A New Golden Age For America - In The Tank #480
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Donald Kendal:Woo hoo. Are we are we live? Do we do we do the cold open now? Do we do the countdown stuff? I forget.
Donald Kendal:It's been so long since I've been here. I'm just gonna jump into it. Alright. At the beginning of his inaugural address, president Donald Trump declared the golden age of America begins right now. And within hours of this statement, Donald Trump began signing a series of executive orders taking the first steps towards fulfilling this promise.
Donald Kendal:We are gonna be taking a look at some of these executive orders and the promises made by Trump to help determine if we are back on track to once again achieve greatness in the United States. Also, we have to talk about this massive AI infrastructure plan, project Stargate. You can't miss that segment. It'll be towards the end of the episode. We're gonna be talking about all this and more on episode 480 of the in the tank podcast.
Donald Trump:The golden age of America begins right now.
Donald Kendal:Welcome to the In the Tank podcast. As always, I'm your host Donald Kendall. I've got a I've got a full crew here. I got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute. I got Chris Talgo, editorial director here at the Heartland Institute, but everyone must be sitting there saying, what?
Donald Kendal:Who is this guy hosting? I'm so used to Linnea Lukin being the host of this here program. I don't know what this guy is. Yes. That is true.
Donald Kendal:But don't worry. You are on the right program. This is the in the tank podcast. I am the host today because Linnea Luke and, is she still trapped in Washington DC? As of yesterday, she was trapped in Washington, DC.
Donald Kendal:The weather and all of that stuff, the unusual snow in her area of the country has grounded flights, so she was stuck as of yesterday. But, don't worry. Fret knots because I am ready to fill in as guest host of this here program. Jim, how are you today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I'm doing great. My favorite executive order, and we're gonna be talking about a lot of them, by Donald Trump, was when he signed the executive order canceling global warming. Immediately, it starts snowing in Florida and Georgia and South Carolina. So and in Houston, Texas. So, yeah, that's my favorite one, and that is why Linnea is not hosting today.
Jim Lakely:And, we have, you know, somebody who's who used to be the host.
Chris Talgo:Oh, that's right.
Donald Kendal:I don't know.
Jim Lakely:For about a decade. And, what what happens on your first time back in the as in the hosting chair after about 4 weeks? Glitch galore. So
Donald Kendal:Everything was different. I've been gone for a couple of weeks, and everything's different.
Jim Lakely:Everything everything falls apart. So
Donald Kendal:But don't worry. It's like you had to bring Tom Brady back out of retirement to do this episode while, Lynnea Mahomes is is, stuck somewhere else.
Chris Talgo:True.
Donald Kendal:Chris, how are you this fine day, sir?
Chris Talgo:Doing good. Little little little chilly in your office here, Donnie. Not never really feeling this, but, you know, I'm gonna make it through this.
Donald Kendal:We're gonna we're gonna heat it up here in a little bit, but, we got a lot to talk about. I am in a great mood. The inauguration on Monday was a was was fantastic. I watched a lot of coverage that day. The thing that he started off the inauguration with was that that term or that, that statement that the golden age of America begins right now.
Donald Kendal:And that's something that he actually said during his campaign, I think, maybe after he got elected. I don't know. But I recall him saying that sort of statement before this inauguration, and it always resonated with me. It was this hopeful thing, this this goal that we can strive towards, and I hope that we are in the process of making that a reality. So I wanted to dedicate this entire episode to that idea of, of the golden age of America and, you know, have a nice little joyous tone here, until we get to talk about project stargate.
Donald Kendal:But, we'll save that for the end of the episode. So, yes, on Monday, president Donald Trump officially took office sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. So, I've got a couple of takeaways about the inauguration, how it all went down, his speech and everything. But, Jim, you know, this this was the this was the 6th, inauguration that I've been alive for. It's probably the second or third that I've really paid attention to.
Donald Kendal:So in terms of, like, how these things generally go down, I don't have the best grasp of kind of the precedent of all of this. I think you've got a couple more inaugurations under your belt than I do. So what were your your takeaways, just off the top when it comes to the events of Monday?
Jim Lakely:Well, one of the things that it made a big buzz on social media was how Melania Trump was dressed. Her v for vendetta hat was absolutely perfect.
Donald Kendal:I thought of Kung Lao from Mortal Kombat, but that was that was interesting.
Jim Lakely:Many many, many references, and none of them are good. None of them are very friendly. I I thought that was that was really something else. Yeah. There there hasn't been, an inauguration indoors.
Jim Lakely:I think the last one, I didn't check on this, but somebody had told me this was the first indoor inauguration and swearing in of a president since Ronald Reagan's second term. And, again, that was done because it it was cold. And, of course, I live here in Northern Illinois. Yeah. There's the hat.
Jim Lakely:Oh my gosh. Just absolutely that's that's some serious that's some serious messaging going on right there. But, you know, the this the inauguration of of, you know, was was was pulled indoors for weather. And I live here in Northern Illinois, and I was making fun of all of my friends in Washington DC saying, oh my gosh. It's so cold.
Jim Lakely:I can't believe how cold it is. It was 24 degrees. That's not cold. That's that's and it was bright sunshine in 24 degrees. That's called perfect tailgating weather in Wisconsin in December.
Jim Lakely:I mean, good grief. Put on a coat, put on a pair of gloves and a hat, you're gonna be fine. But, and regardless, I I thought it was, it was I didn't think I would be as excited and happy watching that as I as I actually ended up being. Because what, Donald Trump ended up doing in his inaugural address was, you know, what they the the media spun it as his first inaugural address, in some dark term. I'm Chris, you might remember.
Jim Lakely:It just escaped my mind for a moment.
Chris Talgo:American American carnage.
Jim Lakely:That's right. The American carnage inauguration speech for the last time. Yes. That's right. And so for this one, he gave a little bit of a mini state of the union address.
Jim Lakely:It was only 30 minutes, and he absolutely eviscerated the record of the previous administration right in front of Biden and Kamala, and they had to sit there and take it. It was so that it's had to start off with a real a real nice, revenge in that regard. But he was making he was pulling no punches in his rhetoric on who's to blame for the the moribund state of the of the American economy and culture these days. And then he just went off and and gave, maybe one of the best inaugural addresses as far as well, I should say, maybe one of the best mini state of the union slash inaugural addresses I've ever heard. And then he hit the ground, not running, but sprinting, to implement a brand new agenda for what he says will be.
Jim Lakely:And, I think it could actually happen, a new golden age in America.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Chris, I I'm curious, of your thoughts on on this because, you know, like I said, don't make a habit out of watching this inaugural addresses. I don't even think I I remember being in the office for the first time, Donald Trump was sworn in. I don't think I actually listened to it. But this one, I was tuned in.
Donald Kendal:I was focused. I was watching. So, again, I don't know what the precedent is for these types of things, what's standard, what's unique. But I figured that it was probably you know, I could probably put a wager, on this one being unique in terms of him running down the previous administration. Like Jim said, Joe Biden is sitting, like, right behind him, and he says and this is a direct quote from Trump's speech.
Donald Kendal:It says, for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair. We now have a government that cannot manage even a single crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad. I mean, that you're not pulling very a lot of punches there, Chris. So what's your take on it?
Chris Talgo:I think that was a very apt description of the past few years under the lack of leadership of president Biden. So, I mean, honestly, I think the ceremony was was very well done. I very much enjoyed, Trump's speech. I do disagree with Jim vehemently that it was way too cold to be outside because if it's less than 40 degrees, we should not be outside. I mean, what's
Jim Lakely:wrong with you ever? For any reason. Yeah.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, actually, 60 degrees would be my cutoff, but whatever. Okay.
Chris Talgo:So yeah. No, Donnie. It was great. You know you know what's so great is that there's enthusiasm. There's excitement.
