Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / First 100 Days Part 1-Inside the White House w May Mailman SR Policy Strategist

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First 100 Days Part 1-Inside the White House w May Mailman SR Policy Strategist · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Good morning, Welcome. It is the Ben Ferguson Podcast. Nice
0:03
Speaker 1: to have you with us. We're live here at the
0:05
Speaker 1: White House, and I guess with me now is May Melman,
0:08
Speaker 1: senior policy strategist at the White House and a unique
0:11
Speaker 1: perspective because she was in forty five in that administration,
0:16
Speaker 1: you're now in forty seven. We were talking before the
0:19
Speaker 1: show and I just let's just start with this because
0:21
Speaker 1: I think it's so cool. This White House is running
0:24
Speaker 1: at a different pace than it did with the first
0:28
Speaker 1: time around.
0:28
Speaker 2: Part of that was learning government.
0:30
Speaker 1: I think part of it's having a team this time
0:32
Speaker 1: that seems to be working as a team and just
0:35
Speaker 1: seems like everyone wants to win and is getting along.
0:39
Speaker 1: The leaks were not seeing like we did last time.
0:41
Speaker 1: It seems like everybody's a team player. This is really
0:45
Speaker 1: fun to watch from the outside. I was in the
0:46
Speaker 1: Bush administration and it was in the second from four
0:50
Speaker 1: to oho eight, and it was just a different type
0:51
Speaker 1: of team than we had in.
0:52
Speaker 2: The first part.
0:54
Speaker 1: You got to enjoy watching the past and now the president.
0:57
Speaker 2: How cool is that for you? Yeah?
0:59
Speaker 3: I used to be jealous of what the Bush people
1:02
Speaker 3: had in the sense that they still did reunions, and
1:05
Speaker 3: they all hung out with each other and they you know,
1:09
Speaker 3: we had our criticisms, certainly, but it felt like they
1:13
Speaker 3: were all very unified. And I think during Trump one
1:16
Speaker 3: point zero, people very much got along. It was friendly.
1:19
Speaker 3: But people had come from different places. So you had
1:21
Speaker 3: people who were campaign people, you had people who were
1:24
Speaker 3: RNC people, you had people who were either longtime friends
1:28
Speaker 3: of the family, these sort you know, everyone kind of
1:31
Speaker 3: had their own different background. But now there is such
1:34
Speaker 3: a thing as Trump World, and there are people who
1:36
Speaker 3: have been here and those they've had relationships and they've
1:39
Speaker 3: had ups and downs with each other, and so it
1:42
Speaker 3: is easier to have everybody rowing in the same direction.
1:45
Speaker 3: And I've had strange experiences that I never had during
1:49
Speaker 3: the first time. So during the first time, I was
1:50
Speaker 3: also writing a lot of executive orders, helping push a
1:53
Speaker 3: lot of policies, and I would have to follow up
1:56
Speaker 3: and follow up and follow up, and nothing would happen
1:59
Speaker 3: at the speed and the pace and the level that
2:02
Speaker 3: I wanted it to. Now, if I write something that's
2:05
Speaker 3: very nuanced, I'm careful, Okay, we're not trying to do this.
2:08
Speaker 3: People will just do it at the one hundred out
2:10
Speaker 3: of ten, even though we just need a ten out
2:12
Speaker 3: of ten. That's okay. So the excitement people have been planning,
2:16
Speaker 3: people are ready to go, and it does feel very different,
2:21
Speaker 3: even though it is actually a lot of the same people.
2:23
Speaker 3: I'm working with a lot of the same people, but
2:25
Speaker 3: it's just different this time.
2:26
Speaker 1: So let's talk about where we are one hundred days in.
2:29
Speaker 1: You're here, your senior pology strategists. I think one of
2:33
Speaker 1: the big things that people are witnessing right now they're
2:35
Speaker 1: concerned about is the law fair. There is very clear
2:39
Speaker 1: a movement by the left, by the Democrats to use
2:43
Speaker 1: the court system and activist judges, their allies that they
2:47
Speaker 1: know are clearly on their team, making sure they're filing
2:50
Speaker 1: things in certain courts where they know it'll give them
2:53
Speaker 1: a favorable opinion, which is against this White House and
2:56
Speaker 1: trying to stop the president of a law fair. You
2:58
Speaker 1: guys are fighting back. You work with Jason Miller. You
3:00
Speaker 1: guys are out there hardcore going against this. Where are
3:03
Speaker 1: we now and how big of a roadblock is this
3:06
Speaker 1: going to be for Trump's agenda getting actually done well?
