James Fishback on How the DOGE Dividend Could Benefit Taxpayers

Summary

The Chris Cuomo Project: Episode Summary Episode: James Fishback on How the DOGE Dividend Could Benefit Taxpayers
Release Date: April 8, 2025

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Introduction to the DOGE Dividend

In this episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, host Chris Cuomo engages in a compelling discussion with James Fishback, the architect behind the innovative DOGE Dividend Check proposal. This initiative aims to return surplus taxpayer money directly to American citizens, addressing widespread concerns about government waste, fiscal responsibility, and economic fairness.

Origins and Motivation Behind the Proposal

James Fishback shares the genesis of the DOGE Dividend, highlighting his journey into politics and economic policy. Introduced to Vivek Ramaswamy by Bill Ackman in early 2023, Fishback began advising on Ramaswamy's presidential campaign. Inspired by the Trump administration's economic strategies, Fishback envisioned a system where government savings are redistributed to taxpayers.

"When the government saves money, the government doesn't make its own money. This is taxpayer money. It ought to send some of that back to the taxpayers who sent it to D.C. in the first place."
— James Fishback [03:00]

Government Support and Legislative Outlook

Fishback expresses strong optimism about the proposal's viability, citing constructive feedback and significant support from key political figures, including President Trump and influential members of the Cabinet. He emphasizes that DOGE is not merely an idea but a movement backed by actionable plans and widespread public demand.

"We've got the best argument on our side for the DOGE dividend. And I gotta make that argument in front as many people as possible."
— James Fishback [04:30]

Addressing Criticisms and Challenges

Chris challenges Fishback on potential criticisms, particularly the feasibility of lawmakers endorsing the DOGE Dividend. Fishback counters by emphasizing the administration's alignment with his objectives and the critical need to restore trust between taxpayers and the government.

"Do you want to send it back to hardworking taxpayers who represent 70% of how we spend and how we fund our government or do you want to send it to Beijing to cover some bill that we have with them?"
— James Fishback [48:20]

Economic Policy and Taxation Under Trump

The conversation delves into the economic policies of the Trump administration, particularly the tax cuts enacted in December 2017. Fishback argues that these cuts spurred economic growth, evidenced by increased payrolls and GDP growth before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted progress.

"When you bring down taxes, you're incentivizing folks to use those savings to expand their business and to bring on new employees."
— James Fishback [18:56]

Onshoring and Trade Policies

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on onshoring—bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Fishback advocates for reducing dependency on foreign adversaries like China and leveling the playing field against unfair trade practices. He underscores the importance of supporting American workers and businesses through strategic tariffs and tax incentives.

"If you want to hire in America and you want to build in America, there's a benefit to that."
— James Fishback [26:53]

Chris and Fishback debate the complexities of trade policies, particularly regarding Canada. Fishback acknowledges differences but maintains that unfair trade practices harm American industries and contribute to economic decline.

"The opioid crisis... there is a correlation and a causation between the lack of manufacturing jobs in America and opioid addiction."
— James Fishback [30:00]

Link Between Manufacturing Jobs and the Opioid Crisis

Fishback draws a direct connection between the hollowing out of manufacturing sectors and the rise in opioid addiction. He argues that restoring manufacturing jobs can alleviate economic despair, reducing the reliance on substances like fentanyl as individuals seek purpose and stability through employment.

"There is a correlation and a causation between the lack of manufacturing jobs in America and opioid addiction."
— James Fishback [30:00]

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

As the episode concludes, both speakers reflect on the broader implications of the DOGE Dividend and the necessity of bold economic reforms. Fishback reiterates his commitment to executing the proposal, emphasizing its potential to transform the American economy and restore faith in governmental institutions.

"Think about all of the good we can do for society that is beyond quantitative economic metrics that will come from giving millions of people the dignity and purpose and self-respect that comes with holding down a job."
— James Fishback [41:50]

Chris acknowledges the multifaceted challenges ahead but remains supportive of Fishback's vision, recognizing the urgent need for solutions that bridge economic disparities and empower American workers.

Key Takeaways:

• The DOGE Dividend aims to return government savings directly to taxpayers, enhancing fiscal responsibility and economic fairness.
• Strong support from key political figures and public demand bolster the proposal's prospects.
• Onshoring and strategic trade policies are essential for revitalizing American manufacturing and reducing dependency on foreign adversaries.
• Restoring manufacturing jobs is crucial in addressing socio-economic issues like the opioid crisis.
• The initiative represents a significant step towards rebuilding trust between taxpayers and the government, promoting a more equitable and prosperous society.

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This summary encapsulates the critical dialogues and insights shared between Chris Cuomo and James Fishback, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of the DOGE Dividend proposal and its potential impact on American taxpayers and the broader economy.

Transcript

[James Fishback]

Location, the lab. Quentin only has 24 hours to sell his car. Is that even possible? He goes to Carvana.com. what is this, a movie trailer? He ignores the doubters, enters his license plate. Wow, that's a great offer. The car is sold, but will Carvana pick it up in time for. They'll literally pick it up tomorrow morning. Done with the dramatics. Car selling in record time. Save your time. Go to Carvana.com and sell your car today. Pickup fees may apply.

[Chris Cuomo]

The Doge dividend check. How much would you like money back from the government? The man whose idea it is is not Elon, is not Donald Trump. It is James Fishback. And I got him. Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. What is the virtue behind the dividend check? How do these tariffs and the Trump administration policies really intend to make the lives of American workers and consumers better? James Fishback is new on the political scene, but he is the big, shiny name from the Trump administration, even though he doesn't work for it. Who came up with this idea? Where does he come from? How did he get this idea? And why does he believe that this administration's on the right track? Let's get after it. Mr. Fishback, thank you very much for taking the opportunity.

