How To Get The Trump Tariff Policy Back On Track

Summary

Ruthless Podcast Episode Summary Title: How To Get The Trump Tariff Policy Back On Track
Release Date: April 8, 2025
Host/Authors: Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, John Ashbrook
Guest: Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Ruthless Podcast, hosts Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook dive deep into the complexities of the Trump-era tariff policy and its current trajectory under the Biden administration. Released on April 8, 2025, the episode provides a thorough analysis of recent tariff implementations, internal conflicts within the administration, and the broader implications for American manufacturing and economic policy. The discussion is anchored by an insightful interview with Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior, who offers a unique perspective on integrating tariff policy with energy and manufacturing strategies.

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Tariff Policy: Confusion and Contradictions

The episode opens with Josh Holmes outlining the mixed messages emanating from the current administration regarding tariff policies. At 00:45, Michael Duncan emphasizes the administration's ambitious goals:

“We will unleash the power of American innovation.”

However, as the conversation progresses, the hosts reveal inconsistencies within the administration. Josh Holmes critiques the contradictory policies where some officials advocate for zero tariffs to promote free and fair trade, while others support maintaining high tariffs indefinitely to boost American wealth.

Josh Holmes (00:00): “There's other pieces that are like, no, no, tariffs are good. They make us rich and should be in here in perpetuity.”

This internal dissonance creates uncertainty in the market, as highlighted by a heated exchange between Peter Navarro and Elon Musk over tariff policies, demonstrating the rift within the administration (07:45).

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Guest Interview: Secretary Doug Burgum

Doug Burgum joins the discussion to shed light on the administration's approach to tariffs. He addresses the fundamental question:

Doug Burgum (10:22): “Is a tariff intrinsically good or is a tariff a mechanism used to influence behavior?”

Burgum clarifies that tariffs are tools to level the playing field rather than ends in themselves. He criticizes the administration's formula for determining tariffs, pointing out its inefficiency and lack of practicality (11:22).

Doug Burgum (11:22): “It's essentially just an expression of a differential between how much they buy from us and how much we buy from them.”

He further explains the strategy behind reciprocal tariffs, aiming to encourage other countries to reduce their tariffs in exchange for the U.S. doing the same. This approach seeks to foster a more balanced global trade environment (13:13).

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Revitalizing American Manufacturing and Energy

The conversation transitions to the broader goals of reindustrializing the United States. John Ashbrook and Michael Duncan discuss the need for modernizing manufacturing through advanced technologies and AI, moving away from the outdated notion of the 1950s factory model.

John Ashbrook (17:54): “There's a difference between trying to return to 1950 Youngstown, Ohio, which will never happen, and trying to re-energize a manufacturing sector in this country that is hungry to go to work.”

Doug Burgum emphasizes the integration of energy policy with manufacturing, highlighting the importance of domestic energy production to support technological advancements and reduce dependency on foreign resources.

Doug Burgum (48:03): “We can defend ourselves. You build the plant here in the US, it can be done.”

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Audience Engagement and Comments

The hosts engage with audience comments, bringing diverse perspectives to the discussion. One listener points out the asymmetry in the administration's tariff application, highlighting the disproportionate impact on American consumers (32:24).

Listener Comment (32:24): “These tariffs are not reciprocal. They're numbers attached to whatever tariff they have on us divided by our trade deficit with them... it'll be a huge tax on Americans.”

Another comment by Rhonda K. draws parallels between tariff policy and entitlement programs, suggesting that both are politically sensitive yet crucial for national well-being (34:11).

Rhonda K. (34:23): “It sounds like the tendency of a lot of administrations to not want to address the issue of tariffs is very similar to a lot of administrations not wanting to touch entitlement programs.”

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The Future of Tariffs and Economic Strategy

Michael Duncan presents a forward-looking perspective on the long-term benefits of the tariff policy, arguing that while short-term market reactions may be negative, the strategic repositioning will ultimately strengthen the American economy.

Michael Duncan (55:55): “President Trump's been talking about this thing not for weeks or months or years. He's been talking about it for decades.”

He also highlights the exclusion of energy from tariff discussions, framing it as a strategic move to bolster domestic energy markets without increasing costs for critical industries.

Michael Duncan (58:40): “There's been very little discussion, but energy is not in any of these. There's no tariffs on energy flowing or going... because we do it cleaner, safer, smarter, healthier here than anywhere else.”

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Humorous Interlude: The Dire Wolf and Extinct Species

The episode takes a lighter turn as the hosts discuss the revival of extinct species like the dire wolf, blending humor with speculative science. Doug Burgum humorously addresses concerns about artificial species creation:

Doug Burgum (68:02): “For just the listeners, they have the gray wolf at two and a half feet, about six feet long. The dire wolf three and a half feet, seven feet long.”

The conversation pokes fun at the concept while subtly touching on governance and environmental policies related to endangered species.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In closing, Josh Holmes reiterates the importance of understanding the multifaceted tariff policy and encourages listeners to engage with the content by voting and subscribing. The episode underscores the necessity of strategic economic policies to ensure America's competitive edge in the global market.

Josh Holmes (85:06): “Our question of the day: Do you trust Trump on this tariff policy? Do you think that this is part of the plan that's going to work? Interested to hear your thoughts?”

The episode wraps up with genuine appreciation for Doug Burgum's insights and a humorous nod to ongoing political sentiments, leaving listeners both informed and entertained.

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Notable Quotes

• Josh Holmes (00:00): “There's other pieces that are like, no, no, tariffs are good. They make us rich and should be in here in perpetuity.”
• Michael Duncan (10:22): “Is a tariff intrinsically good or is a tariff a mechanism used to influence behavior?”
• Doug Burgum (48:03): “We can defend ourselves. You build the plant here in the US, it can be done.”
• Michael Duncan (55:55): “President Trump's been talking about this thing not for weeks or months or years. He's been talking about it for decades.”
• Rhonda K. (34:23): “It sounds like the tendency of a lot of administrations to not want to address the issue of tariffs is very similar to a lot of administrations not wanting to touch entitlement programs.”

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Key Takeaways

• Internal Administration Conflicts: The current administration faces internal disagreements on tariff policies, balancing free trade ideals with protectionist measures.
• Strategic Use of Tariffs: Tariffs are viewed as tools to create a level playing field rather than as standalone economic policies.
• Revitalizing Manufacturing: Emphasis on modernizing American manufacturing through AI and automation, moving away from outdated models.
• Energy Policy Integration: Domestic energy production is crucial for supporting technological advancements and reducing foreign dependency.
• Long-Term Economic Outlook: Despite short-term market uncertainties, strategic tariffs aim to strengthen the American economy in the long run.
• Humorous Elements: Light-hearted discussions on topics like extinct species add an entertaining dimension to the episode.

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This episode of the Ruthless Podcast offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of tariff policies, economic strategies, and the future of American manufacturing and energy. With insightful commentary and expert analysis, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the United States in the global economic landscape.

Transcript

[Josh Holmes]

And you've got some pieces of the administration that have a very clear message about what they intend to accomplish by bringing world leaders to the table to get a deal down, which intellectually you look at and you say, okay, well, what they're trying to do is get to zero, where you just actually have free and fair trade, which is something that right, left and center is talked about for years and that. But it doesn't. There's other pieces that are like, no, no, tariffs are good. They make. Make us rich and be in here in perpetuity. And it's not just us losing this in translation. It's actually happening within the administration. We will unleash the power of American innovation.

[Michael Duncan]

We will soon be on the verge.

[Josh Holmes]

Of finding the cures to cancer, Alzheimer's disease and many other diseases.

[Michael Duncan]

The cure for cancer is closer than ever. But the Biden Pill penalty is forcing researchers to abandon breakthroughs that could save millions of lives. Only President Trump can fix it. He'll ignite a golden age of innovation.

[John Ashbrook]

To defeat cancer once and for all.

[Michael Duncan]

Tell Congress, end the Biden pill penalty. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.

[Doug Burgum]

Keep the fate, hold the line and own the lids.

[John Ashbrook]

It's time for our main event.

[Josh Holmes]

Good Tuesday to you, and welcome back to the Ruthless Variety Program. I'm Josh Holmes along with comfortably smug Michael Duncan. And John Ashbrook. Left a great. Across your radio dial, things are going great.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, fellas? Yeah, Everything's awesome. That's all I hear.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody's excited.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, the market would agree with you.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, we told you long ago that not everything would be apple pie and moms and baseball, that at some point there would be some rocky shoals. And some of that has come to fruition here over the last week. Last time we talked to you, we were unveiling what was Liberation Day. And what that was basically, was a bunch of tariffs that this administration was levying across the world. It was something that Donald Trump has talked about since the mid-80s, essentially. Shouldn't have been a lot of secrets for the outside world about what his view of tariffs were and free trade and everything else. But I think the extent of it was something that, well, it's got some people by surprise, notably some people on Wall Street. And so we've gotten into a little bit of a quandary here from a economic standpoint and by extension, a political standpoint. But we've got a really big show for you here. We're going to go into all of that. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the things that have been unveiled. We're going to try to have some dark humor with you all about what we've experienced here over the last four or five days. But we've got a guest that honestly, I think contextualizes so much of this stuff in a way that I hadn't thought about, and that is super important. Doug Burgum is with us. Secretary of Interior. You might ask yourself, like, he's not the treasury secretary, he's not the commerce secretary. He's not in charge of the tariffs. Wait till you hear what he has to say about his view of how to sort of integrates with his portfolio and everything else. It may, it may actually give you some perspective. You're certainly not going to get that on, like, the cable news and the, you know, either the, the fanfare bods or, or the critics. I mean, this is, this is deep thinking stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, like, it turns out when you sell, you know, to Microsoft for a billion dollars, your tech company, you're actually pretty smart, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

He's, he's like the guy knows everything.