Chris Talgo:There's energy. There's a there's this feeling that, like, you know, we we have a we have a leader back in our midst. It's it it it is so, great to see, you know, the level of excitement among the American people. And and I I I I truly feel that. I truly feel like when you just when you're just out and about, that the the people are like, finally, you we have we have a new, you know, a a new administration in place.
Chris Talgo:It looks like they're really gonna, you know, address some of these long simmering problems. So this is all just great, and I think that the inauguration went out went off without a hitch. That was awesome. And, I even think that the media coverage of it was was pretty fair.
Donald Kendal:Oh, okay. I I was gonna ask you about that. Were were people on CNN, MSNBC losing their minds over some of these dog whistles that he was surely peppering in with a speech or anything like that?
Chris Talgo:Not that I saw. No. I mean, there's not. You know, so I watched the original, well, not the original. The the the original.
Chris Talgo:The the the first time Trump was inaugurated, I was actually, teaching, and I was in the classroom, and we were watching it. And I remember, like, the CNN commentators, and it was very dark. It was very, you know, just trying to, you know, put as much shade on as possible on on his speech. That just did not happen this time. I think that the CNNs and MSNBCs are starting to realize that in order for them to maintain their audience, they need to at least be somewhat fair.
Chris Talgo:And so far, it's only a couple days in, but they are being much more fair than they were last time around.
Donald Kendal:Okay. Yeah. We'll definitely get into that in the time of unity or division section of the podcast. But, Jim, outside of, you know, starting off just laying haymakers on, you know, his predecessors, I don't even think it was just limited to Biden. I think you can probably throw, Obama in there just like the left in general.
Donald Kendal:But beyond that, he did move into kind of the big picture, you know, rosy predictions for the future, all the stuff that we're gonna strive to do, new age, the golden age of America, all of the stuff that was very optimistic. Me sitting there just, like, feeling so hopeful. I think I've seen some comments, coming through, expressing the same sort of stuff. Speech gave me a lot of hope and optimism, and and I I have to agree with that. And we were talking in the office yesterday, when we're when we're kind of preparing for the show, and you had made the case that, you know, some of these speeches, you know, even in those state of the union addresses by some presidents, you know, there's a lot of, like, talking about, like, stuff at the margins and, you know, very very kind of broad speaking things, but this was a lot larger in scope.
Donald Kendal:All the things that Trump was saying were were like, no. We're not gonna just mess around with stuff on the edges. Like, we are transforming this. We are going back to the great days of America. Do you wanna elaborate on all that?
Jim Lakely:Well, yeah. As I described it as kind of a mini state of the union, I was struck by how big, you know, the big ideas, the big plans he was talking about in his inaugural address. I mean, he said, you know, America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country.
Jim Lakely:Sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before. And and he said, I'm gonna have to search for it in here. He said, yeah. He said oops. I'm I'm sorry.
Jim Lakely:I was looking for the word Mars in the, in the yes. And he says, you know, once again, we will consider it's once again, the United States will consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons, and we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars. That is some big plan. Those are some big plans. He has reclaimed the use of the term manifest destiny, which has gotten, as Chris would know, as somebody who taught government and social studies in, in high schools.
Jim Lakely:The term manifest destiny does not exactly have a good reputation over the last 100 years. Donald Trump has reclaimed that and used it to how we will travel to the stars. The the idea he plants in our minds this vision. Imagine, you know, Elon Musk climbing out of a starship, unfurling an American flag, and stabbing that mother right into the soil of Mars. I mean, that's that that comes to mind.
Jim Lakely:And, again, how it's kind of a it was kind of a mini State of the Union address. It it reminded me of how most State of the Union addresses, especially from Democratic presidents, like, Joe Biden or Barack Obama, or my mind went back to Bill Clinton. You know, a State of the Union address by those presidents was often talking about these kind of small ball government programs. And the smallest ball, government program ever that came to mind, and some of our older listeners will remember this, is midnight basketball. Remember, we were going to solve inner city crime with midnight basketball.
Jim Lakely:And so my mind immediately when when Donald Trump said that we're gonna plant the stars and stripes on Mars in in hope you know, he thinks in his term, I thought immediately, boy, that's that's a lot that's a lot bigger idea than midnight basketball, which is what which is what Bill Clinton put out there for everybody to applaud, I don't know, in 1994 or something like that. So, yeah. This this was, as I said, I I I did not expect to be as, as excited about the future after watching the inauguration and listening to that speech. And then, frankly, we're gonna get into it, seeing the flurry of more than 200 executive orders, and then he gave a speech today to the World Economic Forum in Davos remotely, and that it was remarkable. So this this president is, now that he has a second chance, he is not screwing around.
Jim Lakely:He is serious, and things are happening fast, and it's fantastic.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. Donnie Donnie, just one one just, yeah, I wanna add one more thing here. So I actually, thought that there was some similarities between, Trump's second inaugural speech and Kennedy's, inaugural speech because what Kennedy did was he laid out a vision. He laid out a vision for the next decade. And in 1961, when Kennedy was giving his inaugural speech, it it was a time of great, energy and enthusiasm.
Chris Talgo:A young person taking over, you know, the 19 fifties were great, but it was like, okay. We're gonna move into this new era. And, the the the the people ate it up, and, you know, we did accomplish, you know, one of his most, you know, most important, feats by putting, you know, a man on the moon before the decade ended. And I've just found a lot of parallels between what, you know, Kennedy was laying out and what Trump's laying out. And, you know, John f Kennedy, you know, only was president for a couple years, but I think people forget that, during those couple years, he actually did get some big things done, one of them being a huge tax cut.
Chris Talgo:And, that tax cut actually really propelled, the United States, all throughout the 19 sixties. And, hopefully, we're gonna see a similar tax cut, and we're gonna see a similar just, you know, common sense approach to regulations. You know, John f Kennedy was also, you know, not a big fan of regulations and just, you know, common sense policies. So I I I do see some parallels between the 2, and I think that, the young people, are especially, you know, excited for for Trump. And the fact that he's appealing to young people is great, and I think that it's this is gonna be far beyond Trump's next 4 years.
Chris Talgo:I think that this mantle is just gonna be, you know, held for probably, you know, the next couple of terms.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. That is very interesting. I didn't, I didn't, think about that. But, you know one thing that's, that I think a lot of people are noticing. I was watching the coverage of the inaugural address and that all the events on Monday, from like the Blaze.
Donald Kendal:Glenn Beck was on there with a few other Blaze people. And, one thing that one thing that kind of came through when Donald Trump was campaigning and he was on the Joe Rogan program, he had talked about his first time becoming president and the whirlwind of all of it. And it it almost seemed like he wasn't expecting to become president. And when he actually became president, it was just, like, having to figure everything out on the fly, and how that took up, like, a lot of his bandwidth. Was just trying to figure out, like, the processes of all of these different things.
Donald Kendal:And, and then when so when Glenn Beck mentioned this, he actually mentioned something similar to this at the convention or the the conference that, Chris and I and and Justin went to in November. But he said the same thing during this coverage of the inaugural address here, where he basically said that it seems like Donald Trump went to, like, president's school in, like, the last 4 years. Like, in between his terms, he just, like, studied up on everything, and and and basically got himself to a point where he could hit the ground sprinting, as Jim mentioned. And I feel like that is very apparent in what he said during his inaugural address, and then, you know, the actions that occurred in the hours after that. They literally had, like, a desk set up, like, in the area so that Donald Trump could just immediately sit down and just start signing executive orders and executive actions and memorandums and what have you.
Donald Kendal:So what we saw literally within hours of him being sworn in as president was a flurry of executive actions. And I wanna talk about some of these because these really are kind of the first step towards, you know, this this idea, this this Trump, idea of, you know, the new golden age of America. So, I feel like we could probably go through each of us and talk about maybe some of these, executive actions that, stood out to you, maybe ones that are you suspect are gonna have a larger impact than others, maybe something that you were surprised about or anything that you specifically wanna comment on because there are a lot to choose from. I have a list here sitting next to me, not an exhaustive list, but a very long list of some of these items. So with that long kind of preamble to me calling on one of you and having you talk spontaneously about these executive orders, I'm gonna throw it to Jim.
