? Like, what has he gotten you? Tremendous corruption. And we want to end the corruption after being vice president for a Trump administration, which is the most corrupt and which has bombed the most countries in one year out of any president in American history. He bombed more countries in one year. It's over 8 now than FDR did.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap. Foreign. Guys, we got Micah on the show right now right before he debates Kai, so we're gonna shout out for that. Yeah, yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

Is this your first big debate or slight. Yeah, yeah. The last guy I debated was kind of stupid. So Kai's a little bit. We're gonna give him some credit. He's smarter.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, Kai's on the A tier list.

[Micah Irfan]

I don't know about that, but, you know, he's. He's not. He's not D tier. I think the last guy debated was

[Podcast Host]

like, really, really brain rot.

[Micah Irfan]

No, totally. You were there, actually.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, was I?

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, it was right outside of America.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, am fest. Yeah, the guy was debated since then.

[Micah Irfan]

I have not. Well, yeah, not really, no.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

No.

[Podcast Host]

You've been holding it all in, man.

[Micah Irfan]

Dude, I've been like. I've been cooking.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

Life. Life of a law student, though. Life of a law student.

[Podcast Host]

I'm sure your days are busy. Crazy, dude. Super busy. First year law.

[Micah Irfan]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

You're not going to get replaced by AI, are you?

[Micah Irfan]

Well, you know, lawyers write the laws, so we're going to write laws that make sure that we don't get replaced.

[Podcast Host]

Smart.

[Micah Irfan]

That's the great thing about the legal profession.

[Podcast Host]

It is interesting because I'm talking to a lot of lawyers and some of them hate it, some of them love it, some of them are scared with AI. I don't know, we'll see how it plays out.

[Micah Irfan]

I'm pretty pro AI in this sense. I know it's kind of an unpopular take, but in my perspective, if you look at every scientific innovation in history, there was always people who hated it immediately, right when it was happening. And then now, like, we couldn't imagine

[Podcast Host]

our lives like that.

[Micah Irfan]

Like. Like automatic elevators. You know, all the elevator operators lost their jobs because of that. But nobody would say that we need to bring back elevator operators.

[Podcast Host]

I've never met one of those.

[Micah Irfan]

No, neither. That'd be super. What a boring job, you know?

[Podcast Host]

No, literally. Geez. So let's. Let's get straight to it. Why are you liberal?

[Micah Irfan]

So, okay, first I want to clarify what I mean by liberal. I Think liberalism is this idea that all people have dignity by virtue of their humanity. And so, you know, people, whenever people think about liberalism in the United States, they think about the Democratic Party because it's kind of in conflation going on there. But that's not what liberalism means internationally. It's not what it means historically. If you look at the United States, we were a country founded on liberal values. We won a monarchy. We believe that people should have the right to vote, that people have rights by virtue of their humanity. And if you look at America, over time, we've basically become more liberal. We've respected the human dignity of more people. We used to not let women vote. Then we started letting them vote. We used to have slavery, and then we got rid of slavery and we let African Americans vote. And I think that's been a really good thing historically. And I think if you look at the history of the world, you know, before the 1700s, things really sucked. Like, we died when we were 30 years old. We were all peasant farmers who were, like, owned by some sort of monarch. The monarch could come and just execute you, like, for any reason. I mean, we were fighting wars over really crazy. I mean, like, this is a crazy fact. The war that killed the highest percentage of the United Kingdom's population in its entire history was not World War I. It was not World War II. It wasn't the, you know, Thousand Years War, the 700 year war. It was a war between Protestant and Catholic British people.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

Just killing each other over what kind of Christianity they believed in. That would never happen today in the west. Because we have liberalism. We have this idea that, you know what? It's okay if you're different than me. I respect that. You have the right to believe the things that you want to believe. I have the right to believe the things that I want to believe. And I think fundamentally, that idea of what the government should be doing, that idea of society, is still the right one.

[Podcast Host]

Makes sense. So, all that being said, how have you felt about Trump so far in his second term?

[Micah Irfan]

I think he's been terrible. I think. So, like, I asked conservatives this. What has actually gotten better since Trump became president? Unemployment is higher than it was whenever he took office. Inflation is higher than it was when he took office. Business bankruptcies are up. You look at small, big businesses, they're both going bankrupt at higher rates. Credit card debt's up. And then for what? Like, what has he gotten you? Tremendous corruption. The guy is pardoning January sixers, trying to give them billions of dollars of Taxpayer money. And we just got a new news story today that yet another one of them has been arrested for child. This is the third January sixer that Trump released on our streets that has been put back into prison because of child exploitation. Trump has literally made this country dramatically less safe with his, you know, pardon decisions. And I think, I think, you know, there should be some sort of answer to that. I think people should be upset about that.

