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Donald Trump pledged not to entangle the United States in wars in the Middle East. But last weekend, he joined Israel's air campaign against Iran, bombing three nuclear sites before claiming that Iranian facilities targeted by U.S. aircraft and missiles had been “obliterated.” Iran responded by firing missiles at U.S. bases in the region just before Washington announced a cease-fire. But key questions remain unanswered—about the risk of continued fighting, about Iran's nuclear capability and ambitions going forward, and about the shifting balance of power and rapidly changing regional order in the Middle East. To make sense of the conflict, Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke with Eric Edelman, Suzanne Maloney, and Andrew Miller. All three have served in senior positions overseeing U.S. Middle East policy in the White House, the State Department, and the Defense Department across multiple administrations. They spoke on June 25 about the war's escalation and abrupt de-escalation and about its long-reaching consequences—for Iran, for Israel, and for the United States. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
The Defense Department's Office of the Chief Information Officer has officially kicked off its effort to improve how the Pentagon manages cybersecurity risks with advanced automation and continuous monitoring capabilities. The DOD CIO published a request for information Wednesday on Sam.gov calling for industry's input on emerging technologies, solutions and business practices that can support the department's attempt to revamp the Risk Management Framework (RMF). The initiative largely seeks to replace the legacy framework with a multi-phased construct that will be demanding for cyber and acquisition professionals. Officials are hoping to speed up capability delivery to warfighters. The RFI states: “Although RMF enhances security through continuous monitoring and risk-based decision-making, it's often seen as slow and cumbersome. To meet the urgent demands of modern cyber threats and accelerate innovation, the DoD is working to streamline the RMF process — aiming for greater efficiency without compromising on security.” Federal agencies would be barred from using artificial intelligence linked to the Chinese government under legislation introduced Wednesday by a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers. The No Adversarial Al Act proposal from Reps. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., the chair and ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, respectively, is a companion to legislation from Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Gary Peters, D-Mich. The bill is the latest in a series of other congressional proposals focused on DeepSeek, a Chinese startup whose low-cost AI model has stirred panic in U.S. tech and AI companies. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
The Justice Department has arrested a Defense Department employee for removing classified documents from a Missile Defense Agency office in Huntsville, Alabama. Ewa Ciszak made her initial appearance in federal court Monday. Beginning in February, the FBI says Ciszack began taking classified documents from MDA facilities without authorization. A June 18 search warrant turned up multiple secret-level documents at her personal residence and in her vehicle and backpack. Ciszak had been employed at MDA since January 2023. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Rich Zeoli Show- Hour 1: 3:05pm- On Saturday night, seven U.S. B-2 bombers dropped a total of fourteen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. In a press conference following the strategic strike, President Donald Trump called the mission a “spectacular military success.” 3:10pm- On Monday, Iran responded to U.S. strikes on key nuclear development facilities by launching missiles at an American base in Qatar—the largest American military installation in the Middle East. The Defense Department has said the air defense systems intercepted the missiles and there were no U.S. casualties. 3:20pm- During a press conference Sunday night, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine revealed that Iranian air defense never spotted the American B-2 bombers over Iranian airspace and, consequently, never fired a single shot during Saturday night's strategic bombing. 3:30pm- Deputy Head of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called America's strike on Iranian nuclear facilities a “dangerous escalation” and suggested other countries may supply Iran with a nuclear weapon—though, he did not say which nations. 3:40pm- Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned Iran not to shut down the Strait of Hormuz with mines. China, an ally of Iran, has echoed a similar sentiment. According to estimates 84% of the crude oil that moves through the Strait goes to Asian markets.
The Rich Zeoli Show- Full Episode (06/23/2025): 3:05pm- On Saturday night, seven U.S. B-2 bombers dropped a total of fourteen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. In a press conference following the strategic strike, President Donald Trump called the mission a “spectacular military success.” 3:10pm- On Monday, Iran responded to U.S. strikes on key nuclear development facilities by launching missiles at an American base in Qatar—the largest American military installation in the Middle East. The Defense Department has said the air defense systems intercepted the missiles and there were no U.S. casualties. 3:20pm- During a press conference Sunday night, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Dan Caine revealed that Iranian air defense never spotted the American B-2 bombers over Iranian airspace and, consequently, never fired a single shot during Saturday night's strategic bombing. 3:30pm- Deputy Head of Russian President Vladimir Putin's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called America's strike on Iranian nuclear facilities a “dangerous escalation” and suggested other countries may supply Iran with a nuclear weapon—though, he did not say which nations. 3:40pm- Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned Iran not to shut down the Strait of Hormuz with mines. China, an ally of Iran, has echoed a similar sentiment. According to estimates 84% of the crude oil that moves through the Strait goes to Asian markets. 4:05pm- Listeners react to the Trump Administration's decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Is there concern that Iran and its allies—China, Russia, and terror organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—could retaliate? 4:30pm- John Yoo—The Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley—joins The Rich Zeoli Show and dismisses Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's (D-NY) suggestion that President Donald Trump violated Article II of the Constitution and should be impeached for authorizing strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. 4:50pm- While appearing on Fox News, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) praised the U.S. military's strikes on Iran and President Trump's decision—explaining “it was a very limited military exercise” and did not amount to a declaration of war. 5:00pm- Dr. EJ Antoni—Chief Economist at the Heritage Foundation—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to breakdown potential financial repercussions related to the strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Could Iran respond by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, and what would that mean for oil prices globally? 5:20pm- While appearing on Fox News, Trump Administration Border Czar Tom Homan discussed potential Iranian sleeper cells in the United States—explaining that the Biden Administration's relaxed border security policies resulted in “1,272 nationals of Iran released” into the U.S. 5:40pm- Breaking News: The Supreme Court has stayed a lower court order and will allow the Trump Administration to deport illegal migrants swiftly to countries where they don't have citizenship. 5:50pm- Did Mel Gibson and Pierce Brosnan turn down the role of Batman? 6:05pm- Dr. Victoria Coates—Former Deputy National Security Advisor & the Vice President of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation—joins The Rich Zeoli Show and reacts to the United States's strategic strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Plus, BREAKING NEWS: Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire. Dr. Coates is the author of the book: “The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win.” 6:30pm- In a post to Truth Social, Preside Donald Trump wrote: “CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE! It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, E ...
The Department of Defense's Office of the Chief Information Officer is considering reducing the number of Pentagon employees who have Microsoft 365 E5 licenses, as it works with the Trump administration to rein in federal spending. The DOD currently maintains more than 2 million Microsoft 365 E5 licenses across two separate programs — the Defense Enterprise Office Solution (DEOS) and the Enterprise Software Initiative (DOD ESI). Through the established contracts, Pentagon components can purchase software licenses for commercial Microsoft products, including Office 365 applications and other collaboration tools. But ongoing efforts spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have prompted the Defense Department to review how many of those licenses it actually needs, Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of Pentagon CIO, told DefenseScoop. Arrington said June 6 in an exclusive interview: “Our Microsoft 365 contract [is a] very big contract here in the Department of Defense. Does every individual in the Department of Defense need an [E5] license? Absolutely not.” With the department's Deputy CIO for the Information Enterprise Bill Dunlap, Arrington has been working alongside her DOGE representative to review individual position descriptions and multi-level securities to determine what level of Microsoft 365 E5 license that person needs, she said. Other criteria being considered include user and mission requirements for office productivity software, as well as collaboration capabilities, a DOD CIO spokesperson told DefenseScoop. Ten congressional Democrats are demanding answers from Palantir about reports that it is aiding the IRS in building a searchable, governmentwide “mega-database” to house Americans' sensitive information. In a letter sent Tuesday to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, the lawmakers argued that the creation of a database of that kind likely violates several federal laws, including the Privacy Act. The Democrats wrote: “The unprecedented possibility of a searchable, ‘mega-database' of tax returns and other data that will potentially be shared with or accessed by other federal agencies is a surveillance nightmare that raises a host of legal concerns, not least that it will make it significantly easier for Donald Trump's Administration to spy on and target his growing list of enemies and other Americans.” The letter, led by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., follows New York Times reporting last month that detailed the expansion of Palantir's federal government work under the Trump administration, noting that the data-mining giant has received $113 million since the president's January inauguration plus another $795 million award from the Defense Department. According to the Times, Palantir has spoken to IRS and Social Security Administration representatives about buying its tech. The Democrats' letter said Foundry — a Palantir data analysis and organization product — has been deployed at the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
This Day in Legal History: Georgia v. McCollumOn June 18, 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U.S. 42 (1992), holding that criminal defendants cannot use peremptory challenges to exclude jurors on the basis of race. This decision extended the logic of Batson v. Kentucky—which barred prosecutors from racially discriminatory jury strikes—to defense attorneys, ensuring both sides are bound by the Equal Protection Clause. The case involved white defendants in Georgia who sought to remove Black jurors, prompting the state to challenge the defense's strikes as racially biased.The Court, in a 7–2 opinion written by Justice Blackmun, reasoned that racial discrimination in jury selection, regardless of the source, undermines public confidence in the justice system and the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial. It emphasized that the courtroom is not a private forum and that all participants—prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges—must adhere to constitutional principles.Importantly, the decision addressed the state action requirement, acknowledging that while defense attorneys are not state actors in the traditional sense, their participation in the jury selection process is conducted under judicial supervision and is thus attributable to the state. This broadened the scope of equal protection enforcement in criminal proceedings.The ruling was a major step toward eradicating racial bias in the judicial process, reinforcing that justice must not only be impartial but also be perceived as such. By holding defense attorneys to the same standard as prosecutors, the Court ensured that the integrity of jury selection is preserved across the board. The decision also highlighted the evolving understanding of the judiciary's role in preventing systemic discrimination, even in adversarial settings.Georgia v. McCollum remains a critical precedent in both constitutional law and criminal procedure, illustrating the Court's commitment to fairness in one of the most fundamental aspects of the legal system—trial by jury.U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick expanded a prior injunction, blocking the Trump administration's passport policy that restricted transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals from obtaining passports reflecting their gender identity. Kobick found that the State Department's revised policy—mandating