Donald Kendal:What which of these, which of these executive actions stood out to you the most?
Jim Lakely:Well, I like you said, there were so many. And, you know, I started making a list, and the list just kept growing.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Jim Lakely:But it yeah. I mean, he signed over 200 of them, and I and I know a lot of our viewers and listeners may have also watched when, you know, after so, yeah, they set up a desk at the rally in the, Capital One Center in Washington, DC, the big hockey arena. And then he left that, and went to the Oval Office and had another another stack of executive orders that he was signing. And then he holds an impromptu press conference that is basically just, you know, you know, shooting the ball with reporters as he's signing each of these things. It was quite remarkable.
Jim Lakely:And, again, I think people should should remember that, as they watch all the things that Donald Trump is doing, in in his presidency, like like that impromptu press conference with the media while he's signing these executive orders. I mean, Joe Biden never did anything like that, was not capable of doing anything like that. Kamala Harris, even though younger and, at least with all of her brain matter, you know, the synapses are supposedly still firing like they like normal for a, for a middle aged woman. She wouldn't be able to do anything like that. But it it was it's remarkable that, Donald Trump at his age, has this kind of energy.
Jim Lakely:But there's a couple of the executive orders, and I'm sure, Chris has a few of his favorite ones. I'm gonna I'm gonna pull a couple of these out that are a little bit more unusual. He he signed an executive order to make architecture of our federal buildings beautiful again. Instead of these hulking, you know, Soviet brutalist style, architecture in in places like the FBI building and, well, just about all so many of the federal buildings in Washington DC are just frankly ugly as hell. No.
Jim Lakely:He decides, you know what? A great country has great buildings. So I'm gonna sign an executive order, insisting that it's there you go. Thank you, Andy. Producer.
Jim Lakely:The beautify public spaces in an in a noble United States. That seems like a small thing, but to me, it really is a big thing, because it says a lot about what kind of country you are by how beautiful your buildings are. And, of course, he withdrew from the World Health Organization. So we're out of that. The the organization that basically shut down the entire world, over it during the pandemic, and as we obvious as we kind of knew at the time and certainly learned it subsequently, it was none of that big shutdown was necessary to save lives.
Jim Lakely:And then, you know, a third one and we'll talk about there there's lots of them on climate, which we'll talk about tomorrow in more detail on the Climate Realism Show, the same time on Friday. But, my other favorite one is is making the federal employees come into the office to work. I have to forefend that the people that we pay pretty nice salaries and the most luxurious retirement benefits in the Western world actually get off their ass, get put pants on, get out of their damn pajamas, get into a car, and and come into work. I believe I I should have had it for the show. I apologize.
Jim Lakely:But I I saw something on x where the, I think a house committee actually wanted to investigate how full are these federal offices these days with, you know, hybrid work requirements now or hybrid work abilities. Kind of standard across all industries, even the Heartland Institute. We go hybrid work now, and I'm here in my home today. But, how many of these federal buildings are actually full of federal workers? Or, how full are they of federal workers?
Jim Lakely:And I believe, maybe it was the Department of Energy, only 6% occupancy. It is absurd. And so, the Doge project, which I know a lot of us are very excited about, and people are worried that the deep state is going to be so entrenched that they're going to counter and undermine the president at every turn like they did in his first term. Well, something as simple as requiring them to actually come to work might might get all those people to leave anyway. So, just as just as announcing you're going to crack down on illegal immigration, you know, illegal immigrants tend to, you know, self deport.
Jim Lakely:Maybe we will have many federal workers who are useless, at worse than useless, harmful to American freedom and the American economy. Maybe they will self quit. Or what is that what is it that, Gen z does this day? Is it quiet quitting? You know, I'll take that.
Jim Lakely:Get get the hell out.
Donald Kendal:They'll they'll unemployed themselves. I think it's
Jim Lakely:That's right. Go enjoy your fun employment, government workers, and get your early pension and get out of here. So Right.
Donald Kendal:Chris, throwing it to you. What, what executive orders or executive actions taken by Donald Trump stood out to you the most?
Chris Talgo:Well, I'm gonna be a politician and not answer this question directly. Okay?
Donald Kendal:Okay. Good.
Chris Talgo:I'm gonna put my politician hat on here. Okay? Good. So here's here's what I'm gonna say. I saw an interview with Donald Trump, and they asked him, you know, this time around, how was it different from first time around?
Chris Talgo:And what he said was he thinks that it was actually a blessing in disguise, that he did not win in 2020. And I I I think he obviously was saying that, you know, with some, you know, just not not being completely honest here. But he said that, what what that allowed him to do was go and be out of the White House bubble, out of the Washington DC bubble, go around the country, meet with the people, really understand what the pressing problems were. Also, it let all the the, first impeachment and all that stuff just just get, you know, get out of the system. So he comes in with a clean slate.
Chris Talgo:He comes in having soundly defeated, vice president Kamal Harris. He comes in with a Washington DC that is not nearly as willing to try to, you know, torpedo his his agenda. And I think that that that that in and of itself is such a difference maker. Because when you think about 2017, January 2017 to January of 2025, it's night and day difference. This whole deep state, you know, the resistance and all that, it's not what it was back then.
Chris Talgo:It seems like Washington DC more or less is on board with this. And I'm not saying that everyone in Washington DC, Democrats in congress are like, oh, thumbs up. Also, you know, all helped Trump. But that deep state, resistance does not seem like it's nearly as potent as it was the first time around. And, also, let's keep in mind that he's already getting rid of people who would pose this a threat to his, you know, agenda, whether it's the the woman who ran the the the prisons, whether it's the who ran the coast guard.
Chris Talgo:It's just all these, you know, big big names up at the justice department. They're all gone. They're not necessarily gone, but they've been, you know, they've been reassigned, and they're no longer gonna be in positions to actually, you know, blunt, the Trump agenda. So I think that in and of itself is a humongous, you know, benefit to the to the second, term here. In terms of the executive orders, they're really, really wide ranging.
Chris Talgo:Wow. I went on the White House website yesterday, and I actually think everyone here should go and visit it because it has been redone, and it's so much better, so much more patriotic too. It's just, you know, just it's it's it's it's you you gotta you gotta check it out. And I was just, you know, kinda, like, scrolling and reading through some of the executive orders there. Obviously, the ones on climate, I think, are really good.
Chris Talgo:I think getting out of, the Paris Climate Accord agreement again, is, you know, gonna be a boom for, you know, American industry and for, you know, you know, just American business. I do like a lot of the, the border, stuff that's going on already. I like a lot of the, you know, raids and getting these, you know, violent criminals out of our country. You know, I think really when it really boils down to it, the people want our border our border to be secure. They want the violent criminals and, you know, those people to be, you know, to be gone.
Chris Talgo:They want the cost of everyday goods and services to go down. Now the best way for Trump to do that is to, up the ante with American Energy, which he's already doing. He's undoing a lot of the terrible Biden policies that prevented us from, you know, drilling on federal lands. He's also, you know, taken, made it very difficult for those those wind farms to be built along the coast. So he's doing a lot of things there that are great.
Chris Talgo:And, lastly, I think, obviously, national security and, defense, and he's making, you know, great headway there. So I think, you know, he's hitting he's hitting the the 3 big things that people wanted, you know, peace. They want, border security, and they want the price of goods and services to go down. So I think he's off to a great start. I don't see nearly the amount of, resistance, in, you know, in DC these days.
Chris Talgo:So I think that's great thing a great thing, and I think that he's really set up for 4 years of, huge success here.