3:09
Speaker 3: The Democrats have no political strategy, they have no political leader,
3:14
Speaker 3: they have no North Star. So all they have is
3:17
Speaker 3: know and the place you go for no is the courts,
3:20
Speaker 3: and so that's where all the money has been, that's
3:22
Speaker 3: where the excitement is, that's where the investment is. Is
3:25
Speaker 3: just no. There's some protests, there's blowing up tesla's, but
3:28
Speaker 3: mostly it's in the courts. And I think the judges
3:31
Speaker 3: are very excited. These are activists, these are longtime Democrat donors, partisans,
3:36
Speaker 3: you know, they're part of the movement. They're excited to
3:39
Speaker 3: actually be the leaders of the left right now. And
3:42
Speaker 3: so yeah, it is a problem. I'm a lawyer. For
3:44
Speaker 3: four years when I was not in the White House,
3:47
Speaker 3: I was bringing lawsuits and the judges that we would get,
3:50
Speaker 3: even if we were in conservative areas of the country
3:53
Speaker 3: with very conservative judges, these were measured approaches. I'll just
3:56
Speaker 3: take Title nine for example, twenty six states brought lawsuits
4:00
Speaker 3: and I think eight different jurisdictions to challenge Biden's rewrite
4:03
Speaker 3: of Title nine. Each one of those judges, every single one,
4:07
Speaker 3: issued an injunction that was just narrowed to the parties
4:10
Speaker 3: that had brought the suits. So there never was a
4:13
Speaker 3: nationwide injunction, even with twenty six states in eight different lawsuits.
4:17
Speaker 3: Compare that to here, where you just have any sort
4:22
Speaker 3: of group. It's not states bringing these is just random people,
4:26
Speaker 3: random activists, bringing these lawsuits and getting nationwide injunctions at
4:31
Speaker 3: the TRO stage, the temporary restraining order stage, which is
4:35
Speaker 3: not even assessment of the merits of whether you're right
4:37
Speaker 3: or wrong. It's just, Hey, I'm the judge, and I
4:39
Speaker 3: feel like doing this nationwide thing based not even on
4:43
Speaker 3: the merits. I want to freeze the Trump administration from
4:46
Speaker 3: doing anything. So this law fair is a serious, serious
4:49
Speaker 3: problem in my opinion. I think that it violates the
4:53
Speaker 3: job of the judiciary, which is to say what the
4:55
Speaker 3: law is, not to become the policymaker. So I think
4:58
Speaker 3: there's been some calls for MP and things like that.
5:01
Speaker 3: You know, Congress should absolutely impeach judges who are not
5:04
Speaker 3: doing their jobs. However, that's just not going to be
5:07
Speaker 3: the solution. The solution, I think, is going to be
5:09
Speaker 3: a reshaping of what it means to have judicial power,
5:13
Speaker 3: whether that's coming from the Supreme Court, whether that's coming
5:15
Speaker 3: from Congress, or whether that's coming from the administration. Just
5:18
Speaker 3: saying you know what, if you are actually stepping into
5:21
Speaker 3: the executive branch's power. We're not going to abide by it.
5:25
Speaker 3: And so I think these judges are really playing with fire.
5:28
Speaker 3: But they know it and they want it, and they
5:30
Speaker 3: want to pick this fight because they feel the leadership
5:33
Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party right now.
5:35
Speaker 1: Let's talk about trade, and that is a big issue
5:38
Speaker 1: that is I think top of mind for virtually every American.
5:42
Speaker 1: I have dear friends that knew I was going to
5:44
Speaker 1: be here today, and I was like, they're dealing with this,
5:46
Speaker 1: and they've got companies that are American companies, startups from
5:50
Speaker 1: their garage that are now being affected because of this
5:53
Speaker 1: trade war with China. They're very concerned about what they've built.
5:58
Speaker 1: Where are we with this.
6:00
Speaker 2: Master plan from the President?