[Podcast Host]

Can you think of anything good he's done so far?

[Micah Irfan]

I would say the border.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Micah Irfan]

I would say, you know, you look at Joe Biden's track record on the border, it wasn't good. You know, Americans don't want mass immigration. Biden tried to change course near the end of his term and it was too little, too late.

[Podcast Host]

I feel like that's why Trump won.

[Micah Irfan]

The border issue, I think it was border and affordability and drain the swamp.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

And no new wars.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

And that too, he did, you know, he did the border one. I think the corruption's been crazy, man. He's literally selling pardons. There's a story of a person who, they were in prison the second time for committing fraud. They literally went to prison twice. And this second time they give a million dollars to Trump's campaign. One month later, they get a pardon.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[Micah Irfan]

If you are a two time fraudster, you should keep your ass in prison. The guy has, he's pardoned, I believe 70 convicted fraudsters and those fraudsters collectively owed the American taxpayer $1.3 billion in stolen money from the government. And he not only let them out of prison, he said, you don't have to pay back any, any of the money that you've stolen. You can keep the $1.3 billion that you stole. I think that that's crazy.

[Podcast Host]

Only a million?

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah. I mean, I thought it was higher

[Podcast Host]

because I've heard 10 million, but a

[Micah Irfan]

million's only a million.

[Podcast Host]

What to get pardoned?

[Micah Irfan]

Like, you know, million dollars? $1.3 billion.

[Podcast Host]

No, I'm saying the guy donated a million.

[Micah Irfan]

Oh, yeah, that was one person. Another guy. There's a lot of stories. Another guy invested millions of dollars. He had his company invest millions of dollars into Trump's crypto scam and he got pardoned. Of course, so many of these pardons are just complete pay to pay to play corruption. And look at no new wars. Are we in a war right now?

[Podcast Host]

We might be in more than one. Right, Right.

[Micah Irfan]

I think we're in a war right now. The only president that's actually ended wars and not started Any is Joe Biden, which doesn't seem like any conservative wants to acknowledge it. Talk about inflation. Inflation. He was supposed to bring down prices on day one and end inflation. You remember that? That was the promise. Inflation is now higher than it was whenever he first took office. And we know it's because of his policies. It's because of this stupid war in Iran which hasn't done anything for us. And it's because of his tariffs. The Federal Reserve did an estimation of the effect of tariffs on prices. They said 2/3 to 3/4 of all the inflation that's happened under this president is because of his dumb ass tariff policies.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Micah Irfan]

So he literally pressed a make prices higher button and we've had to pay for that. I think, you know, he gets one out of four.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, 25%.

[Micah Irfan]

25% success rate. You know, the other 75% has been a disaster.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I feel like tariffs used to be talked about a lot. Now people are like afraid to talk about it.

[Micah Irfan]

Well, it's because they were illegal, you know, so the Trump, I mean, it's so hilarious. You know, since I'm a law student, I've realized kind of how crazy the tariff policy was. There's this idea, the American court system of non delegation doctrine, which means something very simple. It means that powers that are given to Congress or the president or the courts can't be given to another branch. Congress has the power to tax. It says that in the Constitution. Congress cannot give away its power to tax to the President. But all of these tariffs from Trump, they didn't include Congress. He imposed them himself. So that was obviously unconstitutional. It's not even possible for Congress to write a law that says, you know, Trump, you know, any president can now impose taxes. They can't do that. It's not constitutional. But here's the second issue. This, the law that he cited that said, you know, this is the law that gives me the ability to impose any tariffs I want, it doesn't even mention tariffs. One time I read the law, it doesn't even mention the word tariffs or taxes.

[Podcast Host]

Hmm.

[Micah Irfan]

How the hell can you get unlimited tariff authority from a law that doesn't even mention that word or any similar word? It's ridiculous. And so that's why they struck his tariffs down.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. So what's the status of them now? Are they still in place?

[Micah Irfan]

No, they're struck down. And it's such a scam. Right, because consumers paid the tariffs. Me and you, every normal person. But who is going to get the refunds now, all the money that he took in has to be sent back, and it's not going to get sent back to us. It's gonna get sent back to Amazon, Google. Every big corporation in this country is about to get a bunch of money, and the workers aren't gonna see it. We're not gonna see it. Shareholders are gonna see it. This is one of the biggest scams in modern American history, in my opinion.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap. It's like Doge, right?