[James Fishback]

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[Chris Cuomo]

Chris, I was trying to figure out why I know who you are. I guess the dividend check was really your introduction to us. But how did you get into the world of Doge and Trump and politics? How did this happen?

[James Fishback]

It goes back a long way. I can't go that back far.

[Chris Cuomo]

You're 29 years old.

[James Fishback]

Yeah, just turned 30, so. In a new decade, Chris. But, you know, I guess to answer that question, I have been getting closer and closer to politics now for the last couple of years. I think really the most recent chapter was when Bill Ackman introduced me to Vivek Ramaswamy over email in early 2023, just as he announced his presidential run. And then I started spending a lot of time with him, advising the campaign, traveling with him. I'd always been a conservative, but this was the first time I'd actually seen policy and politics up close. And then, of course, when President Trump announced the creation of Joj and Vivek and Elon as being a part of it, I got more closely involved. And so I guess that answers the question on the proximate cause.

[Chris Cuomo]

James, do you have anything to do with Doge? Officially, no.

[James Fishback]

I'm not on the payroll at all. This proposal came from our investment firm, Azoria As I brought up, and when we first talked about it, it literally came to me in a dream. I think it speaks to the kind of crazy dreams that I had doing econ policy analysis and macro investing for the past decade. But, no, I'm not formally a part of the Department of Government Efficiency. I'm a concerned American. Like millions of us who wanted to put a proposal forth, we did that, and I'm honored that Elon and the president support it.

[Chris Cuomo]

So Mr. Fishback is known for the idea of the Doge dividend check, that the American taxpayers should get a check back. Great. Donald Trump's name should be on it. I don't think he'd allow it to go down any other way. Do you think it is going to happen? And are you concerned that your idea gave an expectation to outcomes that may not be reasonable given the state of play within our government so much there?

[James Fishback]

Yes, I really do believe it will happen. And I've got unique information because I've been on the Hill for the last two weeks, meeting with members in the House and the Senate, got some really good constructive feedback, but overwhelmingly, really positive support on this proposal. It's common sense, Chris. When the government saves money, the government doesn't make its own money. This is taxpayer money. It ought to send some of that back to the taxpayers who sent it to D.C. in the first place. And so your second question about an expectation, I would just push back on that, respectfully, because I am very optimistic this will happen. Of course, there are some folks. Speaker Johnson, I just had a nice little email exchange with his team about some feedback, and we're answering that now. But I got to tell you, when you have the support of a president who won the way that he did, the support of Elon Musk, the support of the Cabinet, of Secretary Besson, of Kevin Hassett, who leads the nec, we're going to make the best case for this. I don't rest on the laurels of President Trump's support for it. I still have to make the best argument possible, and that's what we're doing. I got to tell you, Chris, let's be honest. When's the last time an economic policy proposal got this much national coverage from just everyday Americans, not just folks in my circle or yours, but to have Charlemagne the God? And I'm looking through TikTok and Instagram, there are thousands of videos every day from hardworking folks saying, this is why I need a Doge dividend. So I'm not going to let them down. I'm Working every day. It's the first thing I think about. The last thing I think about is every single morning and evening, how can we get this across the line for Americans?

[Chris Cuomo]

How does it. Why is it on you, though, James? You're not working for Doge, you're not working for the government. This was your idea. Good for you. Good idea. But why do you have to lobby for it? And in whose name are you lobbying?

[James Fishback]

I'm lobbying on behalf of Americans. I get 100 emails a day minimum from people saying, here's my unique situation, here's why I could really use the check. And most people are. They're saying, I took on a lot of debt, Chris. They say because of the Biden Harris inflation, I need to pay that debt off. I didn't take off the debt because I wanted to buy a new Lamborghini or I wanted to go out to eat or go to Vegas. I took on the debt because prices went up so much that my credit card bills and the interest went up as a result. And so I feel responsible to the folks who are reaching out to me. The second is because I'm a believer that ideas are a dime a dozen. If I just put this idea out there and had nothing to do with it beyond proposing it, I shouldn't get and I shouldn't feel responsible for it. But I want to take this all the way through. I view it as almost a civic obligation to not just introduce something, but I'm a big believer of execution. Uber. As you know, Chris wasn't the first company to want to put people in cars and take them from A to B. Their success was execution. Apple, Chris was not the first company with a touchscreen phone. Their success was execution. And so what will define the legacy of this proposal is not that it got introduced and created a three week viral moment for Azoria, and for me, it's that it got introduced, it got passed, and millions of hardworking folks across this country, whether they voted for President Trump or not, got a check because they overpaid their taxes and now they need some support from D.C. why did.

[Chris Cuomo]

You pick the name Azoria?

[James Fishback]

I picked the name Azoria because it's a combination of the old world and the new world. Azoria is the name of an archaeological site on the island of Crete about 3,000 years before the birth of Christ. And it was actually way ahead of its time. And so I think that we are investment firm that is both rooted in the old world wisdom of we think for ourselves. And just because Wall street is having a Little bit of a temper tantrum or is subscribed to a particular popular idea doesn't mean we should. We truly do think for ourselves in everything that we do. And then that's the old world wisdom, the classic liberalism. But the new world is we're also thinking deep into the future. We're not investing for the next quarter or even the next year. We're looking at Tesla's valuation or America's prosperity, 10, 15 years out. And our investments reflect that.