[John Ashbrook]

He's got a brilliant business mind and he understands the playing field better than most. And just a treat to have him on today.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. A good friend of the program. We've eaten rattlesnake with him. We've had all kinds of experience with him. And now he's here to explain all of this and a whole lot more on the back half of the show. But on the front half, we're going to talk a little bit about this tariff situation. And I think one of the things that has sort of gives you a little pause in comparison to where we were on last Thursday's show. We did a big preview of what the administration was talking about in terms of reciprocal tariffs. And the argument made a lot of sense, I think, to all of us in various degrees about, you know, the world getting free rides off of the United States and all the way back through the Marshall Plan to here having a whole bunch of countries that are disinterested in revisiting all of that. And that made a ton of sense. And so in the rollout, we sort of anticipated that. Turns out reciprocal is maybe a bad like, in concept, it makes a ton of sense. But in practice, as they rolled it out, it was more than just the tariff policy. It was trade deficits, which again, we've heard Donald Trump Talk about since 1984 on public airwaves about how that's a real concern. I don't disagree that it's a real concern, but it's not the same thing in a lot of ways. And they rolled this thing out and it was a we were tariffing some things that we'll get into that. Well, shall we say they don't have a lot of capability of having the same kind of a trade market as a country of 330 some odd million people who happen to have the most vibrant economy in the world. And how you treat that versus how you treat somebody who's trying to penalize basically the American public by tossing up 25% or 50% or just prohibiting American products from coming in, as much of Europe does with audios. And that kind of thing is a different by my calculation is a different thing. And I think part of the problem is from my perspective of why we're seeing this big market tumult and I'm not this is not my area of expertise, but I know they like certainty. Part of the problem with is you're not getting like the same story. We heard the reciprocal and then we had this. And then you've got some pieces of the administration that have a very clear message about what they intend to accomplish by bringing world leaders to the table to get a deal down, which intellectually you look at and you say, okay, well what they're trying to do is get to zero, where you just actually have free and fair trade, which is something that right, left and center is talked about for years and then but it doesn't there's other pieces that are like, no, no, tariffs are good. They make make us rich and they should be in here in perpetuity. And it's not just us losing this in translation. It's actually happening within the administration. And like one of the clips I want to play off the top that I, I think sort of illustrates some of this tumult. Clip 1 We have Peter Navarro, who is a senior advisor to the president. He was the trade guy last time around, huge influence within the administration, but has a very protectionist view and has always had he's written books about that. That stands in some contrast to what we were hearing from other people. But he gets into like a little spat with Elon Musk, which I find interesting. Clip 1 Please, can we go back.

[Comfortably Smug]

To Elon Musk for a second because I'm glad that you brought that up. He also took a shot at you personally on X and he's going against the administration with respect to the tariff policy. The president has said in the coming months he may leave the administration. Peter is there a Rift internally.

[Josh Holmes]

No, look, Elon. Look, Elon, when he's in his Doge Lane is great, but we understand what's going on here. We just have to understand. Elon sells cars, and he's in Texas assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China, the batteries come from Japan or China. The electronics come from Taiwan. And he's simply protecting his own interests, as any businessperson would do. We're more concerned about Detroit building Cadillacs with American engines. Okay, so the precursor to all of that was a tweet. If we can put up graphic four, this is Peter Navarro explaining the tariffs. And contrary to the paid fake expert class that is usually on corporate media, Peter Navarro has a PhD in economics in Harvard. He's also not going to lie to you about what's happening to a globalist agenda. Notice how he uses. So Elon responded to that, which is what gave rise to that question on Fox Biz, where He says a PhD in econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego brains. One problem. All right, look, I think that the larger piece of this is you've got some Cabinet secretaries and economic advisers within the Trump administration who have gone out of their way to suggest the reciprocal part of this thing is a big deal. And this is what we're trying to sell to the American people, that we're basically, these people are unwilling to do business with the United States because they've never been forced to, because they never think we're going to take the actual economic risk in order to make them come to the table. We've done this. And so now it's deal time. There's another piece that is the Peter Navarro piece that is saying, no, like, tariffs are good. And like, I know I've got a definitive opinion between those two schools of thought, but don't you think just in and of itself, that is part and parcel of some of the confusion and uncertainty that you're seeing in the marketplace?

[Doug Burgum]

So I think it's really interesting. There's the Peter Navarro component of this introduces this kind of wrinkle in this discussion where Navarro kind of has a philosophical belief of tariffs are intrinsically good. Right. And the question is between is a tariff intrinsically good or is a tariff a mechanism used to influence behavior?

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Doug Burgum]

You know what I mean? Like, like, is a tariff by itself a positive or is it tariff something you're going to do to get an outcome that is positive? I think is the difference here. And I think that kind of has that explains a lot of the way that these tariffs were put out. For example, can we show graphic one, the whole mathematical formula which got a lot of attention here.

[Josh Holmes]

This is a formula that the administration allegedly used to calculate what tariffs go on what country.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah, a lot of Greek characters for those who are in audio.

[Doug Burgum]

And yeah, a lot of it is extraneous. Like, you know, you don't need to multiply four times one fourth because I mean, whenever you multiply times a reciprocal, you're just going to end up with one, so it's extraneous. But anyways, this whole thing is just expressing the idea of the amount of tariffs that were slapped on individual countries is essentially just an expression of a differential between how much they buy from us and how much we buy from them. Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Which look, for those of you have a tough time again, the last math class I took was called Math. What we're saying here is a country of 330 plus million people in the largest, most dynamic economy in the United States has to have the same import export ratio as a country of 3 million people. Like the same number dollar value of goods and services.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like bilateral trade deficits don't tell the entire story.

[Josh Holmes]

Right, but that's basically what you're trying to say by what they've reduced this down to.

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[Doug Burgum]

When you're doing this trade policy and you're using tariffs as a mechanism, is the idea to create a level playing field, which is what you accomplish with the idea that we discussed of reciprocal tariffs. If a country is tariffing you at 1.5%, you say, okay, we'll tariff you at 1.5%. We want an equal playing ground as opposed to if you have like a country with a population of like, you know, let's say 5,000 penguins, right, where you had some person put in, you know, who may have sold goods and services to the United States and all of a sudden it's like, well, the penguins aren't spending that much on us.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is actually a real, real example. If we can put up graphic too. This is a meme that's been going around. It is Part of Heard and McDonald Islands, which is uninhabited from my understanding. It's a sort of a property, I guess, of. Of Australia in some ways, but it's uninhabited. We've tariffed them individually. Apparently the only inhabitants are of penguins. And so the meme coming around is peace was never an option with the penguin with a sword.

[John Ashbrook]

The other aspect to this is the circuit breakers tripped on their markets. And I think there was a hard stop on all trading on that island because of what happened. So don't discount that.

[Comfortably Smug]

I think it's only fair. You know, Donald Trump has spent a lot of money at McDonald's. It's about time he gets something back. Look, the idea of reciprocal tariffs I thought would accomplish two things. I think. Number one, it allows the United States of America to renegotiate on behalf of the American worker and all of these markets. And I think that's a great thing, and we should do that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I think also we need more industrial capacity in the United States. And I think Covid revealed that for all of us in so many ways. And I feel like in what they did here with these tariffs, which weren't exactly reciprocal, they were based upon a trade deficit. It. It sort of obfuscated what should be a very clear message from the administration.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, I mean, there's some situations in which it doesn't make as much sense. Where you, like, look at, like, Japan and that situation. It's like, well, shit, you know where Toyota has the largest manufacturing plant in the world?

[Josh Holmes]

Kentucky.

[Comfortably Smug]

Georgetown. Kentucky.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, or like, Vietnam. People are looking at Vietnam. They're like, wow, Vietnam is really large tariff we're putting on them. Well, that's because, like, a place like China uses Vietnam as a third party to dump steel into the United States market.

[Michael Duncan]

Right.

[Comfortably Smug]

And it's like, it feels like by not doing the reciprocal tariff, we're trying to solve other problems in trade with this tariff that isn't related to some reciprocity. And it's like, I know it's a problem. Like, I know the Vietnam situation is a problem. You want. You want to know why? Is because they actually opened an investigation into dumping from China a couple of months ago.

[Doug Burgum]

Why?

[Comfortably Smug]

Because they were anticipating this. Why did Mexico do the same thing? Because they were anticipating this. It's like there's ways to solve these problems beyond just, like, the tariff issue, if that makes sense.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it does make. Look, it makes a lot of sense in the context of solving problems, if that's the goal, to solve problems, which goes back to last Thursday's episode, we were talking about the reciprocal nature of all of this. And you know, whether it's reciprocal or not, assuming the goal is to solve a problem. Terrific. I just, I'm having a tough time getting a clear like Burgum today I think does. And you gotta hold on to the end of this. I think he does the best job of explaining that I've heard about what the ultimate goal is here in a forward looking way. Because look, there's a lot of people, you're sitting around this country listening to this podcast. You're more informed than most because you're listening to us and you're wondering like, is it really our goal to try to turn like Dallas and Vegas and Houston and Miami into Youngstown, Ohio, 1950? And like the obvious answer is no to that, but there is a much of what the messaging has come out up to this point that would lead you to believe that that's sort of in the.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I think, I think there's a difference between trying to return to 1950 Youngstown, Ohio, which will never happen, and trying to re energize a manufacturing sector in this country that is hungry to go to work.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, yeah, because the issue there is, is in addition to the AI revolution that's happening, there's an automation revolution that's happening. So even if you, you resource jobs to the United States in the manufacturing sector, which we need to do, it's going to look different.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's not just going to be an assembly line of people screwing on the tops of toothpaste.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like it's just not.