6:01
Speaker 1: It seems to me saying, hey, I want to get
6:04
Speaker 1: great deals done with a lot of countries so that
6:07
Speaker 1: we have much less dependence on China. This is about
6:12
Speaker 1: reducing China's influence in the world, especially when it comes
6:16
Speaker 1: to trade. Are we moving forward and when are we
6:18
Speaker 1: going to start getting deals announced to calm the markets
6:21
Speaker 1: but also the people that have businesses and how long
6:25
Speaker 1: are they going to have to deal with this? Because
6:26
Speaker 1: we saw yesterday it this is a good sign President
6:29
Speaker 1: was meeting with top companies. They're meeting with Lows and
6:31
Speaker 1: Home Depot and Walmarting Target about this trade war. That
6:36
Speaker 1: could be good news, but also it could be bad
6:38
Speaker 1: news depending on who you read and what you're being told.
6:40
Speaker 1: We know the media wants us to be miserable. They
6:43
Speaker 1: want to be fear mongering, They want this inflation issues
6:45
Speaker 1: to happen. They want this to be a Trump disaster.
6:48
Speaker 1: I don't see it that way though.
6:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:50
Speaker 3: I think the President's heart is where actually a lot
6:52
Speaker 3: of Americans' hearts are, which is that we want to
6:56
Speaker 3: be supply chain independent. We want to be able to
7:00
Speaker 3: make our pharmaceuticals at home. We don't want to be
7:03
Speaker 3: reliant on a country who is threatening to us. And
7:08
Speaker 3: yet I think the President also is a very practical person.
7:12
Speaker 3: He's a business person, He is a listener, and you
7:14
Speaker 3: can see even from the changes to the original announcement
7:17
Speaker 3: of reciprocal tariffs, that he wants to be in it
7:21
Speaker 3: with allies to shore up our manufacturing against people who
7:28
Speaker 3: do not have our best interests, including China. So while
7:32
Speaker 3: I can't give a timeline for when you would see
7:35
Speaker 3: an exact announcement, I can say that the White House
7:39
Speaker 3: is in listening mode and we have been hearing from
7:42
Speaker 3: people changes and those changes have already been implemented, whether
7:47
Speaker 3: it has to do with lower tariffs on certain electronics
7:52
Speaker 3: that we simply can't make we can't on shore quickly.
7:56
Speaker 3: And then I think also part of the.
7:58
Speaker 1: Test to security, right, this is when I've asked, and
8:01
Speaker 1: I've had leaders call me and like Ben, what is
8:02
Speaker 1: he doing?
8:03
Speaker 2: Why is he doing this? And say, look, you've got
8:04
Speaker 2: to look at this from two views.
8:07
Speaker 1: One is national security, and if you bring enough of
8:09
Speaker 1: that back to the US, you don't have to be
8:11
Speaker 1: the leader in the world, but you need to have
8:12
Speaker 1: enough from a national security standpoint that if something happens
8:14
Speaker 1: somewhere else in the world, you're still good.
8:16
Speaker 2: And that's part of what the president I think learn
8:18
Speaker 2: from COVID.
8:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so from a national security standpoint, I think
8:22
Speaker 3: the nation is pretty strong and we feel good there.
8:26
Speaker 3: And so really it is focusing on small businesses and
8:30
Speaker 3: the impact and it is alarming actually how tightly our
8:33
Speaker 3: supply chains and how quickly they are connected to China, which,
8:36
Speaker 3: of course you know something that we all know, which
8:39
Speaker 3: is why the whole action exists. To begin with. But
8:43
Speaker 3: nobody wants to harm American small businesses. What we want
8:47
Speaker 3: is for China and the United States to find a
8:51
Speaker 3: resolution and then of course to eventually work toward a
8:56
Speaker 3: trade policy that is going to be best for our
9:00
Speaker 3: national security, best for our economy. And you know, as
9:03
Speaker 3: President Trump is going to be income tax replacement. And
9:09
Speaker 3: it's a complicated thing, but no president has really taken
9:14
Speaker 3: this on seriously. And year by year by year by year,
9:18
Speaker 3: we become more reliant, less safe, less secure, less independent.