Jim Lakely:You you also have to you also have to remember that 8 years ago, the entirety of the legacy media, which most Americans still held in too high esteem and trusted as being truthful, was telling everybody in the world that Donald Trump was a literal Russian agent in the White House and that Vladimir Putin was our actual president, and all that other nonsense, which reminded me of my absolute number one favorite executive order is, Donald Trump revoking the security clearance of the 51 liars and, you know, liars. I'm I I don't wanna get any way stronger than that. But taking away their security clearances, for lying about the Hunter Biden laptop, calling it, Russian disinformation. I still I still don't understand how Leon Panetta and some of these other people that have been out of government for decades still retain high security clearances, which they sell to, you know, on K Street, you know, because it's it's very prestigious and rare, supposedly rare, to have to still retain your security clearance, high security clearance, when you leave government. There is no possible reason that I can think of that a retired, you know, CIA employee should retain, high security clearance when they're no longer serving the American people in government.
Jim Lakely:These should be it should be routinely revoked that when you leave government, you lose your high security clearance. And but, you know, maybe that's something that should be done routinely. But the good news is that these clowns, these liars, these people who undermined President Trump and undermined America by lying to us in the 2020 election about the Hunter Biden laptop, which was exposing the corruption that we now all see of the Biden family, that now their gravy train is going to come to an end because they can't sell that high security clearance anymore. They're useless without it. So, good good riddance to that.
Jim Lakely:If if that was vindictive, I'll take it.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. Another another another great thing he did was John Bolton, the the crazy warhawk. That's what he did. He took away his, his secret service.
Donald Kendal:So good. Is that right? Can't say that. I thought he was gonna make him like an ambassador to, like, Somalia or something like that. Chris, I thought if I had to guess, what your answer was gonna be for the executive orders.
Donald Kendal:I thought you were gonna go towards the DEI stuff where he just shredded these, like, DEI things, and he said that we're gonna return back to a merit based, system in the United States.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. No. Those are humongous. I am very glad to to see that that's already happening. He's already, I guess, you know, outlawed DEI within the entire federal government.
Chris Talgo:So anyone whose, position was a DEI position, you're gone. You're done. There's no there's no need for you anymore. That is great because we have gone so far from meritocracy. We've gone so far from a culture of excellence in these past few years to one where everything's relative and everyone's a victim and everyone needs a handoff for whatever reason.
Chris Talgo:That is a recipe for disaster. When when you're talking about, you know, the top levels of government, you've gotta have very, very competent people in place. You've also gotta have accountability, and we know that there was no accountability whatsoever under the Biden administration. So the DEI, the woke stuff, all that is just goodbye. It's gone.
Chris Talgo:You know, the American people are sick and tired of it. We wanna have people in charge who know what they're doing and who are more than capable of, you know, handling, you know, these positions. And under Donald Trump, I think that that is just good that is going to be, the the return that we need.
Donald Kendal:Wait. So they're they're outlawing DEI hires and practices across the federal government?
Chris Talgo:Yes. Does that
Donald Kendal:mean they have They
Chris Talgo:have eliminated DEI throughout the federal government. It is no longer allowed
Donald Kendal:to be Does that does that See see Wait. Does that mean that he has to refill a Supreme Court seat? Oh, shit. Woah. Woah.
Donald Kendal:Hello?
Chris Talgo:So so, you know
Jim Lakely:Well, what what it means, Donnie, is that the the, you know, half the podcast we've done over the last year are now, like, you know, very old. Right. And they're not very relevant anymore.
Donald Kendal:So so a lot of these executive orders, a lot of the actions that take place and the kind of implications of these things is what makes me so optimistic about this idea of the new golden age, for America. Because, you know, a lot of like, we know the United States is, like, the best country. We know that it's filled with some of the best innovators in the entire world, and left unrestricted. It could it could thrive. It could absolutely thrive.
Donald Kendal:And what we've seen, under the guise of all you know, everything from regulations to, you know, some of the DEI stuff, some of the climate rhetoric or whatever, has basically served to just, like, wrap red tape and and, around the legs of this economy that just wants to run. And I think that what a lot of these things, you know, some of the stuff that Jim mentioned, some of the stuff that Chris mentioned, even some of this DEI stuff is basically just, like, unleashing that potential of the American economy to, again, just thrive. And I think that no executive orders had done that better or is gonna have a bigger effect on that than the stuff that has to do with energy. And I know that they're gonna talk about this, tomorrow on the Climate Realism Show at noon CST on all of these different channels, but, I mean, I can't not mention it. Right?
Donald Kendal:So declared a national energy emergency. He rescinded Biden's protections around Alaska's coastal areas, surely for different drilling and other energy production reasons, paused the offshore wind leasing in federal waters because we all know that all of that is just a complete waste of money, withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, directed the Department of Energy to restart reviews for liquefied natural gas stuff, revoked the Biden executive order, which set a goal for 50% of US vehicle sales to be electric by 2030. So all of this stuff is just gonna help. It's just gonna be a boon for for energy, production in the United States. And it's, you know, like like we've talked about on this podcast a 1000000 times and at the Heartland Institute for years decades is that energy is the master resource.
Donald Kendal:It is the the the foundational level of any economic production at all. So all of these things, like I said, is just getting all of those weights and shackles off the legs of this economy that just wants to run just wants to run. So I'm hopeful that, you know, many other actions that, Donald Trump is gonna take and the legislature, of course, is gonna take over the next several years is gonna do nothing but help, in that regard. And that is why I am so optimistic, and that is why I am very hopeful for a golden age a new golden age of America. Chris or Well, just, you
Chris Talgo:know, one of the good things of the Biden administration is that he was not able to get laws passed for lots of the things he did. He used executive orders, and the beauty of that is that they can then undo those executive orders. So a lot of these things that we've been struggling under for the past 4 years were undone like that on day 1. Sure. Now I really do hope, obviously, that Trump can, get some bipartisan legislation passed.
Chris Talgo:He's already gotten the Lake and Riley act, you know, passed, so that's great. But I I I really hope we can get back to a place where there is, you know, more more, work across the aisle because a lot of these, you know, things that Trump is gonna address here in what he wants to do in one big beautiful reconciliation bill, but it's probably gonna take a couple bills. There's gonna be some, you know, supplementary bills that are gonna have to be passed as well. You're gonna need 60 votes in the senate to pass, you know, some of those. So I hope John Fetterman and some of these other senators get on board.
Chris Talgo:You know, this this for the past, few presidential cycles, at least, you know, as I've been watching them, you know, in in my adulthood here, it seems like we just keep flinging back and forth, you know, from, you know, president, Obama putting all these executive orders, then Trump undoing them, then Biden redoing them, Trump undoing them. That's no way to govern the nation. It's it's very shortsighted. I think we seem to get back to some real basics here, like regular order, you know, in terms of our budget. I think, obviously, we can make some huge budget cuts that's gonna take, you know, both, the Republicans and Democrats to get on board with that.
Chris Talgo:So I think that he's, you know, he's entering a time when, you know, we need to make some big fundamental changes, and I really think he has the political capital to do that. And I also think that Biden's utter failure to address those things and let them actually just keep getting worse and worse, you know, just just makes it even more of a priority among the American people. Like, the American people, do they understand, like, this this national debt, $36,000,000,000,000, we gotta deal with that. We gotta deal with these $2,000,000,000,000 deficits. We gotta deal with the fact that we're, our interest payments are now, you know, close to a $1,000,000,000,000 per year.
Chris Talgo:This is stuff that's been, you know, ignored for for decades, and we cannot ignore it any longer. So, you know, I if if I think if anyone's qualified to do this, it's Donald Trump.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Well, you know, that is a good segue into this, unity or division section, but I do wanna give Jim one final crack at, any of this executive orders if you wanna comment on anything that, Chris or I have said. Otherwise, I'll I'll go to the next section. What do you think?
Donald Trump:No. No. Just real quick.