[John Ashbrook]

But there's also, but there's also a lot more to manufacturing than screwing on the top toothpaste, which a robot can do. Somebody's got to make the parts for the robots and maybe eventually there will be robots making the parts for the robots. But somebody's got to make the parts for these industrial processes. And there are a whole host of small shops around this country that have people who are skilled and ready to be able to make those parts and would do a much better job making those parts than it's someone overseas. And I do think that that part of manufacturing in our country is ready to go and has been overlooked by the mainstream media and overlooked by Democrats and everybody else. And so I understand that, that we will never get back to the 1950s, but I do think that there are people who are ready to use their hands to work and I think it can happen.

[Doug Burgum]

If you want to make an apples to apples comparison you know, you don't have to go to Youngstown, Ohio, 1950s. You can talk about Ohio 2025, where Andurle just opened a manufacturing plant in Ohio.

[John Ashbrook]

Exactly.

[Doug Burgum]

Because American manufacturing is the best on Earth. There's a demand, there's a skilled labor force to do it, and you just build it here in America. America needs to have an economy ready for the challenges that we face. When Covid showed that, my God, we can't make antibiotics in this country anymore, how are we going to defend ourselves? Answer is, well, we can defend ourselves. You build the plant here in the US it can be done. Instead of trying to depend on. Well, we have a current problem in this country where we had parts, screws, fins made in China that we're getting for our weapons that we're using for our military. That's being fixed right now. We had a guest last month who was talking about revitalizing America's industrial base, which is happening right now. The question is, do tariffs get us there? Using tools for trade to try. It seems like somewhere the idea got muddled in between trying to level the playing field with also the idea of. But also we have a trade imbalance, you know.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Which in and of itself is difficult because, look, this is an ideological discussion that I grew up with in the beginning of my political career where there were many Democrats who argued with a straight face. They sounded absolutely the same as Peter Navarro. Like literally, there wasn't a sentence or a word different than what Peter Navarro is saying. And basically their thought process was, as long as we just stop all international commerce into the United States, we can revitalize the manufacturing base in the United States to service our own, which is great, right in and of itself. Is it an improvement from where we're at? Maybe from a very strict jobs in manufacturing in the United States point of view. The larger perspective is we've had a global economy for quite some time. And if you're looking at GDP growth from this country, which is powers, our impact on the world and much of our commerce and economic power globally. I mean, the power that in the reverence that the world has for the United States is the fact that we are the largest economy. But the reason for that is because we do an enormous amount of commerce around the world. And if you just erect barriers to that commerce, you inhibit growth at some level. Now, I'm not saying very clearly that we ought to run a domestic economic policy around what it is that markets and multinational corporations think we ought to do, because clearly that's not the right answer. But you also can't be blind to the fact that the world does commerce with itself. And whether or not the United States chooses to participate or not certainly isn't going to change what EU does for commerce. They need goods they can't have. Much of this goes back to like an energy discussion that we had about the Ukraine war in Germany and Russia. And if you can't get it from the United States, you're going to get it from somewhere because you have a demand side problem.

[John Ashbrook]

Right. They can get soybeans and they can get, they can get stuff from Chinese, can get stuff from Brazil and South America if they need to replace what they're getting from here.

[Josh Holmes]

And it's like, you don't have to actually be a political scientist to figure out that when you supply a necessity to certain parts of the world, you have some leverage. And that's one of the reasons why energy in and of itself, which I understand is sort of carved out of this discussion in a lot of ways. But why it's a national security imperative, because if America supplies it, that's, that's an advantage. Well, there's a lot of other goods that we're in that process of. I think the question is trying to find the equilibrium here for what America can export and find a deal that, that we can actually get into markets that we're prohibited from being in now at the same time, that we can take in goods and services that other countries do at a lower cost that are better for us, that don't jeopardize our own economy and our own workforce. Right. I mean, that's basically the whole substance of the argument.

[John Ashbrook]

I totally agree with you. And I think that there is, I think what you're saying also that's very smart, is that there are so many more inputs that are barriers to success for American domestic companies beyond just tariffs and trade. There's a cost of labor, there's a cost of health care, there's a cost of energy, there is the cost of regulations. And what I'm talking about is removing those barriers to prevent domestic companies from accessing our own market.

[Doug Burgum]

That's a great point.

[John Ashbrook]

And I think that, like, one of the things, and I'm not trying to say that everything they're doing with these tariffs is exactly right. I think that the idea is good because they are trying to rebalance the global marketplace in a way. But I do think that, you know, just a guy growing up in Ohio and, you know, you guys all, you know, Midwestern guys, smugs A brilliant financial mind. Like the. There are barriers that have been erected to American businesses trying to service American customers.

[Comfortably Smug]

I get that, dude. But like, you know, you drive up 94 out of Detroit and you see, like, you know, you leave downtown, you see Grosse Pointe and it's beautiful and there's lots of big homes. And then you see for like 10 miles, the skeleton of what used to be, like, the most amazing city in the United States of America. And, like, times change and times change and. And it wasn't because of regulations and stuff. We outsourced the auto industry in so many ways.

[Josh Holmes]

And, well, we had a workforce that was unaffordable and people had to figure out.

[Comfortably Smug]

And I understand, and I understand it. So I guess what I say. My question. I don't have the answer to this. This is fucking complicated. Yeah, it's complicated shit. But like, you know, how do you build an economy for tomorrow that has a role for re industrialization of the United States of America that. That allows, you know, a part of our country to work in that environment? I just think it's going to have to be some component of our economy of the future. It just has to be. Yeah, and I think Covid revealed that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, look, I think that's right. And let me wrap this and then we'll get to our question and all of that. But it's part of a larger economic story that this administration is trying to tell. Clearly, the tax reform piece is a huge part of it.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

That made a lot of progress over the weekend. The United States Senate passing the joint House Senate budget, which allows you to go forward with a process called reconciliation. Now, the House's job all week this week to try to figure out how to get that over the finish line. The import of that particular process, given the backdrop of what we're doing with the global economy, could not be higher. Right. And so you hear I've got zero patience. I mean, zero for Republicans are like, yeah, but it doesn't do. Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but. Okay, well, you're going to have to figure out how to provide some tax certainty for business. Businesses to plan totally when they're in the entirety of their marketplace is uncertain. You got to have at least one side of the ledger that's making sense to people. And I'm just not open for business with people being like, well, it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that, it doesn't do that. Like, we saw what happened in 2017. Trump passed tax cuts, economy went through the moon.

[John Ashbrook]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

Everybody was the wages went up. Everything, everything. We know what that does. That's great. I'm just saying that was a good economic environment because Trump basically created it. We are now in a transition deal where if you're gonna actually get any portion of what the Trump administration views as an onshoring of jobs in manufacturing, you as Congress need to get that shit done asap. I mean asap, because that isn't, it's never been more important. So anyway, that process start at the end of last week, it's going through this week with the House and you're gonna hear a whole bunch of people about how it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that. Like it doesn't. I don't care. You can come back and make the case to 435 members of Congress on another day about what it is that your ideal situation looks like they need to provide the Trump administration the backdrop of some kind of certainty on the tax side yesterday.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

With this situation. So anyway, listen, that, that's our view. It's a little heavy. But honestly, dude, if you were.

[Doug Burgum]

Can I say one last.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, please.

[Doug Burgum]

You, you do not hear this at all from the administration because they would not say this. But there is some ridiculous messaging that you see out here where people are saying like stock market's not real zeros and ones or something. There's a reason you don't hear that from the administrations because that's not a good argument for them.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's not good.

[Doug Burgum]

I don't know who you, who out there is trying.

[Comfortably Smug]

This is not seeing this shit on the Internet, dude. It's like you're talking about real people with real retirements. And so it's like, is the worst.

[Josh Holmes]

These are the worst moments for X influence. Yeah, right. I mean this is for people who are very much invested in the partisan side of politics and they're very interested in like carrying the cause through their arguments. There's no time that you would look dumber on a moment by moment basis than getting out over your skis and trying to give analysis of what it is that's happening now. And that's a perfect example. Like, oh yeah, no, the stock market doesn't matter. Oh, that's cool. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, guys. Sorry. Tell that to every pension in the entire country.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, it shouldn't be. Our entire policy focus is like, well, we can't do something because it could upset Wall Street. But you also have to recognize and like be a person who's like aware of the situation around you to not be like, hey, your retirement account doesn't matter. It's like, how would you possibly think that's an okay thing to say on the Internet to everybody? Like, some people are so dumb.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. I mean, look, I think at the end of the day, if this thing gets, if there's a tax component and Trump can do deals here, and that's where we came into this last week. If that is true, you could very easily see by late summer, in the fall a fundamentally different economic environment that is like rapid fire growth. Yeah, you could see that. And it's fantastic. And given what this guy has done in pulling a rabbit out of a hat, both politically and from a policy perspective, since he's come down the golden escalator, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I give him a shot here 100%.

[John Ashbrook]

Everybody trying to tell you the market doesn't matter when that day comes is going to be like, look at the market.

[Josh Holmes]

You got to have, but you got to have some credibility along the way. And I've had for my entire professional career a lot of trepidation about this side of the ledger in terms of tariffs and in terms of isolationism and all. Like, I just don't, I don't buy it. I just don't. I think that's 1950s view. If as you're going to hear from our guest, it is a mechanism to get to a new manufacturing sector in the United States that is forward looking and futurism. Ah, that's a compelling case to me.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, people have been hungry for that.

[Josh Holmes]

That's a compelling case and one I can get, get beyond. So anyway, our question of the day for all of you. Do you trust Trump on this tariff policy?