9:25
Speaker 3: And it almost doesn't matter whether you have a southern
9:28
Speaker 3: border or if the threat is coming in from your
9:32
Speaker 3: nation's dependence. That said, I think, as you noted, the
9:36
Speaker 3: President is in complete listening mode. So there is a
9:39
Speaker 3: need to make sure that our small businesses and our
9:42
Speaker 3: large businesses, and our supply chains and our consumers are
9:45
Speaker 3: all accounted for. And these are conversations that are happening
9:48
Speaker 3: every day in the White House. They're competing every day
9:50
Speaker 3: in the agencies, at the US Trade Representative, at the
9:53
Speaker 3: Department of Commerce, at the Department of Treasury, Farmers, at
9:56
Speaker 3: the USDA. This is definitely the number one topic. This
10:00
Speaker 3: is extremely important. Nobody's taking it lightly nobody's looking for,
10:07
Speaker 3: you know, massive sacrifices. This is something that it's a
10:12
Speaker 3: policy that needs to be fixed, it's something that needs
10:14
Speaker 3: to be implemented. And yet I think you're going to
10:17
Speaker 3: see reasonable policies being implemented that ent our country toward
10:24
Speaker 3: a more secure posture.
10:25
Speaker 1: So when do we start to see I guess, and
10:28
Speaker 1: you know, momentums everything, right, people say, when are we
10:32
Speaker 1: going to start to see big announcements and hey, we've
10:35
Speaker 1: got to deal with this country in that country. Are
10:37
Speaker 1: we days away from that? Are we weeks away from that?
10:41
Speaker 1: Because momentum is everything, and it makes pe feel better. Okay,
10:44
Speaker 1: now we're having success, and now we're getting another one,
10:47
Speaker 1: and now we're getting another one. We're about one hundred
10:49
Speaker 1: days in here at the White House. What is that
10:51
Speaker 1: rollout going to look like?
10:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, hard to say a number of days, but I
10:56
Speaker 3: can say that those conversations with foreign countries are happening
10:59
Speaker 3: right now, and so at some level, I think there
11:04
Speaker 3: has been a lot of progress. You've already seen countries
11:07
Speaker 3: make certain types of concessions, make changes, make promises, and
11:12
Speaker 3: so it's locking those in. Sometimes that takes a little
11:15
Speaker 3: bit of time from the other countries perspective in order
11:18
Speaker 3: to get an announcement to reality. But it's so it's
11:22
Speaker 3: all hands on deck right, it's presently happening.
11:25
Speaker 1: So I talked to an ambassador yesterday who said to me,
11:27
Speaker 1: he said, look, we just want to know what the
11:28
Speaker 1: new normal is, and that's what we're working on as
11:32
Speaker 1: fast as we can with this White House, so that
11:34
Speaker 1: we can continue to see businesses grow. The spirit from
11:37
Speaker 1: that ambassador was not one of anger. It was almost
11:41
Speaker 1: a spirit of hey, we know we were taking advantage
11:44
Speaker 1: of you guys, so was the rest of the world.
11:46
Speaker 2: We did what the rest of the world did.
11:47
Speaker 1: This is a smaller country and I don't want to
11:50
Speaker 1: name it because it was in confidence, but he was
11:52
Speaker 1: basically admitting, like, hey, we followed the lead of other
11:55
Speaker 1: countries as they wore taking advantage. We were a little
11:57
Speaker 1: lower than they were. But it was like why not
12:00
Speaker 1: that this is what the world looks like in the trade.
12:02
Speaker 2: And he was.
12:02
Speaker 1: Admitting, we're willing to totally redo this thing. We want
12:06
Speaker 1: to get it done because we want to keep doing
12:08
Speaker 1: business with America.
12:09
Speaker 2: We love doing business.
12:10
Speaker 1: He wasn't even upset, and that gave me I think
12:12
Speaker 1: a lot of hope that like, there's a lot of
12:14
Speaker 1: company countries I should say, that are coming to the
12:16
Speaker 1: table who are saying, we know this deal is going
12:19
Speaker 1: to get redone. In other words, we know that the
12:21
Speaker 1: price is one described to me the day they go.
12:23
Speaker 2: We know, if you live in.
12:24
Speaker 1: A house under a lease for a long time, ten
12:27
Speaker 1: years later, there's a very good chance there's going to
12:28
Speaker 1: be a major change in what you're paying. They all
12:31
Speaker 1: know that they're accepting it, and so that to me,
12:33
Speaker 1: sin is a signal of something good coming.
12:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, the new normal. You know, for the present time,
12:40
Speaker 3: there is that ten percent rate which is sort of
12:46
Speaker 3: a baseline that I think people have accepted and that
12:48
Speaker 3: the market celebrated when when President Trump first announced it.
12:53
Speaker 3: And then you know, as far as there are certain
12:55
Speaker 3: countries who are willing to help us out and do
12:57
Speaker 3: additional things else alvare take for example, there are countries
13:02
Speaker 3: that I think are trying to either lock in those
13:06
Speaker 3: rates or secure more favorable deals. But you know, not
13:13
Speaker 3: there are a lot of countries out there who want
13:14
Speaker 3: to have those conversations. Those conversations are all happening, I
13:17
Speaker 3: would say, starting with like a group of twenty or
13:20
Speaker 3: so right now and then moving on, moving on, moving on,
13:24
Speaker 3: And I think the President has signaled multiple times he's
13:27
Speaker 3: willing to have those conversations with China, and so that's
13:31
Speaker 3: something that if the you know, Chinese are here to
13:36
Speaker 3: make a deal, that that can happen as well. But
13:38
Speaker 3: even for small countries, just because you're small does not
13:42
Speaker 3: mean they're forgotten. I think these are going to happen
13:45
Speaker 3: just on their own time.
13:48
Speaker 1: Let's move to another issue that I think is really important,
13:50
Speaker 1: and that is the fight for the president. He has
13:53
Speaker 1: done this in sports gender ideology, has been saying. He said,
13:56
Speaker 1: we're going to protect when we're going to protect women
13:58
Speaker 1: and women's sports. We're not backing down on that issue.
14:01
Speaker 1: You look at the president doing this. Democrats do feel
14:04
Speaker 1: like in some states this is a fight worth fighting
14:08
Speaker 1: for them. They're trying to rally the troops. As you
14:10
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, there is no leader of the Democratic Party
14:13
Speaker 1: right now. That the party of just no because no
14:15
Speaker 1: one's in charge. It's totally anarchy and chaos. But they
14:18
Speaker 1: are trying to find an issue to hone in on.
14:21
Speaker 1: I think they believe that this gender ideology issue is
14:24
Speaker 1: one that can at least rally their core base, and
14:27
Speaker 1: they're saying, we're not going to abide by what you're
14:29
Speaker 1: telling us to do. Mister President, go ahead and sue,
14:32
Speaker 1: we'll see you in court. We heard that, but said
14:34
Speaker 1: from a governor at the White House, like, we'll see
14:36
Speaker 1: you great, can't wait to see you in court. Where
14:38
Speaker 1: are we now with that? Because there are still men
14:41
Speaker 1: acting like women, that are still getting to play with
14:43
Speaker 1: women as we speak in some states.
14:45
Speaker 3: Right, so it is about to be high school championship season,
14:49
Speaker 3: and you're already seeing a lot of men at the
14:52
Speaker 3: regional level, and beyond take trophies from women. You're not
14:57
Speaker 3: seeing it from the college level because these colleges know
15:02
Speaker 3: that the NCAA policy requires sex based participation in women's sports.
15:07
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean you can change your birth certificate. That
15:10
Speaker 3: means it's based on sex. And this is something that
15:12
Speaker 3: the NCAA has picked up the phone and enforced when
15:15
Speaker 3: they feel like something has gone on. So we need
15:17
Speaker 3: but there's no similar structure at the state level. So
15:21
Speaker 3: each state is governed by its own state Athletic Association,
15:25
Speaker 3: and the Trump administration has started investigations into several of them,
15:29
Speaker 3: into California, into Minnesota, Maine, we filed a lawsuit. First ever,
15:35
Speaker 3: it has never before happened that a school has lost
15:38
Speaker 3: its money because of a Title nine violation from the
15:41
Speaker 3: federal government.
15:42
Speaker 2: Why never, That's amazing.
15:43
Speaker 3: Never in the history of Title nine since nineteen seventy two.
15:45
Speaker 2: Never there've been.
