← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
It's a Numbers Game: The Numbers Behind America’s Tech Economy, AI Disruption, and the Millennial Wealth Gap
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Ryan Graduski
Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Graduski. Thank you guys for being here. We have an amazing show up for you guys today. A big guest coming up and a lot of data to break. So let's really get into it. On Monday's episode, I talked a lot about affordability. It's the buzzword right now, especially since Mandani won the New York City's mayoral election. I received a lot of feedback about young people, especially how they feel in the economy, the worries with their ability to live and buy a home and the worry AI is going to wreak havoc on their opportunities going forward. And I have data on it, but I think that's a really good thing to kind of hone into and think about right now. And I want to use a pop culture reference to really a misunderstanding of how young people are doing financially in this moment. Let's go all the way back to January 2025, right? The world was shaken and it wasn't about the upcoming midterms or about the Iraq war. No. It was an announcement that came out that America's sweethearts Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were breaking up because he had cheated on her with Angelina Jolie. The concept entered the American zeitgeist afterwards known as Sad Jennifer. Right. Jennifer Aniston has been two decades since she broke up with her then husband, Brad Pitt. But that she's sad and it lingers in the Air to this date follows her that Jennifer Aniston is sad because her marriage didn't work and she didn't get to have children. And whether it's true or not true, I don't. I don't know Jennifer Aniston. But it doesn't make a difference because the narrative prevails. Jennifer Aniston is sad and she'll never really find happiness. That same prevailing narrative was created just a few years later around the global financial crisis, about millennials, the poor millennial. Like sad Jennifer, poor millennial. The words just kind of always fit together. Millennials enter the workforce at a really bad time. There's kind of no way to shake it. They'll never be able to get ahead. Is what the pervasive idea was after that happened, that they're always going to spend their money on toast and they're just going to live in dead and in their mom's basement, and it's just going to linger with them forever. That prevailing narrative somehow carry though into Generation Z, the generation afterwards who were just children when the global financial crisis happened, that didn't have to look for a job when unemployment was heading into the double digits. I don't know how they got lumped into it, but they've been lumped into it. And while I think it's true that millennials like myself definitely got a rough hand as when they were going to sit there and join the economy and become adults, millennial men actually earn the most amount of money of any generation, adjusted for inflation at this point in their lives. In their late 30s, millennial women lag behind men, but they still make more money on average than most other generations. Women, right? Not Gen X, they're like the one exception, but baby boomer women, for sure, there were less of them working. I'll put that caveat in there. But anyways, besides, besides just that point that millennial men make all this money, there has been massive rebounds in general and wealth creation since the since the COVID pandemic. According to the Federal Reserve, Generation Z is set to outpace millennials to actually make more money than them. This is even true when you compare across different economic distributions. Right? So poor millennials make more money at this point in life than poor baby boomers. Wealthy millennials make more money than wealthy baby boomers at this point in their life, on average. Now, I'm not trying to paint it incredibly rosy picture. I'm not saying we haven't had high inflation. We definitely have had. We've had some rough years, right? But Things aren't as bad for Millennials and Gen Z as some people in the media suggest. We're not in the same situation that young people were, let's say, 100 years ago, growing up during the Great Depression. The one key area of wealth generation that hasn't kept up for millennials and Gen Z, though is housing. Data from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis shows that the national median sales price on a house in the US reach $410,000 in Q2 of 2025. Additionally, Zillow, the website Zillow that I'm up at 4 o' clock in the morning searching for houses that I can't afford. That website put that home values have increased by 45% since 2020, obviously unsustainable for people trying to buy their first house. Zoning laws are often blamed for this. Right? You can't build in a number of places like San Francisco, which is 100% true. But a big driver for that population growth is also mass immigration. We are increasing the population at an unnaturally faster rate. If you just had births versus deaths, our population would be increasing. But bringing in more than 1.1 million legal immigrants per year is making the situation much harder. It's not just a supply issue when it comes to housing, it is also a demand issue. The demand grows as the population grows, and it grows primarily