[Micah Irfan]

It's just like Doge. It's just like, you know, like, Doge is supposed to go after waste, fraud and abuse. But somehow all the waste and fraud they identify as, like, healthcare research, trying to fix cancer, giving poor Africans disease aid to protect them from getting malaria. That's the waste that they cut. It's called. They call it waste. Meanwhile, Trump is making everything gold in the White House. Trump is doing, like, payouts to January 6ers. He's building a ballroom with taxpayer funds, or at least he's trying to. Isn't that the waste? Under the Trump administration we've had, we know that FBI resources are being used to fly Cash Patel around with his girlfriend, to drive his girlfriend to parties.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

Isn't that waste? I think Doge is a huge scam, man.

[Podcast Host]

She's been on the show.

[Micah Irfan]

Oh, really?

[Podcast Host]

Alexis, right?

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, Alexis.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. That was an interesting interview.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, you should ask her.

[Podcast Host]

I'll leave it at that.

[Micah Irfan]

How is that? Was the, like, you know, the FBI chauffeur? Is that extra fun, you know?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

Having FBI agents taking around. But also, there's the national debt issue. You know, whenever I. I first heard of Doge, I was, you know, I was optimistic in a certain sense.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

Because the national debt, I think, is the biggest crisis of our generation.

[Podcast Host]

40 billion.

[Micah Irfan]

So we have 40 trillion.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, trillion.

[Micah Irfan]

It's much worse than that. $2 trillion a year of borrowing, that's about one out of every $3 the government spends is borrowed from somebody. And the interest on that Debt is currently $1 trillion a year, which is more than Medicare. It's more than the military. It's more than almost anything other than Social Security. Every single year, that interest payment gets higher and higher. Eventually it would be 2 trillion. Eventually it'd be 3, 3 trillion. And we're going to get to a point where the government doesn't have any money for anything else. They have to cut the military, they have to cut Medicare, they have to cut Medicaid. That's cut everything else just to pay this interest. They're not going to do that. Our politicians are boneheaded. So what's going to happen is they're not going to pay the interest. And what happens when you don't pay the interest you owe on a loan? You go bankrupt, default. Yeah. And you know, it's bad whenever we go bankrupt. It's super bad when the government goes bankrupt. Because the entire global financial system is built on the reliability of the U.S. dollar and U.S. treasury bonds. The entire financial system will be decimated. And unfortunately, not only has Doge forced failed to bring down the deficit, Trump has added trillions of dollars to our national debt into our deficit.

[Podcast Host]

So you see that as the biggest issue for our generation?

[Micah Irfan]

I think it is the biggest because it can actually just destroy the economy. You know, like, you know, if we can't feed ourselves, if we can't get our basic necessities, if we don't have a job, I mean, honestly, nothing else matters. And we are running, you know, face first into a brick wall under this president. You know, people say it's both sides, you know, both sides add to the national debt, to both sides issue. I think that's a dumbass talking point. And let me tell you why. Trump alone is responsible for 27% of the national debt.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Micah Irfan]

He's only been president for five years. By the end of his term, he's estimated to be responsible for one third of the entire nation's debt throughout our entire history.

[Podcast Host]

That's insane.

[Micah Irfan]

Just him, Barack Obama, it wasn't responsible for anything like that. Neither was Joe Biden. Every Democratic president In the past 38 years, no 35 years, has decreased the national deficit.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

Every Republican has increased it. The last time we had a balanced budget was under President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. So, yes, both sides are not perfect. One side is making the problem actively much worse and one side is making it better whenever they have power.

[Podcast Host]

That's a crazy stat, actually. Wow. So with the economy sucking and the rise of AI, would you be opposed to ubi? Universal Basic Income.

[Micah Irfan]

I love ubi.

[Podcast Host]

You love it?

[Micah Irfan]

I love you Bot. Because you, you look at the government we have, most people don't know this. 80 plus federal welfare programs. 80. It's like, what the hell? You actually go through the list of this and you're like, man, what are these? We have like five or six different affordable housing programs. Programs. They're designed to do the same ass thing, but we just have multiple of them. And so we spend over several trillion dollars a year on fighting poverty. And you look around on the street There's a ton of poor people all over the place. So obviously the way that the government is trying to fight poverty is not working. And I think that a universal basic income is a much better idea. It's like, listen, instead of having all these complex paperwork you have to go through, and there's a different welfare benefit for electricity and food and housing, and you gotta apply for 15 things. We're just gonna send every single person a monthly check. And then if you see somebody pouring the street, you know, it's. It's not the government's fault, it's their fault.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. Yeah. It gives the power towards the actual person.

[Micah Irfan]

Right, right, right, right.

[Podcast Host]

Cause right now they'll just spend money on housing and then there's no, like, actual benefit other than they're in a house, I guess. But they still have issues. They're still addicted to drugs. There's still mental issues.