Jim Lakely:I mean, definitely tune in to the Climate Real Estate Show tomorrow. We are gonna go into more detail on a lot of the climate and energy executive orders that Donald Trump signed, including, having the Environmental Protection Agency start to dismantle the so called endangerment finding Right. Which declared carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant when it is not a harmful pollutant. And so, if that is able to come to pass, that is a enormously big deal in, in this country. Because without the ability to regulate carbon dioxide as a quote unquote pollutant, the EPA really doesn't have a lot to do.
Jim Lakely:And a lot of its, regulations over the last, from going back to Obama, are pretty much null and void. But, I think importantly, on a lot of these executive orders, again, we shouldn't live in a country in which the President can sign 200 pieces of paper and completely reverse public policy in so many broad areas. As wonderful it is to see Donald Trump reverse a lot of the bad ideas and bad policies of the Biden administration, of President Biden, it is time for Congress, now that the Republicans are serious about governing and, you know, getting behind Donald Trump's agenda, with the House under their control, with the Senate under their control, and now the presidency, they need to start passing legislation that makes it so that these are not executive orders anymore, that they are the law of the land, and that if the left and the and a future Democrat administration wants to reverse some of these policies, they're going to have to do it the old fashioned way and pass legislation to do it. So that's, I think, something that we really need to keep pressure on Congress to ratify these sensible pro American policies into actual law, not just stroke of the pen law.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. And, Jim, Jim, on that point, that's that's very important because Congress also needs to take back their regulatory powers. And one of the big things is that Congress has been, you know, pushing the regulatory powers onto the, to the administrative state, and that is not the way it's supposed to be. Congress is supposed to pass clear laws, not these big, broad, vague, 1,000 page bills, by and then, you know, allowing all these, bureaucrats to actually go in there and interpret them and then to, you know, basically have, the the the power of law on their side where, hey. If you don't if you don't do this, you get fined.
Chris Talgo:You could just we're gonna make your life living hell. That's no way to govern the nation either. So we need the we need the congress to put their big boy pants back on and just, you know, reclaim their role as the legislative body. You know? I I I agree with you.
Chris Talgo:It's great that Trump is, reversing these, but we don't wanna live in a in a country where the executive, has that kind of power. And, you know, we've been moving in that direction for for a very long time. I would much rather see the executive having less power in congress really reclaiming its rightful place.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Bit of a a a more medium term objective, though. All of these executive orders clearly in the short, short term, you know, time frame and all of that.
Donald Kendal:I think there was also another one, maybe we'll talk about it on the show tomorrow, of, trying to basically stop any of the other kind of green new deal, green spending of the inflation reduction act. I think there's still a probably 1,000,000,000 of dollars that hasn't been spent yet, and I think Donald Trump has done something to prevent that from being spent on these fruitless, you know, green causes. But, again, you'll have to tune in to tomorrow's show, to hear more about that. But there there's this other thing that's been kinda going around. Some of the some different people I've seen on Twitter and on the radio talking about this idea, and that's whether or not the left is gonna play nicer, I guess, with Donald Trump this time around than 4 years ago.
Donald Kendal:I think that some people, you know, they're just completely lost cause, whether it's like Joy Reid or, you know, Keith Olbermann or something. They're just totally lost it. They couldn't possibly say one nice thing about Donald Trump even if he saved their lives. But, some other people, though, seemingly are are getting a little bit more in line, playing a little bit nicer. In in previous episodes of in the tank, we talked about some of these kinda, like, you know, bigger business people, these big tech people, kind of cozying up with Donald Trump.
Donald Kendal:We talked about phone calls between, like, the head of Google and and, Mark Zuckerberg, kinda reaching out to Donald Trump before the election and talking about the problems that they're having with the, whether it's with the European Union and taxing them or fining them because of a, b, or c reasons. But then even in the media, it seems like there's a little bit of signs of this. I was driving into work yesterday, and they were playing a clip on the on the radio of one of these press conferences with Donald Trump where a person of the press, I don't know if it was conferences with Donald Trump where a person of the press, I don't know if it was someone from, like, NBC or something like that, asked some, like, you know, question, and Donald Trump starts answering it. And while Donald Trump's answering it, the, the the reporter, like, interjects and is, like, trying to say something else. And Donald Trump's, like, hang on.
Donald Kendal:Let me answer your question. You ask you ask me a question. Let me answer it. And the reporter was, like, you're right. I apologize.
Donald Kendal:And the host of the show that I was watching was making a big deal of this as if like, you know, this is some little sign of like a little bit of a turning of the page when it comes to the hostilities towards Donald Trump. I know that's just like a very small example of this, but, Chris, you brought this up yesterday when we were kind of coming up with the outline for the show. So do you see more examples of this, or or do you think it's just gonna be the same old, you know, trying to stab them in the back whenever they get an opportunity?
Chris Talgo:Well, I'm gonna use the confirmation hearings as as my baseline so far, and I saw Marco Rubio got a vote of 99 to 0 in the senate. So it's that's rare, but Marco Rubio was a long time senator. So, you know, kinda makes sense that the senators, on both sides of the aisle would vote for him. But if Marco Rubio is gonna get a 99 to 0 vote in the senate, that I think is very good news for the rest of Trump's cabinet picks first. And it also shows that, he's not gonna just face this never ending, you know, resistance to to his confirmation picks like he did last time.
Chris Talgo:I think that, really, what it boils down to is the house and and and senate, though, when it comes to to legislation. The Republicans have a very thin majority in the house, so they are gonna need every single, Republican congressman, including Thomas Massie, to, you know, stay on on point here and, you know, and and make sure that they, you know, don't impede the agenda. But it would be really nice, and especially for the Democrats who won in districts that Trump won to get on board too because, you know, we do need, you know, some sort of unity here. We you know, since, you know, since going back to even, like, the George w Bush days where it's just like this this this divisiveness of Republicans versus Democrats and just constantly at war with each other, I think we have to overcome that. And I think that a lot of Democrats, you know, switched, their allegiance this time and voted for Trump because the Republican party is more of a broad based, you know, big tent party.
Chris Talgo:They are actually listening to the concerns of, you know, this giant swath of American workers, former Democrats, union members, and such who have been, you know, ignored for far too long. So I hope that, what we're seeing from, senators like John Fadiman who are saying, hey. I will vote if the bill is, you know, in in line with my values and beliefs. That we'll see more of that. I I really I really hope.
Chris Talgo:In terms of the the media and all that kind of stuff, man, I don't really, you know, much credence into that because because remember, their number one thing is viewers. Sure. So I think that, you know, CNN and then and MSNBC in particular, they realized, wait a second, the constant Trump bashing and the constant GOP bashing is not going well for our business model because viewers are are not watching us. So I think it was in their business best interest to kind of, you know, play a little nicer. We saw Joe and Mica already go to Mar a Lago right after Trump was, you know, elected.
Chris Talgo:So they've already, you know, I think are playing much nicer with that. I saw saw a segment with Jim Acosta where he was just doing the same old stuff, but apparently, he's, you know, gonna gonna be yanked from his, position in CNN anyways. So I don't know. It's do you know the the the the media, I think that they will give him a longer leash this time around. But in terms of the real unity, I think we have unity among the people and that we need unity among our, our representative, leaders.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. You know, I will say, personally, I am not, very hopeful that anything is gonna change in terms of, you know, the how the political opponents and opponents in the media, what have you, are gonna treat Trump. Just today, Donald Trump was featured at Davos, World Economic Forum's annual event, Davos, the big one. And, they had him remote in. He he spoke for probably 15 minutes and then did q and a afterwards.
Donald Kendal:And it was funny because, like, Klaus Schwab comes out onto the stage and just says, mister president. Like, I just felt like there's, like, 0 joy in that guy's, tone when he I don't think there's any joy in his tone ever, but, it just seemed like he was almost doing it because he had to. Like, yeah, we're gonna have Donald Trump speak. You know, he just became the president of the most important country in the world, so we gotta give him 15 minutes here. But what was funny to me was after this speech, and this speech was just filled with it was basically a a a Trump campaign rally speech.