passports list only “biological” sex at birth—likely violated the Fifth Amendment by discriminating on the basis of sex and reflecting irrational bias.Initially, the injunction applied only to six plaintiffs, but Kobick's ruling now grants class-action status, halting enforcement of the policy nationwide. The policy stems from an executive order signed by Trump after returning to office in January 2025, directing all federal agencies to recognize only two sexes and abandon the gender marker flexibility introduced under the Biden administration in 2022.The ruling marks a legal setback for the administration's effort to reimpose binary sex classifications across federal documents. The ACLU, representing the plaintiffs, called it a critical win for transgender rights. The White House condemned the ruling as judicial overreach. The broader case remains ongoing.US judge blocks Trump passport policy targeting transgender people | ReutersEducational toy company Learning Resources petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its challenge to President Donald Trump's tariffs before lower court appeals conclude. The company argues that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose broad tariffs is unconstitutional and economically damaging, citing a May 29 district court ruling that found the tariffs illegal. That decision, however, is currently stayed pending appeal.Learning Resources' CEO, Rick Woldenberg, warned that delaying Supreme Court review could cost American businesses up to $150 billion due to ongoing tariff-related costs. He described the tariffs as a hidden tax and accused the government of forcing importers to act as involuntary tax collectors.Two federal courts have already ruled against Trump's interpretation of IEEPA, a law historically used for targeted sanctions, not general trade policy. The administration defends the tariffs as a legal response to national emergencies like trade imbalances and drug trafficking, though critics say the justification is legally thin and economically harmful.While rare, the Supreme Court has expedited cases of national significance in the past, such as Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. A key appeals court hearing on Trump's tariff authority is scheduled for July 31.Small business seeks early Supreme Court review of Trump's tariffs | ReutersA federal judge has also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a new Department of Defense policy that would cap indirect cost reimbursements to universities at 15%. The move came in response to a lawsuit filed by 12 research institutions—including MIT and Johns Hopkins—as well as major academic associations. These groups argued that the cap violated existing federal regulations and congressional intent.The Department of Defense had framed the policy as a cost-saving measure, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming it could save up to $900 million annually. However, universities rely on indirect cost reimbursements to fund infrastructure, staff, and equipment that support research across multiple projects—not just the ones directly funded.The ruling by Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, mirrors earlier judicial blocks of similar funding cuts proposed by the NIH and Department of Energy. A hearing is scheduled for July 2 to determine whether a longer-term injunction should be issued. The case highlights growing legal resistance to the administration's broader push to reduce federal spending on scientific research.US judge blocks Defense Department from slashing federal research funding | ReutersThe U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors in a 6–3 decision that sets a national precedent and effectively greenlights similar restrictions in over 20 states. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts concluded that the law neither classifies based on sex nor targets transgender status, and thus only required rational basis review—not heightened constitutional scrutiny. The Court accepted Tennessee's framing of the law as neutral and medically cautious, not discriminatory, citing European health policy shifts and purported uncertainty around gender-affirming care as justification.Critics, including the Court's liberal bloc, argued the law does in fact discriminate based on sex and gender identity by banning medical treatment only when it aims to affirm a transgender identity. Justice Sotomayor, in dissent, emphasized that the law's language and application plainly hinge on a minor's “sex as assigned at birth,” drawing troubling parallels to older jurisprudence that permitted covert forms of discrimination under the guise of neutrality.The ruling marks a major rollback of legal protections for transgender youth, ignoring years of precedent that increasingly recognized transgender identity as a constitutionally protected status. By lowering the scrutiny threshold and deferring to legislative “uncertainty,” the Court provided a road map for states to restrict gender-affirming care through general, non-explicitly discriminatory language. The majority's refusal to engage with medical consensus or the real-world impact on transgender youth reveals a troubling judicial posture: one that values legislative deference over individual rights, even when the stakes include physical and psychological harm to a vulnerable group.Supreme Court Upholds Curbs on Treatment for Transgender Minors This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
Are all UFO/UAP encounters the result of deception and disinformation created by the U.S. government? Such claims have been made many times in the past 75 years and have recently been resurrected from the dusty archives of the DoD's UFO Library. In this episode of WEAPONIZED, Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp discuss the latest attempts by former Defense Department insiders to cast doubt on all UFO cases, incidents, photos, videos, witnesses, and even the testimony of future whistleblowers who have not yet gone public. Can journalists pierce the veil of secrecy and lies? Sometimes. One way to circumvent psyops and outrageous cover stories is to present compelling evidence that the public can evaluate for itself. A video recorded by a military sensor over a conflict zone has been hidden for years. The huge disc-shaped mystery object was seen as it slipped in and out of clouds, abruptly changed direction, and was labeled by the military as a “UAP.” This is the first time the public has been able to see the massive “disc” as it zips into cloud cover, then reverses itself. WATCH THE RAW UAP FOOTAGE HERE : https://youtu.be/lqLPqTheYrg WATCH THE FULL UAP REPORT HERE : https://youtu.be/Zdl1nz3t3DE READ THE FULL UAP REPORT HERE : https://www.weaponizedpodcast.com/news-1/large-disc-uap GOT A TIP? Reach out to us at WeaponizedPodcast@Proton.me *** Investigative journalists Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp obtained and are revealing for the first time - military filmed footage of a UAP - officially documented and catalogued within Intelligence Community investigations as “disc” shaped. This UAP of unknown origin displayed abrupt movement and intelligent control, with the absence of thermal propulsion signatures. Official designation of UAP was made by the United States Department of Defense. This designation is currently maintained. DATE / TIME - 23 November 2020 / 11:13 UTC LOCATION - Reconnaissance footage indicates 35°02.91'N, 71°17.86'E IMAGING TYPE - Thermographic / Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) EVENT DESCRIPTION - Filmed by a platform operating under the direction of the United States Air Force, the object was initially passively tracked and is described in official documentation as “navigating through the clouds.” The UAP appears to demonstrate an abrupt directional change. Atmospheric disruption was noted in case documentation - as was the absence of traditional thermal propulsion signatures during performance. Its origin, intent, and capabilities remain unknown. ••• For breaking news, follow Corbell & Knapp on all social media. Extras and bonuses from the episode can be found at WeaponizedPodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
President Trump said he will probably extend the June 19th TikTok ban deadline, social media and video apps have surpassed television as the primary news source for Americans, and OpenAI has secured a $200 million, one-year contract with the U.S. Defense Department. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE for free or get DTNS Live ad-free. A specialContinue reading "President Trump Will Probably Extend The TikTok Ban Deadline – DTH"
The new administration has released several new directives to guide agencies' approach to AI since the beginning of the year. The tech is reshaping the U.S. Coast Guard's core services and pushing its workforce to rethink the service's approach to operations. The Coast Guard has been on a journey to upskill its workforce to better utilize the technology in daily operations. Brian Campo, the service's deputy CIO, discusses the latest AI developments and how the Coast Guard is driving innovation, pointing to the example of the service's Ask Hamilton chatbot, which helps Coast Guard's workforce answer frequently asked questions and find key instructions in their workflows. As an agency with ties to DHS and DOD, the Coast Guard is uniquely positioned to leverage resources and connections between both agencies to drive innovation in monitoring the nation's coastlines and naval boundaries.
What happens when a Marine reaches a breaking point and chooses to speak up instead of staying silent? In this episode, host Bruce Moody speaks with Sgt. Fahteh Gill, who shares his powerful journey of recovery and self-discovery. Through open and honest conversation, Sgt. Gill talks about how seeking help, embracing vulnerability and engaging with leadership helped him heal after a suicide attempt. It's a candid discussion about the strength found in emotional self-care — and why it's essential for personal well-being and mission readiness. If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available. Call the Military Crisis Line at 988, then press 1, text 838255 or chat online at veteranscrisisline.net. Visit Military OneSource to learn more about suicide prevention resources and support for service members. Bruce Moody is a public affairs specialist with the Defense Department's Military OneSource. Share your feedback about this podcast as well as ideas for future episodes by visiting the Military OneSource Podcasts Feedback Form at https://public.militaryonesource.mil/podcast-feedback. The Military OneSource Podcast series is an official resource of the Defense Department. For more information, visit MilitaryOneSource.mil or call 800-342-9647. Military OneSource is your 24/7 connection to information, answers and support to help you reach your goals, overcome challenges and thrive.
Elon Musk regrets “some” of his recent posts about U.S. President Donald Trump. Phew! But their relationship's rapid unscheduled disassembly, or RUD, reveals how vulnerable civil and national security missions, even the “Golden Dome” program, are to the dramatic vagaries of this relationship. Laura Winter speaks with Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, and much respected NASA and Defense Department budget diviner.
After an informative 45-day trial run, the Department of the Navy is getting set to expand its rollout of emerging AI capabilities for sailors, Marines and civilians to speedily adopt in support of their daily operations — via its new DoN GPT tool. Jacob Glassman, who serves as senior technical advisor to the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told DefenseScoop Thursday that this is a new way for the Navy to rapidly innovate and rapidly prototype. GenAI encompasses the field of still-maturing technologies that can process huge volumes of data and perform increasingly “intelligent” tasks — like recognizing speech or producing human-like media and code based on human prompts. These capabilities are pushing the boundaries of what existing tech can achieve. Still, according to Glassman, the Navy has historically “struggled with AI adoption.” Amazon has received federal authorizations that allow Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama AI models to be used within high-sensitivity government computing environments, the company's cloud computing division announced Wednesday. The company has achieved FedRAMP “High” authorization as well as at the Defense Department's Impact Levels 4 and 5 for use of the two foundation models in AWS GovCloud, its government cloud environment, according to a blog post by Liz Martin, Department of Defense director at Amazon Web Services. That means it's met the security requirements needed for the AI models to be used with some of the government's most sensitive civilian and military information, and per Martin, it's the first cloud provider to receive that level of authorization for Claude and Llama. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
Gig Eagle, the Defense Department's AI fueled talent management platform is quietly transforming how the military taps into talent. Originally built to match reservists with short term gigs across the Defense Department, the platform now supports over 13,000 users, including active duty service members and civilians. The Defense Department is now laying the groundwork for a broader national security talent marketplace, and it will soon be able to tap into talent within academia, industry and other government agencies for more Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis spoke to Brigadier General Michael McGinley, who serves as the Director of the Gig Eagle agile talent ecosystem initiative.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Senate Republicans are eyeing a late June floor vote on a reconciliation package, but have yet to hash out some differences. The Pentagon's budget is under a microscope today as lawmakers scrutinize the Defense Department. A rescissions package heads to the House floor in a test of the Trump administration's attempt to claw back funding. Jacob Fulton has your CQ Morning Briefing for Thursday, June 12, 2025.