[Chris Cuomo]

Smart criticism of Doge finding waste, fraud and abuse. Nobody's gonna be against that. Nobody's ever been against it. As, you know, as a student of politics, people always promise it, especially around entitlements, in terms of what to do. And every time someone looks for it, they never fail to find it. The criticism would be how Doge is going about it, especially when they're gonna be so dependent on Congress. Do you believe that? They should have been quieter about their work. Go through, get your list, go to Congress, see what you can get approved, and then brag.

[James Fishback]

I don't. I think they've done it pretty darn perfectly by just rolling up their sleeves and getting the work done. The problem, as you know, Chris, is that a camel is a horse orchestrated by committee. The more people that you involve in this process, the slower it will be and the longer it will take to cut the waste, fraud and abuse and to deliver for Americans. And so I got to tell you, Article 1 gives Congress the power of the purse. Not just the power to spend from the purse, but the power to tighten the purse strings. That has not happened. The government is spending literally 50% more today than they were in 2019. We don't have to roll back the clock 30 years to get to fiscal sustainability or to a balanced budget. We got to roll back the clock five years. And so as much as I want Congress to be a part of the solution, longer term, presently, they're kind of part of the problem, because there shouldn't even have to be doge in the first place. Congress should have looked at all this USAID stuff, looked at the fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and said enough is enough, and really tightened the purse strings. So I think Doge has done it dead right. There's obviously going to be some need for the scalpel, as President Trump said, that there needs to be coordination, and there continues to be between Cabinet secretaries and their respective funding. But I truly wouldn't have it any other way. The fact that some people are upset about this, I gotta Tell you the Constitution. I have it right here on my desk. I looked at the Bill of Rights this morning when I walked in. There is no constitutional right for a federal worker to keep their job if it's no longer needed. True, I understand it. I grew up. My parents lost their job in the Great Recession. I grew up for a large part of my life on government programs like food stamps after 2008. But as the economy changes or the needs of the government change, folks got to be let go. And that makes for a leaner government, and that's respectful for taxpayers.

[Chris Cuomo]

Listen, I'm with it, but isn't there a little bit of a boogeyman in the size of the federal government? It's been basically the same size for the last 30, 40 years. What else can you say that about? In fact, there are fewer employees now than there were at other points earlier in our history. Not to say that you shouldn't lean down, but to point at it like it is the symbol of waste in government. I don't know about that. And my concern about Doge. So you can address both of these. You know, one, federal workers aren't the problem specifically. Second, Doge keeps getting shit wrong. James. And if they just did it and then got it all right and came out with it once, instead of Elon having to wave around a chainsaw, you wouldn't get as much scrutiny.

[James Fishback]

Yeah. So let me start with the Doge getting stuff wrong. Of course Doge has gotten stuff wrong. I mean, what. What government agency hasn't? Right? What? What's gotten stuff wrong is the fact that you've got three times as many credit cards as you have employees at some of these cabinet positions. What's gotten stuff wrong was Sesame street to Iraq. So everyone's going to get stuff wrong. Chris, what I think the issue is is that at least Doge is admitting it. When Elon gets something wrong, the website is updated within a couple of days. The fact that we even know that Doge is getting stuff wrong is because they're telling us and updating the site accordingly. So I'm not going to hold Doge, and I don't think any American should to this perfection standard, because no part of government is going to get it right all the time. The second point is you're right. The number of employees in the federal government certainly hasn't gone up materially. But what we do care about, two things has gone up. The amount of government spending has gone up, and part of that is enabled by the number of employees who oversee and Execute on that spending. And two, and this is directly in tied to employee headcount is regulations. Regulations have gone up by 8 to 10 times since the mid 20th century. So in less than 70 years, we have 10 times as more regulations on the books. Who enforces those regulations are the people. I think most government workers are hardworking patriots who were put in a position by their bosses to do things that were not necessarily good for the country. So I don't see anybody necessarily demonizing government employees from the top. I see some accounts here and there on Twitter doing xyz. But most government workers are hardworking folks. A lot of them voted for President Trump. A lot of them actually support this. And no one wishes them any, any ill will. But we just have to be honest that no. Cutting government employees isn't a way to necessarily reduce government spend. But a lot of the government spend in regulation, Chris, that's holding back the country is directly tied to that headcount. And so by reducing regulations, you have to reduce the bureaucrats who are overseeing and enforcing them. And I don't talk about clean air and clean water. I talk about the pointless regulations that tell local schools how to run themselves. Not from Bentonville, but from D.C. and so that's what we get at. I have respect for government workers, but I think we have to be honest about the system that is just really not working for most people. And part of that is saying gotta take some people off the court. If we end up putting them back, that's that we're gonna obviously err on the side of taking folks few more off than we would than we otherwise might have. But we can always hire them back if we need to. But I think that the regulation and the spending is really what should we. We should be optimizing for. Certainly laying off every single federal government employee does not get us to a balanced budget. Nowhere near that. But it's the fact that a lot of the government excess in spending, Chris, is enabled by those employees. And at a time of artificial intelligence, I got to be honest, a lot of that work is not just going to be cheaper, but it's going to be a heck of a lot more effective to have AI audit large businesses for fraud as opposed to an individual who's going to have a ton of work on their plate and may see things that I might otherwise catch.

[Chris Cuomo]

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[James Fishback]

Gotta sleep.