[Micah Irfan]

I mean, there's so many problems. First, you know, a lot of poor people don't apply for welfare because they can't. It's just too complicated. You know, like, think about poor people, you know, in your life. I mean, people in the audience can think about this. How many poor people do you know that are really taking advantage of 80 plus welfare programs? You know, like, maybe one. Now, obviously not every person is eligible for every program, but most poor people are eligible for a lot of them, but they're not even applying because they don't. They don't know the fraudsters apply, the normal people don't.

[Podcast Host]

True.

[Micah Irfan]

That's the first issue. The second issue is, as soon as you get a job or you get ahead in life, what happens to your welfare benefits? They take it away.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

And that's a terrible incentive system. You know, we basically, you know, I can give you an anecdote. I have a friend whose parents are in New York City, public housing, super poor, really, really happy that that public housing exists for them because they couldn't afford to Pay, you know, $4,000 a month or $5,000 rent. But if they get more hours at their job, they get evicted because they're earning too much to stay in their public housing. So basically, we give them an option. You could say you can either get no welfare and be miserably poor, or you can get welfare, but you have to stay poor. That seems like a really bad incentive structure.

[Podcast Host]

Agreed.

[Micah Irfan]

And Ubi says, Listen, we're going to give you $1,000 a month, and we don't care what else you do. Go make money. That's fine. And I Think that is a much healthier way of helping people who are in need.

[Podcast Host]

Andrew Yang, baby, he was looked at crazy when he first came out with this concept years ago.

[Micah Irfan]

No, right? No. And I think it's a lot, a lot of people misunderstand. They're like, you know, why should we give checks to rich people? They say they're like, why should we send benefits to rich people? And it's just like, dude, it's okay for rich people to get benefits if they're paying taxes. I'm fine sending Jeff Bezos a thousand dollars check in the mail. If we raise taxes to pay for that, if we make it universal, it's way easier to administer. And I'm sure the rich people will be willing to pay a little bit extra taxes so that they can get these benefits for sure. So to me, I don't think, I don't. I don't see the reason to, like, we're only going to target the most needy people in the society and make everything so complicated whenever. You really don't need to do that.

[Podcast Host]

How do you feel about taxes right now? The tax system, do you feel like it's fair?

[Micah Irfan]

Just, it's. Dude, the tax system is bullish on really, like, people don't talk about this enough either. I have an issue with some people on the left because their idea is, hey, the tax system is unfair. We need to have more taxes on rich people. Let's make a new tax. And I'm like, guys, before we get to new taxes, let's talk about the taxes we currently have. Because here's the reality. Rich people don't pay them. If you look at the number one item in the budget, it isn't Social Security. It is special tax breaks. It's $2.1 trillion a year in special write offs. Rich people can write off life insurance. What kind of normal person buys life insurance? Only rich people buy that. Rich people can write off buying a new private jet as long as they use it 50% of the time for business purposes. They can write off buying a backyard pool. If they get a doctor to write a note to them that it's medically helpful. It's like, what the hell is going on here? They can pass on all of their assets when they die to their kids. Think about Elon Musk. He has made so much money in the stock market owning his companies. If he sells his share of his company, he has to pay capital gains tax. But if he doesn't sell it and he dies, he can give it to his kids. And they don't have to pay any taxes or on all of the capital gains that he accrued during his life.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know that.

[Micah Irfan]

And so that's why you look at somebody like Elon Musk and his effective tax rates, like 4% or 2%, because he's, you know, basically running. He's not going to sell anything until he dies.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

And so what I say is, listen, before we impose new taxes, let's make everybody in this country, especially rich people, corporations, all these special interests, pay the taxes that we already pay. Me and you pay these things. Let's make them pay them, too. And we will have enough money where we can get rid of the deficit. We can do free school lunches. We can do a lot of good for people without actually raising anybody's tax rates or imposing any new ones.

[Podcast Host]

I feel that, Yeah, I think I pay more than Trump in taxes.

[Micah Irfan]

True, true.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy statement.

[Micah Irfan]

No, it's. Yeah, same with Bezos. It's a crazy reality. And I think this is more common sense. I think whenever you tell Americans we want to impose new taxes, they're like, oh, that's. I'm kind of scared of that. But what Americans want is fairness. And they know that they're getting screwed off by rich people who don't pay the same system. You know, they don't operate under the same rules that we do.

[Podcast Host]

A lot of people on the right also complain that they don't like how the tax money is being used. I'm sure you've seen that argument.

[Micah Irfan]

Well, I don't like how it's being used either. It's being used to kill people. I mean, you look at ICE, they give $100 billion to ICE, which I think is a radical organization, which is incompatible with our. With our Constitution. You look at what they're doing. The Constitution requires you to have a warrant before you enter somebody's home. ICE isn't getting warrants a lot of the time. Not real warrants. They get administrative warrants. So they call it. It's just a piece of paper they call a warrant.