The Pentagon is trying many different approaches to speed up and simplify its acquisition programs, hoping to save billions in the process. Here with her observations on some of the most visible initiatives is the Managing Partner of Centre Law and Consulting, Barbara Kinosky.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Today on the Federal Drive with Terry Gerton How to develop effective technology policy when your imagination of future uses is limited How the Defense Department is approaching procurement reform Big opportunities to improve how the nation disposes of its nuclear waste See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
President Trump is doubling down on sending troops to Los Angeles, mobilizing another 2,000 National Guard members, while the Defense Department activated 700 Marines to react to the anti-ICE protests. Trump praised himself for the decision and suggested the city would have been completely obliterated otherwise. California's Governor Gavin Newsom, however, says the move was entirely unnecessary, and even counter-productive, claiming that local officials are more than capable of managing the unrest. Protests are now being seen in other cities as well. Correspondent Josh Campbell joins the program from Los Angeles. Also on today's show: UN humanitarian affairs spokesperson Olga Cherevko; Ukrainian tennis player-turned-soldier Sergiy Stakhovsky; actors Dule Hill & Daniel J. Watts ("Lights Out: Nat King Cole"); former USAID administrator Dr. Atul Gawande Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Defense Department feels better than ever about the future of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. DoD is close to solving two big obstacles to getting CMMC off the ground, more than six years after first introducing the data security program. For more on what comes next for CMMC, Federal News Network's Executive Editor Jason Miller joins me with an update.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Friday marks the deadline for the estimated 4,200 active-duty transgender military members to accept what the Defense Department calls "voluntary separation." Those who volunteer to leave may be eligible for separation pay while transgender troops who don’t leave voluntarily will be kicked out. Nick Schifrin spoke to two transgender service members about the choice they face. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
The Defense Department is closing in on some promised reforms to its risk management framework. That's the process officials use to assess cyber risks and certify systems as safe for DoD networks. By the end of July, officials expect to release an outline of a simpler, reworked process for industry feedback. Among the objectives eliminate redundancies in the system and make it more realistic to conduct real time security assessments instead of just point in time ones details now from Federal News Network's Jared Serbu.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter's vision for the Defense Innovation Unit was to connect commercial start ups with the Defense Department at a time when the relationship between the two was fraught, and as Silicon Valley was driving technological advances, while the Defense Department was falling further behind. Over the past decade, DIU showed the Pentagon can move faster, but a lot more work needs to be done to transform DoD into a truly innovative organization. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis is here with the 25th anniversary story. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued an order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk. A Defense Department spokesperson says the timing during Pride Month is intentional. The family of Sarah Milgrim reflect on her life and career with the Israeli Embassy and watching her "love blossom" with her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky after the couple was killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. last month. The judge in Karen Read's trial denied the defense's request for a mistrial over the use of dog DNA evidence. Read is accused of hitting and killing John O'Keefe, her boyfriend, in 2022. The defense has claimed O'Keefe was attacked by a dog and then beaten to death by others at a house party. Thirty years after ending four decades of Democratic control in the House, former Speaker Newt Gingrich joins "CBS Mornings" to discuss his new book "Trump's Triumph: America's Greatest Comeback," and the future of the Republican Party. Cynthia Erivo joins "CBS Mornings" to discuss hosting the 78th Annual Tony Awards, her behind-the-scenes preparations and what audiences can expect from Sunday night's show. Charlene Kaye, a classically trained musician-turned-comedian, has gone viral for her satirical takes on pop stars like Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, blending musical theory, internet wit and the tension of growing up with a "tiger mom." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Service members stationed at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam have been forced to live in hazardous conditions with mold growing on the walls, black rusted pipes covering the ceiling and exposed electrical wires dangerously dangling. Meanwhile, the Defense Department is moving billions of dollars from the service's facilities and restoration accounts to fund the southern border mission. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis is here with a report.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Billionaire tech titan Elon Musk's time as a “special government employee” is coming to an end, but the DOGE team at the Defense Department will soon have greater influence on Pentagon contracting. Since President Donald Trump began his second term in January, Musk has spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency's push across the federal government to find “waste, fraud and abuse,” slash certain types of spending and cut the workforce. A DOGE team was set up at the Pentagon — as well as other federal agencies — to implement those efforts. Musk wrote Wednesday night in a post on X that his time as a special government employee was coming to an end but: “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.” In a sign that DOGE's influence will continue at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a new directive this week giving those personnel more oversight of contracting efforts. Hegseth wrote in a May 27 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and DOD agency and field activity directors that: “The Department of Defense (DoD) Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team will have the opportunity to provide input on all unclassified contracts. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)), or its designee, will coordinate with DOGE to ensure that the opportunity for review of the Performance Work Statement/Statement of Work, accompanying estimates, deliverable descriptions, and requirements approval/validation documents, occurs when the requirements package is provided to a DoD contracting office to initiate a procurement or prior to the package being provided to a non-DoD assisting agency (e.g., General Services Administration).” In a video released Wednesday on X, Hegseth said the Pentagon had already saved more than $10 billion working with DOGE on previous efforts to review spending, including from a “line-by-line audit of over 50 contract vehicles.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced Thursday that the government would build a new supercomputer powered by NVIDIA chips and based at a department user facility at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Officials said the supercomputer will be named Doudna after UC Berkeley scientist Jennifer Doudna, who co-invented CRISPR gene editing technology and won the Nobel Prize back in 2020. The Doudna supercomputer, which is geared toward high-performance computing and training artificial intelligence technology, will be based at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. It is only the latest Energy Department project designed for the AI age: El Capitan, a supercomputer based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and currently the world's fastest, is also designed with machine learning in mind, as is Frontier, a DOE supercomputer housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. A spokesperson would not comment further on how the Doudna supercomputer's speeds might compare to other systems. Government supercomputing projects, including those focused on AI, are now supported by the same national laboratory system that incubated the Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first atomic weapons. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
Since the launch of Project Stargate by OpenAI and the debut of DeepSeek's V3 model, there has been a raging debate in global AI circles: what's the balance between openness and scale when it comes to the competition for the frontiers of AI performance? More compute has traditionally led to better models, but V3 showed that it was possible to rapidly improve a model with less compute. At risk in the debate is nothing less than American dominance in the AI race.Jared Dunnmon is highly concerned about the trajectory. He recently wrote “The Real Threat of Chinese AI” for Foreign Affairs, and across multiple years at the Defense Department's DIU office, he has focused on ensuring long-term American supremacy in the critical technologies underpinning AI. That's led to a complex thicket of policy challenges, from how open is “open-source” and “open-weights” to the energy needs of data centers as well as the censorship latent in every Chinese AI model.Joining host Danny Crichton and Riskgaming director of programming Laurence Pevsner, the trio talk about the scale of Stargate versus the efficiency of V3, the security models of open versus closed models and which to trust, how the world can better benchmark the performance of different models, and finally, what the U.S. must do to continue to compete in AI in the years ahead.
The Defense Department is taking a closer look at how it supports military families who choose to homeschool their children. In a recent memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness to conduct a departmentwide review of the current support available to homeschooling military families, including the feasibility of providing resources for those students. A recent study from Johns Hopkins University found that around 12% of military families chose to homeschool their children in 2024 — that's double the rate of civilian families.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Defense Department is wrapping up its what you did last week exercise, but it has one final ask of its civilian workforce, Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis is here with more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
From May 3, 2024: Over the past several years, governors around the country from both political parties have used their respective National Guards for an increasingly unconventional array of domestic missions, ranging from teaching in public schools to regulating immigration at the southern border. To discuss how this trend may impact the National Guard—and our broader democracy, particularly in this pivotal election year—Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson recently sat down with a panel of senior former National Guard and Defense Department officials, including: General Craig McKinley, General Joseph Lengyel, Brigadier General Allyson Solomon, Major General Daryl Bohac, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Paul Stockton. A video recording of the panel is available at https://www.brookings.edu/events/domestic-deployment-of-the-national-guard/.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Six people are presumed dead after a private jet crashed into a San Diego neighborhood early Thursday morning. Sound Talent Group, a music talent agency based in the San Diego area, confirms that it lost three employees in the crash, including co-founder Dave Shapiro. California is suing the federal government for blocking the state's ability to set its own clean air rules. Reporter: Laura Klivans, KQED The decision to take down a climate security website at Monterey's Naval Postgraduate School signals broader self-censorship there around climate research and scholarship. It comes in the wake of the U.S. Defense Department's call to eliminate so-called “climate distraction” in the military. Reporter: Elena Neale-Sacks, KAZU The state legislature is considering two new bills aimed at improving conditions for incarcerated workers. Reporter: Sukey Lewis, KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two staff members of the Israeli Embassy were shot and killed outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., last night. The man and woman — a couple — had been attending a reception for young diplomats. CBS has the latest.The FDA announced a change in its framework for approving new COVID vaccines for healthy individuals under 65. Usha Lee McFarling, a national science correspondent with Stat, discusses the impact of the move, while NPR reports on how some of the CDC's main channels for communicating health information to the public have gone silent.Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson join this week's Apple News In Conversation to talk about their book ‘Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.’Plus, the House passed Trump's massive tax-and-spending-bill, what to know about his contentious meeting with South Africa's president, and the Defense Department officially accepted a Qatari jet to serve as Air Force One. Also, how the 10 richest Americans got significantly richer in the past year — and how they stand to gain more from the GOP tax bill. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Two staff members of the Israeli Embassy were shot and killed outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., last night. The man and woman — a couple — had been attending a reception for young diplomats. CBS has the latest.The FDA announced a change in its framework for approving new COVID vaccines for healthy individuals under 65. Usha Lee McFarling, a national science correspondent with Stat, discusses the impact of the move, while NPR reports on how some of the CDC's main channels for communicating health information to the public have gone silent.Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson join this week's Apple News In Conversation to talk about their book ‘Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.’Plus, the House passed Trump's massive tax-and-spending-bill, what to know about his contentious meeting with South Africa's president, and the Defense Department officially accepted a Qatari jet to serve as Air Force One. Also, how the 10 richest Americans got significantly richer in the past year — and how they stand to gain more from the GOP tax bill. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu. Correction: A previous version of this episode cited comments the U.N. humanitarian chief made to the BBC that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die in the next 48 hours if they do not receive aid. The BBC has since updated that reporting to reflect that a report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification estimates that 14,100 severe cases of acute malnutrition could occur among children in Gaza ages 6 to 59 months between April 2025 and March 2026.