[Chris Cuomo]

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[James Fishback]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

What changed is the pandemic. And there was a huge balloon in payment, Right? Dumped a lot of money into the economy several different ways. Nobody complained about that at the time. Now we, we look at it a little differently. I don't remember anybody giving the money back or refusing to take it. But the spending has kept up since the pandemic. So that is a structural issue for sure. But we haven't had balanced budgets for a long time. And in fact, among Republicans, Donald Trump distinguished himself in 2016 and 2017 by cutting taxes that weren't paid for and spending in a way that Republicans usually don't. How do you see that part?

[James Fishback]

I, I see it as if you look at President Trump's first term, I don't think we could have fully said obviously that we saw the economic benefits of the tax cuts because we had a little thing called the pandemic that hit in January 2020. So you want to talk about government debt accumulated under President Trump's first term. Half of the debt, half of the total debt was due to Covid. Half of it. We would have certainly seen the positive economic effects had this once in a century pandemic. Not just the virus itself, but the global government response immediately after the pandemic hit that I think really threw things.

[Chris Cuomo]

How do you know that we would have seen the benefit to the tax cuts when they weren't paid for? And as you know, as a student of the game, tax cuts are completely strategic and as effective as they are targeted. Right. It's got to be the right time on the right group and in the right way. Why do you assume we definitely would have seen the benefits to those?

[James Fishback]

Yeah, that's a really good question and it's not a necessarily easy one. It's an art, not a science. So the tax cuts were passed in December of 2017. What did the economy do between December of 2017 and December of 2019? Because certainly the pandemic didn't hit two months later. We have two years of economic data. We added about two and a half million people to the payrolls who weren't on them before. So that's a good check. We want to continue to see that happening. Of course, the pandemic threw that off. We saw GDP growth continue to tick up over that two year period. And I want to point on the unemployment picture for just a moment because as you've covered that, the unemployment statistics don't give us the full picture. Right. To be considered as unemployed in America, you have to have been looking for work in the past four years. What we saw in the two years after those tax cuts was people who had been out of the labor force, who had not been looking for work for months or up to several years, actually come back. And there were headlines from late 2019 that read that the. The number of African Americans working relative to the standard. Right. The African American unemployment rate relative to the national aver had tightened to the tightest on record that the number of folks with felony convictions, which historically have been stigmatized. I think, wrongly, if you made a mistake 40 years ago, Chris, you don't deserve to be punished with unemployment today. And so, by every metric, even progressive think tanks were lauding the tightness of the labor market after the tax cuts. And why is that? Because, very simply, when you bring down taxes, you're incentivizing folks to use those savings to expand their business and to bring on new employees. And what better way to bring on new employees than to reach out to people? As the labor market gets tighter, you don't just hire the people who are already hired, have been hired. You then reach out to the fringes, folks who had not gotten a fair shot for a very long time. They now get to be part of the picture. And what's awesome, Chris, is the second and third order benefits. When you get somebody who was relegated to eight years of unemployment, who now gets a job, what does that do for them? But more importantly, what does that do for their daughter, their family, her prospects for high school graduation, and so on and so forth? And so this was a good economy back under Trump's first term. Of course, the pandemic changed all of that. And we can debate the pandemic responses. You were certainly in the thick of it, covering it, but at the end of the day, we were on track for a pretty good recovery. And of course, the pandemic was, was responsible for derailing that.

[Chris Cuomo]

Well, the pandemic had many different effects. Right. Because you wound up dumping a lot of money into the economy that a lot of economists depend on to show the results of the tax cuts. So it depends on how you want to analyze it. But the trend was, your friend, you inherited a good economy. So you don't know if it was the tax cuts because you had the momentum already coming in since 2007, 2009. Right.

[James Fishback]

I don't know that we want to go back all the way to 2009 and President Obama and then attribute for things that happened literally, Chris, a decade later in 2019.

[Chris Cuomo]

No, I'm not. I'm saying starting with the Great Recession, which was a bottom right, and that was under Bush, not Obama. But then you started to have the economy rebuild and the momentum carried into the Trump administration.

[James Fishback]

Yeah, I think the issue with that argument is it would be one thing if the momentum continued, but continued at a similar pace or even slowed a bit. It's that the momentum actually inflected upward and we saw faster pace of job gains under President Trump's term than we did under the last year or so of President Obama's term. So I don't see how it can be Obama's economy, economic recovery if things picked up faster under Trump than they did under the last period of Obama. Right. We're not going to compare Obama's first two years to Trump's first two years. But if you look at the immediate period, the last two years of Obama versus the last two years of Trump, rather the first two years of Trump, which is an immediate kind of apples to apples comparison, the economy was in better shape then.

[Chris Cuomo]

But it was a continuation of a trend, is what I'm saying.

[James Fishback]

Well, I mean, that's one way to spin it. I think it's a continuation of a trend. But I think that if the trend actually picks up after major policy changes have been put in place and that trend starts to inflect upward and accelerate more positively, then you have to look at the causal changes under the new administration and attribute them. I mean, certainly the mainstream media today, as the market's selling off, is not blaming President Biden that somehow Trump inherited that. They're calling and saying, look, as a transition period. I'll tell you, even the President is not saying that. Right? The President is not saying, well, this is Joe Biden's fault. What the President is saying is we are undergoing a major economic transition, a major economic transformation. And anytime you have that, when you wean off of certain policies like globalization, like offshoring, then there's going to be some, some volatility. And I support what the President has said is that we don't really care about the stock market. We care about real economic indicators. That's the right now.