[Podcast Host]

Okay?

[Micah Irfan]

It's so brilliant. So a warrant's supposed to come from a judge. It's called a judicial warrant. ICE is trying to get cute with this. They're like, okay, we need a warrant. Why don't we just give ourselves a warrant? It's like, that's not what a warrant is, bro. You could call whatever you want to call a warrant. You know, I can call that piece of paper a warrant. It's not a warrant. And so they give themselves a permission slip to go invade people's homes. That's not constitutional. There should be. There should be penalties for that. They're wearing masks and not identifying themselves whenever people make a request. That's not okay. They're shooting protesters. It's not just Renee Goode. It's not just Alex Peretti. It is the person that was following ICE in their car. They shot the person five times and said that person was trying to ram them with her vehicle. And now we have footage that shows she wasn't doing that.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, I didn't see that one.

[Micah Irfan]

So these people are killing people. I mean, here's another anecdote. They're. They're not only detaining illegal immigrants, they're detaining legal immigrants and American citizens. They detained a military veteran for four days, made him miss his child's birthday. They detained some legal immigrants. One of the legal immigrants they detained was a type 1 diabetic. You know, if you have a diabetic in your family, beyond diabetics, they need insulin. They need to check themselves because their pancreas doesn't work properly. They detained the person, and they didn't let them check themselves or give themselves insulin or any medication for five days. They literally put this person without any medication they needed to stay alive. And the person got so incredibly sick, they easily could have died. They barely survived. ICE is deporting people also without their medication, killing people. This is a lawless organization. I believe that we should deport criminals. I believe if you cross the border right now, we should deport you. There's a lot of people we should deport in this country, but we should do it while following our laws and while treating people with respect, especially American citizens and legal immigrants. ICE is not doing that. And I think that the money that we're allocating to this abuse of our rights, I think that is a fantastic example of actual waste.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Dude, it is nuts. When I go to Home Depots now, people look scared.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You know, in the parking lot, they're, like, looking like this.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Because they're just showing up and deporting them.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah. I mean, people wanted deportations, they wanted border security because they didn't feel safe in their country. And that's what Trump was supposed to do. Right. He was supposed to make sure, you know, these guys or the people who killed Lake and Riley, you know, the. The thugs, we get these people out the hell out of our country, and they should get the hell out of our country. You know, if you're going to come to America and you're not going to respect us and you're going to hurt American citizens, you're not going to follow our laws. Yeah, get the hell out of our country. But ICE is not making us safer. ICE is making every Hispanic American scared about whether they're going to get detained. And that's not just because of mainstream media or liberal media. It's because normal Hispanic Americans are getting detained over and over and over again. I think the government should make us more safe. I don't think that the government should be engaging in behaviors that make us less safe.

[Podcast Host]

Absolutely. Do you think immigration overall is good for America?

[Micah Irfan]

I think, you know, certain immigrants are good for America. Certain immigrants are not. I consider myself with mainstream Americans on this issue. You know, if you come to our country and you love America, you want to speak English, you're going to contribute to our economy and you're going to identify as an American. We love immigrants like that. Our country was built by immigrants like that. So many of our startups, so many of the best people in America came to America that way. And I find a lot of immigrants are actually, those immigrants are even more patriotic than Americans because they had to travel across the world to come here. But if you come to America and you shit talk us or you don't want to learn our language, or you don't want to assimilate to our culture, or you want to make America like where you came from, if it's some culturally incompatible country, no, we don't want you here. You know, we don't. And that's not a bad thing to say. And so I think that our immigration should take in pro American English speaking people or people who will learn English and will contribute to our economy and asylum seekers that are genuine. There are some people who really have nowhere to go. They're from China, they're from some other country, no other country will take them. They're at danger for their life. Maybe they're Christians, you know, fleeing from Iran, for instance. My family is actually Iranian American. So my dad was a Christian fleeing. Well, he, he converted to Christianity, but he was fleeing from a regime that put my grandfather in prison.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[Micah Irfan]

And America offered him refuge. And I think that we should be a place that's compassionate and offers refuge to the people who are really seeking it. But we shouldn't offer refuge to people who are just coming from a country that's poor.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

Just becoming from a country that's poor. We can't take every poor person in the world.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, we can't.

[Micah Irfan]

We just can't take them all here.

[Podcast Host]

Billions.

[Micah Irfan]

I mean, we should try to help those countries be richer, to help their people out. But, you know, I don't think that we can take everybody.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, foreign aid's a whole nother topic, right?

[Micah Irfan]

I have strong views about it.

[Podcast Host]

You do?