Donald Kendal:Like, he didn't he didn't, alter what he had to say because of the audience that he was speaking to. He was saying the same old, like, you know, Trump rhetoric stuff just in the face of people that probably disagreed with every statement that he had to make. And despite all of that, after he did his 15 minutes and before they went to q and a, one of the people in the panels were like, oh, yeah. You know, wish you were here, but, surely, you could have heard the applause, all the way, from the White House, you know, right, from from Davos here, something like that. It was just like an absurd thing to say, but they were just trying to, like, kiss up to Donald Trump as much as possible.
Donald Kendal:So, Jim, I I kinda suspect that's just kinda part you know, that's just them playing the part or whatever, and it doesn't actually reflect their what they feel in their heart or anything like that. Donald Trump's been featured at Davos at least one other time, I think, when he first got elected in 2016. But, Jim, what do you think about Trump's appearance at at Davos, and this idea of unity and division?
Jim Lakely:Oh, I when I was watching as I was watching the q and a, between the panelists at, at at Davos with, with with with Donald Trump on a huge screen like Big Brother in 1984 right over their shoulder, you know, I wondered it's like, I wonder if they asked Donald Trump what his favorite, shade of lipstick is before they applied theirs to his posterior because I could not believe how they were treating him. You know, the the term being used here in the United States, you know, at the election was that there's been a vibe shift. There has been a global vibe shift. I know we have a lot of international viewers of this program and also the Climate Realism Show on Friday, and they would probably attest to a global vibe shift. But as I was watching these, people who who cast themselves as the global elite, kissing up to, the new US the new and yeah.
Jim Lakely:The old and now the new United States President, Donald J. Trump, I I couldn't help again but think about how he was treated on the international stage during his first term. He gave a speech, to the United Nations in which he warned Germany. In fact, he he warned about a lot of the trouble that's happening around the world. He warned them about it, and they did not listen, and a lot of bad things came to pass.
Jim Lakely:And one of them, he warned the German people that their dependence on Russia for their energy is going to bite them in the ass. And the delegates from Germany were caught on camera laughing
Donald Kendal:Exactly.
Jim Lakely:At Donald Trump saying that to them. Who's laughing now? Nobody in that room in Davos today, was laughing, because they know that Donald Trump means business. It was extremely refreshing to see an American president go on a global stage like that and def not just defend America, but celebrate America and let the world know that, frankly, America is back. And we are not going to be, you know, a secretary or a sidecar or a partner in empowering in, a faceless global elite.
Jim Lakely:The United States, under Donald Trump, on the international stage, is going to be pursuing American interests. And American interests are better for the American people, whether it comes to economics, to energy, to to war and peace, all of those things. And he was laying down a marker. This was a very important speech. I think it'll be looked back, as really important in this second term.
Jim Lakely:He was saying, look, the this is my agenda. This is what America is going to do. You can like it or not like it, but what you can actually do is be a partner with the United States. You know, we'll impose tariffs on you, but the United States is gonna be the best place in the world to build a factory so that you can sell those those, those goods here being as they're being built by American, American workers. So, it was just really amazing to watch again after Obama basically spent 8 years on an apology tour for the United States, how Biden is a complete bumbling idiot, on the international stage, and now we have a president who, is talking about America.
Jim Lakely:And you know what? The world is a better and a safer place with a strong, assertive United States of America, and we have that back. I like it.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Yeah. No. It's, it was a if you have an opportunity, check it out. Donald Trump's, Donald Trump's World Economic Forum Davos speech 2025.
Donald Kendal:There was one part where Brian Moynihan, who was, like, the head of Bank of America. Right? Bank of America. Mhmm. He he had, like, some question for Donald Trump.
Donald Kendal:Donald Trump responded to it, started talking about all of the stuff. And then, like, directly without pulling his punches at all, just, like, blasted Brian Moynihan for, like, debanking conservatives and said, like, what you're doing with your bank is wrong, and you have to stop it or whatever, like, directly to his face. And then Brian Moynihan was just like, yeah. You know, I'm excited for the World Cup too. It's just like such a bizarre Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Such a bizarre thing to witness. But, but yeah. So it's gonna be an exciting 4 years. I'm very, very optimistic when it comes to some of the stuff. And one of the things that really caught my attention was this announcement.
Donald Kendal:It might have been Monday night. Maybe it was on Tuesday, but I think it was on Monday night where Donald Trump at the White House was joined by Sam Altman, who is the CEO of OpenAI. He was joined by Larry Ellison, who is the head of Oracle, and he was also joined by, I forgot the person's name, but it was, like, the head of SoftBank. And they they all came together to announce this new thing, this massive project called Project Stargate, which is basically a massive artificial intelligence infrastructure building project. So when I first saw this, like I said, it was these 3 guys, standing next to Trump announcing this.
Donald Kendal:It's called Project Stargate. I thought it was like a US government thing. Like, the US government was was putting up 1,000,000,000 of dollars towards this. But from from what I can see, the the US government has no direct financing role, in this project. But what it is is a 500 $1,000,000,000 project to build massive, AI infrastructure in the United States.
Donald Kendal:We're talking about convention hall sized, data centers across the United States. They're talking about some of these already being built, in in Texas, and it's, yeah, it's all this money is being put forth by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle. At least that's what they said. So the it's it's over the span of 4 years. This is announced within hours of Donald Trump taking office.
Donald Kendal:A $100,000,000 is gonna be spent, like, immediately. A 100,000 jobs are gonna be created immediately, in this endeavor to build up AI infrastructure in the United States. And the idea of this, along with creating jobs and and, you know, building all of this stuff, investing all of this money, there's this idea that, like, we want the United States to remain at, like, the forefront of, you know, this new emerging technology that is artificial intelligence and all the different things that artificial intelligence kind of feeds into. So I was super excited about this. I insisted that it be part of the, you know, topics that we talk about on this podcast under this idea of the golden age of America.
Donald Kendal:And then I looked into it a little bit further. But, before I talk about some of the stuff that I've, uncovered, let's play a clip. Let's play the the Trump stargate clip. This is Donald Trump, you know, standing alongside those 3 gentlemen I mentioned talking about this very ambitious project. Go ahead and play that clip, please.
Donald Trump:We're joined by Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO, my friend Masa Masa, Yoshi Son, and CEO of OpenAI, and I would say the, by far the leading expert based on everything I read, Sam Altman. So, that's great that you're coming in together. That's a massive group of talent and and money. Together, these world leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate. So put that name down in your books because I think you're gonna hear a lot about it in the future.
Donald Trump:A new American company that will invest $500,000,000,000 at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States and and very, very quickly moving very rapidly, creating over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So like I said, you know, Trump's obviously super interested in this because it's an emerging, emerging industry. You know, we're gonna be at the forefront of this 1000000000 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars being poured into these projects, 100,000 jobs, all of this stuff sounds great. Where do I sign? Right?
Donald Kendal:One of the things that was kind of hidden off of the the main headlines of this was the major 4th investor of this project. So like I said, there's SoftBank, there's OpenAI, there's Oracle, but there's also an outfit called MGX, which, might not sound like anything to anybody, but it's actually the government created investment arm of the United Arab Emirates. And that caught my attention because all of the work that Justin and I have done on the great reset book and the dark future book and looking into the great reset and the great narrative, a lot of it's revolved around the United Arab Emirates. A lot of those World Economic Forum conventions outside of Davos were hosted in the United Arab Emirates. They're very interested in pursuing artificial intelligence and all of that, and they are the other major, contributor to this $500,000,000,000 project to build AI infrastructure in the United States.