[Chris Cuomo]

Right. Nobody's ever talked about the stock market more than Donald Trump does when it suits him. But that is politics. I don't fault him for playing politics. That's what politicians do. But wanting to deglobalize, or the reciprocal way of saying that is to invest in isolationism, okay, you'll see how it turns out. It's the onshoring part that I don't understand. And I don't understand when the administration officials say, well, we did it in the first term. No, you didn't. You promised it, but you had the pandemic. But before the pandemic, you were not bringing jobs back because people know why jobs left. It's not just low labor costs, it's innovation. And there's a lesser need for jobs now of a certain variety. So it's about whether or not. You're investing to create those new jobs, which is very expensive and hard to do. But what is the onshoring part of it? Like what is he doing to make on shoring a thing?

[James Fishback]

Well, on shoring, we're not doing it for onshoring's sake. We're doing it because we want to. One, reduced dependency on foreign adversaries. 90% of antibiotics come from China. There was a huge antibiotic shortage, a huge PPE shortage. Chris, you covered this in the early months of the pandemic. We don't want to depend on foreign adversaries in the time of a pandemic or war or natural disaster. So it makes good sense to reduce our dependency on the world. That's the national security article.

[Chris Cuomo]

Well, not on the world. On the adversaries.

[James Fishback]

On the adversaries, but also I think generally, I mean, even if you weren't an adversary, you're going to want to hoard things right in the time of crisis. If, if your people need them, we would do the same. Right? I mean, we want to reduce that dependency. And so that's, that's the first thing. The second, and that's a national security argument. The second thing, Chris, is we have a choice when it comes to trade. We don't have free trade. Right now I'm all for free trade. We don't have free trade. We don't have free trade when Canada is charging 250% on certain dairy products. We don't have fair trade when our auto manufacturers can't sell into China unless they're forced into a dis advantageous joint venture with a Chinese country where they pretty much have to sell off the farm. In terms of intellectual property, that's not free trade. So I love the idea of free trade that you and I studied in our Econ 101 textbook many moons ago. We don't have that system. And so what Trump is saying is if we're going to get back to that system, we will. But in the meantime, in between time, we have to adjust and to remove effectively the rigging of the global economy against American workers and against American companies.

[Chris Cuomo]

China. China. I'm with you. You got to figure that out. I don't know what the answers are. I'm not in the answers business. Canada, I don't understand as an analog, Canada is our number one customer. 99% of the goods that go between the two are untarriffed. The 200% number that you cite is accurate, comma, but misleading because as we both know, There's a quota involved, and until the quota is reached, there is no tariff above that amount. There becomes a tariff which is high. And that is Canada's choice in terms of how to protect its industry the way we do with soft woods and other things with Canada. Why are you painting Canada as a bad guy like they're like China when they're not like China fishback? Why are you chinesing the Canadians?

[James Fishback]

Not chinesing the Canadians, Chinese, the Canadians fishback.

[Chris Cuomo]

I just want to know why. No, go ahead, go ahead.

[James Fishback]

Make it pretty good. I'm chinesing the Canadians.

[Chris Cuomo]

You can have that.

[James Fishback]

You know, Chris, I think that, no, Canada's behavior is not on the level of China's behavior. But I don't want to give Trudeau and now Prime Minister Mark Carney a free pass on this. Here's the truth. The number of border crossings in Canada from the northern border went up not five fold or tenfold. They went up 50 fold under Biden over the past five years. Fentanyl, as a result, went up more than 100 fold. And you say, well, it's only 50 pounds or whatever. That's enough to kill 5 million people in America. So, as you know, and you've covered, Chris, the fentanyl picture is not to be minimized or explained away by pounds or ounces. This stuff is so deadly that it's killing 200Americans.

[Chris Cuomo]

You're right.

[James Fishback]

Right. Most of whom, Chris, don't even know they're taking fentanyl.

[Chris Cuomo]

Right.

[James Fishback]

It's that heroin that got adulterated. Or the. In the case of a young kid who thought they were buying an Adderall or a Percocet to try something. And look, it's a dumb decision to make, but you're allowed to make dumb decisions in America and not end up in a body bag for it.

[Chris Cuomo]

Agreed.

[James Fishback]

So Canada is responsible in large part for not securing its northern border for the flow of people and the flow of drugs. They're clearly not at the level of China. But this back and forth, look, what Ontario did, that was completely inexcusable. I mean, that in another time, Chris, is almost an act of war is to withdraw and to embargo the flow of energy, the flow of electricity to a neighboring country. So we want to put these things in context. President Trump has a trade negotiating strategy. He's privy to details that just you and I aren't, and so we'll let that be. But at the end of the day, we have a choice. Do we want to prioritize cheap Goods from China or Canada or wherever. Or do we want to prioritize every high school graduate in our country having gainful employment? Because I don't think you can have both. I don't think you can say we want the cheapest air fryers and the cheapest sneakers. And also say the men in Appalachia and the women in Monroe, Louisiana, they also need to have good paying jobs. Nike makes exactly 0% of their shoes in America, right? New balance makes exactly 25% of their shoes in America. Chris, if you and I were to take a stroll down to Westfield and Lower Manhattan, you know, there's not a big discrepancy between those two. They're both good quality shoes. I would argue that New Balance is higher quality and yet one in four of their shoes is made right here in America. If New Balance can do it, so can Nike. If Tesla can make every single car they manufacture is and sell in America is manufactured in America. So can Toyota, Honda and Ford. So we've got to be honest about the fact that yes, innovation manufacturing is not just. It's not like a theoretical. It can happen in America, it is happening in America. But companies have the wrong incentives in place. And tariff is just a disincentive. It tells companies, if you want to keep doing things that are disadvantaged, that are going to disadvantage Americans in the American economy, go ahead and keep doing them. But we're going to collect revenue. If you want to hire in America and you want to build in America, there's a benefit. There's a benefit to that. Chris. The opioid crisis. Chris, can we be honest? The opioid crisis. There are 7 million working age men in America who are not working. Half of them, according to Princeton University, the late Alan Krueger, he studied this. Half of them are taking daily opioid painkillers. So there is a, there is a correlation and a causation between the lack of manufacturing jobs in America and opioid addiction. We would not be losing 200Americans every day if a large portion of them actually had work to do. They don't.