15:46
Speaker 3: Private lawsuits where people have had to pay private judgments,
15:49
Speaker 3: but never has the federal government had to come down
15:51
Speaker 3: on a school and take their federal money. Why because
15:53
Speaker 3: usually when the Feds come asking, hey, will you stop
15:56
Speaker 3: discriminating against women, the schools like sure, I'd love to
15:59
Speaker 3: stop discriminating against women. It is wild to me that Maine,
16:05
Speaker 3: this is a very simple ask, can you just not
16:07
Speaker 3: have men in women's sports? Main won't do it, and
16:11
Speaker 3: their governor has doubled, tripled down, And then other states
16:14
Speaker 3: like California, same deal. Colorado is not only allowing men
16:18
Speaker 3: in women's sports, but they're now gonna disallow you from
16:22
Speaker 3: calling a parent from calling his or her own child
16:26
Speaker 3: the correct pronouns because that's child abuse. So I think
16:32
Speaker 3: you are going to see a divide and we're not
16:33
Speaker 3: going to actually just sit by and take it. Title
16:37
Speaker 3: nine is a nineteen seventy two law that says that
16:39
Speaker 3: in education programs, you cannot discriminate against women. You have
16:42
Speaker 3: to have equal opportunity. You are not providing women equal
16:45
Speaker 3: opportunity if you're saying, Okay, yeah you can come here,
16:47
Speaker 3: but you have to use the bathroom with men. Yeah
16:50
Speaker 3: you can come to our school, but there will be
16:53
Speaker 3: no women's sports because you are unequally harming them privacy wise,
16:57
Speaker 3: you're unequally harming them say wise competitive and so these
17:02
Speaker 3: I think are very easy winnable cases. Will take them
17:06
Speaker 3: all the way up to the Supreme Court if they
17:07
Speaker 3: need to be. But we're going to make some examples
17:10
Speaker 3: out of some states that continue to double down on
17:13
Speaker 3: gender ideology, even though the American public eighty twenty is
17:16
Speaker 3: the other way you.
17:18
Speaker 2: Look at what the fight looks like.
17:20
Speaker 1: I have a feeling this is going to be for
17:22
Speaker 1: years because they're just not going to stop. And you're
17:25
Speaker 1: saying that the White House has a commitment that we're
17:27
Speaker 1: not going to let them get away and just isolate
17:29
Speaker 1: and do what they want to do, and that maybe
17:31
Speaker 1: a liberal university or a liberal state exactly.
17:33
Speaker 3: So if if they want to not take federal money, so.
17:38
Speaker 1: If you yeah, fine, do your thing. It's like, Harvard,
17:40
Speaker 1: please give us our tax dollers back. I'd love for
17:41
Speaker 1: you to operate as a radical left university and just
17:44
Speaker 1: admit it, exactly.
17:45
Speaker 3: And so this is not some sort of federal takeover
17:48
Speaker 3: of anything. This is the taxpayers have given you a deal.
17:51
Speaker 3: And the deal is if you take billions of dollars,
17:54
Speaker 3: then you're not going to discriminate against women. And we're
17:57
Speaker 3: just here to enforce that deal. But for states that
18:00
Speaker 3: spend billions of dollars on illegal immigrant health care, like California,
18:04
Speaker 3: they can afford to fund their schools. The federal government
18:06
Speaker 3: actually is a pretty small percentage of school funding. Most
18:10
Speaker 3: of it, as you know, is your property taxes that
18:11
Speaker 3: are local. So it is perfectly possible for states to
18:15
Speaker 3: fund their own education system, and they would like to
18:18
Speaker 3: do that and discriminate against women on their own time.
18:22
Speaker 3: Titlenine has nothing to say about that. Their own state
18:25
Speaker 3: statutes probably have something to say about that, but Title
18:28
Speaker 3: nine itself does not. And so that's all we're trying
18:30
Speaker 3: to do is enforce the deal. And I think Democrats
18:34
Speaker 3: had a really big opportunity after the election, after they
18:38
Speaker 3: they took a huge loss because they were too progressive.
18:41
Speaker 3: And you could hear Seth Moulton and some of these
18:43
Speaker 3: people saying, maybe we should be more moderate, and I said, no,
18:46
Speaker 3: they're not going to do that. They can't, and sure
18:48
Speaker 3: enough they can't. They are owned by their left flank
18:51
Speaker 3: because they just don't have any leaderships. So this is
18:53
Speaker 3: going to continue to happen, and we're going to continue
18:56
Speaker 3: to say fine, no federal funding.