Donald Kendal:Raises a red flag to me. So I started doing a little bit more research into this, And, and it's that that this is not the first 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollar investment deals that this MGX, this United Arab Emirates investment arm has, has undertaken. They also announced one just a few months ago back in September of last year, a massive $100,000,000,000 investment, program project, in the United States to build up AI infrastructure. That that one was with, good old BlackRock, our favorite, people that are associated with the great reset. So between BlackRock, OpenAI, Oracle, United Arab Emirates, pouring 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars into creating this AI infrastructure program or project in the United States just seems a little bit weird.
Donald Kendal:But, there's a couple of other things that about this that some people were kind of pointing out. One of them was, Larry Ellison talking at a conference just a few months back, basically saying stuff that was very in line with some of the stuff that we've talked about on this podcast as it relates to the World Economic Forum and they're, like, smart city agenda sort of stuff. Well, there's clips of Larry Ellison. I don't think I have one of these prepared, but it was of, basically talking about creating a massive surveillance state project where everybody is gonna be, like, monitored with sensors and cameras that are that are, maintained by artificial intelligence at all times 247. The the one of the direct quotes of this was under this system, everyone is going to have to be on their best behavior.
Donald Kendal:So everyone's kinda pointing to this, seeing that Larry Ellison's, associated with this project and thinking that this is some, like, you know, bigger AI, you know, surveillance state, smart city, world economic forum sort of venture, which has me a little bit concerned. And when I was looking back at some of the executive orders, they're very much in line with basically opening the doors up to this massive investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. So at one point during during the announcement of this, Sam Altman of, you know, CEO of OpenAI turns to Donald Trump and says, like, you know, like this we couldn't have done this without you. And I was thinking, like, what does that mean? Because the US government's not putting up any money for this.
Donald Kendal:But what they are doing is basically paving the way, regulatorily, to allow this to happen, more efficiently. So one of the things that Donald Trump did, and I don't know if this is directly related to this or just a kind of a coincidence, But Donald Trump also, one of the executive actions that he took, was to rescind a Biden executive order on AI safety. And this executive order basically required AI firms to, base, like, submit reports on their AI projects that could potentially have national security risks and all of that. So we did away with that, but I think the more important thing that he did was actually this declaration of a national, national energy emergency. Because what that does, and Donald Trump actually mentioned this in his World Economic Forum speech, is that allows him to basically, like, approve really quickly the building of, you know, power plants that are going to be needed by this massive AI infrastructure build up.
Donald Kendal:Because as we've talked about, you know, on the show number of times, AI takes massive amounts of energy. Powering these data centers takes massive amounts of energy. We talked about how Microsoft was onlining 3 Mile Island specifically to power one of their data centers, for this this, AI, endeavor here. So what I think is going on here is that, Donald Trump, he mentioned during the World Economic Forum speech that basically within the next, you know, 5 to 10 years, we're gonna need to double the amount of energy that we're using today. A lot of that is because of, the energy consumption needed by these AI products.
Donald Kendal:What he's doing is paving the way for these people to not only build all these different data centers, but also the power plants to power them. So what we could be experiencing with this project Stargate, you know, a lot of the people that are in, you know, talking about it nicely is that the potential of it to, you know, come up with cures for cancer or to usher in an age of abundance or all of these different things. But a lot of people are kinda getting a little worried that we are setting ourselves up for, like, an artificial superintelligence system that, you know, a lot of experts are kind of weary about because it's a thing that could not really be as controlled as as other things. And then, of course, all the stuff from Larry Ellison. I wait.
Donald Kendal:Andy, did you pull up a clip as I was talking? If you did, let's go ahead and play that because that's amazing. Larry Ellison m p 4, please.
Speaker 5:Police will be on their best behavior because we record we're we're constantly recording watching and recording everything that's going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. And it's it's unimpeachable. The the cars the cars have camera, you know, cam cameras on them. Alright.
Speaker 5:We we have I think we have a squad car here someplace. But those kind of applications using AI if we can use AI and we're using AI to monitor the video. So if that altercation had occurred that occurred in Memphis, the chief of police would be immediately notified. It's not people that are looking at those cameras, it's AI that's looking at the camera. No.
Speaker 5:No. No. You can't do this. It would be like a shooting. That's gonna be immediately that's gonna be an event that's immediately rip, an alarm is gonna go off.
Speaker 5:It's gonna be and, we're gonna we're gonna have supervision. In other words, every police officer is gonna be supervised at all times. And the and the supervision will, and and if there's a problem AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person whether it's the sheriff or the chief or whom whomever we need to, take control of the situation. We have, you know, same thing with we have drones. We just if there's something going on in a shopping center and I'll stop, a drone goes out there, get there way faster than a police car.
Speaker 5:There's no reason for, by the way, high speed chases. You shouldn't have high speed chases between cars. You just have a drone follow the car. I mean, it's very very simple. And then new generation generation of autonomous drones.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So, you know, like I said, I've done enough research in World Economic Forum. There's smart cities and all of that, to be kind of concerned about things like this. And, again, the idea that the United Arab Emirates is just willfully pouring 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars into this thing is making the red flags just go off in my head when it comes to this project, Stargate. But I've spoken enough about this.
Donald Kendal:Chris, you know, when I originally brought this up on Wednesday, I think, yesterday, in the morning. I was super jazzed about it, so my tone has probably changed a 180 degrees. But what are your thoughts?
Chris Talgo:Well, as you probably know, I'm much more skeptical of AI than many people I know. And yeah. Yeah. Because I just feel that, you know, once that genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in. So I am very fearful that AI is gonna be used for malevolent purposes.
Chris Talgo:You know, our buddy Yuval Harari wrote a book about this that I've read recently saying that, you know, the reason why totalitarian, regimes have collapsed from the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany going back, you know, 100 or even 1000 of years is because they didn't have the ability to process all that information that was being centralized. AI is the solution to that. I am very fearful what the world that Larry Ellison is imagining where we are all, you know, being tracked and monitored by these, you know, AI, you know, systems. That is a complete dystopia to me. I, you know, I I feel that I grew up in one of the best times ever because I grew up before the Internet really came of age and social media and all this stuff.
Chris Talgo:And it was just it was a it was a simpler world. You know? It was much more you're much more connected with people. You know, maybe I'm just, you know, being one of those people, like, oh, you know, in my in my youth, it was better. But I I genuinely, sincerely believe that.
Chris Talgo:And I do think that we are getting to the point now where this technology is just becoming too much. It's just taking over people's lives. They're becoming so dependent on it. They're becoming addicted to it. It's just it's gross.
Chris Talgo:It's it's it's not human. It's not moral in many ways, I think. And, you know, I I just think be careful what you wish for. We do not wanna live in a world in which we, you know, play second fiddle to AI, and we're getting dangerously close to that world. So be careful what you wish for.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Jim, I mean, I feel like I'm gonna have to revisit, the dark future book and, look over some of the notes that we have taken on on the great reset over the, great reset and great narrative over the years. I will say before turning it over to your comments and all of this, I will say that I definitely am more hopeful and optimistic about AI than Chris is because, like, truly, there is the potential of, like, curing cancer once and for all. There is the potential of, like, pulling off some amazing things that, you know, human brainpower is is is too limited to be able to achieve. So there is that sort of stuff.
Donald Kendal:But if we're trading out that for, again, this world that Larry Ellison is depicting or, you know, the people at the World Economic Forum are talking about smart city projects, like, is that a trade off that we wanna make? What do you think about all of this?
Jim Lakely:Well, I think Chris makes a fantastic point that, one of the the the reason why free markets work better than central planning is because of the you know, in just in the simplest terms is that one person or a handful of people or oligarchs or an elite cannot make the correct decisions, the way markets can. That, you know, millions of millions of people making their own decisions, moves society in the most in the best way that, central planners cannot do, which is why the Soviet Union, and communism falls apart eventually, and, capitalism prevailed over them in again, Chris, we grew up in the in the greatest time in the in the in America because we, I was a young man when, the Soviet Union, dissolved and the Berlin Wall fell and all that stuff. So that was wonderful to be able to witness at the time.