[Chris Cuomo]

Maybe correlation's not always causation. You know, the same trite but true thing. Lot to unpack there. Ontario. I explain as the don't start none, won't be none. You know, you can't do what Trump is doing and expect everybody to just take it in the hiney. You know, somebody's gonna, they're gonna muscle up. Especially that guy up there is a little bit of a tough guy also. We learned about him through his brother. Right. And his ill fated demise, Rob Ford. So Canada is complex because Trump is messing with an ally in a way that we haven't seen before. And we'll see how it plays out. I am all with you. And I wish the President were all about this as well, but I do not know which is capitalism. Good capitalism, America, the two go together, have to go together. Okay? Period. Now, within that, what is capitalism? Here's what I don't believe is capitalism, which we allow to be you at Azoria, start hiring. You have thousands of employees. Half of them are on food stamps. There is no fucking way that capitalism embraces us subsidizing employees for successful businesses who distribute profits. Should you be able to distribute your profits to your shareholders? Of course you must. But when your profit margin involves a condition where your workers are being subsidized by the rest of the taxpayers, that's not capitalism. So I am with you. I am with you. I will pay more for those sneakers because if you're making them here, they're going to cost more than making them in China. I will do that. People are going to be price sensitive. I think that might be good for America. I think that you can invest in a lot of people's ideas that maybe we have too much shit, maybe we have too much cheap shit. Maybe if Americans had to pay more for stuff, it would be worth it on balance of what you get in terms of high paying jobs. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I do not know that the Trump administration is going to be different than any other administration in going after the dynamic that you and I have both identified.

[James Fishback]

Well, I think that the tariff policy is going after that. It might seem chaotic day to day, but we got to zoom out and look at the big picture of our, of our trade deficit and the fact that large parts of this country have been hollowed out. I mean, go to somewhere like east Palestine or the outside outskirts of New Haven and see what were once textile mills, where shoes were manufactured, where goods were manufactured. And your point on correlation causation? I would just push back on that respectfully and say that the hardest hit areas in the opioid crisis used to be manufacturing powerhouses across this country. So there, there certainly is causation there that when you unemploy people and send their jobs overseas to make cheaper sneakers and goods, that they now turn to this poison, which, by the way, they're enabled so much cheaper.

[Chris Cuomo]

I'm with, because I'm with you. With despair. And unfortunately, I would. I will. Given your age and your success already, I doubt you have the experience with the drug world that I do. But let me tell you, fentanyl is the boogeyman of all boogeymen. It is cheap, it is deadly, and it is so easy to make. I've never seen anything like it. And there's no question that it's uniquely pernicious. But I'll tell you two things. One more fentanyl goes from the US into Canada than the other way. But it's still a border issue that they have to deal with. And I don't have any problem focusing on the northern border. I think we have ignored it for the wrong reasons and for too long. Also, the good news is fentanyl overdoses are on the decline. Why? Awareness. One of the good things about the media awareness, Narcan and a little bit enforcement. Very, very, very little. It's more people becoming savvy. Who are the kids who are going out who are thinking twice about taking a pill? So more of a complex picture. I don't disagree that despair is an absolute avenue to addiction. I'm with you. And fentanyl is an easy reach because it's so cheap and it's so many different places that it's having a disproportionate effect. I'm with you. However, explain to me how the tariffs do more in terms of bringing back good paying jobs than they do just raising prices.

[James Fishback]

Well, it's Econ 101, Chris. If you're a company and you are saying we used to make these shoes, we used to make these goods here in America and if we continue to make them in Vietnam or in China, we are going to have to pay 25% more. If we make them here, we're going to have to pay 10% more. The obvious trade is to reopen that factory and keep it going. It's also, Chris, an incentive for startups all across the country to say, hey, look, my competitor continues to rely on essentially slave later labor in Gwangju or in Shenzhen or in Xinjiang. And my competitor is now being appropriately taxed to reflect the actual cost of these goods. And then now their goods are 25% more expensive. Guess what? I could start a company, I can make these shoes only 10% more expensive. And that's the difference. I love your point, by the way, on materialism and consumerism. We so quickly turn to uniqlo or to Forever 21 or H& M and buy this cheap T shirt and then throw it away in six months and buy this cheap dress shirt and throw it away in eight months. Why don't we get some high quality dress shirts made right here in America that are going to last three times as long. And you know what, Chris? When something lasts three times as long, it should be three times as more expensive. But you and I both know making a dress shirt right here in America would not be three times more expensive. And so we got to zoom out, look in the mirror and say, so much of our consumption is linked to cheap crap.

[Chris Cuomo]

Yes.

[James Fishback]

Coming from China.