[Micah Irfan]

I actually think that if you look at what Trump has done on foreign aid, it is not America first. I think it is one of the most reprehensible things that he's done, and I don't think people talk about it.

[Podcast Host]

Damn. Really?

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So let's dive into that, then.

[Micah Irfan]

So you look at usaid, it was providing malaria nets to people to protect them from mosquitoes that would come and give them malaria. Malaria is highly contagious. We were providing food assistance, a lot of other types of disease prevention. And this helped America because whenever there's a pandemic somewhere, it can affect us. We know that we don't have to say, oh, that would never happen. It's like that happened a little while ago. But also, whenever other countries are doing better, we do better. It hurts America that there's a war in Ukraine. It's raised our prices here for all the goods that Ukraine used to export. It hurts Americans in those countries. It makes the world a less stable place. So we want poor countries to do well and be stable and not kill their population and not to have huge outbreaks. And so he basically ended usaid, no more foreign aid. And the effect of that has been hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions already being dead, millions each year projected to die because we didn't engage in basic disease prevention, basic assistance that together cost less than 1% of our budget. I don't think that the purpose of the American government is to give out all of our money to foreigners. But I do think that as a compassionate people, we're built on, you know, Christian values, J O values, you know, even good religious values, like liberal. Liberal values. A lot of secular people we have, we share something, which is compassion for other folks, empathy. And I think that we're an empathetic enough country to believe we could give 1% of the money that we pay to our government to save millions of people from death.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. 1% sounds like it's doable. What is it right now, though?

[Micah Irfan]

With Trump, it's basically zero. Zero. So the only foreign aid that we give right now is to Egypt to pay them to not go to war with Israel. And then to Israel.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

Nobody else gets anything anymore.

[Podcast Host]

Egypt and Israel, huh? I Haven't heard. Egypt.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, yeah. We started paying Egypt to not go to war with Israel. So that's one of the ways that we give money to Israel.

[Podcast Host]

How much are we giving to Israel?

[Micah Irfan]

A lot.

[Podcast Host]

A lot.

[Micah Irfan]

My understanding is that Trump's given over $11 billion since he became president. He unfroze everything that Biden froze. I think that, I don't think that we should be giving money to Israel at all.

[Podcast Host]

I'm on board with that too.

[Micah Irfan]

To me, it's. I don't know, it's crazy because there's two ideas that I think that two criteria that needs to be satisfied to justify us giving money to another country. The first criteria is that they need to be the good guys. We need to support what they're doing. Right. Like I think about Ukraine, Ukraine's fighting a war of self defense against an authoritarian invader. Simple as that. So I support them defending themselves. Any country should defend themselves. And then the second idea is our money will actually help them win. So when we give money to Ukraine, they're way poorer than Russia. When we give them weapons, when we give them money, that actually helps them do better.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

Let's look at Israel. Israel is not a good guy that we support. At least Americans support. You look at the polls like, not anymore. Yeah, we don't support it because they're brutalizing civilian populations. I mean, they have IDF soldiers, people, you know, they're literally ethnically cleansing the West Bank. They're going in, demolishing Palestinian homes, building Israeli settlements. We don't support that. And Israel's a rich country. Israel doesn't have a national debt problem like we do. And so even if we did support what they were doing, guess what? They can fund their own military. Why do we have to borrow $11 billion to fund Israel's military? Why can't they borrow $11 billion to fund their own goddamn military? So, yeah, I think it's crazy. And it seems like the only foreign aid that Trump likes is not foreign aid to save Africans from getting malaria or to feed hungry children, which are literally starving. You should see the photos. But it's to pay to kill random Palestinian civilians and to fight wars on behalf of Israel as well. I guess it's another way we give money to Israel. We fight their wars for them too.

[Podcast Host]

Weird. There does seem to be a link there with his donor base, Right?

[Micah Irfan]

Well, you know, Adelson, aipac. I mean, there's a lot of people that are, you know, fundamentally pro Israel. That's what they're trying to do. Trump said that Adelson, one of his biggest. I think it's his biggest donor is more loyal to Israel than the United States. That's his biggest donor.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy.

[Micah Irfan]

And, you know, he's doing the demands of somebody who's more loyal to Israel than the United States. But then he says, I'm America first. I don't think you could be America first and be more loyal to Israel than the United States. I don't think that's what that means. Maybe it's America second.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I don't know. I think in the 28 election, this will be a major point if the candidate is being endorsed by Israel, if that might hurt them.

[Micah Irfan]

You know, I mean, they're gonna get any Republican's gonna probably get the support of AIPAC.

[Podcast Host]

I think it might hurt them, though, in 28.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, I think they will.

[Podcast Host]

I think by then they'll lose even more support at the current rate.