[John Ashbrook]

It's a good question.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just a bottom line deal. You heard what we had to say. Interested in your thoughts? We're going to read it all. You got to like and subscribe. And if you do, we're going to go through absolutely all of it. We'll get to your comments from last Thursday's episodes right after this.

[Unknown]

Did you know original Medicare loses billions of taxpayer dollars each year to waste fraud and abuse? In fact, improper payments to hospitals and doctors are twice as likely in original Medicare than in Medicare Advantage. Alternatively, Medicare Advantage offers seniors more benefits at lower costs, promotes better health outcomes and saves taxpayers $144 billion over 10 years through coordinated care. It's time to protect Medicare Advantage and ensure seniors get the best care while protecting your hard Earned tax dollars.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay, so you'll recall last Thursday was the preview of Liberation Day as the Trump administration discussed it. We took your comments on that with a question of will reciprocal tariffs work? Interesting thoughts. Thank you for liking and subscribing to do this. We always start with a voice.

[John Ashbrook]

Okay, first comment comes from that guy 19 and guy writes, these tariffs are not reciprocal. They're numbers attached to whatever tariff they have on us divided by our trade deficit with them. In most cases it ends up putting a 10x tariff on them compared to ours. It is in no means reciprocal. If it works by lowering whatever tariff they have on us and then we reciprocate, fine. But if not, it's going to be a huge tax on Americans. I think that just shows you the breadth of opinions from our audience.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean look, that guy 19, he's got the same opinion, right? I mean it's not all four of us, but what he just articulated I think is exactly how I feel about it. Smart, smart stuff.

[Comfortably Smug]

Comment to dunks from the silent generation. They write, because of liberal economic policies and regulations in the US we have lost manufacturing to countries like China and Vietnam. This makes us dependent on other countries and destabilizes national security. During a crisis, we may be solely dependent on our enemy to produce goods. This is why the USA is trying to bring back manufacturing to America, which will create more and better paying jobs and at the same time reduce cost of transportation and lower taxes for the companies coming back. The fact that no tariffs will be levied is also a great incentive. This is the reason for the tariffs. They have been asymmetrical for far too long. We allowed them to be asymmetrical after World War II because the USA was booming and the rest of the world was in poor economic health. Now, however, is it time to recipe for reciprocal tariffs? We do unto you what you do unto us. What could be more fair?

[John Ashbrook]

I do like this. I do think asymmetrical tariffs are a problem. And and I do. I do like this guy's perspective.

[Josh Holmes]

Very smart stuff as always. Comment threes please.

[Doug Burgum]

This comes from Rhonda K. Rhonda writes, it sounds like the tendency of a lot of administrations to not want to address the issue of tariffs is very similar to a lot of administrations not wanting to touch entitlement programs. I think that's a great comparison. In both cases it might not be popular and would cause a lot of worry. Would be politically difficult, although it would likely be good for the country.

[Comfortably Smug]

I love this comment because it goes back to What I've said on this episode, and I said it last week, which is like, you know, we shouldn't, you know, pursue public policy because it's, you know, we're, we're scared. Wall Street's going to be scared, and that keeps us from doing what we think is, is right. And I think that is like entitlements, where it's like there may be short term political cost to what we're trying to do. And, you know, we're obviously seeing that right now with the tariffs, with the market going down as a result. But at the end of the day, it's different to say tariffs are objectively a good thing and we should have them in perpetuity versus saying what I think most of us here would agree is that tariffs as a negotiation, negotiation to get others to reduce their tariffs or to renegotiate other aspects of trade is much better. Yeah, that, like, Thomas Sowell's pretty fucking smart. Like, Adam Smith is pretty fucking smart.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

You know, Frederick Hayek is pretty smart and trade is a good idea and we should do it.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. No, I think in that, like, comment sort of underscores our whole discussion here. Right. Which is if it's a means to an end. Yeah, if it's a means to an end. Okay. Like, that's, that's fine. Let's just straighten out some of the messaging here so we're all on the same page about what it is that we're doing. And I think that that would provide some certainty. Maybe a deal or two.

[Comfortably Smug]

Get some deals.

[Josh Holmes]

Maybe a deal or two would help straighten some things out. I mean, I think the bottom line is in a very deeply divided country, you're gonna have 49% that unbelievably voted for Kamala Harris, like somebody they knew demonstrably could not do the job as President United States, after they voted for Joe Biden, who we now know absolutely couldn't do the job as President of the United States. States who like picture in their head, you know, Bozo the Clown sitting at the fricking controls, just sort of like willy nilly operating this thing. But that's the reality we have in this country. And you gotta do something to disabuse that like that. I know it's ridiculous and I know that when you win the majority, it doesn't matter because you make policy and those guys just have to make whatever. But that bleeds into this larger discourse that you're seeing across the country. And, and let me just say, like, from a political Standpoint, going into last week, we had a discussion about Venezuelan gang deportations, securing the border, men and women, sports, taxes, all things on a 70, 30 side of the ledger. How many things this week matter? Like, do you think you can have a discussion about judicial, like, activism this week? Does anybody think that that's gonna have resonance Beyond a partisan 15, 10, 7% of the American public who's like, nothing that anybody on the Republican side can do is wrong and everything the other side of the. Beyond that, like, does anybody want to entertain judges discussions?

[John Ashbrook]

To your point, this whole subject has blotted out the sun.

[Josh Holmes]

It's blotted out the sun, so you got to take care of it. And the thing is, is like, if you look at the history of successful administrations, and I would rate this, the first term of the Trump administration as an incredibly successful term because of this, they created an economic optimism within the United States where you're open to other parts of the discussion. Like, the biggest problem the Democrats have when they, when they run government is they do so many economically dumbass things that they're bigger things that you can entertain, like climate change. You only entertain something like climate change if your 401k looks fucking awesome. Like you're not interested at all.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

In luxury beliefs, in the temperature of the world. If you're going bankrupt, you're not. Economic stuff rules out everything else. So, like, this is now the thing and that's okay. Like the other stuff needs to happen too, because at the end of this story, it'd be great to point back on a bunch of accomplishments that you've done on a parallel track. I'm just saying it's no longer driving the train. Yeah. Like this one is driving the train, which is important to remember anyway. That's like my 10 cent.

[Doug Burgum]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Josh Holmes]

Political lecture. When we come back, Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior. This guy does a better job than any of us can do on explaining both tariffs, what we're doing on energy, public lands and everything else. He's just terrific and we love him to death. Comes back right after this. Hard working Americans know when it's time to roll up our sleeves and get the job done. Now is the time to unleash our nation's energy, to create jobs, secure our future, and make life better, more affordable, and full of opportunity for all Americans. That's the power of America's oil and natural gas. Learn [e-mail] paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Well, all of you OG listeners know very well that One of our favorite guests on this program going back several years now, Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum. How are you, sir?

[Michael Duncan]

I'm great. And I want to say that this is the most fabulously overdressed I've ever felt on a podcast. You guys are all got the zip up, you got the uniform on. You guys looking great.

[Josh Holmes]

We're keeping it real.

[Michael Duncan]

I know, I know. If you'd have told me, I mean, left this thing behind. I never wore a suit when I was governor.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, you have to keep it. You have to keep up appearances now. I mean, you have like a, you know, it's a big, big job. So.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I got, I got asked when I. Shortly after I became governor. They said, you don't wear a tie. I think you're being disrespectful at the office. And I had never been asked the question publicly. It was on a live television thing. And I said, well, if I thought wearing a tie would make me a better governor, I'd wear two ties at the same time.

[Josh Holmes]

Very good answer. Very good answer.

[Michael Duncan]

Here I am, I'm wearing one tie today. But great to be with all of you guys.

[Josh Holmes]

Great to be with you. This has been a long time coming. Obviously, we're huge fans of yours and been talking to you since we, I mean, we ate rattlesnake with this gentleman.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Which was an experience, Right.

[Doug Burgum]

I never knew. I loved rattlesnake nachos. That was a terrific thing to learn. Is awesome.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, it's been a long way since the fair in Iowa, right?

[Michael Duncan]

Yes, it is. And then today I think we're going to get a chance to break some news on. I mean, on some more wildlife species today, I think on the agend.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, we will.

[Michael Duncan]

And I think it's. It's a dire situation.

[Josh Holmes]

I actually think so. You may not, you may.

[Michael Duncan]

I do not know.

[Josh Holmes]

We may have differing of opinions, but we'll get to that in a second. Listen, let's talk about the job for a second. Secretary of Interior, broad portfolio. It's not just sort of a land manager, as you know, I think a Democratic administration. It's basically like a Bureau of Indian Affairs. And then how you figure out how to shut down any sort of domestic energy production and things like that under Republican administration, much different portfolio. And you've got your hands in. It seems like almost everything at this point.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, we're thinking about renaming at the Department of the Exterior because it is so massively. And basically all of it has to do with the public and The Outdoor Resources of America. And if it was a standalone company, it would have the largest balance sheet in the world. 500 million acres of surface land, public lands, 500 million acres, 700 million acres of subsurface, and 2.5 billion of offshore. Wow. Because the Interior includes, has a trust responsibility for all of our territories. So we're talking everything from the US Virgin Islands to American Samoa in the South Pacific is part of the interior. 14 time zones that we have. And it's an incredible job. I mean, U.S. fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Reclamation were the number two hydropower producer in America. The irrigation from the Bureau of Reclamation, Arizona and California wouldn't exist as states today without the foresight over 100 years ago of people like Theodore Roosevelt. The National Park System, U.S. fish and Wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management, where a lot of that land is located. And it just goes on and on and on. Multiple offshore agencies and of course, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 574 federally recognized tribes. And also the Bureau of Indian Education is not in the Department of education. There's 125,000 school kids that go to school on tribal lands as part of the Bureau of Indian Education. So this is. The opportunities exist. This is like being in a foxhole, surrounded, and every day you get up and you can attack in any direction. And there's big opportunities.