Here are 3 big things you need to know— One — Another left-wing terror attack in the streets of America. A pro-Palestinian man is in custody after allegedly killing two Israeli embassy staff members who were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. A 30-year-old man identified as Elias Rodriguez, of Chicago, is believed to have committed the act alone and is in custody. More in a moment … Two --- The U.S. is officially accepting a luxury jet from Qatar [[ cutter ]] to use as Air Force One. The Defense Department confirmed the news on Wednesday. A spokesperson said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth accepted a Boeing 747 from the Middle Eastern country in accordance with all federal rules and regulations. They said the DOD will work to ensure proper security measures are considered for an aircraft used to transport President Trump. And number three — Education Secretary Linda McMahon is defending the Trump administration's efforts to cut her department's budget by 15-percent. The education secretary had contentious moments with members of the House while testifying on Capitol Hill Wednesday. The president is looking to reduce most education areas including preschool grants and the Office of Civil Rights while seeking to increase funding for charter schools by 60-million-dollars.
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports on the Defense Department is accepting a Boeing 747 from Qatar for use as Air Force One.
The Defense Department is a step closer to having a new official at the top of its huge personnel enterprise, Anthony Tata. President Trump's nominee to be Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and readiness is up for consideration by the full Senate after earning the approval of the Armed Services Committee. The Undersecretary position has been chronically vacant over the past several administrations, and Tata faces stiff opposition from Democrats over what they see as divisive political views, but he's promising to play a unifying role in his new Pentagon post Federal News Network's Jared Serbu has details on Tata's priorities and some of the challenges he'll face.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Golden Dome is the U.S.' newest ambitious attempt to create a multi-layered defense system for protecting the mainland from incoming ballistic, hypersonic, cruise and other types of missiles.Audrey Decker, who covers the Air Force and Space Force for our partners at Defense One, has covered Golden Dome from multiple angles as ideas for it have emerged since President Trump's January executive order to get working on it.Audrey joins our Ross Wilkers for this episode to provide an update on how the Defense Department, especially Space Force, is working on the vision for Golden Dome and what it needs to become a reality.Software will be paramount in making Golden Dome happen, as Audrey explains from what government and industry officials have told her. How contractors are making their pitch to be part of the Golden Dome program is also on the agenda for Audrey and Ross.Industry eyes ‘wicked hard' Golden Dome space interceptor challengeGolden Dome push sets stage for telecom battle over spectrum accessTrump to get Golden Dome options next week: defense sourceSpace Force sets up team to sort out support for ‘Iron Dome'—that is, ‘Golden Dome'America's ‘Iron Dome' is going to need a lot more sensors: NORTHCOMTrump's ‘Iron Dome for America' plan would put weapons in space, at a big cost
Col. Ret. Michael Medgyessy, former CIO at Air Force Intelligence, joined us at Nutanix .NEXT to reflect on his career and share forward-thinking strategies for modernizing defense infrastructure. Medgyessy offered a behind-the-scenes look at how Air Force Intelligence deployed Nutanix solutions to support distributed services, increase resilience and streamline operations. He highlighted the power of hyperconverged infrastructure and software-defined storage to enable seamless failover and continuity across missions. He also explored how modern IT environments are helping services break away from legacy, monolithic systems and provided advice to federal CIOs as they continue on their modernization journeys. He emphasized the importance of an “invisible” infrastructure for end users and reducing administrative overhead across classification levels through scalable platforms.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is set to withdraw a Biden-era rule aimed at cracking down on data brokers and their selling of Americans' personal and financial information. In a notice in the Federal Register, the CFPB said legislative rulemaking on the data broker industry “is not necessary or appropriate at this time,” and the agency does not plan to “take any further action” on the proposal. The notice was issued by Russell Vought, acting director of the agency, head of the Office of Management and Budget and a Project 2025 architect. The withdrawal of the rule, which was first reported by Wired, comes after President Donald Trump's initial nominee to lead the CFPB signaled to Congress in February an openness to continuing Biden administration data-broker rules. Jonathan McKernan, a former Treasury Department and Federal Housing Finance Agency staffer, told the Senate Banking Committee that Rohit Chopra — President Joe Biden's CFPB director — “was onto something” with his policies targeting data brokers and data aggregators. The CFPB's withdrawal notice took particular issue with the rule's focus on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, saying that the proposal was “not aligned with the Bureau's current interpretation of the FCRA, which it is in the process of revising.” The Senate on Wednesday voted 54-43 to confirm businessman Emil Michael as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and the Pentagon's chief technology officer. In that position, Michael will serve as the primary advisor to the secretary of defense and other Defense Department leaders on tech development and transition, prototyping, experimentation, and management of testing ranges and activities. He'll also be in charge of synchronizing science and technology efforts across the DOD. Michael comes to the job from the private sector, where he's been a business executive, advisor and investor. He told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that he's been involved with more than 50 different tech companies during his career. Perhaps most notable, from 2013 to 2017, he was chief business officer at Uber. In government, he previously served as special assistant to the secretary of defense when Robert Gates was Pentagon chief. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.
The Father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, joins us to explore the complex world of international trade and its impact on investors. Key insights include: Challenging conventional wisdom about trade policies Understanding economic forces that drive investment opportunities Gaining expert perspective on global economic trends Stockman provides a candid analysis of current trade strategies, revealing: The true drivers of economic competitiveness Potential pitfalls of protectionist approaches Critical insights for strategic investors The episode cuts through political noise to offer clear, actionable economic intelligence for informed decision-making. Smart investors look beyond headlines to understand the deeper economic forces shaping their financial future. Resources: Check out David Stockman's Contra Corner Newsletter Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/553 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments. You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review” For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript: Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai Keith Weinhold 0:01 Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, I sit down with a long time White House occupant who was the official economic advisor to an ex president. We get the real deal on tariffs and what they mean to you. Trump gets called out and the ominous sign about what's coming six months from now, today on, Get Rich Education. Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being the flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com Corey Coates 1:14 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education. Keith Weinhold 1:30 Welcome to GRE from Brookline, Massachusetts to Brooklyn, New York and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you are listening to get rich education, just another shaved mammal behind this microphone here. I recently spent some time with the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman, in New York City, and sometimes an issue so critical surfaces that real estate investors need to step back and understand a broader force in the economy. Three weeks ago, here, I told you how the second and third way, real estate pays you. Cash flow and ROA are sourced by your tenants employment and the future of your tenants employment is influenced by tariffs and other policies of this presidential administration. This is going to affect rates of inflation and a whole lot of things. Now, an organization called the American Dialect Society, they actually name their word of the year, and this year, it is shaping up to be that word, tariff. In fact, Trump has described that word as the most beautiful word in the dictionary. And I think we all know by now that a tariff is an import tax that gets passed along to consumers when it comes to materials used in real estate construction that's going to affect future real estate prices. Well, several key ones so far were exempted from recent reciprocal tariffs, including steel, aluminum, lumber and copper exempted. Not everything was exempted, but those items and some others were but who knows if even they are going to stay that way. And now, when it comes to this topic. I think a lot of people want to make immediate overreactions in even posture like they're an expert in become an armchair economist, and I guess we all do a little of that, me included. But rather than being first on this and overreacting, let's let the policy which Trump called Liberation Day last month when he announced all these new tariffs. Let's let policy simmer a little and then bring in an expert that really knows what this means to the economy and real estate. So that's why I wanted to set up this discussion for your benefit with the father of Reaganomics and I today. In fact, what did Reagan himself say about tarrifs back in 1987 this is part of a clip that's gained new life this year. It's about a minute and a half. Speaker 1 4:13 Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. Now there are sound historical reasons for this. For those of us who lived through the Great Depression, the memory of the suffering it caused is deep and searing, and today, many economic analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the Smoot Hawley tariff greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery. You see at first when someone says, Let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs, and sometimes for a short while at work. Price, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is first, home grown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets. And then, while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition, so soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens, markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. Keith Weinhold 5:50 Now, from what I can tell you as a listener in the GRE audience, maybe you're split on what you think about tariffs. In fact, we ran an Instagram poll. It asks, generally speaking, tariffs are good or bad? Simply that 40% of you said good, 60% bad. Over on LinkedIn, it was different. 