18:58
Speaker 1: My guess to me is, may Melman, is your policy
19:00
Speaker 1: strateger just here at the White House. Let's talk about
19:02
Speaker 1: the first hundred days, and what are your top just
19:05
Speaker 1: takeaways if you're checking boxes. I think for me, number
19:08
Speaker 1: one is the border and I think that has just
19:11
Speaker 1: been an amazing success to watch border crossings drop by
19:14
Speaker 1: ninety seven, ninety eight, nine nine percent, whatever the number
19:16
Speaker 1: is now, it keeps changing. So I want to you know,
19:18
Speaker 1: it's why I'm giving a little leeway there. Some fact
19:20
Speaker 1: checker out there will freak out, no, you got it
19:22
Speaker 1: wrong by decimal point. It's the reality that this is
19:26
Speaker 1: something he promised and paid off on. But there's a
19:29
Speaker 1: lot of other wins right now that have not been
19:31
Speaker 1: talked about in the media specifically.
19:33
Speaker 3: So I will just say one of the biggest wins
19:36
Speaker 3: is our energy agenda, the drill, Baby drill. I think
19:39
Speaker 3: it's harder to see wins here because some permits take
19:43
Speaker 3: a long time to actually turn in to a project,
19:46
Speaker 3: but when you see what's actually happening. So Biden said
19:50
Speaker 3: for LNGX Sports, we're not going to issue any new permits.
19:55
Speaker 3: We have already issued four new permits. Biden said, we're
19:59
Speaker 3: not going to do any coal leasing. We've opened up
20:02
Speaker 3: federal lands for coal leasing, and we've rescinded regulations that
20:06
Speaker 3: are preventing coal's mines from moving forward, and several have
20:10
Speaker 3: already either announced or already opened up. I think you're
20:15
Speaker 3: going to see a lot of news coming very soon
20:17
Speaker 3: on this crazy thing called the social cost of carbon,
20:20
Speaker 3: which basically said that if you want a new project,
20:23
Speaker 3: you have to present to the government as a cost
20:27
Speaker 3: of your project, the carbon that you would use to
20:30
Speaker 3: build the project, and then the carbon that would be
20:33
Speaker 3: created from your project. Meaning no projects could ever move
20:36
Speaker 3: forward because it would seem like it was just going
20:38
Speaker 3: to be so costly, so terrible. These are, of course
20:40
Speaker 3: invented things about what's going to happen in three hundred years.
20:44
Speaker 3: I don't even know what the weather's going to be tomorrow.
20:46
Speaker 3: And so I think that you're going to see a
20:49
Speaker 3: lot of positive movement there. The Endangered Species Act, I'll
20:51
Speaker 3: do one more. For years, you can't build anything because
20:55
Speaker 3: if you hurt the butterfly's habitat, you can't have a project.
20:59
Speaker 3: And so Biden spent all this money on the Inflation
21:01
Speaker 3: Reduction Act, and we're going to build this and this
21:03
Speaker 3: and this billions of dollars. Nothing was built. Why, well,
21:07
Speaker 3: you have to do all of these Neepper rules, and
21:09
Speaker 3: you have to do the Environmental Species Act, and what
21:11
Speaker 3: about the caterpillar? So we proposed a rule that said,
21:15
Speaker 3: it's not about whether you're harming the habitat in some
21:18
Speaker 3: emotional sense. You actually have to physically harm the animals
21:23
Speaker 3: in order to trigger this law. So we're making a
21:26
Speaker 3: lot of these regulatory changes that are going to expand building,
21:29
Speaker 3: expand energy. We've already hosted all the major energy companies here.
21:34
Speaker 3: They're very excited building pipeline in Alaska, finishing pipeline on
21:38
Speaker 3: the East Coast, talking to governors there who are from
21:41
Speaker 3: not friendly states, but who understand the national security needs.
21:44
Speaker 3: So energy, I think is something that's under talked about
21:47
Speaker 3: but has huge wins and actually will have huge implications.
21:51
Speaker 1: It's amazing how it's not talked about. When the price
21:53
Speaker 1: of gas comes down, it's like, okay, it's better, But
21:56
Speaker 1: when it's up, everybody wants to know who to blame. Well,
21:58
Speaker 1: it's come down, and then the is like, great, we
22:00
Speaker 1: don't have to talk about it anymore.
22:02
Speaker 3: Right, Even the cost of eggs is I think, down
22:05
Speaker 3: three dollars from the time.