[Micah Irfan]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

And it could be closer to 80%. People don't support Israel by then.

[Micah Irfan]

Right, right. And I think, you know, there's two prongs of this. I think there's most people who are just anti what the Israeli state's doing. You know, it's not anti Semitism. You're just anti, you know, bad things. Like we. We oppose South Africa when they had apartheid. You know, we oppose a lot of countries. We oppose Russia because they don't have democracy. And so I think most Americans are just liking Israel for that reason. Then there's a separate issue which is actual anti Semitism. And. And that is a problem in our country. And I think we have to be very clear that we oppose what Israel's doing. We do not oppose Jewish people. A lot of Jewish people are critical of what Israel's doing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I've had a lot of people win anti Semite of the week on the show.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah. Yeah. We don't approve of that. And they shouldn't. Nobody should conflate Israel and Jewish people.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

Because it is two different groups.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I don't know. We'll see how it plays out. It seems like Vance is kind of distancing himself, though, right now.

[Micah Irfan]

Vance is a fraud. We have a Palantir vice president in this country. This guy. This guy graduated Yale, wrote a book about how all the people from where he's from are like these stupid people who are on drugs. And he understands them so much better than anybody else. And he goes on tour with all these liberals saying, I understand the Ohio people. I understand the people from where I'm From. And I can be your communicator. And so he's like this big guy of all the liberals and the coastal elites and stuff like that. He gets a job created for him by Peter Thiel. Gets tons of money from Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel gives him a Senate seat in Ohio. And then Peter Thiel tells Donald Trump, you should make this guy Vice President Elon Musk also.

[Podcast Host]

Charlie, too.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah. And so you have these billionaires which have basically given this guy all that he has, and he wants to pretend like he's some sort of populist. It's like you're here because of tech billionaires and people in the defense industry, and you're trying to tell us that you're somebody who's anti establishment. I mean, these are the most establishment people that there are. He's going to run in 2028, and he's going to say, you know, we want to end the wars and we want to end the corruption. After being vice president for a Trump administration, which is the most corrupt and which has bombed the most countries in one year out of any president in American history.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

He bombed more countries in one year. It's over 8 now than FDR did.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Micah Irfan]

In World War II. And he's gonna. He's gonna preach to us all. No, no, I'm anti war. Come on.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know it was eight. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah. They said they ended eight wars. They actually bombed eight color.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, he never named the wars. I noticed.

[Micah Irfan]

Yeah, he'll name wars that never happened. He'll name wars that are still ongoing. You know, he's like. One of the words he counts, I think, is Israel and Gaza.

[Podcast Host]

That's not over.

[Micah Irfan]

It's like, that's not over.

[Podcast Host]

Not even close. I don't know if it'll ever be.

[Micah Irfan]

I. I hope it's over one day.

[Podcast Host]

I hope.

[Micah Irfan]

I think that's a. I think the Middle east is a fantastic example of what you have when you don't have liberalism in the Middle East. You know, there's so many wars between Shiites and Sunni Muslims.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

Killing each other over which interpretation of Islam is correct.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

You know who is the person who came after Muhammad? Was it Abu Bakr? Was Ali. And it's just like, dude, in America, we don't have problems like this because we have tolerance. If you're Catholic, if you're Methodist, they don't kill each other. They say, okay, I believe in the Pope, and I think he has special connection to God and the Methodists say, I don't shake hands. Let's talk about it. In the Middle east, they can't tolerate each other because they don't have separation of church and state. They don't have mutual respect for each other. They try to wipe each other out. Same thing that's happening in Israel and Palestine. There's groups like Hamas. They don't think that, you know, you know, Israelis should be able to practice Judaism. And there's a lot of Israelis which are not okay with Muslims being in their country. They're not okay with Islam.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

And so it's like this religious war. And if you could just have the Israelis say, you know, it's okay, we're going to let you be Muslims, and that's fine, and we're going to live in peace with you. And you had Hamas and Hezbollah and these other groups, and they came up and they said, it's okay that you're Jewish. You can have a truce and you can actually have peace. Now, obviously, there's a lot of political reform that needs to be made, but the fundamental issue is intolerance. It is hatred towards other people for their religion throughout history, for their race, for other things. That is one of the fundamental problems in the world. And if you could solve that, pretty much everything else automatically solves itself.

[Podcast Host]

Damn. You're starting to see a little here. Because sometimes conservatives will say the spread of Islam to the west is a huge threat. Right.

[Micah Irfan]

Well, and maybe if they're talking about Europe, there's a lot of Muslims there, but we have almost no Muslims in the United States.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

Islam is like, what, less than 5% of the population?

[Podcast Host]

Like that. Yeah. But they say Muhammad's the most common name in London, I think.