[Chris Cuomo]

But I got to tell you, James, I think we lose. I think if there is a fishback for whatever, and I'm one of your advisors and we're pushing this, I think we get our ass kicked by a guy or a woman who says, look at fish back in Cuomo trying to make you spend even more money for stuff that you could get cheap. Now I feel like we lose. How do you win with the pay more argument? Are we betting too much? Are you and I too romantic when it comes to our notions about patriotism and that people will be like, fishback, I love you. Glad you're so successful. Keep your hands out of my fucking pocket. I'm buying my cheap ass sneakers from China. Thanks.

[James Fishback]

Yeah, yeah. There's two things there, Chris. The first of which is I don't even want to concede that they're going to pay more. Really? Because I mean, new balances aren't more expensive than nikes and net 25% of those shoes are made here in America. So let's not even concede that point. The second point is ultimately I don't want to rely on this patriotist, you know, this patriotic buy because it's America and pound your chest on July 4th. Do what's right because it's right for you. You know, that Chinese crap is going to break down in six months. Why not buy an American made good? Teslas are the best cars on the market. And I think it's not a coincidence that they're also made in America. My car, my Tesla Model 3, drives me everywhere. There's no car from Mexico or China, whether it's from an American company or not, that could do that. And so there's a benefit there. By the way, the Tesla, The Tesla Model 3 is 29,000 bucks, Chris. I mean, it's a cheap car. Some of these electric cars from GM and others, they're 50 grand and they don't have a type of autonomous technology. So actually it's not. It's actually cheaper in some cases and even a better quality product. And then the last point is I say to you, okay, maybe you do pay 5 to 10% more. You're not going to pay it as often, but you're going to have 7 million people potentially have jobs that otherwise might not. What do you tell a person who's not making anything right now? Then yeah, you'll have to pay 5% more for something, but it'll last you three times as long and you get a job as a result. So let's not speak, and I hate to use this leftist terminology, but let's not speak from a place of privilege, Chris, and say that we are assuming that the folks who are having this conversation are already gainfully employed and we know that millions of Americans aren't. They deserve gainful employment in our country. The last point I'll bring up is we are not a goods based economy. Only 10% of what we buy are goods. I didn't buy a single good today. I didn't even buy a single good. I think in the past week. I got an overpriced latte here, I went to lunch, I took the bus and I took an Uber today. That's all I've done. Most Americans are not buying air fryers every single day or tennis shoes every single day. What do we buy? We get haircuts, we have childcare, we take an Uber, we go out to eat, we go to the grocery store. Most of that stuff is right here in America. So let's not overstate the fact that we are somehow overly dependent on goods consumption. 10 cents of every dollar of the average American is spent on imported goods. And if that goes a little bit higher in the short term to reflect a major economic adjustment so millions more people can have a shot at gainful employment, I think that's the price to pay. And ultimately, as Thomas Sowell reminds us, there are no solutions, Chris. There are only trade offs. Are you willing to temporarily trade off a slightly more expensive T shirt and air fryer that by the way is perhaps more expensive but of a much higher quality in turn for millions of Americans to get jobs. If New Balance can make a quarter of their sneakers in America, so can Nike. If Tesla can make every single car they sell in America and manufacture it in America, so can Chevy and Ford. And let's hold companies to those standards. And the ripple effects, Chris, are huge. That despair is linked to economic, is linked to economic poverty. When we bring people jobs, they're less reliant on fentanyl they're less likely, right? The idle mind is the devil's playground. The idle mind is fentanyl's favorite place to be. And so think about all of the good we can do for society that is beyond quantitative economic metrics that will come from giving millions of people the dignity and purpose and self respect that comes with holding down a job, what that does for their families and communities.

[Chris Cuomo]

I think Tesla is a good example of the present, but also what you need in the future, which is, you're right, Tesla disproportionately compared to other automakers is domestically based. But when you get into the parts of the Tesla that make it arguably better than other cars, you're now dealing with more and more foreign sourced technological components which Tesla uses. And I'm not criticizing Tesla, everybody does. Those are the jobs. Those are the jobs. The jobs of the present and near and midterm future are the technological jobs that even Tesla has to buy a lot of that stuff abroad. And that's part of the riddle here of how do you get more of those jobs? You know, interestingly, Trump and Republicans shit all over Biden's Chip act, which was really a step in the right direction. If Trump did the exact same thing, he, you know, he would love that he did it. So a little bit of this is just, you know, the sport of who you get, who gets to get the win. But what do you do with that part of it that it's, I don't want to make sneakers, I want to make chips, I want to make technology. Because those are the jobs of the future. What do you do about that?

[James Fishback]