22:07
Speaker 1: Man, it was a big deal though at the beginning.
22:09
Speaker 1: Remember go back one hundred days ago. Everything's Trump's fault.
22:12
Speaker 1: Now no one's talking about the cost of.
22:13
Speaker 3: Eggs, right, and there are no shortages. And what Biden
22:17
Speaker 3: did is he implemented a kill all the chickens strategy.
22:21
Speaker 3: And so, of course when Biden kills all the chickens,
22:23
Speaker 3: there are no chickens left, lay eggs. Not asking whether
22:27
Speaker 3: you could do pasteurization, other types of things, you could
22:30
Speaker 3: protect the you know, protect the flocks. Whatever kills all
22:33
Speaker 3: the birds. And so then tries to blame President Trump.
22:36
Speaker 3: But of course these are things that we are working
22:39
Speaker 3: through in order to lower costs our deregulation costs. We
22:43
Speaker 3: have twelve rules that have either been already rescinded or
22:47
Speaker 3: being proposed to rescind that have a savings of fifty
22:50
Speaker 3: billion dollars. So that's just easy deregulatory wins already in
22:54
Speaker 3: the first one hundred days. So these types of things,
22:58
Speaker 3: you know, maybe a deregulatory effort that says you no
23:01
Speaker 3: longer have to purchase an EV won't affect you immediately,
23:04
Speaker 3: but it'll affect you the next time you buy a
23:06
Speaker 3: car and that car doesn't have an inflated price of
23:09
Speaker 3: another ten to fifteen one thousand dollars. I think people
23:11
Speaker 3: can remember how expensive things got, or the California EV
23:15
Speaker 3: mandate where California basically gets to make the car rules
23:19
Speaker 3: for half the country and we're saying no, California doesn't
23:21
Speaker 3: get to do that anymore. So these are the types
23:23
Speaker 3: of things that Americans are going to feel when they
23:25
Speaker 3: may have those big purchases. You know, standards for shower heads,
23:29
Speaker 3: washing machines, gas stoves, these types of things, expanding options furnaces,
23:33
Speaker 3: water furnaces, these types of things that are deregulatory, giving
23:39
Speaker 3: options for consumers and lowering prices.
23:41
Speaker 1: Final question for you looking for the next hundred days,
23:44
Speaker 1: what do you think the biggest win is going to
23:45
Speaker 1: be for the American people. Is that going to be
23:47
Speaker 1: victories with trade?
23:49
Speaker 3: I think we can look forward to victories with trade.
23:51
Speaker 3: I think deregulation is going to really kick in. We
23:55
Speaker 3: have a ten to one deregulation mandate. It's not a goal,
23:58
Speaker 3: it's a mandate in order to for UH to see this.
24:02
Speaker 3: But then I think also we're going to see some
24:04
Speaker 3: action from Congress. So Congress is going to push forward
24:06
Speaker 3: its Reconciliation bill, which is going to have a solidify
24:11
Speaker 3: a lot of our priorities, but some things that we
24:13
Speaker 3: couldn't do administratively, things about you know, benefits that go
24:18
Speaker 3: to illegal aliens that shouldn't these types of things, fixes
24:20
Speaker 3: that we absolutely need. You're going to see that come
24:23
Speaker 3: through Congress. So a lot of our focus right now
24:25
Speaker 3: is shifting away from some of these must have administrative
24:29
Speaker 3: wins to how can we lock those wins in with Congress.
24:33
Speaker 3: It's a little bit difficult working with you know that
24:35
Speaker 3: many people, but that's at least where my attention is
24:39
Speaker 3: going right now.
24:40
Speaker 1: It's awesome. I appreciate your time. May Melman, Senior Policy Strate.
24:43
Speaker 1: I just hear at the White House firste hundred days
24:45
Speaker 1: of successes are big for the American people. You guys
24:48
Speaker 1: are working hard, and there's a lot more to come
24:49
Speaker 1: in and we'll obviously be chatting with you.
24:51
Speaker 2: Again real soon.
24:51
Speaker 3: All right, Thanks for having me.
24:53
Speaker 2: Don't forget.
24:53
Speaker 1: Share this podcast with your family and friends, share it
24:56
Speaker 1: on social media, please, and I'll see you back here tomorrow.
25:00
Speaker 3: No,