Chris Talgo:Yeah.
Jim Lakely:But, but and you make the great point that, you know, these global elites believe that AI is the tool they need to fix that flaw in their system. That AI will now actually work better than a free market, and free people to determine the best avenue, the best pathway to, organize and move society. I think they're going to be wrong about that. We will see. You know, AI is is it keeps improving all the time.
Jim Lakely:It's here. Chris, that genie is already out of the bottle. It's too late to go back. We live in the, the AI era that has really just begun. And it's just a matter of where where it takes us and where we end up.
Jim Lakely:What really concerns me, and it is just a tool, as, Donnie, as you say, it can be used to maybe we can find a cure for cancer using AI, because it can analyze things that, you know, a team of researchers, you know, that live and die and pass on their work, can't do it fast enough to save lives. But maybe AI can pick that up and figure something out. That would be amazing. That would be world changing. And it would be world changing on the individual personal level for millions of cancer patients.
Jim Lakely:And of course, it would have an enormous impact on the world by extending, you know, people's lives, all sorts of things we can't even imagine. It's amazing. But it is just a tool. The thing that concerns me is that a guy like Larry Ellison and all of these global elites, when they talk about AI, he just so casual casually just says, oh, yeah. Then we'll use AI, and there'll be cameras everywhere, and it'll be watching at all times.
Jim Lakely:And there's never a hint in his voice or his body language or in his eyes that maybe that's not a good thing. Like, there's there's no moral, component to it at all. It's all just, well, of course, we will have the capacity to have cameras everywhere, and AI will be the one analyzing this stuff. And they'll be setting off the alarms. And then we'll have unmanned drones following people, all over the city, so we don't have to have high speed chases to talk about these things that are incredibly dangerous and, obviously, an invasion of people's personal privacy and not chasing a criminal down the street, of course, with a drone, although that has some troubling connotations.
Jim Lakely:But, you know, the idea that there'd be cameras everywhere and people can just keep an eye on you, you know, to talk about that so and be so blase and not think at all about the enormous violation of people's privacy and their freedom and their liberty, there needs to be a little bit more moral discussion around AI as much as there is a technical discussion about AI.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. But, Jim, so the you know, I I've I've read, you know, some books about Larry Ellison. Obviously, he's a very smart man, you know, or cold. I mean, obviously, he's a he's a very smart person. However, I think that, one of the fatal flaws in his thinking is he worships technology.
Chris Talgo:He thinks that technology can do no wrong. And I think that he needs to understand that technology, like any any invention, has a good and a bad side. And he just seems to completely dismiss the, quote, unquote, bad side of it and only say, look at all these great things it can do. And to me, that's very naive, and it's also very self serving because, obviously, he's got a stake in this. So he wants, you know, the US government to to be involved in this project.
Chris Talgo:So just it's that that that that myopic view that AI will solve everything. If we just, you know, put our faith in AI, that's that's like a religious zealotry in my book. You know? It's like, no. It's no.
Chris Talgo:It it it it AI is not the, panacea that's gonna solve all of our problems. You know? Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Well, I mean, think of it like the Manhattan Project. I mean, you know, we we learned how to split the atom, and the good guys did it first. But, eventually, that technology or that ability got to the bad guys as well. Look. We're in a race for AI.
Jim Lakely:It's either gonna happen with the United States leading it, or it's gonna happen with China leading it. You know, there's I'll take I'll take the former over the latter as as with all the troubles and and problems that we're already seeing.
Chris Talgo:Right. Yeah. But, you know, but just just be aware that, you know, if the if the United States does become the leader in the AI, and I I would much rather the United States than China, the United States could turn into China where, you know, social credit scores, and it's just, you know, like like, all those things. And it's I think it's always done for the greater good. And we're like, Donnie, like, you know, you talk about curing cancer.
Chris Talgo:So what if AI, you know, determines that the reason you get cancer is because of this behavior? Therefore, we will eliminate that behavior. Right. Well, what about what about, like, just, you know, free will? What about that?
Chris Talgo:You know? So what if AI determines that, you know, all, you know, saturated fats are there are are bad for you and and and be final into cancer? Therefore, we've determined that society will be better off without that. Like, is that a good thing or a bad thing? You know?
Chris Talgo:What about what about what about, you know, the ability to make your own decisions? AI, I think, is almost like a crutch for people that don't wanna make those kind of decisions and live with the repercussions of those. So it's like, well, if AI will just be my copilot and my guide through my life, I'll just do whatever AI tells me to do. To me, that's no way to live a life. And I actually saw a documentary about a guy who is is doing that.
Chris Talgo:And it's like and, you know, he's saying, this is freeing me. I don't have to make decisions about what I eat, what I do, anything. AI just does it for me. Actually, you're not living a life. You're a slave to AI.
Chris Talgo:Like Right. Do you not do you not see the irony in all of this? Like, hello?
Donald Kendal:Yeah. No. It's a it's a massively interesting thing. We could probably do another hour talking about, this and other implications of it. As I was doing prep for this podcast last night, one of the things that I was looking into a lot was this project Stargate thing.
Donald Kendal:And as I was, like, kind of finding these these little tidbits that I've shared with you, I was, I was texting with Justin Haskins about them, and he found it interesting enough where he compiled all the stuff that I was sending him and and found some other stuff as well and sent it over to our friend Glenn Beck, who invited Justin on the show today, to talk about this, the project Stargate and some of these AI related things. So Justin was on there for, I think, about a half hour this morning talking about all of this. And so I talked to Justin right before going live on this podcast, and we were talking about this issue, obviously. And there was a couple of things that I won't share on this show quite yet, little too premature, but we have some ideas in mind, to, you know, save humanity. We'll we'll see what we can do.
Donald Kendal:We're just a couple of people, but, stay tuned for for all of that because like I said, this is an issue that I am certainly very interested in is directly in the purview of the emerging issue center, which I am the director of. So this is an issue that we've been talking about, thinking about. We have some ideas in mind. Some we have some big ambitions, for what we can do under the center, under the Heartland Institute. So stay tuned, stay tuned for all of that.
Donald Kendal:And, you know, don't, you know, like I said before, Linnea is the host of the show now. I returned after only one episode off, so don't expect to see my face as much on the show as you usually would. Linnea will be resuming your hosting duties next week. But, surely, I will be on time to time to talk about these issues, as new developments arise. Gentlemen, any final words?
Donald Kendal:Anything you wanna get off your chest? Any funny stories? Now is your time.
Jim Lakely:Just happy to have Linnea back as host next week. That's all
Chris Talgo:I'm looking forward to. Alright.
Jim Lakely:Get you out of here.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Well, thank you all for tuning in to this episode of the Think podcast. Join us every week. If you are an audio only listener, probably catching the show on a Friday or later, leave a review for us on Itunes. That would be greatly appreciated.
Donald Kendal:And consider joining us every week, Thursdays at noon, central time, where we go live on Facebook and YouTube and Rumble and x and maybe Instagram too. Everything's changing when I've been gone for 1 week. Join the conversation live, throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly.
Donald Kendal:You can help out our show not by using Superchats because we have been demonetized by YouTube, but you can go to heartland.org/inthetank and donate directly to the show that way, which is a good way to do it because YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut, which is fantastic. You could also help out the show just by hitting that like button, sharing this content, subscribing if you haven't already, or just leaving a comment under the video. All those things help break through that big tech algorithm that prevents content like this this from being shown to more people. Jim Lakeley, where can the fine people find you?
Jim Lakely:Atjlakeleyonx@heartlandinstonx, and always visit heartland.org.
Donald Kendal:Yes. And also find them hosting the Climate Realism Show tomorrow, Fridays at noon CST on all of these same channels. Chris Talgo, same question.
Chris Talgo:Same answer. Harland.org. Fantastic.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Thank you all for tuning in, and, somebody will talk to you next week.
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