[Josh Holmes]

The good news is all the staff at Interior was able to rewrite the entire website on a paragraph that he just recited. Amazing that you've got that all down. Listen, you were.

[Michael Duncan]

People said, being the governor of a Western natural resource estate, you have. They said, you've done all this before. And I'm like, I went down the list and I said, yeah, everything except offshore drilling, we don't have. We didn't have. North Dakota was weird. We didn't have any like 12 billion dollar rigs 100 miles offshore.

[Doug Burgum]

I want energy production. North Dakota doesn't do.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Holmes]

That's it. But ironically, a bit of a passion project for this guy.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, no, I'm learning a lot about offshore. And it's exactly, it's, it's 16% of U.S. oil and gas comes from offshore. And that number could be a lot higher. But you talked about, I mean, the Biden administration, basically their whole game plan was to try to shut down the development. Whether it's timber, whether it was grazing, whether it was oil and gas, whether it's critical minerals. The whole thing was, you know, humans aren't going to be part of the landscape. We're going to shut down all of this development and then somehow chasing this, you know, climate extremism ideology. None of that reduced the demand for any of, didn't reduce the demand for timber. It didn't reduce the demand for critical minerals. Critical minerals were going up because of the, of you know, technology. The demand, demand was rising. In many cases all we're doing was shifting supply to our adversaries. And their adversaries were funding wars with their, the revenue coming off the sale of like their oil and gas and Russia and Iran, Iran funding 24 terror groups with that. I mean, so that was, that was not helping our US it was helping our adversaries. And then our adversaries don't have an ep, they don't have an epa, they're not following any rules. I mean if you're doing open pit mining with child labor with no reclamation. Yeah. Your cost China, you know, might be lower. And then you flood the market with critical minerals and you know, crush anybody that's trying to do mining in our nation. So we've gone on a long path of really turning our back on what was put away for the benefit and the enjoyment of the American people. That's literally sort of etched in the creation of the public lands. But the benefit includes because if you have the largest balance sheet in the world, then Interior has the worst returns of any fund of any planet.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, like negative a million.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

No, no, it's, I mean it's a. And we, everybody knows the national debt, 36 and a half trillion dollars. We get pounded in every four years. Here's our debt that we have. I've been trying to find out where's, where's the asset side of the sheet? There's not, I cannot find in Washington the asset side of the balance sheet because it doesn't exist really. People can speculate, but we don't have a good accounting of, of what all of these millions of acres are worth. What are our national parks worth? I mean, what are the last best places? I mean if you added all that up, it's got to be double or triple or more than what our debt is. I mean if we had a.

[Josh Holmes]

There's no, there's just no accounting for it whatsoever.

[Michael Duncan]

No, we have, we have this weird government P and L. I say weird because we do weird accounting. You know, if you have a 10 year software as a services contract, they roll it into year one and stick it all in the budget in year one. And then everybody goes, oh, we can't buy software as a service, it's too expensive. When it would actually be less cash going out the door over the next 10 years of a contract. So there's, that's what my, that's my term of weird. But it's a.

[Doug Burgum]

You don't have to worry about gap accounting because they don't have shareholders. They're just taking money from taxpayers and they're like, we'll be fine.

[Michael Duncan]

Exactly.

[Doug Burgum]

For the longest time it's just been. This is why I was so pleased when you and Chris Wright were essentially brought in to help get this country back on track. Because all the tremendous and abundant natural resources we've had in this country, we've been told that it's like you can't touch that. No, you're going to destroy the planet. If you use any of the natural resources we have, you have to import it from Russia and China who do it on slave wages and fund wars against us. It's unbelievable. But the amount of work that you both have already got started is tremendous. You already see it reflected in cheaper prices at the pumps. What are the most significant things you think have already been accomplished?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I think one of the things along the lines of this balance sheet ideas. If you had a balance sheet, then when President Biden in the last weeks of his office does an executive order with a stroke of a pen and says, I'm going to take 625 million acres of offshore minerals and we're just going to take it off, we're taking it off the balance sheet, we're taking it off the table, it can't be touched. And then people write about it. There was never a financial number attached to that in any story I saw. But what was the number? Did he just wipe out 10 trillion? I don't know. What was it? I mean, there should have been like Biden wipes out, you know, 10 trillion from your children and your children's children's future, whatever. Because we all get told, oh, that, you know, the $36 trillion of debt, this is how much is yours. Right. With like we divide it down, but per family and scare everybody to death, this is your percentage of the debt. Well, why don't we tell them all that their percentage of the public lands is three or four or five times larger than the debt?

[Doug Burgum]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, what would that, what would that do to the long term? The 10 year interest rate, if we actually published a balance sheet that said that our debt was a fraction of our assets, that's incredible.

[Doug Burgum]

I hope we get back around 1%. That'd be a great way to get Started on it.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Well, yeah. And we're not anywhere close to 1%. I mean, if the Interior's balance sheet, you know, was worth, you know, 100 trillion and a 1% return would be A trillion.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. Right.

[Michael Duncan]

And last year, under the Biden administration, during four years of declining revenue, they got it down to 18 billion. So we're. We're 1 50th away from. We're 1 50th of 1%. So it's all upside. Okay. We can. I think we can get a little more return out of this for the. And that's part of. So, again, part of the why this mission is so fun, because we're, you know, American prosperity and then world peace. Those are the two things I get to work on every day.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. That ain't bad.

[Michael Duncan]

No, that ain't bad.

[Doug Burgum]

It's a good to do list.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

To Smug's point, about what you've already accomplished, you know, two months and you're already taking advantage of opportunities offshore, particularly in the Gulf of America, opening up new leases. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Well, in. To be able to, you know, set up a lease sale, the first thing we had to do was undo the banning of the 625 million acres. So President Trump executive order, those executive orders. Every one he's done includes, like, on paragraph two or three, this cabinet secretary shall, in 15 days. I mean, it's very explicit in those eos, what he wants his leadership team to be driving against. And I mean, Pete Higseth got one. That was 60 days. And I'm like, Pete, how'd you get 60? I mean, like, so anyway, we have confidence. Yeah, but we have a weekend at.

[Josh Holmes]

Mar a Lago or something.

[Michael Duncan]

So we. So we have. So he, you know, he's. He's providing direction, and then he's providing, you know, very clear. And then he's providing explicit accountability measures, and then he's empowering us to go do it. I mean, that's what you want in a leader. And so that part's been great, but we. So we unbanned the ban. We got the equivalent of a third of the lower 48 back on the table again. We did that about six weeks ago, and then last week, we announced that we're having the first lease sale. And people that aren't in the oil and gas industry wouldn't understand, but when there's a lease sale, it's an auction. People bid. Companies bid. And when they win the bid, guess what they do? They Write a check to the federal government. They pay you.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Not for the minerals. They pay you for the opportunity to develop the minerals. Then they go build, like, a $12 billion offshore platform. They take all the risk, they hire all the people, they do all the smart geologic work, and then they start producing. And when they produce, then we get a percentage of the royalties. We, the public, the federal government, we get paid as being a partnership for the minerals. And then some of those are directed towards things like coastal restoration. I mean, most of the conservation that's happening around the Gulf of America is paid for by the oil industry. You kill that thing, you kill offshore, and you kill all the revenue that goes into, you know, all the projects that people would love to have, whether it's fish and wildlife or reserves. So anyway, it's. It's a business, and we're in the business. And those companies that are doing that, they're our customers. If they're writing a check to us. I treat them in North Dakota, I treated them as customers. And we're treating them as customers now. And that's as opposed to. We're treating them as the enemy.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, Right, right.

[Michael Duncan]

And also because guess what? If you shut them down in the Gulf of America, you know, where they go, they go to. They go to another. They go to offshore in Africa, they go to offshore in South America. They don't stop doing it. They just do it someplace that is less, you know, better for adversaries and worse for Americans. So we're. And we. Because we do it cleaner, safer, smarter, healthier here than anywhere else. People should insist. They should be insisting, the public should be insisting that all the energy is developed in the United States.

[Josh Holmes]

No question.

[Michael Duncan]

If you care about the planet, you would insist.

[Josh Holmes]

It's not insisted. Previous administration adopted sort of a mentality where they shut all those things down and then had things like electric vehicle mandates where we had to offshore basically the entire production of all of it and ensure that we were entirely reliant on adversaries, as you said. I mean, this is like the.

[Michael Duncan]

China controls 85% of the refining of rare earth minerals that the EV strategy was built upon.

[Doug Burgum]

That's insane.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, you know, if you're on Team ev, you were. You were on. Under the Biden administration. You're on Team China.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

What.

[John Ashbrook]

What percentage of the Chinese energy budget goes to restoring American coastline? Just out of curiosity.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. I'll tell you what they are doing. They did. They did build. They built. In the last year, they brought online 94 gigawatts of coal powered electricity. Okay, 1 gigawatt powers Denver. Okay, 90, 94 gigawatts. That's more than, I mean it's 94 Denver's or if you take California plus New York, California and New York don't generate for their state, 94 gigawatts. And you know, so the last hundred years of electrification to build out the systems for California, New York, China did that in a year. That's who we're competing against. And they're spending hundreds of billions on hydroelectric and they're building 30 nuclear plants. And all of that is because the war for who's going to win the battle for AI supremacy, which is effectively the World War III that we're going into, it's going to be fought and won by who gets a. Who leads in AI. They understand that that AI. The constraint isn't the software. The constraint is the electricity. And you know, we could win it on the tech because we've got better tech and we could lose it because we haven't figured out a way in this country to build electricity, enough of it, fast enough. And that's what Chris Wright and I are working on every day. That's, that's why President Trump signed. The energy emergency is as much about the electricity is, it's about the price of the pump. I mean, it's like we've got to get going on electrical generation.