by immigration, not to mention corporations and foreigners buying up housing. So young people, long and short of it, have made big advances in the last 20 years. And when I say young people, people under 40 or around 40, for millennials, we are middle aged guys. Sorry to break it to you, it's hard for me to deal with sometimes too. I've actually been saying I've been middle aged for a while now. So that way when I'm like real thick in the middle ageness, it won't affect me because I've been saying since I was like 33 Anyway, we have made big gains as a generation since the Great Recession, which is good. There's are growing concerns though that those gains are going to slide because of AI. We're going to be in an era soon where AI, you know, may take millions or tens of millions of jobs and bring unemployment to much higher. Big corporations are investing heavily into into AI. Research shows that research into AI and generative AI spending, the amount of spending spent into those initiatives is probably the one thing keeping the US out of a recession. They spent 300 companies, spent 375 billion on AI research in 2025. And it's expected to Hit half a trillion dollars in 2026. Here's how Dan Ivers, Managing director of Wed Bush securities, put it. Quote, it's the start of trillions being spent in this, in this build out for a fourth industrial revolution. Big tech right now is doing the equivalent of building up Vegas in the 1950s when there was just sand or Dubai 30 years ago. That's what's happening with the AI infrastructure built out from chips to the data centers to the grid. You're really building out the future economy for consumers and enterprises. He added, well, that's great for the GDP overall, right? But is it great for workers? Is it great for employees? Is it great for the person trying to make a life for themselves and either build just, you know, enough capital, buy a house and a car and sustain a family, or is it, you know, or people trying to build generational wealth, something that, you know, a lot of Americans aspire to. Proponents of AI say that whenever new technology comes around, some old jobs are wiped out, but there's new opportunities that we have yet to foresee, things we can't possibly imagine. A study from Stanford University researchers back in August concluded there's been a substantial decline in employment for early career workers in occupations most exposed to AI, such as software development and customer service. But job growth has continued. Entry level employment has declined in applications of AI and automated work, but those effects are kind of muted or when they're augmented. For when people learn how to work with AI, the job losses aren't as severe as people who are not trained at all in AI. Studies from MIT and the RAND organization found that the most of the investments in AI that companies have had have shown very little to no returns and they're slow to integrate AI into their businesses. So maybe the fears of the sky is falling aren't as founded as possible because corporations are being very slow to implement this, that they haven't worked out. 95% of this investment has worked out. And there is the fear of the, of the economic bubble of AI. Will that take things back a few more years? While AI is slower than some people had expected, it's clearly going in one direction though, right? It's like the Internet. The Internet had a bubble, but the Internet continued. And we're going to affect the way we work and our economy, but it's also going to affect our politics, which is where my brain always goes in. What happens when there's a permanent unemployment of, let's say, 10 to 20% of the workforce? And what, what happens when millions of people can't find, especially young people, cannot find work and thus can't afford to have a life. They can't afford a family. They can't afford a house, they can't afford a car. They can't afford that avocado toast that millennials have been eating for 30 years. According to some baby boomers, their politics will shift to become more progressive or more radical in any kind of direction. Right? That's not to say that money can't be created because this AI revolution, it just may be too concentrated among the very wealthy. And those left behind who can't get job will not be angry by it. The Trump administration is really having an accelerationist view on AI, right? Go all in. We have to be China in this race against China. And a lot of voters, including in private polling that I've seen are asking really, why? Why does it matter? I don't understand. There's more fear out of AI than I think there is optimism, whether that is good founded or unfounded or bad or whatnot. I'm just telling you the data as it is. And I think that progressives are starting to look at the temperature in the room and saying we need to have an answer to that call to the AI revolution, to what's happening to jobs. And I think that they're really already testing the waters on it. With me on today's episode is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and he has a progressive message on AI. His conversation, I hope, will bring insight to how Democrats, especially left wing Democrats, progressive Democrats, will approach this policy going forward and what it could mean for politics in general and who's really answering people's anxiety. That's coming up next Time for a sofa upgrade.
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Ryan Graduski
Congressman Ro Khanna has represented California's 17 districts since 2017. It's known as the trillion dollar district as it's home to so many tech companies. Congressman, thank you for being here.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, thank you, I appreciate it.
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Ryan Graduski
Well, first I want to ask you about how you think AI is currently affecting the economy, especially when it comes to wages and job growth. Because there's a big difference between GDP as a whole and jobs and wages specifically.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Well, I think it's had a bifurcated effect. On the one hand, you've had obviously a data center build out a huge capex expenditure that's created some jobs for electricians, for unions, for people who are building these centers. And there's also been huge wealth generation for for those who have invested in AI, who are developing AI and who are in the capital class. On the other hand, it is already starting to have an automation impact, making it harder for entry level jobs, particularly for kids graduating from school, making it harder for people who are being displaced. And it is creating anxiety for many people about whether they'll have good paying jobs in in the future. Yeah.
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Ryan Graduski
You've tweeted this thing called the New Deal for AI and what you said was this, you've called for an AI jobs, New Deal future workforce administration hires for young graduates and displaced workers in care jobs, government services, national security laws to protect drivers from automation, revoking immunity from for algorithmic content and emphasizing humanities in schools. Can you go into a little detail what that actually means and how it be executed?
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Sure. If you're a college graduate or you're a graduate of and you're not getting a job, then the federal government would say, okay, we're either going to help create an apprenticeship and subsidizing it at a private company, or we're going to help you in your local community do some care job, whether it's health care, child care, elder care, or in your local community, work on some project for that community, whether it's an infrastructure project or whether it's a project of delivering services. Or we could come into the federal government to help make government more efficient either in cyber security or digital services or on some national security projects. And this way you're going to get experience and then you can go back out into the private sector because the private sector may not be hiring those entry level jobs. It can be for people also right out of high school and trade schools though I think the trade schools ironically will be less automated and there may be less of a need for that for them. The unemployment rate is lower for them actually initially than those out of college. And I also would say that it should include people then who are being displaced based on automation. And the people who should be paying for that are the companies that are automating should be having some kind of attacks on that so that they can help pay for this workforce administration. In many ways we should do this in a way that's correct as opposed to in globalization where we basically allowed wealth to accumulate and hollowed out communities and de industrialized and promised training programs that never came.
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Ryan Graduski
So, and what does revoke algorithmic immunity mean?
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Congressman Ro Khanna
So right now if you are Facebook or, or X and you amplifies things that are libelous or slander or, or uh, provoking violence, you don't have any immunity under section 230. I mean you don't have any liability under section 230 you should have liability. What would that mean? It would mean that these algorithm these companies may move more to a subscription model than an algorithmic model, more to presenting content chronologically. And I just think it would be less of an outrage driven democracy.
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Ryan Graduski
Now. What do you know, have any estimate that sounds like a, it sounds very, it sounds very promising. But do you know what an effort like that would cost by any chance?
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Congressman Ro Khanna
It's hard to say because we don't know what the displacement effect of AI will be. So it would be certainly in the billions of dollars a year. But it depends on how much the displacement is. But it needs to be coupled in my view with a comprehensive economic development strategy, what I call a Marshall Plan for America. Build a thousand new trade schools, have a national industrial development bank that's actually funding new factories or providing financing for a factory not to close if there was a market failure, the lack of financing or making sure that we are investing in care jobs, in communities, making sure that we're investing in AI tech institutes so people can actually develop an AI literacy for these new jobs. So I think that what I'm talking about with the future workforce administration is sort of defensive. If you're not finding a job or if you're unemployed, what do you do? But we also need a offensive strategy which is how do we have an economic development strategy for job creation across this country so that we mitigate the need for people being displaced.
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Ryan Graduski
Your, your career, you've been a very vocal supporter of, of people's personal rights and people's personal protection. You've been a civil libertarian in many facets, especially when the war on terror was really ramping up. Are you afraid of what's what's going on, people's civil liberties and AI about people's data being really tracked and sold.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
I am, I'm very concerned about it. The first rule should be you own your data and we should have a data dividend in this country. It wouldn't be life changing, but you would probably get about 500 bucks a year just for the exploitation or the use of your data by these companies. And 500 bucks is a fair amount for folks. I mean it would pay a grocery bill.
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Ryan Graduski
Yeah, I mean I'll take it so.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
That there's, there should be a data dividend. There also should be a right that you have to your own data that they don't have a federal government building a social media profile on you. Can you imagine how scary that is? There shouldn't be companies that are able to feed you information by, by building profiles on you. So I think we need, I called for this in 2017, an Internet bill of rights and we still haven't had it passed. You know, one of the problems is just bluntly, we've had three 80 year old presidents in a row and we need leadership in this country that understands technology and understands how to respond to that technology.
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Ryan Graduski
So whenever you have any criticisms towards tech, the one of the bigger things that people say is we need this race against we need to be China. Right. Any criticisms towards that? Because you can't have anything, any restrictions whatsoever. What do you make of this race against China when it comes to AI? And would restrictions actually promote the Chinese Communist Party and promote like get. Have their ability to beat us in AI, whatever that really means.
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Congressman Ro Khanna
Right. Well sometimes people who make this have not even been to China. I just was in China and met with Premier Chung, met with the Foreign Minister Wang Yi, went with the mayors of Beijing and Shanghai and had extensive conversations. A lot of people saying this don't know that there's 20% youth unemployment in China. 20% because they have over capacity in their factories and they have under capacity in software development. They don't know the lack of economic diversification in China. They don't know how much local governments are suffering from debt in China. The concern on the AI race is we should have talent here. I'm concerned that we're banning foreign students from coming here and pursuing their, their, their, their education. But we can develop as long as we are open to smart immigration policy like we were with allowing Einstein to come and so many of the German scientists to come and Russian scientists to come. If we continue to do that, I am fully confident that Our model is better to lead and we can do that while having sensible regulations so that you aren't compromising people's jobs, having massive inequality or violating people's civil liberties.
- [24:39]
Ryan Graduski
Well, you mentioned immigration. So you've tweeted about corporate layoffs when it comes to AI and that's a big part of your new Deal AI thing is that corporate corporations have laid off tens of thousands of American workers. Do you have and does it give you any pause that they've also brought in H1B workers at the same time they're laying off Americans?
- [24:57]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Yes, I think the H1B program should be reformed. I've said this in today I got into Congress. It's been abused by a lot of companies are paying under market wages for jobs that aren't really high skilled and there's no doubt that it needs to be reformed now. I don't agree just put on a hundred thousand dollar fee as the reform. What I would say is you do need people who have real skills. The best is by the way give them a green card. Don't have them in under wage positions like H1 where they're locked into an employer but make sure that you're getting market wages and make sure they're really high skilled jobs, not just the jobs to undercut American workers. But if the question is that has the H1B visa program led to American layoffs? You'd have to be in a cocoon to say to say anything. But yes it has.
- [25:42]
Ryan Graduski
Well, one last question about the AI and how it's affecting things. I think you mentioned section 230. There hasn't been any real big reforms. There's been a few on child protections but not massive reforms around Internet since, since Section 230 was created by when the Internet was in its infancy. There's a lot of losses going on around OpenAI and chat GPT about how these programs have promoted, you know, people ending their own lives and basically said go do it. When, when, when people have been very depressed. Could companies be culpable for their programs being anti human? Do you know what I'm saying? I'm saying.
- [26:20]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Well I, I think they could be culpable for liability of someone committing suicide or someone going into depression or someone having suicidal thoughts. And, and I do think that there should be liability for causing mental health harm or causing harm to children.
- [26:35]
Ryan Graduski
Do you has the Democratic Party embrace what you're saying? Because I think that the AI is clearly the future and it's lacking in the overall national conversation that we're Having, we're getting lost in a lot of things that aren't the big picture. And you're one of the few politicians really talking about this in a very forward looking way. Have other democratic politicians really jump onto your messaging?
- [26:59]
Congressman Ro Khanna
I think people are still figuring it out. Look, I believe that, that we need political leaders who understand AI, who understand technology, who understand what the future wealth generation is going to be, what the future jobs are going to be, and have a concrete vision of making sure that AI is for all of us and not for them. If we just continue down the current path, what you will have is tech billionaires, tech trillionaires and everyone else will sort of be left to fortune's whims. And I don't believe in that. I believe that we need as a democratic society to direct the development of AI so that it increases jobs in communities, increases wealth in communities and doesn't degrade our democracy. The problem is we have a lot of people who don't understand the technology, who don't have the confidence to go back and forth as I recently did in a Twitter thread with some of my tech friends who didn't like what I said and have the confidence to stick up for their views. And I think this country needs to elect people who understand technology, understand AI and have the moral courage to stand up to some of the corporate leaders who saying, no, we, we need you to make sure that this is in America's interest and communities interest. Their job is to maximize wealth for the shareholders. I'm not impugning them but, but a politician's job is to, to look out for the interests of the country.
- [28:12]
Ryan Graduski
Do you know you represent a district? I think, I think your district's worth, I think are 12 or $13 trillion, which is like insane.
- [28:18]
Congressman Ro Khanna
That's why I said was up to 18, I don't know, five companies over a trillion dollars. Apple, Google, Nvidia, Broadcom and Tesla.
- [28:26]
Ryan Graduski
So what do those CEOs say to you when you bring this up? They say, you know, Representative Khanna, you're going to destroy our industry. Or do they understand that reforms have to be made?
- [28:35]
Congressman Ro Khanna
They understand that reforms have to make it. They don't. They may not agree with all mine, but I say to them, you can't have an island of prosperity and a sea of despair. America can't survive. Half prosperous and half in decline. I say call it the anti revolution tax. You know the, when I, when I bring up some of these policies, but the reality is I am, I am not a Luddite. I'M a technology optimist. I believe AI will help us with medicine. I believe AI will help us in times of education. AI should be like Steve Jobs said about computers, a bicycle for the mind. It should be about enhancing human capability, not about excessive elimination of jobs in excessive accumulation of profits in the hands of a few. And yeah, that's the balance we need to strike.
- [29:21]
Ryan Graduski
And my last question to you is, do you have a fear then that if, let's say we do have this, I mean, we already have a massive concentration of wealth, but if it is exacerbated a hundredfold a thousand fold and a massive job loss is where you have a permanent underclass of 10 to 20% of the population who can't get fine work because their work has all been automated and they weren't trained for jobs. Do you fear of a real technological backlash by the voters to sit there and say, no, we need something pretty strong against tech companies in, in the most excessive ways? Yeah.
- [29:52]
Congressman Ro Khanna
I fear not only a backlash against technology, I fear backlash potentially against multiracial democracy. I fear backlash against America being a leader in the world. I fear backlash against any engagement with the world. I fear that you would have an ugly nationalism that could emerge. I call for an economic patriotism that's an inclusive patriotism that has a role for immigrants and has a role for innovation. But I think you would have a very ugly movement. I mean, Andy Grove, who was a Intel CEO and a great founder and escaped from both Nazi Germany and Soviet communism, said the biggest danger is long unemployment lines. You haven't seen them. I have. And so I think that's why he was so forward looking in America needing an economic development policy outside Silicon Valley. I have one question for you, Ryan, because I see some of your Twitter posts and things and you're always engaged. I don't even know your politics. Are you more left right?
- [30:45]
Ryan Graduski
I'm a pretty right wing person. I just, I, my, my belief is this, is that I came from a working class family, I understand working class people and I always want what's best for them that doesn't have clear ideological lines. So you have to sit there and be willing and if they are upset, they will move to policies that are extreme. And I don't. And I believe everyone has the. Everyone with the ability should have the right to at least pursue an American dream that's, you know, one of not just comfortable living, but respectable living.
- [31:18]
Congressman Ro Khanna
So when I say AI New Deal, I hypothetically, as I define it, and you can be blunt, that doesn't scare you?
- [31:24]
Ryan Graduski
No, I mean, I, you say New Deal because it's easy branding. Fdr, New Deal. Yeah, everyone understands it. Right. I get that. So I work in politics. I understand. I'm like, okay, that's clear. When you talk about redistributed wealth, it's not something I am naturally in opposition to because I believe we should tax data. I don't know why data isn't taxed, considering it's clearly more valuable than oil and gold is everyone's data. What I, and I'm not opposed to, and I do think that the tech companies have gone very long without any regulations at all. What I get a little anxiety written about is how do you. In a country that is in continuation of maximizing wealth for very few while importing 1.1 million legal immigrants per year who are overwhelmingly part of the population that would be underserved by this tech revolution, how do you keep that prosperity going? That's my big fear is, is that we're importing future poverty unless we're all bringing in brilliant tech workers. And that, that has a process of running out like there, there, there will not be unless you're, unless you're going to exhaust that or people or capital will leave. But as far as nearly capitalistic, no, I, I don't. I'm not opposed to taxes. I lived in New York City my, almost my entire life. I'm not opposed to taxes. I am opposed to more the immigration issue.
- [32:40]
Congressman Ro Khanna
But what did you make of President Trump's point with Laura Ingram? And then where, where he said, look, we need, you know, Ford has a shortage of 5,000 workers. Yes, we need American workers. We need to be investing in American workers. I disagreed with President Trump that American workers aren't talented. I think they're incredibly talented.
- [32:56]
Ryan Graduski
And.
- [32:56]
Congressman Ro Khanna
But he said we also need immigrants to help. I guess. Were you more on Laura Ingram side than his side on that?
- [33:02]
Ryan Graduski
I think that President Trump is very easily influenced sometimes by the last person who spoke to him. And I want to know if, I want to know who the last person who spoke to him was and if it was our commerce secretary who's been giving him tons of bad advice. I believe that there are, listen, there's, there's an issue where people, I think, have the assumption of what they, what they have a right to. And I also think there's a big education problem. Right. We have millions of people who are not able to equipped for jobs.
- [33:28]
Congressman Ro Khanna
That I agree.
- [33:29]
Ryan Graduski
And the graduation rates are a complete smokescreen because they're graduating schools with no ability to read or write. And it's just graduation numbers are there to promote ways of, of getting funding for the schools. You know, Mississippi, Louisiana have done amazing jobs at jumping, but we need to really look at education and how to sit there and get these, get these schools right.
- [33:50]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Would you be and absolutely.
- [33:52]
Ryan Graduski
And I think that the German model, which worked for a long time, it's not really working right now, but it did work for a long time of getting these employ into the high schools and saying this person's brilliant, just skips college and let's have a method where you work for a corporation again for 20 years or 30 years. If Ford were to find a kid from, you know, Mississippi who's not brilliant at, I don't know, some, I don't know, writing, can't write a novel, but he can fix a car. Why shouldn't he pick him up at 17 years old? I do think that those things should be working better than they are. And I think that a lot of the backlash the Republicans felt in the last election are mostly around the economy, affordability and fear of the economy. I think those are the number one drivers. I think people thought that Trump had a magic wand and we can go to 2019 again, but I don't think we're ever getting back to 2019. So I'm not anti AI on its face. I'm not anti tax on tech corporations on its face. But I think we really need to have intelligent conversations over policies and less conversations over personalities and flame throwing together get Internet clicks. I find that that's why I try to. I hope you like this podcast interview. I hope I was bringing.
- [34:58]
Congressman Ro Khanna
Very, very thoughtful. Yeah, I, in fact, I, to the point that I didn't know your politics.
- [35:01]
Ryan Graduski
I appreciate that very much and I, I've liked a lot of what you've done on civil liberties for a long time. So I've always thought of you as a very thoughtful leader in the Democrat party.
- [35:10]
Congressman Ro Khanna
I appreciate it. Well, to be continued. I, I look forward to coming back and I wish we could have more of this. I think we desperately need more of this in the country. And, and while you were kind enough not to ask me or restrained enough not to ask me a single question about Epstein, which is what I've been talking about.
- [35:25]
Ryan Graduski
You know. You know what, there's only so much. I mean the emails, I will say.
- [35:29]
Congressman Ro Khanna
The one thing about it is that it showed sort of the value of civility and conversation with people who you may not, you may think of as caricatures. And I just think that that kind of dialogue and seeing the humanity of people and seeing where there may be common ground and where there's disagreement and we've got to get back to that in our politics. Not out of a Pollyannishness, but if you listen to like the Nixon Kennedy debates and the substance behind them, we've lost a lot of the, just the robustness of an exchange of ideas. I mean it's hurting our democracy, right?
- [36:01]
Ryan Graduski
Even radical, quote unquote radicals back then who like, you know, they talk a lot about Pat Buchanan, who I was lucky enough to know throughout my life, but he was very smart and very thoughtful. A lot of things he talked about in policy ideas. And I think that in this platform that I have, I try to just, just raise the conversation where it's not all tell me who you hate the most. I mean, that's fun. But I, I left high school and I don't, I'm not trying to return to it. So. But Congressman, thank you for coming this podcast. I genuinely appreciate it.
- [36:29]
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- [38:31]
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- [39:36]
Ryan Graduski
Now it's time for the Ask Me Anything segment. If you want a part of the Ask Me Anything segment, email me. Ryan numbers game podcast.com that's ryanumbers plural numbers game podcast.com love your questions guys. This one comes from and you email me last week and I haven't learned how to pronounce your name yet. Her dwal I believe it is from Florida. Thank you for emailing me again and thank you for listening. She writes. Hey Ryan, Huge fan. I'm an immigrant and currently a permanent resident so I've been around legal immigrants that right to talk about I am from. I am from the 2016 Bachelor of Students here and anecdotally I can speak for my group. Not one single of the people in my batch are right wing are going to vote for Republicans in their lifetime. They're probably a couple who are probably moderate and agree on social conservative stances here and there, but none of them would ever actually vote for, quote, unquote racist Republicans. Would you say economics would change it, immigration policy would change it, or would I say nothing will make them vote? Right. Because everyone cares about how to get your wife here, parents here, how to get easy money and nobody gives a damn about their host country and improving it. Given this, why is, why even support any immigration, legal or not? I can go on how legal visas are abused and gained, but that would be your whole show. Thank you. Pedral. Thank you. If that's how you pronounce your name. Pearl, thank you for listening to the show. Amazing question. So would changing immigration change if people are willing to vote for Republicans? The answer is no. And it's been proven no because we've ran this experiment. Ronald Reagan received, lost, won everything except for the immigrant vote, Right? He lost immigrant, immigrant and black vote, but he lost immigrant vote pretty substantially back in 1984 when everyone voted for Republicans. In 1988 when his vice president, George H.W. bush was running for president. And remember, H.W. was super liberal immigration. He invented many of the forms of immigration that we have today that are plaguing our country, all the different visa categories. And Reagan had the amnesty. Between 84 and 88, H.W. bush received a smaller share of the immigrant vote than Ronald Reagan did. Then in 1992, we have Bob Dole. Sorry. Running into HW's re election and HW's reelection after he had done another several smaller amnesties and created, had brand new visa categories to bring in millions of more immigrants during his presidency, he got an even smaller share of the immigrant vote. Then there was Bob Dole. Bob Dole very, I mean, not super left wing on immigration, but much more left wing immigration than Pat Buchanan, his chief Republican rival. And he got a smaller share of the immigrant vote than George H.W. bush did. George W. Bush got the, I think he got in the end, 39. There are some numbers that say 44, but I think they've been, been, you know, taken it down. It's really 39, 39 of the immigrant vote, which was considered a high watermark until Donald Trump in 2024. And Trump did not run left wing on immigration. He said mass deportations. There were signs at his rally it wasn't a hidden agenda point and people didn't care. I think in part because of the economy they were willing to give Trump, you know, a chance. And I think that a lot of immigrants, legal immigrants, fell at the border was unfair. Fairness is A American trait that people talk about rugged individualism and all the rest of it, limited government. But fairness is a component of being an American. They don't like the idea that they have to work for something and then foreigners get to sit there and abuse the system and take advantage. It's a really intricate part of who we are as a people. So I think that that is definitely something that is to chew on. Right. Looser immigration laws supporting amnesties will not make immigrants want to vote for you. And I think that there's also an issue where immigrants come from and what their beliefs are. Right. Immigrants, whether they have different opinions over Christianity. A lot of countries from Eastern Asia don't have, in the Middle east, rather don't also have high opinions of Christianity, on gun ownership, on free speech, on welfare, on the size of government. Some of these immigrant views are incompatible. If we want to continue a country that has been going on for over 250 years or 250 years as of next year here, that's something to, to rationalize and say, okay, when we talk about immigrants, it's not like a bag of oranges. We don't have to bring in every single person that's just categorized as an immigrant. Do they share our values? Do they provide benefits to our economy? Are they going to commit crime? These, are they going to belong to gangs? Are they going to assimilate? And assimilation is really an interesting category as well because a lot of immigrants and their children who do assimilate kind of assimilates a shit lib culture. There was, I'm going to guess, because your name is Prajwal, you're Indian or Southeast Asian of some type. There was a show on Netflix a couple of years ago called Never have I Ever, which I really liked. It was a very funny show and it was about an Indian girl and she was very clearly assimilated into American culture. Right? She ate meat. She, you know, wanted a white boyfriend. She was, but she was, was, she was a leftist. She talked about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and, and, and idealizing liberal values and abortion. And obviously it was just like it was a TV show. It wasn't a reality show. It was, it was, it was, it was written, it was a narrative, it was a scripted show. But I think that that's true for a lot of immigrant second generation immigrants, especially immigrants I find from Asia who do assimilate rather quickly to American culture, but assimilate to the leftist American culture, the predominant culture on college campuses. And I think that's something really to chew on. So should we take in immigrants? Yeah, there's immigrants worthy of taking in the in the world that are going to be great Americans. But 1.1 million legal immigrants per year and any of their family members that they can bring over and endless birthright citizenship or illegal aliens. We probably should clamp down on that. But Pedral, I'm happy you're here and I'm happy you're a listener. So thank you so much for your question. I really appreciate it. If you like this podcast, please press like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you get, podcast your podcast and on YouTube now. Can't forget about YouTube. Thank you guys so much. I will see you guys on Monday.
- [45:42]
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- [46:15]
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- [46:44]
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- [47:17]
Ryan Graduski
I use Shipt Same Day delivery to.
- [47:19]
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Stay connected with my sister during the holidays.
- [47:22]
Ryan Graduski
She lives across the country. Shipt has tons of stores to order from.
- [47:26]
Podcast Announcer
Groceries from Albertsons, crafts from Michaels, even.
- [47:29]
Ryan Graduski
Pet supplies from petsmart. The list goes on. So when we have long distance movie nights, I turn to Shipt to get.
- [47:35]
Podcast Announcer
Face masks, snacks and everything else we need delivered to her and to me same day.
- [47:41]
Ryan Graduski
Download the app or visit shipt.com that's s h ipt.com you ever feel that.
- [47:47]
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- [48:23]
Podcast Announcer
This is an I Heart podcast.