52% said they're good, 48% bad. So it's nearly half and half. And rather than me taking a side here, I like to bring up points that support both sides, and then let our distinguished guests talk, since he's the expert. For example, if a foreign nation wants to access the world's largest economy, the United States, does it make sense for them to pay a fee? I mean, it works that way in a lot of places, when you want to list a product on eBay or Amazon, you pay them a fee. You pay a percentage of the list price in order to get access to a ready marketplace of qualified buyers. All right. Well, that's one side, but then the other side is, come on, let's look at history. Where have tariffs ever worked like Where have they ever been a resounding, long term success? Do they have any history of a sustained, good track record? I generally like free trade. Then let's understand there's something even worse than a steep tariff. There are quotas which are imposed, import limits, trade limits, and then there are even all out import bans. What do terrorists mean to the economy that you are going to live in and that your tenants live in? It's the father of Reaganomics, and I on that straight ahead on Get Rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold. you know what's crazy? Your bank is getting rich off of you. The average savings account pays less than 1% it's like laughable. Meanwhile, if your money isn't making at least 4% you're losing to inflation. That's why I started putting my own money into the FFI liquidity fund. It's super simple. Your cash can pull in up to 8% returns, and it compounds. It's not some high risk gamble like digital or AI stock trading. It's pretty low risk because they've got a 10 plus year track record of paying investors on time in full every time. I mean, I wouldn't be talking about it if I wasn't invested myself. You can invest as little as 25k and you keep earning until you decide you want your money back, no weird lock ups or anything like that. So if you're like me and tired of your liquid funds just sitting there doing nothing, check it out. Text, family to 66866, to learn about freedom, family investments, liquidity fund, again. Text family to 6686 Hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start Now while it's on your mind at Ridge lendinggroup.com, that's ridgelendinggroup.com. Hey Robert Helms 9:28 Hey everybody. It's Robert Helms of the real estate guys radio program. So glad you found Keith Weinhold in get rich education. Don't quit your Daydream. Keith Weinhold 9:48 when it comes to White House economic policy like tariffs, taxes and inflation, don't you wish you could talk to someone that's often been inside the White House. Today, we are even better. He was the official advisor to an ex president on economic affairs, a Wall Street and Washington insider and Harvard grad. Today's guest is also a former two time congressman from Michigan. He's a prolific author, and he is none other than the man known as the father of Reaganomics. He was indeed President Ronald Reagan's budget advisor. He was first with us last year, but so much has happened since. So welcome back to the show. David Stockman, David Stockman 10:26 very good to be with you, and you're certainly right about that. I think we're really in uncharted waters. Who could have predicted where we are today, and therefore it's very hard to know where we're heading, but you have to try to peer through the fog and all the uncertainty and the noise and the, you know, day to day ups and downs that's coming from this White House in a way that we've never seen before. And I started on Capitol Hill in 1970 so I've been watching this, you know, for more than a half century, actually, quite a while. And man, it's important to go through all this, but it's sort of uncharted waters. Keith Weinhold 11:04 Sure, it's sort of like you wake up every day and all you do know is that you don't know. And David, when it comes to tariffs, I want to give you my idea, and then I want to ask you about what the tariff objective even is. Now, to be sure, no one is asking me how to advise the President. I'm an international real estate investor, but I do most of my business in the US, and I sure don't have international trade policy experience. It seems better to me, David, that rather than shocking the world with new tariffs that kick in right away, it would have been better to announce that tariffs begin in, say, 90 days, and then give nations space to negotiate before they kick in. That's my prevailing idea. My question to you is, what's the real objective here? What are terrorists proposed to do? Raise revenue, onshore companies merely a negotiation tactic? Is the objective? Something else? David Stockman 12:00 Well, it might be all of the above, but I think it's important to start with a predicate, and that is that the problem is not high tariffs abroad or cheating by foreign competitors or exporters. There is a huge problem of a chronic trade deficit that is not benign, that does reflect a tremendous offshoring of our industrial economy, the loss of good, high paying industrial and manufacturing jobs. So the issue is an important one to address, but I have to say, very clearly, Trump is 100% wrong when he attempts to address it with tariffs, because foreign tariffs aren't the problem. Let me just give a couple of pieces of data on this, and I've been doing a lot of research on this. If you take the top 51 exporters to the United States, our top 51 trade partners, and this is Mexico and Canada and the entire EU and it's all the big far eastern China, Japan, South Korea, India, you know, all the rest of them. If you look at the and that's 90% of our trade, we have 2.9 trillion of imports coming in from all of those countries, and the tariff that we Levy, this is the United States, on those imports, is not high. It's higher than it was in the past, mainly because of what Trump did in the first term, but it's 3.9% now compared to bad times historically, decades and decades ago. That's relatively low. But here's the key point, if we look at the same 51 trading partners in terms of the tariffs they levy on our exports to China and to the EU and to Canada and Mexico and South Korea and all the rest of them. The tariff average, weighted average that they levy is 2.1% so let me restate that the average US tariff is about twice as high 4% around things as what our partners imposed 2% now the larger point is whether it's 4% or 2% doesn't make a better difference. That's not a problem when it comes to 33 trillion of world trade of which we are, you know, the United States engages in about five and a half trillion of that on a two way basis, import, export, in the nexus of a massive global trading system. So he's off base. He's wrong. The target is not high tariffs or unfair foreign trade. Now there are some people who say, Well, you're looking at monetary tariffs. So in other words, the import duty they levy on, you know, exports to South Korea or India or someplace like that, right? And that, the real issue, supposedly, is non tariff barriers. For instance, you know, some governments require you that all procurement by government agencies has to be sourced from a domestic supplier, which automatically shuts out us suppliers who might want that business. Well, the problem is we're the biggest violator of the non tariff barrier in that area. In other words, we have something like $900 billion worth of state, federal and local procurement that's under Buy America policies, which means EU, Mexico, Canada, China, none of them can compete. Now I mention that only as one example, because it's the kind of classic non tariff barrier, as opposed to import duty that some people point to, or they point to the fact that while foreign countries allegedly manipulate their currency, but you know the answer to that is that number one, overwhelming, no doubt about it, largest currency manipulator in the world, is the Federal Reserve. Okay, so it's kind of hard to say that there's a unfair trade problem in the world because of currency manipulation. And then there is, you know, an argument. Well, foreign governments subsidize their exporters. They subsidize their industrial companies, and therefore they can sell things cheaper. And therefore that's another example of unfair trade, but the biggest subsidizer of tech industry, and of a lot of other basic industry in the United States is is the Defense Department. You know, we have a trillion dollar defense budget, and we put massive amounts of dollars in, not only to buying, you know, hardware and weapons and so forth, but huge amounts of R and D that go into developing cutting edge technologies that have a lot of civilian applications that, in fact, we see all over the world. That's why we're doing this broadcast right now. The point is that problem is not high tariffs because they're only low tariffs. The problem is not unfair trade, because there's all kinds of minor little interferences with pure free markets, but both, everybody violates those one way or another due to domestic politics. But it's not a big deal. It doesn't make that big a difference. So therefore, why do we have a trillion dollar trade deficit in the most recent year, and a trade deficit of that magnitude that's been pretty continuous since the 1970s the answer is three or four blocks from the White House, not 10,000 miles away in Beijing or Tokyo. The answer is the Federal Reserve has in the ELLs building there in DC, not far from the White House. Yes, yes, right there, okay, the Eccles building the Fed has a huge, persistent pro inflation bias, sure. And as a result of that, it is pushed the wage levels and the price levels and the cost levels of the US economy steadily higher, and therefore we've become less and less competitive with practically everybody, but certainly a lower wage countries nearby, like Mexico or China, far away. And you know, there's, it's not that simple of just labor costs and wages, because, after all, if you source from China, you've got to ship things 10,000 miles. You've got supply chain management issues, you've got quality control issues, you've got timeliness issues. You have inventory carry costs, because there's a huge pipeline, and of course, you have the actual freight cost of bringing all those containers over. But nevertheless, when you factor all that in, our trade problem is our costs are too high, and that is a function of the pro inflation policies of the Fed. Give one example. Go back just to the period when the economy was beginning to recover, right after the great recession. And you know the crisis of 208209 and I started 210 unit labor costs in manufacturing in the United States. Just from 210 that's only 15 years, are up 55% that's unit labor costs. In other words, if you take wage costs and you subtract productivity growth in that 15 year period, the net wage costs less productivity growth, which is what economists call unit labor costs, are up 53% and as a result of that, we started, you know, maybe with a $15 wage difference between the United States and.China back in the late 1990s that wage gap today is $30 in other words, the fully loaded way at cost of average wages in the United States. And I'm talking about not just the pay envelope, but also the payroll taxes, the you know, charge for pension expense, health care and so forth. The whole fully loaded cost to an employer is about $40 an hour, and it's about $10 in the United States and it's about $10 an hour in China. Now that's the reason why we have a huge trade deficit with China, because of the massive cost difference, and it's not because anybody's cheating. Is because the Fed, in its wisdom, decided, well, you know, everybody will be okay. We're going to inflate the economy at 2% a year. That's their target. It's not like, well, we're trying to get low inflation or zero inflation, but we're not quite making it. No, they're proactive. Answer is, we've got to have 2% or the economy is not going to work. Well, well, 2% sounds well, that's a trivial little number. However, when you do it year after year, decade after decade, for a long period of time, and the other side is not inflating at the same rate, then in dollar terms, you have a problem, and that's where we are today. So this is important to understand, because it means the heart of the whole Trump economic policy, which is trying to bring manufacturing home, trying to bring industry back to the United States, a laudable objective is based on a false diagnosis of why this happened, and it is unleashed ball in the china shop, disruption of global economic flows in relationships that are going to cause unmitigated problems, even disaster in the US economy. Because it's too subtle, when you think about it, the world trade system just goods. Now, we've not even talking about services yet, or capital flows or financing on a short term basis. The World Trade in goods, merchandise, goods only is now 33 trillion. That is a hell of a lot of activity of parts and pieces and raw materials and finished products flowing in. You know, impossible to imagine directions back and forth between dozens and dozens of major economies and hundreds overall. And when you start, you step into that, not with a tiny little increase in the tariff. To give somebody a message. You know, if our tariffs are averaging 4% that's what I gave you a little while ago. And you raise tariffs to 20% maybe that's a message. But Trump didn't do that. He raised the tariff on China to 145% in other words, let's just take one example of a practical product, almost all the small appliances that you can find in Target or even a higher end retail stores United States or on Amazon are sourced in China because of this cost differential. I've been talking about this huge wage differential. So over the last 20, 25, years, little it went there now 80% of all small appliances