[Josh Holmes]

So nice to hear somebody who's got this thing all sorted out, like a business guy who sort of understands how this stuff works.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Doug Burgum]

I mean it makes you feel better because 100% the previous administration was essentially just focused on cutting America off from its own resources. And I don't know, it might be because the president's son is, is going and meeting with these countries that we're buying energy from and losing the air too. But it's just refreshing to see that someone who understands the problems that this country is facing, President Trump has put in charge of fixing this. It's tremendous.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back with the Interior Secretary Burgum, which I like that. I just like the ring Secretary Burgum. I feel like, you know, we're sort of, I feel like a part of it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah. At this point we've gone so far.

[Josh Holmes]

We watched all of this. Anyway, listen, everybody, this week, concerned, thoughtful at least top of mind about a new tariff policy coming out. There's a big role for what it is that you do within the context of that. Let's just get your Broad thoughts about where we're at with the tariff policy?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, I'd say that what people are focused on is the short term, and they're focused on a market reaction. This kind of seems what everybody's been focused on the last few days as opposed to the underlying transformational shift that's occurring. And this is pretty typical. Markets often miss the big shifts and they react short term. And the perspective I would bring is not really as secretary of Interior, but from the mid-90s till December of 2016, the day before I was sworn in as governor, was when I resigned from my last public company board, a chairman of software company. So for 20 years, I was always at least on one, sometimes two, because as CEO, chairman, corporate officer of public companies. So going through 20 years of quarterly earnings, one of the things that I learned during that time is you don't build great companies and you don't have great outcomes. If you're focused on the stock price tomorrow, you know, what's it going to be? I mean, and particularly when we're competing against someone like China who's thinking, you know, 100 years out, generations out, and then we're going to make decisions based, oh, it was a bad idea because the market didn't like it. Well, first of all, the global markets, all these other global exchanges, they all had priced into their model that they were going to continue to be able to sell into the world's largest market, the US Unimpeded, while they protected their own markets. So if anybody's, you know, got crocodile tears for the overseas markets, you know, having a down day. Yeah, they're having a down day because we've just leveled the playing field. I mean, that's like, that should be, like, expected as opposed to. I'm shocked. Like, no, I mean, it was built into their business models. Now in the US Some people that, you know, develop more onshore and less offshore, they're going to have different reactions. They're going to have to adjust some of their business models. And I get that people are feeling like, hey, it came. It came too quickly and they weren't expecting it. President Trump's been talking about this thing not for, for weeks or months or years. He's been talking about it for decades. And you go, you know, go back and watch the clips from the 1980s. He's been talking about this. So it is a readjustment because we in what's going to happen. And I think now we're over 50 countries have called and said, whoa, whoa. We'd like to renegotiate. I mean, April 2nd wasn't the end. It was the beginning. It was the beginning of a bunch of negotiations where all these trade deals that people would do, we'd go around and we'd never get anywhere. We'd still end up with a thing where our market was open and their market was closed. And so it's very simple. I mean, people have an opportunity to level the playing field, drop their tariffs and do that. And then the other thing I would point out, which is that there's been very little discussion, but energy is not in any of these. There's no tariffs on energy flowing or going, I mean, as it should be, because, you know, we're.

[Josh Holmes]

That's important to point out.

[Michael Duncan]

It's very important because it's a huge part of the economy and it's part of what we plan on doing is selling more energy to our friends and allies. And we're not. There's no tariffs on any energy that might be coming from our neighbor to the north, Canada, that's, you know, they've got certain production that's useful for our refineries. We buy it from them. We, you know, sell our stuff to the Europeans. I mean, the energy markets are one place where we're doing a lot of value added here in the U.S. you know, we sell refined products around the world. You know, it's one of the industries that was smart enough and innovated enough and, and invested enough that we didn't kill it. Like we killed mining, you know, we killed timber. We're, you know, we're trying to kill agriculture half the time. I mean, manufacturing, we killed. And offshore, all those things. So the one industry that's functioning at a quite a high level, which is the. All the energy industries, you know, that, that stuff is excluded, but nobody's talking about that. But that was a smart move by President Trump to exclude that and that. And so I think the bottom line on this thing, the smart money is coming to America. And the smart money is not panicking right now. The smart money is like, wow, this is a huge opportunity. There's a complete readjusting and a leveling of the playing field. These tariff barriers, everyone's like, oh, they're going up. No, they actually could be coming down. They actually could be coming down. And he's also. President Trump's been super clear, which is if you got a manufacturing plant, if you're Toyota, if you're Doosan, if you're any of these companies that are Japan, Korea, Germany, if you build your Car here. There's no tariff on that. There's no tariff on something that's manufactured here.

[Josh Holmes]

Which is the whole point of it.

[Michael Duncan]

Which is the whole point, which is, you know, this, get manufactured. Because we learned during COVID how vulnerable we were to all these supply chains.

[Doug Burgum]

That was eye opening.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. And now the general public actually knows what a supply chain is and they understand how, how, how radically, how radically we went too far to become completely dependent on our adversaries for many of these supply chains. So this is a reordering of that. And, and again, I, I'm long term, very bullish. And when you take a look at the trillions of dollars of capital that's coming into this country, it's going to be, it's fantastic. And then when they say, wow, well, what are we going to do about labor? Well, because, you know, because we've got people that are, you know, cutting or sewing or stitching shoes or something in some foreign country at a low labor price. Well, this is, this is the time. This is if, you know, we're going to, AI is going to drive robotics, that's going to drive efficiency. The people working in a factory in the US are not going to be at a sewing machine. You know, they're going to be programming or working with a robotic sewing machine. I mean that, I mean that's like right there. But the future is right at our fingertips. And the idea that if somebody's saying, oh, we're going to lose access to, you know, low cost, cheap foreign labor, you know, they're living in, they're living in the old economy. The AI revolution's coming and it's coming here rally rapidly. And this is a big advantage for the US we have 10 million jobs open in our country. China has got quite high unemployment among 18 to 25 year olds even with college degrees. And the AI revolution happening in their country puts the automation that puts their people even more out of work here. It just brings us back into having less labor pressure on pricing upwards because we'd finally have, I mean, you know, high paying jobs. Yeah. Like in North Dakota, North Dakota, I get this. In North Dakota we had the lowest unemployment in the country. Like most months it was like less than 2%, you know, 2% to whatever. It's like there was, you know, tens of thousands of jobs open for like anybody that, you know, any group of people that might have been looking for a job. You know, that creates pressure on labor going up and instead we're like, well, how are we going to solve this? What we need is more automation. So you go to a place like North Dakota that doesn't have natural in migration the level of automation you see in companies there. Instead of like, oh, I need 10 welders. No, you get one guy that's running a robot that does the work of 10 welders and then that one person. We have fewer jobs that are more purposeful and higher paid. And that's the vision for America. But that's where innovation and technology comes together and it's really a remaking. So when we're on shoring, we're not. We're not trying to bring.

[Josh Holmes]

You're not doing 1950?

[Michael Duncan]

No, we're not bringing. The reason we left was to get access to low cost labor. When it comes back the factories are going to be so sophisticated and so capable. That's what anybody's building today. And that's what advanced manufacturing is. And by the way, with these AI data centers that are going in that are enormous electrical power users, we're manufacturing intelligence. This is the highest value for a kilowatt hour in human history, in humankind. Because it's one thing to run the lights in the studio or cook your dinner. It's another thing to manufacture generalized intelligence.

[Josh Holmes]

Which takes a lot of power.

[Michael Duncan]

It takes a lot of power, but it also creates a tremendous amount of value. I mean the next versions that are coming out program better than literally everybody. But the very top. I've heard some of the top programmers in the country say there may be 50 people left that actually can program or 50 mathematicians. You're talking about.0001 of the humans left that are actually better than this. So now you've got a low cost thing that can program, it can do Math, it speaks 27 languages and it's like virtually free. And that can be an assistant for anybody that's working in a factory or working in an office. I mean it's remarkable what we're at the cusp.

[Josh Holmes]

It's such a breath of fresh air to hear you talk about this because so many people have been wrapped around the axle with the idea that somehow their view and not really totally understanding or maybe being a critic of President Trump, they're like I want to go back to Youngstown, Ohio, 1950. And it's not that. I mean what you're talking about here is the next generation of an economic boom in the United States and why this is a critical piece to it. Like I think that is a piece that has been missing 100%.

[Doug Burgum]

Yeah. I mean like the Critics that you see, especially online and from the left are trying to insinuate this is trying to create sweatshops in America where you look at examples like how Tesla manufactures a car compared to how cars were manufactured 20 years ago. Their outputs like five or 10 times the old auto factories, they have the same amount of employees, but 10 times efficiency because these have massive robots that they're doing building the cars. It's just in the same way technology, if America can remain the leader in that technology is just going to be an efficiency multiplier.

[Josh Holmes]

Totally. Duncan, you have some.

[Comfortably Smug]

Well, I think it goes back to his earlier point though. It's like you only get those efficiencies with the technologies if you dominate when it comes to energy production in this country. And that's why these two things are so linked and why it's so important, you know, that they got a guy like you doing what you're doing. Because it isn't just, you know, reshoring these jobs. It's like you need to be able to turn the lights on. You need all of this power for all of those large language models in order to run all of those programs. Constantly, constantly. Like, you know, we always say energy security is national security, thanks to you. But it really is true, especially when it comes to the innovation comes with AI.