Well, what you do about it, same way you do about everything, is you, you make the case for companies to hire and to build in America and you can use the tax structure, you can use tariffs to do that. These tax cuts and Job act extension, what it does is it lowers the terror, lowers the tax rate. If you're a company that hires Americans, that builds in America, that manufactures here, you should have a lower tax rate because you're contrib contributing to our welfare, contributing to our workers in a way that a company who's employing entirely entire foreigners is not. You know, I think the point, by the way, I disagree with your point on the CHIPS Act. I think that the CHIPS act was largely a failure. I think that there's a difference between wanting to build chips in America and then paying companies like intel, which just been disastrous over the past two years for doing that. Look at what the Taiwan Semiconductor did just last month, $100 billion investment in America. What Microsoft and OpenAI and Nvidia have done with Stargate, a $500 billion investment. There's been 1.7 billion, rather $1.7 trillion of investments since President Trump won in November that have been made in America. Not one of them, Chris, was enticed with more government funding. When you have a better economic backdrop, when you have less regulation, when you have the prospect of a more pro growth president, that is how you incentivize new investment in America, new hiring of American workers, new manufacturing opportunities. And so I think you can do that not with the carrot, not with the stick, but by changing the paradigm for what it means to invest in America. And then I think the second point is, look, I don't want to speak for the president, but if every car company said that we're going to do final assembly in America, which is obviously not the case today, we're going to do final assembly in America and some portion of the parts are going to come from overseas, reflecting the obvious realities that some companies are better, some countries are better positioned in making those particular parts. So be it. Right? So be it. But final assembly, the vast majority of assembly, is possible here in America. The car started here. More cars have been made in our history right here in America than anywhere else. And that can continue to be the fact. And again, Tesla is a shining example of that. The smartest, most autonomous, most futuristic car in the world. Chris, without a doubt, whatever you think about Elon Musk, on any given day, the most futuristic car in the world is built either in Fremont or in Austin at Tesla by American workers who are actually getting a living wage. But yet, where is Bernie Sanders and AOC applauding Elon for making a great car at a great price and having his workers earn a really good wage in the process?

[Chris Cuomo]

They can't applaud him because they operate in a system with teams. And it's the same thing. The reason that Republicans and Trumpers these days, because now, you know, the party's been consumed by him. They don't applaud the left. There's no percentage in cooperation. The political commodity is opposition. Let me ask you this as the creator of the idea, the DOGE dividend check.

[James Fishback]

Yeah.

[Chris Cuomo]

Do you believe that that winds up being a reality at any real scale for Americans? Or do you think that even if there are, you know, surprising identification of waste, fraud and abuse, that the lawmakers will use it to lower spending or to use it for spending?

[James Fishback]

Well, certainly that was the default position, was to use this to lower spending or to cover things elsewhere? You know the. For all this talk about how we're some debt fueled economy and we rely on China to finance us, it's just the numbers don't bear that out. So here's the truth, Chris. Over the past five years the government has spent about $30 trillion. I'll just ask you what, how much of that do you think was borrowed money? A lot of 30 trillion we spent. How much was borrowed?

[Chris Cuomo]

A lot of it.

[James Fishback]

The old guess, rough number.

[Chris Cuomo]

The old majority was three out of every four dollars.

[James Fishback]

Okay, not true. 70% of it came from American taxpayers. Only 9 trillion of it was directly borrowed. We have this idea that we are somehow this massive.

[Chris Cuomo]

Oh, I thought you meant how much of what we spent was on debt. Debt meaning servicing our debt and buying treasuries to cover our spending. I'm sorry I misunderstood your question, but go ahead, make your point.

[James Fishback]

I guess the point is, is that 70% of what the government spends is funded directly by taxpayers. So when there is waste, fraud and abuse, when taxpayer money is misused the way it has been, when folks feel like they've been cheated, then it's time to pay them restitution. Not just for restitution's sake, but if you're a government, don't take your taxpayer for granted. Don't take that hard working mom in East Baltim or that hardworking dad in East Palestine. Don't take them for granted. For the first time in our 250 years as a country, we're going to tell the taxpayer we're sorry we misspent your money. We abused your gratitude. We don't make money on our own. We rely entirely on you. It's time to send you back some of the savings. It's just good math and I would say to anybody, and I've said this to members on the Senate and the House, is that if you have some degree of savings, you got two choices here. Do you want to send it back to hardworking taxpayers who represent 70% of how we spend and how we fund our government or do you want to send it to Beijing to cover some bill that we have with them? Let's, I mean truth. That's the truth, Chris. If you are saying you want to entirely pay down the debt. By the way, we say 80% of it should be used for debt and deficit reduction. But why can't 20% of it, for every $5 we save, $1 goes back to taxpayers. Why do all $5 have to go to The Chinese who hold our debt, let's send it back to hardworking taxpayers who sent it to D.C. in the first place. They did not send it to be abused. And so that's what I would. Those are the conversations I'm having with folks who are, who are pushing back and we're going to try to win hearts and minds. I'm a high school debater. I was a national champion many moons ago. My emphasis has always been may the best argument win. And Chris, I tell you with humility, I think we've got the best argument. We got the winning argument on our side for the Doge dividend. And I gotta make that argument in front as many people as possible. And I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity today to do that.

[Chris Cuomo]

Mr. Fishback, you are always welcome to make your arguments and there are tougher arguments to make than do you want to check back from the government? It's whether or not the lawmakers will do it. But right now you're in a climate where people don't trust government. They're being told by their president and the administration not to trust government. So we're in a disruption cycle. People will be uniquely motivated to get something back. Right now the question is how does it work out for everybody as we get more facts on the ground? Mr. Fishback, you are welcome back here and with me at News Nation to make the case.

[James Fishback]

I appreciate it, Chris. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

[Chris Cuomo]

Interesting. Would you pay more if it meant more good paying jobs in America? Do we need less cheap shit? It's weird. It's a weird thing to think about. I don't know about politically. What do you think? Thank you for subscribing and following. Please get your free agent gear. It's cheap shit made in China, but it sends the right message, which is that you are an independent critical thinker. You're a free agent, not co opted like some lemming who's party first, thinking second. Thank you for checking me out on News Nation at 8p and 11p every weekday night. And if you like the podcast but you don't like the ads, subscribe on Substack and you'll also get all the stuff I'm doing to get in shape for bikini season and all the longevity stuff. I've learned about my long Covid and managing it from my own doctor who is a research expert in the area of long Covid. My friends, the challenges are real. Let's get after it.