are now sourced in China, and one, you know, good example would be a microwave oven, and a standard one with not a lot of fancy bells and whistles, is $100 now, when you put 145% tariff on the $100 landed microwave oven is now $245 someone's going to say, Gee, are we going to be able to sell microwaves at $245 they're not certain. I'm talking about a US importer. I'm talking about someone who sells microwaves on Amazon, for instance, or the buyers at Walmart or Target, or the rest of them, they're going to say, wait a minute, maybe we ought to hold off our orders until we see how this is going to shake out. And Trump says he's going to be negotiating, which is another whole issue that we'll get into. It's a lot of baloney. He has no idea what he's doing. Let's just face the facts about this. So if orders are suddenly cut back, and the flow that goes on day in and day out across the Pacific into the big ports in Long Beach in Los Angeles is suddenly disrupted, not in a small way, but in a big way, by 20, 30, 40, 50% six or seven months down the road, we're going to have empty shelves. We're going to have empty warehouses. We're going to have sellers who suddenly realize there's such a scarcity of products that have been hit by this blunderbuss of tariffs that we can double our price and get away with it. Keith Weinhold 25:00 Okay, sure. I mean, ports are designed. Ports are set up for stadium flows, not for surges, and then walls and activity. That just really doesn't work. David Stockman 25:08 And let me just get in that, because you're on a good point. In other words, there is a complicated supply line, supply chain, where, you know, stuff is handed off, one hand to another, ports in China, shipping companies, ports here, rail distribution systems, regional warehouses of you know, people like Walmart and so forth, that whole supply chain is going to be hit with a shock. Everything is going to be uncertain in terms of the formulas that everybody uses right now, you know that you sell 100 units a week, so you got to replace them at the sales rate, and you put your orders in, and know that it takes six weeks to get here, and all this other stuff, all of the common knowledge that's in the supply chain that makes it work, and the handoffs smooth and efficient From one player in the supply chain to the next, it's all going to be disrupted. But the one thing we're going to have is we're going to have shortages, we're going to have empty shelves, and we're going to have price which I'm sure that Trump is not going to start saying price gouging of a you know, right? But that's not price gouging. If you have a you know, go to Florida. We have a hurricane. Where we live in Florida and New York, we have a hurricane. All of a sudden the shelves are empty and there's no goods around, because everybody's been stocking up getting ready for the storm. And then all of a sudden, the politicians are yelling that somebody's price gouging, because they raised their prices in a market that was in disequilibrium. Well, that's not price gouging. That's supply and demand trying to find a new balance basic economics. You know, when the demand is 100 and the supply is 35 okay, but I'm kind of getting ahead here, but I think there's very good likelihood that there's going to be a human cry right before, you know, maybe in the fall or right before Christmas, about price gouging and Trump then saying, Well, I was elected to bring prices down and bring inflation under control. It's out of control because all of these foreigners raised their prices. And no, they did, and it was the tariff that did it, and all the people in the supply chain are trying to take advantage of the temporary disruptions. So I think people have to understand, and I can't say this, and I don't like to say it, because I certainly didn't think the other candidate in the last election had anything to offer in terms of dealing with our serious economic problems in this country. I'm talking about Harris. But the fact is, Donald Trump has had a wrong idea for the last 40 to 50 years of his adult life. In that core idea is that trade deficits are a sign of the other side cheating. They're a sign that you're being exploited or taken advantage of or ripped off, or it's not at all okay. Trade deficits are a consequence of cost differences between different jurisdictions, and to the extent that we've artificially, unnecessarily inflated our costs. We need to fix the problem at the source. He ought to clean house at the Federal Reserve. But the problem is, Trump wants lower interest rates when, in fact, the low interest rates created all the inflation that led to our loss of competitiveness and the huge trade deficits we have today. So to summarize, it is important to understand, do not have faith in Trump's promise that we're going to have a golden age of economic prosperity. We are going to have a economic disaster, and it's a unforced error. It's self inflicted, and it's the result of the wrong fundamental idea of one guy who's in the oval office right now throwing his considerable weight around and pushing the economy into upheaval that really is totally unnecessary. He should have done what he was elected to do, and Matt's work on getting production up and costs down, that's not going to be solved with tariffs. David, I have another important point to bring up. But before we do just quickly, are those two to 4% tariffs you mentioned earlier. Those are the tariff levels pre Trump second term correct. We could clarify that those are for the year 2023 that was the latest full year data that we have with great deal of granularity. Keith Weinhold 29:56 The point I want to bring up is there any history? That tariffs actually work. Some people cite the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act from the 1930s and that it drove us deeper into the Great Depression. And David, on the one hand, when we think about, do tariffs actually work? If Indonesia can make shoes for us for $11 why would we want to onshore an activity like that? That is a good deal for us. And then, on the other hand, you have someone like Nvidia, the world's leading semiconductor company, they announced plans to produce some of their AI supercomputers entirely on American soil for the first time recently. And you have some other companies that have made similar announcements. So that's a small shred of evidence that tariffs could work. But my question is, historically, do tariffs actually work? David Stockman 30:44 That's a great question, and there's a huge history. And you can go back all the way the 19th century, where Donald Trump seems to be preoccupied, but what he fails to recognize is that they worked in the 19th century because they were revenue tariffs. It wasn't an effort to, like, bring jobs back to America. We were booming at the time. Jobs were coming to America, not leaving, and it was the federal government's main source of revenue. Because, as you know, prior to 1913 there was no income tax, right? So that was one thing. Okay, then when we got into the 20th century and host World War Two, it became obvious to people that the whole idea of comparative advantage, going all the way back to Adam Smith, and that enhanced a global trade where people could specialize in whatever their more competitive advantage is, was a Good thing. And so we had round after round of negotiations after World War Two that reduced tariff levels steadily, year by year, decade by decade. So by the time we got to the 1990s when China, then, you know, arose from the disaster of Mao and Mr. Dang took over and created all the export factories and said, It's glorious to be rich and all these things is we got red capitalism. But if we start in the 1990s the average tariff worldwide, now this is weighted average on all goods that are bought and sold or imported and exported, was about 9% and there were have been various free trade deals done since then. For instance, we had NAFTA, and the tariffs on Mexico and Canada and the United States went to zero. We had a free trade deal in 212 with South Korea. This never comes up, but the tariff on South Korean goods coming the US is zero. The tariff on us, exports going to South Korea is zero because we have a free trade agreement, and it's worked out pretty well with South Korea. Now we're not the only ones doing this. Countries all over the world. The EU is a total free trade zone in economy almost as big as the United States that used to have tariff levels between countries. Now it's one big free trade zone. So if you take the entire world economy, that 9% weighted average tariff of the early 90s, which was down from maybe 2025, 30, pre World War Two in this Smoot Hawley era, was down to 2.25% by the time that Donald Trump took office, the first time around in 2017 now 2.25% is really a rounding error. It's hardly when you have $33 trillion worth of goods moving around, you know, container ships and bulk carriers and so forth all around the world, and air freight and the rest of it, rail. 2% tariff is not any kind of big deal, as I say in some of the things I write, it's not a hill of beans. So somehow, though 45 years ago, Trump got the idea that tariffs were causing a problem and that we had trade deficits, not because our costs were going up owing to bad monetary policy, but because the other guy was cheating. Remember, this is Trump's whole view of the world. It's a zero sum game. I win, you lose, and if I'm not winning, is because you're cheating. Okay? In other words, I'm inherently going to win. America's inherently going to win unless the other guy is cheating. Now, Trump sees the world the same way that I think he looked at electrical and plumbing contractors in the Bronx, you know, in the 1980s and 1990s when he was developing his various Real Estate projects. These are pretty rough and tumble guys. It's a wild, easy way to make a living. So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of pretty rough baseball that's played that mentality that the other guy is always trying to screw me, the other guy's always cheating, the other guy's preventing me from winning, is, is his basic mentality. And it's not Applicable. It's not useful at all to try to understand the global economy. Try to understand why America's $29 trillion economy is not chugging along as strongly and as productively as it should be, why real wages are not making the gains that workers should be experiencing and so forth. So he ought to get out of this whole trade, tariff trade war thing, which he started, I don't know how he does, it's a little late, and focus on the problems on the home front. In other words, our trade problem has been caused by too much spending, too much borrowing, too much money printing on the banks of the Potomac. It's not basically caused in Beijing or Tokyo or Seoul or even Brussels, the European Union. And we need to get back to the basic and the real culprit, which is the Federal Reserve and its current chairman, Paul, if he wants to attack somebody, go after the Fed. Go after Paul. But ought to give them a mandate to bring inflation to zero and to stop fooling around with everything else and to stop monetizing the public debt that is buying government debt, take care of your own backyard first before you start taking, yeah, sure, yeah, exactly. You know, I've been in this for a long time. I start, as I said, I started on Capitol Hill. There have been a lot of protectionist politicians, but they always argued free trade is good, but it has to be fair trade. And you know, we have this example in our steel industry, for instance, where we producers abroad are competing unfairly for one reason or another. But the point I'm getting to is they always said this is an exceptional case. Normally we would go for free trade, but we got to have protection here. We got to have a temporary quota. Even when I was in the Reagan administration, we had a big argument about voluntary quotas on Japanese car exports, and I was totally against it. I thought the US industry needed to get its act together, get its costs down. Needed to get the UAW under control, because it had pushed wages, you know, way, way, way too high terms of total cost. But they argued, yeah, well, you're right, but we have to have 10 years in order to allow things to be improved and adjusted and catch up. So this is only temporary. This is just this. Yes, this is protectionism, but it's temporary. It's expedient that we can avoid and so therefore we'll make an exception. But there is no one, and most of these people were, you know, in the payroll of the unions, or they were congressmen from south to South Carolina going to bad for the textile industry, or congressman from Ohio going to bat for the steel industry, whatever, but there was no one who ever came along and said tariffs are big, beautiful things, and we need to have permanent