[Micah Irfan]

Sure. You know, and I think that our immigration policy should be to welcome people who are culturally compatible with the United States and that some Muslims are totally culturally compatible with the United States. I have Muslim friends. They don't want to tell anybody else what to do. You know, they don't want to force your little girl to wear a burqa or anything like that. They don't want to force Sharia law or anything like that. They're just normal people. They have their views. Christians have their views. There's also Christians that are not liberal. They're kind of like Muslims. Everybody has to be Christian. America's a Christian nation. All these things. I think that illiberalism, lack of tolerance, not believing what this country is actually about, I think that's the thing that we should be keeping out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Micah Irfan]

The Christian nationalism. If you're a Muslim, if you're a religious fundamentalist of any kind, you're a Hindu nationalist. No, but Trump has banned entire people like Iran. It's so funny. You've heard that this war in Iran is to help Iranians and liberate them. I'm Iranian, right? A lot of Iranians think that. Why then, if Trump cares so much about Iranians, why then was the first day of his administration, including an executive order that banned all immigration from Iran? If he cares about Iranians so much he wants to help us, why did he say, oh, if you're an Iranian, sorry, no refugee status for you, you can't flee. You can't flee this terrible regime. He doesn't care about Iran.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know he did, though. That's crazy.

[Micah Irfan]

It doesn't make any sense, but. Well, it does make sense whenever you understand that. He doesn't care about Iranians. He doesn't care about Iranians. Since his January fiasco with Iran, about 35,000 Iranians have been executed by the government. 5, 6, 7,000 more have been killed by American Israeli bombs. This is one of the largest killings of Iranians we've ever seen, and it's because of his behavior. The regime in Iran is terrible, but Trump has only made things worse for Iranians.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, that's crazy. Because people think he saved them, right?

[Micah Irfan]

Well, they want to think that I have family members. They want to think that Trump's coming to save Iranians because they feel like they're. They've been forgotten.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Micah Irfan]

They want somebody to liberate them. But if you're looking for Trump to be your liberator. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're going to have to look somewhere else. Yeah, because it's not coming, unfortunately.

[Podcast Host]

Anything else? Man, it's almost debate time. Oh, I did want to get your opinion on this. The Daily Wire layoffs. What's your prediction for how Daily Wire is going to turn out?

[Micah Irfan]

I mean, they are spending gobs and gobs and gobs of money on content that people don't want. People don't want to watch more propaganda about how the Trump administration is actually cool and nice. They are looking at their country and they're saying, yep, actually, everything's worse. Everything's worse. Everything that he promised, pretty much, he hasn't done. You know, he is constantly making this system even more rigged. I mean, you look at the regulatory agencies. We have some agencies in this country which are supposed to protect us. Trump has put lobbyists from fossil fuels, from crypto, from these other sectors in charge of the agencies which are supposed to regulate fossil fuels. Crypto, the other things. One of the first things he did was get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the biggest consumer protection agency in the country, which existed to protect us from bank fraud and other kinds of things. Wells Fargo, for instance, got held liable by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for. For stealing billions of dollars, from my understanding, from their users, they would charge fees that were fake.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Micah Irfan]

He got rid of the organization. Americans are looking at this. They're like, this is not helping us. He's not doing anything for us. And the Daily Wire says, no, no, no, no. We need to spend all of our money on this war with Iran. No, no, trust me, it's all good. No, it's just deregulation, you know, oh, he's cutting your benefits and he's cutting taxes for billionaires. It's going to trickle down. Nobody wants to hear that anymore. And so I think they're going to keep going down the drain, man.

[Podcast Host]

His first term, I think, is when they were peaking. Like, Ben was the guy getting like a million plus every video. But it's crazy to see how his turnout has been lately.

[Micah Irfan]

I mean, I just don't think that people want this GOP message anymore. They don't like the Republican Party because they know it's. It's all a scam, man. They said that for the working man. What have they done for the working man? What has been done for any normal person in this country? I can name you. I've been naming 100, 150 examples of things that have been done to hurt us. You can't name things that have been done for us. And I think as long as that's true for the Republican Party, anybody who's a Republican shill, they're going to have kind of an issue with their audience.

[Podcast Host]

Absolutely. Well, where can people find you, man? Keep up with you and all that.

[Micah Irfan]

Look at my name. Micah Irfan. M I C A H E R F A N. You can find. I'm on every single platform, so Instagram,

[Podcast Host]

Twitter, Facebook, you too, and watch the debate, guys. We'll link that in this video as well with him and Kai. See you next time. Thanks for watching all the way to the end, guys. It means a lot. Please click here if you want to watch the next episode and please subscribe to the show. It helps us get more guests and helps grow the brand.