[Michael Duncan]

Yep. And the beautiful thing about everything Duncan said is, right, I mean, the battle is going to come down to electricity. But we had this, we do have issues with our grid, we have grid stability issues. But when we were, when the whole climate extremism, let's do solar and wind, which is intermittent, unreliable, unaffordable, very expensive. But we're going to stick it all in a place like North Dakota. And then we got to build the thousands of miles of transmission lines. I mean, good luck doing that. I mean, you know, because I say pipeline, you say protest. I say, I say transmission line, you know, you say, you know, you say protest. I mean, it's like durable as your next building. Yeah, building linear, building linear infrastructure became almost impossible in this country under the Biden administration. But, and I, you know, and I've been through a few pipeline protests myself, as you know best, Governor, but we have, but if you build a data center in a place that's got stranded natural gas and where you're manufacturing intelligence, stranded natural gas. So you got low cost energy, build it in a place that's a little colder, that's good because that's part of the cost is cooling them down. So head north, my friends. And so you do those two things and then your output, your manufactured intelligence, it goes to market on a fiber optic cable. I mean, nobody's protesting those yet. Maybe we'll see the first one next year. They'll be lining up like, no, this cable can't go in this interstate right away.

[Josh Holmes]

Listen, I think that's one of the best explanations that I've heard over all of this stuff and sort of knitting together what it is that you're doing in your day job with this broader economic policy. Can we do some fun stuff?

[Michael Duncan]

Well, this has all been fun, but yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I've had fun, but this is like, it's, you know, like our guys, like we like to laugh.

[Michael Duncan]

This is cutting edge technology. I think it's where you're going. I mean this is like the future. I'm concerned the future is the past.

[Josh Holmes]

The dire wolf.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Now is this like a long extinct wolf that my understanding is native to your native lands in some ways in North Dakota that is grossly larger than your average wolf. Can we put up graphic three? Okay, so, so how cool is this? So that's a human, a six foot tall human. That's a dire wolf. It's three and a half, it's seven feet long.

[Doug Burgum]

For just the listeners, they have the gray wolf at two and a half feet, about six feet long. The direwolf three and a half feet, seven feet long. And they compare it to a six foot tall human. You can, you can literally ride that thing into battle.

[Josh Holmes]

All right, so this thing has been extinct, but there's an outfit called Colossal Biosciences which does this sort of thing that I'm a little concerned with. And I'd like the secretary to give me a reason why I should feel more comfortable about a seven foot long wolf that they've now basically through the miracle of science brought back to our planet.

[Michael Duncan]

They have. And this is, this is a breakthrough. The Explorers Club based in New York Global give, they give out a premier recognition, essentially a flag like for first man on the moon, first person on the moon, you know, first person to the depths of the ocean. They're actually giving this a flag. I mean, the Explorers Club, this is, this is like a breakthrough.

[Josh Holmes]

Like you've been to the moon, you recreated the dire.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, you de extinction. Because the technology that they've created could be applied across all endangered species. And, and we've got an issue, I mean, so this, this is, we have an issue which is political issue around the endangered species which, that, that list lives inside of the department of exterior, slash interior.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Okay. Right. So. And. And I. And not without controversy. And I've learned. I've learned in my new role that. That the. The Endangered Species act is a little bit like the Hotel California.

[Josh Holmes]

Once you're in.

[Michael Duncan]

Once you're in, you are never. You never leave. You never leave. Okay. You are on that thing. 97% of the species that have gone on that list have never come off.

[Josh Holmes]

You're in it until you massacre every last cow in the Midwest. And then, you know, and then the.

[Michael Duncan]

Gray wolf could come off or something.

[Josh Holmes]

And then we'll visit them. We'll invent a larger wolf.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Or then we have. Yeah. Or the, you know, the grizzly bear, which they keep moving the goal posts. You know, if we have a thousand now, if we have 2,000, I mean.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, maybe this is an alternative to the endangered species.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, it is. It is, because I. I think the only thing I'd like to see become extinct is the endangered species list itself.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh.

[Michael Duncan]

If you could make that go away. Because now you've got a way. Because part of where, you know, when you need biodiversity, if you get down to the end of species life and we've got, you know, less than a couple hundred. They're in zoos, you may not have the biological diversity. These. These colossal. Has a technology where they can engineer to be able to create more foundation stock, if you will, without changing the. You know, it actually improves the health of the species. So there's hope now for any. Anybody that's on the endangered species list ought to be cheering because, like, wow, there's now a way where we literally don't never have to worry again about anybody on that list ever actually going extinct.

[Comfortably Smug]

Could we get some of these dire wolves down to, like, East Texas to maybe take on the pharaoh hogs?

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, I think it could be a cage match. It'd be great. People would pay to see that, for sure.

[Josh Holmes]

We call that fight.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

But this. And I think, again, part of what we have to think. We're. We're. What do you call it, Science fiction meets reality. But, you know, a Game of Thrones played a huge role in this thing. And the company that has this really sophisticated technology. The first person who wasn't part of the scientific team that got to see a direwolf puppy was George Martin.

[Doug Burgum]

No kidding.

[Michael Duncan]

Who created. They brought him. They brought him up. And I think he. I think. I think he sat. They had the. They had the throne. He sat in the throne with.

[Doug Burgum]

See, that is.

[Comfortably Smug]

So I have one. I Have one.

[Michael Duncan]

And he cried. I'm told I have one.

[Comfortably Smug]

Ask on this. Congratulations to the direwolf. But can we prioritize like I want if we're going to bring back animals? Can they be delicious ones?

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, no, I would like.

[Michael Duncan]

They can. They can be.

[Comfortably Smug]

Can we get some of those?

[Michael Duncan]

I don't know. I don't know how the dodo bird or is mammoth. The woolly mammoth is on their list. It's like number two on the list. And part of. I know this is because in. In a beautiful clean lignite coal field in North Dakota where we do some of the top reclamation in the world, they were with a big thing. There's like, what's this big white thing Was a woolly mammoth came out of the ground and it's about the same age. We're not talking dinosaur. 55 million dire wolf and woolly mammoth were around during the last ice age. So like only 12,500 years ago. And they're genetically super similar to the wolves you see here. They're genetically. A woolly mammoth is like an. Literally like an elephant. Elephant DNA plus fur. Yeah. And one of the things your listeners could go online there is as a prototype in the lab they created a woolly mouse.

[Doug Burgum]

Yeah, no, we covered this.

[Michael Duncan]

So that was the same guy. So anyway. But the woolly mammoth is within sight. So in a future near you, you could be coming to the North Dakota badlands, staying at like an Amman resort, looking over the badlands, and then have dire wolves and woolly mammoths out there and maybe we could dunk them. Maybe we even have them on the menu. Yeah, we could get that elephant rib eye or something.

[Josh Holmes]

No chance of extinction.

[Doug Burgum]

If we could get that done before the. The Theodore Roosevelt Museum opens. Because, I mean I'd put a nice menu on the grounds as well. I mean that would be terrific.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. If you're thinking about like an appetizer plate in the main line and think.

[Michael Duncan]

The rattlesnakes would be excited about this too because it wouldn't have to be all that. They could have like billboards like, you know, eat more beef. Like chick fil a chicken. The rattlesnakes would be eat more. Eat more woolly mammoth.

[Josh Holmes]

Anytime Bergam comes to town, the rattlesnakes not happy.

[Michael Duncan]

But I'm glad. I'm glad you comfortably slid in the mansion of the TR Library. That was very comfortable, you know. Yeah. And it's still on. It's going to be over four days now.

[Josh Holmes]

We're going to be there.

[Michael Duncan]

There's so much demand. You guys may have to plan for four days over the. Over the Fourth of July time in 2026.

[Josh Holmes]

He's like, bad news is your wife's gonna leave you. Good news is great show.

[John Ashbrook]

My wife was like, maybe we should take our kids up there.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, there we go.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah, she is. She's all about it. We actually talked about it last weekend.

[Josh Holmes]

That's a better story.

[John Ashbrook]

She was like, we have to go.

[Doug Burgum]

It's gonna be amazing.

[Michael Duncan]

And I'm not trying to jump anything. But that area near the Theodore Roosevelt national park, the only park named after a person and not a place is an official dark skies area. So two words. Drone show.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yes.

[Josh Holmes]

Okay.

[Michael Duncan]

And then you want to. If it's hyphenated, I'm not sure if it's a third or four words, but. Mind blowing. Mind blowing drone show. I mean, what a salesman. No, no, but seriously, think of, think of, think of at the end of tr. Riding across the sky on horseback with an American flag. I mean, your kids would be like. It would be an experience they would never forget.

[John Ashbrook]

You can't beat it.

[Doug Burgum]

I'm sorry.

[Josh Holmes]

I think America should just send Burgum out with, like, Willy Loman style.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

Like a suitcase. And just go country to country. Be like, well, wait till you hear about this.

[Doug Burgum]

Yeah.

[Josh Holmes]

I mean, I buy anything. This guy. The last thing I want to get to. I know it's the real reason you wanted to work in this administration or any administration. NDSU coming to the White House.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. Very exciting.

[Josh Holmes]

Big deal.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah. They're going to be here. They're going to be here actually tomorrow. And it's. And it's exciting. Not the first time they've been here, but great that President Trump's invited them. The NDSU bison. Just to make sure for all your listeners, it's spelled B I S O N. It's pronounced B I Z O N, like a Z, and it's not plural.

[Comfortably Smug]

It's like, I made that mistake.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, No, I mean, it's. It's easy because, you know, I mean, there's a lot of fishes in the sea, too.

[Comfortably Smug]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

No, I mean, no, no, it's like there's fish. Bison.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

Plural for fish is fish. Plural for bison is bison.

[Josh Holmes]

Bison. Well, They've captured their 10th national FCS title.

[Michael Duncan]

They did. And how sweet it was against our. Our neighbors from Montana. When you get to. When you get to beat up on an arch rival, your neighbor. That's pretty fun. It was.

[Comfortably Smug]

It was a heck of a game. Cam Miller. The quarterback.

[Michael Duncan]

Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

That North Dakota State has is incredible. He also almost like out dueled Chadur Sanders in week one when they played Colorado.

[Josh Holmes]

Oh, I know.

[Michael Duncan]

I remember that. Yes.

[Comfortably Smug]

I mean, people don't understand how much talent there is.

[Josh Holmes]

No, it's, it's been that way for a long time. In fact, 10 times.

[Michael Duncan]

And I was at that game in Colorado. Catherine and I were on the field. On the field. And it's going back and forth and it comes down to the last play and it's a Hail Mary and our guy catches it and we're on the field so we couldn't see the angle. He, we saw him catch it and go down and he landed like on the, the half yard line.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Duncan]

I mean, I mean, as opposed to in the end zone because we would have won the game on the last play of the game. So that was a, that was a thriller too, but, you know, touchdown. Tommy, the quarterback for Montana State. Yeah. Incredible athlete.

[Comfortably Smug]

And they were favored in that.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah.

[Comfortably Smug]

Championship game.

[Michael Duncan]

They were, they were. And, and of course, well, you put a bison up against a Bobcat, they kind of know what the outcome is going to be. I mean, one weighs a ton and runs 35 miles an hour. I mean, it's a, the other one isn't. Can't do either of those two things. Yeah. So it was, but it was great. It's a great rivalry and. Great, great rivalry with our, with my neighbor, Governor Gianforte, too.

[Josh Holmes]

Gianforte Danes. Like, I hope you took some stuff off of him for that win.

[Michael Duncan]

Yeah, well, we, and we had, you know, and we, we do, we do bets, you know, back and forth on some of these things. And I was, you know, betting them about, you know, why don't we bet, you know, bison steaks? And then he replied and he said, we don't eat our mascot.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, he's like, that's super weak and live of you because we eat every. I love it. Listen, thank you so much for doing what you're doing, and I mean that sincerely. Since the moment we met you, we thought, oh, gosh, there's not a whole lot more people you'd want in government and sacrifice and the considerable sacrifice that you have to go about the business of doing it. But you see the world broadly. A lot of life experiences, including right at home in North Dakota. That gives you sort of an element of perspective on what you're. You're doing now. And I know it's a lot of work, but thanks a bunch. Really, really honestly appreciate it.

[Michael Duncan]

Well, Great being with all of you and you guys do a fantastic job too. And you have fun doing it. And it's thanks for everything you're doing to help America understand what's going on in this administration because we're absolutely putting America first.

[Josh Holmes]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[John Ashbrook]

The guy's a national treasure. And I mean, just an absolute treat to have him here on the Variety program. And the detail that he used to describe the tariffs and everything that we're talking about here today is something I haven't heard on television. And here on the ruthless Variety program, you hear it.

[Comfortably Smug]

What I love about the way he describes the tariffs and re industrializing the United States, which I think we sort of alluded to in our first segment, was, you know, jobs that we bring back to the United States. It ain't going to look like 1950. It's like you're actually going to be bringing back back jobs that are going to be good paying, high paying jobs in the future of technology with automation and with robots doing a lot of work. I mean, that's just the reality is that parallel to this re envision of the American economy, we're also going through this boom with AI and automation. And like if you're going to look, you know, 50 years from now, what the American economy is going to look like, it ain't 1950.

[Josh Holmes]

I also like the game plan, right? So the game plan that he lays out here is yes, you want to onshore more of these jobs, we want to onshore more manufacturing, no question about it. But it does look different for all the reasons that you, you explained that it's AI and that these manufacturing plants are going to be far more productive and people are going to have different kinds of jobs and servicing that manufacturing base. But also that it, it takes a lot of energy, which is why we have prioritized domestic energy supply that the rest of the world cannot compete with. If you have an advantage, fucking use it. And that in that to me is like, I get it. Yep, I immediately get it. Because if this thing was just that easy, it was just about having people, China would be great forever. Fine, right. But the fact that you have people with certain expertise that you want to try to reinvigorate in an economic standpoint that requires X that the rest of the world can't supply. Well, now you got something right?

[Comfortably Smug]

It's not about having the most people, it's about being the most productive.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, it looks like an Industrial Revolution 2.0 rather than just sort of like a wouldn't it be nice if we had a Youngstown, Ohio again. Yeah, right.

[Doug Burgum]

It's a holistic approach.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah. And that I just. He is the only one that's been able to explain that to me in any real way. Like, I've liked the elements of what the other secretaries have said and I've got pieced it all together, but I keep getting kind of hung up on components of it. He sort of painted a picture for me.

[Doug Burgum]

It's terrific. And our listeners are lucky to get that.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, totally. Really, really good. Okay, listen, hack madness.

[Doug Burgum]

There's the music.

[Michael Duncan]

I love the music.

[Comfortably Smug]

It just puts you in a good mood.

[Josh Holmes]

It does. I will say that the one piece of crowning the next biggest hack in all political journalism that a little bit of a tough point for the ruthless Friday program is that we haven't been able to play king of the hill because we don't want to prejudice the jury here and there's a lot to work with last week.

[Doug Burgum]

So, folks, we are on the final four. If you are, as you are hearing this, voting is wrapping up. You have to vote. Go to X. Go to my profile. It's pinned right there to vote. We've got the final four right in front of us. The matchups are. Can I get graphic five, please? We've got Nicole Wallace versus Joy Reid. I mean, these are some serious matchups now to have the four biggest hacks. And then graphic six, please. We've got Jake Tapper versus Morgan Brennan. Like this is now. I mean, this is more than a final four. These are titans of the hack industry.

[Comfortably Smug]

Blue bloods.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah, I mean, it really is. And there's some surprises here. Like I didn't see a five seed Tapper coming into the final four. I certainly didn't see Joy Reid getting some past some of the other CBS heft that we had in this competition. But here they are and now they're going against people who I think we predicted to be in the final four. Right. Nicole Wallace, Margaret Brennan. Everybody is talking about this Brennan squad. But as we saw in the final four, Duke got beat.

[John Ashbrook]

They did.

[Doug Burgum]

Anything can happen.

[Josh Holmes]

They did.

[John Ashbrook]

But I don't think that's going to happen here. I think Margaret Brennan is a ptper baby. I think she's going to win a.

[Josh Holmes]

Diaper dandy too, by the way. I think this is is her first turn.

[Comfortably Smug]

This really is a diaper dandy.

[John Ashbrook]

Yeah. She's gonna beat the old guard and tapper and then I bet she faces Joy Reid in the final and I bet she just slaughters Joy Reid. Yeah, that's my guess.

[Josh Holmes]

Well, she's got to kind of be hoping for that sort of matchup with Reed out of the media now having lost her job. There's not. There's less to work with contemporaneous. If you have, like a big seed and a lot of momentum going in, what you don't like is somebody who can make up ground that is like.

[Comfortably Smug]

Like a Nicole Wallace.

[Josh Holmes]

A recency bias.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right.

[Josh Holmes]

But she's now available for that.

[Comfortably Smug]

Right, right, right. Yeah. If I'm Brennan, I really want to face Joy Reid. To your point, it's like if Nicole Wallace is up there doing some brain worms, you could give us something tomorrow. Vision. Right, Exactly. So it's really anyone's game, but you gotta go to comfortably smug's account on X and vote right now. I think voting will close at like 1pm 2pm Eastern time. And then we'll have our championship and.

[Doug Burgum]

You'Ll have the championship matchup.

[Michael Duncan]

Absolutely.

[Josh Holmes]

Love it. And thanks to Burgum for bringing up the old direwolf. Yeah, bringing it back. I mean, that thing scares the out of me. Turns out, like, he's like, instrumental in creating new animals.

[Doug Burgum]

I fully support it.

[Comfortably Smug]

Bring it back Sounds like a Michael Crichton novel.

[Michael Duncan]

I know.

[Josh Holmes]

It's just not. It's just not something we're comfortable with. At least some of us. We'll have to figure out what the banana pool is for. The.

[John Ashbrook]

I think it's the 30 06. To be honest with you.

[Josh Holmes]

I'm not sure that does the job.

[John Ashbrook]

Well, I did. I didn't get a chance to ask him a question. I wanted to see if, you know, he gave us full line by line instructions on how to kill a rattlesnake.

[Josh Holmes]

Yeah.

[John Ashbrook]

And I wanted to ask him, how do you kill a dire wolf? And I just really think it's a rifle when it's not paying attention.

[Comfortably Smug]

The only way to kill a dire wolf is a. Is a couple thousand years of breeding that turns them into a husky.

[Josh Holmes]

Into a regular dog. It might be right. All right, so remember our question of the day. Do you trust Trump on tariffs? Do you think that this is part of the plan that's going to work? Interested to hear your thoughts? Subscribe and like to the YouTube channel while you're at it. This has been fun. We'll be back at you Thursday with that smuggler. I think we've done it.

[Doug Burgum]

I think so. Absolute banger of an episode. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Secretary Burgum, always one of our favorite guests. And thank you to the listeners. Just like Holmes said, go to that YouTube like and subscribe if you have not yet. So until next time minions, keep the faith, hold the line and on the libs. We'll see you Thursday. Stay Ruthless.

[Michael Duncan]

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