high tariffs, because that's the way we're going to get prosperity back in United States. It's a dumb idea. It's wrong. It's disproven by history and people. Even though Trump has done a lot of things that I like you know, he's got rid of dei he's got rid of all of this green energy, climate crisis nonsense, all of that that he's done is to the good when you come to this basic question, how do we get prosperity in America? The answer is, through free market capitalism, by getting the government out of the way, by balancing the budget and by telling the Fed not to, you know, inflate the economy to the disadvantage that it has today. That's how you get there. And Trump is not a real Republican. Trump is basically what I call a status. He's for big government, right wing status. Okay, there's left wing, Marxist status, then there's right wing status. But you know, all of this tariff business is going to create so much corruption that it's almost impossible to imagine, because every day there's someone down there, right now, I can guarantee it at the, you know, treasury department or at Commerce department saying, but we got special circumstances here in terms of the parts that we're making for aircraft that get assembled in South Korea or something, and we need special relief. Yes, every industry you're doing is putting in for everybody's going to be there the lobby. This is the greatest dream that the Washington lobbyist community ever had. Trump is literally saying he put this reciprocal tariff. You saw the whole schedule. That he had on that easel in the White House on April 2, immigration day. It was called Liberation Day. I called it Demolition Derby Day. There was a reciprocal tariff for every single country in the world based on a phony formula that said, if we have $100 million deficit with somebody, half of that was caused by cheating. So we're going to put a tariff in place closes half of the difference. I mean, just nonsense, Schoolboy idiocy. Now it is. I mean, I know everybody said, Oh, isn't it great? We've finally got rid of the bad guys, Biden, he's terrible, and the Democrats, I agree with all that, but we replaced one set of numb skulls with another set. Unfortunately, Republicans know better, but they're so intimidated, apparently buffaloed by Trump at the moment, that they're going along with this. But they know you don't put 145%tariff on anything. I mean, it's just nuts. David, I feel like you're telling us what you really think and absolutely love that. Keith Weinhold 41:04 Interestingly, there is a Ronald Reagan clip about tariffs out there in a speech that he gave from Camp David, and it's something that's really had new life lately. In fact, we played the audio of that clip before you came onto the show today, Reagan said that he didn't like tariffs and that they hurt every American worker and consumer as Reagan's economic advisor in the White House. Did you advise him on that? David Stockman 41:27 Yes, I did. And also I can give you a little anecdote that I think people will find interesting. Yeah, the one time that he deviated in a big way from his free trade commitments was when he put the voluntary export quota on the Japanese auto industry. That was big. I don't remember the exact number, but I think it said they couldn't export more than 1.2 million cars a year, or something like that the United States. And the number was supposed to adjust over time, but we had huge debates in the Cabinet Room about those things, and at the end of the day, here's what he said. He said, You know, I've always been for open trade, free trade. I've always felt it has to be fair trade. But, you know, in this case, the Japanese industry came to us and asked for voluntary quotas, so I didn't put up a trade barrier. I'm only accommodating their request. Well, the Japanese did come to him and ask. They did, but only when they were put up to it by the protectionists in the Reagan administration who, on this took them on the side, you know, their negotiators and maybe their foreign minister. I can't remember exactly who commerce secretary and said, If you don't ask for voluntary quotas, we're going to unleash Capitol Hill and you're going to get a real nasty wall put up against your car. So what will it be? Do you want to front for voluntary quotas? Are we going to unleash Congress? So they came to Reagan and said they were the Japanese industry said they're recommending that he impose voluntary restraints on auto exports. That was just a ruse. He wasn't naive, but he believed what you told him. He believed that everybody was honest like he was, and so he didn't understand that the Japanese industry that was brought to meet with him in the Oval Office had been put up to, it been threatened with, you know, something far worse, mandatory quote is imposed by Congress. But anyway, it's a little anecdote. What happened? On the other hand, he continued to articulate the case for small government sound money. We had deficit problems, but he always wanted a balanced budget. It was just hard to get there politically. And he believed that capitalism produces prosperity if you let capitalism work and keep the government out of the marketplace. And there is no bigger form of intervention and meddling and disruption in the capitalist system, in the free market, in the marketplace, than quotas on every product in every country at different levels. They're going to have 150 different countries negotiating bilaterally deals with the United States. That's the first thing that's ridiculous. They can't happen. The second thing is they're going to come up with deals that don't amount to a hill of beans, but they'll say, we have a deal. The White House will claim victory. Let me just give one example. As we know, one of the big things that Trump did in the first administration was he renegotiated NAFTA. And NAFTA was the free trade agreement between Mexico, Canada, United States. Before he started in 2017 the trade deficit of the US with Mexico and Canada combined with 65 billion. And he said, That's too big, and we got to fix NAFTA. We have got to rebalance the provisions so that the US comes out, not on the short end of the stick 65 billion. So they negotiated for about a year and a half, they announced a new deal, which he then renamed the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement, usmca, and, you know, made a big noise about it, but it was the same deal with the new name. They didn't change more than 2% of the underlying machinery and structure, semantics. Well now, so now we fast forward to 2024 so the usmca Trump's pride and joy, his the kind of deal that he says he's going to seek with every country in the world is now four years into effect. And what is the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico today, it's 230 5 billion okay? It's four times higher now than it was then when he put it in place. Why? Because we have a huge trade deficit with Mexico. Why because, you know, average wages there are less than $10 an hour, and they're $40 an hour here. That's why it has nothing to do with a bad trade deal. It has to do with cost differences. Keith Weinhold 46:27 David, this has been great, and as we're winding down here, we have a lot of real estate investor listeners tell us what this administration's overall policies, not just tariffs, but overall policies, mean for future employment, and then tell us about your highly regarded contra corner newsletter. David Stockman 46:45 Well, those are that's a big question. I think it doesn't mean good, because if they were really trying to get America back on track our economy, they would be fighting inflation tooth and nail to get it down to zero. They would be working day and night to implement what Musk came up with in the doge that is big spending cuts and balancing the budget. They're not doing that. They're letting all these announcements being made, but they're not actually cutting any spending. They would not be attempting to impose this huge apparatus of tariffs on the US economy, but they're not doing that. So I'm not confident we were going in the wrong direction under Biden, for sure, and we're going in an even worse direction right now under Trump. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I put out a daily newsletter called David stockman's Country corner. You can yes signers on the internet, but this is what we write about every day, and I say A plague on both their houses, the Democrats, the Republicans. They're all, in many ways, just trying to justify government meddling, government spending, government borrowing, government money printing, when we would do a lot better if we went in the opposite direction, sound money, balanced budgets, free markets and so forth, so. And in the process, I'm not partisan. You know, I was a Republican congressman. I was a budget director of the Reagan administration. I have been more on the Republican side, obviously, over my career than the Democrats, but now I realize that both parties are part of the problem, and I call it the uni party when push comes to shove, the uni party has basically been for a lot of wars abroad and a lot of debt at home, and a lot of meddling in the economy That was unnecessary. So if you look at what I write every day, it tries to help people see through the pretenses and the errors of the unit party, Democrats and Republicans. And in the present time, I have to focus on Trump, because Trump is making all the noise. Keith Weinhold 48:59 100% Yes, it sure has kept life and the news cycle exciting, whether someone likes that news or not. Well, David, this has been great. In fact, it sounds a lot like what Reagan might have told me, perhaps because you were a chief economic informant for him, smaller government, letting the free trade flow and lower inflation. Be sure to check out David stockman's contra corner newsletter if you like what we've been talking about today, just like it was last year, David, it's been a real pleasure having you on GRE today. David Stockman 49:30 Well, thank you very much. And these are important issues, and we've got to stay on top of them. Keith Weinhold 49:41 Oh, yeah. Well, David Stockman truly no mincing words. He doesn't like tariffs. In summary, telling GRE listeners that the problem with trade imbalances is inflation attack that instead quell inflation, don't impose tariffs. A lot of developing nations and China have distinct advantages over manufacturing in the United States, besides having the trained labor and all the factories and systems in place, think about how many of these nations have built in lower costs they don't have to deal with these regulatory agencies, no EPA, no OSHA, and not even a minimum wage law to have to comply with. And here in the US get this, 80% of American workers agree that the US would benefit from more manufacturing jobs, but almost 75% disagree that they would personally be better off working in a factory themselves. That's according to a joint Cato Institute in YouGov survey. It's sort of like how last century, Americans lamented the demise of the family farm, yeah, but yet, they sure didn't want to work on a farm themselves. Now there are some types of manufacturing, like perhaps pharmaceuticals or computer chips that could likely be onshore, because those items are high value items. Their value can exceed the cost of being produced in the USA, but a lot of these factory goods, not again. If these topics interest you do a search for David stockman's contra corner, or you can directly visit David stockman's contra corner.com. Big thanks to the father of Reaganomics, David Stockman on the show this week. As for next week, we're back more toward the center of real estate investing. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream. Y Unknown Speaker 51:42 nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC Keith Weinhold 52:02 You know, whenever you want the best written real estate and finance info, oh, geez, today's experience limits your free articles access and it's got paywalls and pop ups and push notifications and cookies disclaimers, it's not so great. So then it's vital to place nice, clean, free content into your hands that adds no hype value to your life. That's why this is the golden age of quality newsletters. And I write every word of ours myself. It's got a dash of humor, and it's to the point because even the word abbreviation is too long. My letter usually takes less than three minutes to read, and when you start the letter, you also get my one hour fast real estate video. Course, it's all completely free. It's called The Don't quit your Daydream. Letter, it wires your mind for wealth, and it couldn't be easier for you to get it right now. Just text GRE to 66866, while it's on your mind, take a moment to do it right now. Text GRE to 66866 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.
According to officials, the Defense Department's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program is a national secutity imperative to protect intellectual property and maintain an American competitive advantage in defense technology. At AFCEA TechNet 2025 in Baltimore, Katie Arrington, performing the duties of the DOD CIO, says CMMC needs to adapt dynamically to evolving cyber threats. With evolving tech like AI and quantum, acquisition rules need to adjust to evolving technologies while maintaining security standards. Arrington says that the Defense Department needs to continue to streamline cyber requirements through required standards, guidance and executive orders. She also discusses the need for a cultural shift towards continuous cybersecurity, the new Software Fast Track Initiative and baking cybersecurity into all DOD functions.
Young Bang, former principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, joined us at Nutanix .NEXT in Washington, D.C., to discuss the challenges and opportunities for Army innovation as new directives from the new administration shape the future of defense IT. From navigating outdated acquisition processes to transforming logistics with machine learning and integrating commercial AI into defense systems, Bang offered insights into how the Defense Department can modernize to keep pace with emerging technologies. He also highlighted standout programs driving innovation across the Pentagon and discusses the critical role of public-private partnerships in optimizing performance and driving operational efficiency in the digital age.
John discusses Trump who gathered (on his 100th day in office) his cabinet for one of the saddest and most obvious displays of ass-kissing a declining autocrat could ever ask for. Also - Ukraine and the United States have signed an agreement for mineral rights mining, considered not just a lucrative move for the US, but also a pre-requisite for any peace deal in ending Russia's occupation of Ukrainian land. Plus, Pete Hegseth and his decision to end the Defense Department's Women, Peace and Security program. Then, he jokes with podcast star Bob Cesca about Donald Trump's interview with ABC News' Terry Moran. Next, The God Squad returns to talk with John about Trump's polling tanking on his 100th day. And finally, Dr. Tracy Pearson joins the crew to discuss Columbia University protestor Mohsen Mahdawi who was released from detention after a federal judge ruled the administration cannot just round up legal immigrants because it doesn't approve of their opinions.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Dr. Paul Alexander Liberty Hour – If his wife gets security clearance so as to sit at his side to ensure he does not drink or cavort with other women, then we, the US, would have fallen to depths unseen before. Fire Pete Hegseth Sir, he is making a mockery of the Defense Department, you do not need to be fixing his daily drama and issues and you even gave him some initial bombings to pad his resume and give him a...
The Defense Department is launching a new fast-track software approval process. A popular employee monitoring tool exposes over 21 million real-time screenshots. The U.S. opens a criminal antitrust investigation into router maker TP-Link. A pair of health data breaches affect over six million people. South Korea's SK Telecom confirms a cyberattack. A critical zero-day puts thousands of SAP applications at potential risk. Researchers raise concerns over AI agents performing unauthorized actions. “Policy Puppetry” can break the safety guardrails of all major generative AI models. New research tallies the high costs of data breaches. A preview of the RSAC Innovation Sandbox with Cecilia Marinier, Vice President at RSAC, and David Chen, Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley. Stocking hard drives full of human knowledge, just in case. Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn CyberWire Guest Cecilia Marinier, Vice President at RSAC, and David Chen, Head of Global Technology Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley, sit down with Dave to discuss the Innovation Sandbox Contest 2025. Selected Reading Acting Pentagon CIO Signing Off on New, Faster Cyber Rules for Contractors (airandspaceforces) Top employee monitoring app leaks 21 million screenshots on thousands of users (TechRadar) Router Maker TP-Link Faces US Criminal Antitrust Investigation (bloomberg) Yale New Haven Health Notifying 5.5 Million of March Hack (bankinfosecurity) Frederick Health data breach impacts nearly 1 million patients (BleepingComputer) Hackers access sensitive SIM card data at South Korea's largest telecoms company (bitdefender) SAP Zero-Day Possibly Exploited by Initial Access Broker (SecurityWeek) Chrome Extension Uses AI Engine to Act Without User Input (Infosecurity Magazine) All Major Gen-AI Models Vulnerable to 'Policy Puppetry' Prompt Injection Attack (SecurityWeek) US Data Breach Lawsuits Total $155M Amid Cybersecurity Failures (Infosecurity Magazine) Sales of Hard Drives for the End of the World Boom Under Trump (404media) Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show. Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Tyler McBrien, and Kevin Frazier to talk through the week's big national security news, including:“Aliens vs. Predators.” Despite forceful legal pushback—including by the U.S. Supreme Court—the Trump administration is working hard to continue its campaign to remove foreign aliens it accuses of pursuing a “predatory incursion” from the country using the Alien Enemies Act. How far will it go? And to what extent can the courts (or anyone else) stop them?“Aye Aye Robot.” Both the Biden and Trump administrations were fans of artificial intelligence (AI) and set out policies to incorporate it into government decision-making. But while the Biden administration focused much of its efforts on guardrails, the Trump administration has increasingly torn them down as part of a broader push to incorporate the nascent technology into government decision-making. What are the risks and potential benefits of this sort of government by AI? “For Pete's Sake.” Beleaguered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is more beleaguered than ever this week, after reports that, in addition to inadvertently sharing classified secrets with Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, he also passed them to his wife, brother, and personal lawyer on another Signal thread. Meanwhile, a former adviser (and established Trump loyalist) went public with allegations that Hegseth's management has led to chaos at the Defense Department and called for his resignation. Will this be enough for the Trump administration to cut bait and run? Or does his support in the MAGAsphere simply run too deep?In object lessons, Tyler, fresh from biking adventures abroad, hyped the routes, photos, and resources on bikepacking.com, if physical exertion is your idea of relaxation. Anna, finding other ways to relax, came to the defense of The Big Short in helping to soothe her anxiety amid more current market upheaval. Doubling down on the “no relaxation without tension” theme, Scott's outie binge-watched Severance while on vacation. And Kevin, very on-brand, was quick to bring us a feel-good story of a new community partnership to support AI skill-building in Austin-based nonprofits. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Anna Bower, Tyler McBrien, and Kevin Frazier to talk through the week's big national security news, including:“Aliens vs. Predators.” Despite forceful legal pushback—including by the U.S. Supreme Court—the Trump administration is working hard to continue its campaign to remove foreign aliens it accuses of pursuing a “predatory incursion” from the country using the Alien Enemies Act. How far will it go? And to what extent can the courts (or anyone else) stop them?“Aye Aye Robot.” Both the Biden and Trump administrations were fans of artificial intelligence (AI) and set out policies to incorporate it into government decision-making. But while the Biden administration focused much of its efforts on guardrails, the Trump administration has increasingly torn them down as part of a broader push to incorporate the nascent technology into government decision-making. What are the risks and potential benefits of this sort of government by AI? “For Pete's Sake.” Beleaguered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is more beleaguered than ever this week, after reports that, in addition to inadvertently sharing classified secrets with Atlantic reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, he also passed them to his wife, brother, and personal lawyer on another Signal thread. Meanwhile, a former adviser (and established Trump loyalist) went public with allegations that Hegseth's management has led to chaos at the Defense Department and called for his resignation. Will this be enough for the Trump administration to cut bait and run? Or does his support in the MAGAsphere simply run too deep?In object lessons, Tyler, fresh from biking adventures abroad, hyped the routes, photos, and resources on bikepacking.com, if physical exertion is your idea of relaxation. Anna, finding other ways to relax, came to the defense of The Big Short in helping to soothe her anxiety amid more current market upheaval. Doubling down on the “no relaxation without tension” theme, Scott's outie binge-watched Severance while on vacation. And Kevin, very on-brand, was quick to bring us a feel-good story of a new community partnership to support AI skill-building in Austin-based nonprofits. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. Also — tributes have poured in from around the world remembering Pope Francis as a leader who advocated for the poor and the dispossessed, and the Supreme Court considers a case brought by parents who want to pull their kids out of public school classes because of objections to some learning materials. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Ryland Barton, Krishnadev Calamur, Arezou Rezvani and Janaya Williams.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Pope Francis passes away from stroke and heart failure, setting the stage for a historic conclave to choose his successor. The White House pushes back on reports of dysfunction in the Defense Department as Secretary Hegseth faces renewed scrutiny over leaked Signal chats and internal Pentagon shakeups. Gary Shapley removed as acting IRS Commissioner days after taking the job, amid behind-the-scenes infighting at Treasury and pushback over his surprise appointment.Herald Group: Learn more at https://GuardYourCard.com120Life: Go to https://120Life.com and use code MK to save 15%
On this episode, The Washington Post's Libby Casey, James Hohmann and JM Rieger discuss the latest allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared information about military plans on a group chat – this time, one that reportedly included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. The crew breaks down Hegseth's attempts at damage control, and why he's still in the job.Then, we go inside the reported chaos, screaming matches and proposed DOGE cuts at the Pentagon. And a former Hegseth aide says he was pushed out by a faction of Defense Department employees with an ulterior motive.
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: China signals a possible retreat in the trade war, saying it's open to talks—but only if President Trump shows some “respect.” Hamas rejects Israel's latest ceasefire proposal, which included a pause in fighting and negotiations to disarm Gaza militants. The U.S. and Iran are set to resume nuclear talks in Rome, but Tehran says uranium enrichment is off the table. And in today's Back of the Brief: A Pentagon shakeup—two senior Defense Department officials, including a top adviser to Pete Hegseth, have been placed on leave as part of a leak investigation. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief TriTails Premium Beef: Visit https://TryBeef.com/PDB for 2 free Flat Iron steaks with your first box over $250 Birch Gold: Text PDB to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices