Speaker 1: Merry Christmas everyone. The tech bros want to take away
Speaker 1: your jobs by importing all of our engineers from India.
Speaker 1: That's right. We've somehow over the last day or so
Speaker 1: here we spent Christmas, those of us who are terminally
Speaker 1: chronically online and trolling on Twitter for radio show ideas
Speaker 1: like yours. Truly, we've been spending all of Christmas. I
Speaker 1: guess avoiding our families. Well I haven't been, but avoiding
Speaker 1: our families and yammering about immigration stuff. And this seems
Speaker 1: to have been kicked off by Elon Musk. Now, Republicans
Speaker 1: got to be kind of clear eyed about Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and it might just be like this is we're dancing
Speaker 1: with the one who brought us. Political parties are a
Speaker 1: function of a lot of things. They are a pro
Speaker 1: of the voters and what the voters want, but they
Speaker 1: are also largely a product of what donors want. And
Speaker 1: there is no one person who has the potential to
Speaker 1: be a bigger force of Republican donor money than Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: literally the richest man in the world, whose net worth
Speaker 1: is estimated to be about four hundred and eighty six
Speaker 1: billion dollars. All Right, the guy has more money than
Speaker 1: we can fathom. He's got more money than George Soros.
Speaker 1: He's got more money than every This guy might have
Speaker 1: more money than every big time Republican donor combined. And
Speaker 1: we've seen that he if he believes in something, he's
Speaker 1: willing to plunk down the cash. The guy bought Twitter
Speaker 1: for forty billion dollars because he was like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: think it's lame that this social media site censors people.
Speaker 1: We should have a more free exchange of ideas. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to plunk down forty billion greenbacks. I'm going
Speaker 1: to buy it. And he did. He actually did it.
Speaker 1: It started as a joke and now it's real. So
Speaker 1: if he says something and now that he's sort of
Speaker 1: really thrown his support behind Donald Trump and has said
Speaker 1: stuff like I want to continue to be a major
Speaker 1: player in American electoral politics for Republicans, I want to
Speaker 1: be I mean, I want to be the George Soros
Speaker 1: of the right. I mean that's what he said. He
Speaker 1: a comment like that was made at a rally at
Speaker 1: mar A Lago where someone the speaker at the question
Speaker 1: who is the George Soros of the right, and Elon
Speaker 1: Musk was there in the crowd and raised his hand
Speaker 1: like that that's what he wants to be. So a
Speaker 1: lot of this centers around H one B visas. Now,
Speaker 1: what is an H one B visa. Here's the US
Speaker 1: Department of Labor overview of the H one B program.
Speaker 1: The H one B program applies to employers seeking to
Speaker 1: hire non immigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations or
Speaker 1: as fashion models of distinguished merit and nobility. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it's for fashion models and then workers in specialty occupations.
Speaker 1: A specialty occupation is one that requires the application of
Speaker 1: a body of highly specialized knowledge and the attainment of
Speaker 1: at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent. The intent
Speaker 1: of the H one B provisions is to help employers
Speaker 1: who cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities from
Speaker 1: the US workforce by authorizing the temporary employment of qualified
Speaker 1: individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the
Speaker 1: United States. And what we're seeing is Elon expressing the
Speaker 1: viewpoint that is common throughout Silicon Valley that they want
Speaker 1: to bring in H one B immigrants as engineers. And
Speaker 1: Elon keeps saying on Twitter, you know, the rate limiting
Speaker 1: factor for Silicon Valley is the lack of skilled engineers.
Speaker 1: We should expand the H one B program. We should
Speaker 1: bring in more people from India wherever to help fill
Speaker 1: these engineering jobs. Now I'm a little skeptical of this.
Speaker 1: It's weird how the Trump coalition which included sort of
Speaker 1: these elon enthusiasts on the one hand versus the elon
Speaker 1: enthusiasts over here, but also the Trump hardcore folks on
Speaker 1: immigration over there who have hated the H one B
Speaker 1: visa program for a long time, have thought it was
Speaker 1: over crowded with too many people that were bringing in,
Speaker 1: which which actually reduces slots and opportunities for American jobs.
Speaker 1: The way Musk is framing the issue is basically as
Speaker 1: if there is an infinite pool of jobs out there
Speaker 1: and that we just don't have enough engineers and so
Speaker 1: we have to bring in more engineers from India. The reality,
Speaker 1: I think is not how he describes it, though clearly
Speaker 1: there are lots and lots of people in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: in the last two years who got laid off from
Speaker 1: their jobs at these various big tech companies. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe Musk is talking about in a boom time, you
Speaker 1: need a lot more. But I think the characterization of
Speaker 1: the tech job market as basically we have this infinite
Speaker 1: supply or this infinite need, rather this infinite demand for
Speaker 1: qualified engineers that we must fill, And really I don't
Speaker 1: know that that's true. I think this is the thing
Speaker 1: if we're taking on as a major Republican influencer and
Speaker 1: donor someone like Elon Musk. Now, are there many things
Speaker 1: good about Elon Musk? Sure, I'm encouraged that maybe he's
Speaker 1: going to be progressively more pro life and be willing
Speaker 1: to fund pro life things, and his stance on abortion
Speaker 1: seems to be sort of shifting in positive ways. But
Speaker 1: he is, at the end of the day, a CEO,
Speaker 1: and the interests of the CEO class versus the interest
Speaker 1: of the American worker are always going to be somewhat
Speaker 1: in conflict. He seems to agree with Trump with sort
Speaker 1: of the Trump hardcore immigration base about Latin American immigration
Speaker 1: and the ways in which it is taking certain kinds
Speaker 1: of jobs away, But then he turns around for the
Speaker 1: industry that he's a part of, for the tech industry,
Speaker 1: he wants to import tons and tons of immigrants for
Speaker 1: the sake of something he cares about. Now, are there
Speaker 1: differences between a legal expansion of a legal program of
Speaker 1: temporary workers versus the kinds of waves of people just
Speaker 1: literally walking across the border, presenting themselves with phony asylum claims,
Speaker 1: allowing those people to get into the country, you know,
Speaker 1: setting them up for a court date that they're never
Speaker 1: going to show up for. Okay, Yeah, obviously I think
Speaker 1: the one is more harmful than the other. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, what's the motivation from corporate America to
Speaker 1: be in favor of immigrant of sort of unchecked immigration
Speaker 1: on both those fronts, both from you know, Mexican Latin
Speaker 1: American immigration coming across the border and or overstaying their visas,
Speaker 1: but also endless numbers of H one B visas. The
Speaker 1: motivator is a cheaper labor force. All right, nothing's new
Speaker 1: under the sun. The interests of management versus the interests
Speaker 1: of labor are always going to be in conflict over
Speaker 1: how much you pay your labor. All right. Labor wants
Speaker 1: more pay, Management wants to pay labor less. The less
Speaker 1: management pays labor, the more profit, And the interests of
Speaker 1: management have always been what's the benefit to the shareholders,
Speaker 1: so that that is fundamentally just there that that that
Speaker 1: that interest on the part of management capital, if you will,
Speaker 1: versus labor. That fight is kind of inherently sort of
Speaker 1: there within the structure of most American businesses, and what
Speaker 1: Musk is sort of now, is Musk wrong to point
Speaker 1: out that there are a lot of really talented engineers
Speaker 1: in India, be really cool if we could get some
Speaker 1: of them. Okay, no, he's not wrong. I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are a lot of really talented engineers in India. It
Speaker 1: would be really cool if we could get a lot
Speaker 1: of them to work here in the United States. Is
Speaker 1: he wrong to point out, Hey, the American education systems
Speaker 1: not that good. We're not producing as many talented engineers,
Speaker 1: math science, whatever graduates as we should be. He's not wrong,
Speaker 1: He's not wrong to point that stuff out. But it's
Speaker 1: also you know, let's be real about the economics here.
Speaker 1: Probably don't have to pay an H one B visa
Speaker 1: holder as much as you pay a kid fresh out
Speaker 1: of Stanford or cal I mean, that's almost certainly true.
Speaker 1: And you you know, or an H one B visa
Speaker 1: holder who's you know, thirty years old, who's you know,
Speaker 1: eight or nine years out of university. You certainly have
Speaker 1: to pay that person less than you have to pay
Speaker 1: a thirty year old who's eight or nine years out
Speaker 1: of you know, Stanford or cal or cal Tech. Definitely
Speaker 1: pay them less than that. And I guess that's the
Speaker 1: you know that that that's the problem with all this.
Speaker 1: You're bringing in more and more of these H one
Speaker 1: B visa holders. And it's also you know a couple
Speaker 1: of things to understand about illegal immigration. Yes, a lot
Speaker 1: of it is the dramatic scenario of someone crossing the
Speaker 1: border unlawfully. I was talking with an immigration attorney who
Speaker 1: was telling me that, you know, all these anyone who's
Speaker 1: getting across the border unlawfully, they're paying the cartel, in
Speaker 1: some cases thousands and thousands of dollars to get them across.
Speaker 1: And there's a you know, the cartel is making money
Speaker 1: off of almost every single one of these people who's
Speaker 1: making it across the border. So obviously that's a dramatic
Speaker 1: active illegal immigration. But about half of illegal immigrants are
Speaker 1: here or something around there, are here because they overstay
Speaker 1: their visas. And there is this fundamental problem. There is
Speaker 1: not an unlimited number of jobs bringing in immigrants is
Speaker 1: being supported by people in corporate America, not out of
Speaker 1: altruistic desires to lift up the benighted masses of the
Speaker 1: third world to give them the glorious opportunities of the
Speaker 1: American dream. That's not the motivation for it. The motivation
Speaker 1: for it is we want to bring in cheap labor. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying no immigration whatsoever, but I don't think
Speaker 1: unlimited expansion of legal immigration is necessarily the wisest and
Speaker 1: most just thing to do. And we have to kind
Speaker 1: of take this historical perspective of how open the United
Speaker 1: States has been to immigration and how bizarrely generous we've
Speaker 1: been in letting people come here under illegal quasi illegal,
Speaker 1: initially legal but then overstaying their visas means we've been extraordinary,
Speaker 1: really generous in a way that I don't think the
Speaker 1: dictates of justice require. And I think part of having
Speaker 1: an actual country that has an actual national character, that
Speaker 1: actually is trying to look out for the interests of
Speaker 1: its citizens, that the interests of our lawmakers should be
Speaker 1: different from the interests of our business tycoons, that no,
Speaker 1: actually we do need to look out for our own citizenry.
Speaker 1: We have a certain obligation to our own citizenry first,
Speaker 1: for our America born and raised or naturalized American citizen workers,
Speaker 1: our American stand for grads, Harvard grads, Caltech grads, Berkeley grads, etc.
Speaker 1: Who are wanting to go into engineering, that we do
Speaker 1: need to have some kind of eye towards preserving them
Speaker 1: and their jobs and making sure that corporate America isn't
Speaker 1: going to just bypass them and leave them in the
Speaker 1: dust in favor of an unlimited you know, just numerically speaking,
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, just a never ending supply of H one
Speaker 1: visa holders coming in from India or from China or
Speaker 1: from wherever. I don't know if China is quite qualified here.
Speaker 1: I know India is kind of the paradigmatic country for
Speaker 1: this program. And that's the thing with this Elon Musk
Speaker 1: alliance is it's going to be a double edged sword
Speaker 1: when we return. I want to talk about, Yes, it
Speaker 1: is a double edged sword with him, but like it
Speaker 1: or not, I think this is the dance partner the
Speaker 1: GOP is going to have for quite some time. That's
Speaker 1: next on the John Jrwardy Show. One last note on
Speaker 1: immigration policy stuff as the Internet fueled by Elon Musk
Speaker 1: talking about This has been embroiled with debate over H
Speaker 1: one B visas, whether we should expand H one B visas, etc.
Speaker 1: I've heard some people do that that basically, any time
Speaker 1: a liberal sees a conservative say, hey, maybe we should
Speaker 1: constrain this aspect of American immigration policy, that aspect of
Speaker 1: American immigration policy. Hey maybe we need better border security here.
Speaker 1: Hey maybe we don't need to further expand the H
Speaker 1: one B visa program, you immediately get hit with people saying.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so ridiculous how people who are only here
Speaker 2: because of immigration would be trying to prevent other immigrants.
Speaker 2: Don't you remember that you're an immigrant too.
Speaker 1: Oh, And then they'll take someone's last name and be, oh,
Speaker 1: your last name is, uh, what's a Girardi. Oh let's
Speaker 1: take Girardi. Okay, Oh your last name's Girardi. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: because your grandparent whatever was it was an immigrant. So
Speaker 1: here you are trying to stop other people from immigrating.
Speaker 1: All right, let me address that. The fact that someone
Speaker 1: in my ancestral line was an immigrant, which is true
Speaker 1: of basically everybody in America, is I think not relevant
Speaker 1: for the rest of eternity. It doesn't mean that because
Speaker 1: I had some immigrant that from here on out going forward,
Speaker 1: no one who had some immigrant in their family tree
Speaker 1: is allowed to favor any kind of verse, is allowed
Speaker 1: ever again in the future, to favor of any kind
Speaker 1: of restriction on immigration, as if the fact of being,
Speaker 1: the fact of being born of immigrant stock means that
Speaker 1: you must be for the rest of your life an
Speaker 1: advocate on behalf of all immigrants. I stand before you
Speaker 1: as a representative of all what are my different ethnic backgrounds.
Speaker 1: My dad is was half Irish and half Italian, and
Speaker 1: my mom was a big mix of a million different things,
Speaker 1: that therefore I must be an advocate for all of
Speaker 1: these different immigrant groups. No, because I am not any
Speaker 1: one of those different immigrants, especially for someone like me
Speaker 1: who I've got, you know again, Irish Italian. I think
Speaker 1: my mom's mom has like kind of had a lot
Speaker 1: of Swedish. My mom's dad was like quote scotch Irish,
Speaker 1: which you know, I'm thirty seven years old. I still
Speaker 1: have no idea what quote scotch Irish means to all
Speaker 1: these people who say they are quote scotch Irish, as
Speaker 1: if there was just a big pool of Scottish people
Speaker 1: and Irish people who perfectly intermixed with each other to
Speaker 1: produce quote scotch Irish, I don't even know what it
Speaker 1: means anyway, regardless, No, I'm an American. I was born here,
Speaker 1: my parents were born here, my grandparents were born here.
Speaker 1: You have to go back to my great grandparents generation
Speaker 1: to find someone who wasn't born here. And furthermore, even
Speaker 1: if even if my parents were immigrants, even if I
Speaker 1: was a naturalized American citizen who was not born here,
Speaker 1: I am now of this place and the interests of
Speaker 1: myself and and more importantly, my fellow citizens. There is
Speaker 1: a reasonable ordering of concern that a country and its
Speaker 1: citizenry are supposed to have for their fellow citizens before
Speaker 1: they get to the needs of other people. Caring about
Speaker 1: this country and its economic benefit and its success and
Speaker 1: it's proper flourishing in virtue, in material success, in whatever,
Speaker 1: is a proper sort of ordering of our loves, a
Speaker 1: proper ordering of our cares and concerns. To say that
Speaker 1: I have to be an immigrant advocate for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, which means I guess maximal liberal openness
Speaker 1: towards any immigrant who wants to walk across the border
Speaker 1: with no concern about how that might impact existing citizens,
Speaker 1: our existing economy, our ability to handle such immigrants. You know,
Speaker 1: all of that. I have to just disregard that for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. That's silly. It also makes
Speaker 1: a mockery of the idea of assimilating. Okay, Yes, the
Speaker 1: American story is one in which immigration plays a massive
Speaker 1: part in the success stories of immigrants are beautiful and
Speaker 1: inspiring and noble things, but assimilation is a big part
Speaker 1: of that. Becoming an American is part of the American
Speaker 1: success story. It's not just coming here and staying as
Speaker 1: whatever you were. The beauty of the American success story
Speaker 1: is coming here and becoming a proud American who integrates
Speaker 1: within their community and society and flourishes and preserves maybe
Speaker 1: some of the beautiful things of their cultural heritage whatever
Speaker 1: from the old Country, but becomes part of this societ.
Speaker 1: Like the classic ugly example of that not happening are
Speaker 1: Italian gangsters and mobsters, okay, who came here and.
Speaker 3: Instead of integrating into American cultured society, decided to keep
Speaker 3: on doing the same old country protection business schemes that
Speaker 3: they were doing in Sicily.
Speaker 1: That was not successful. American integration. So the notion that
Speaker 1: because you're no, you should support H one B visa
Speaker 1: holders coming to America because your great grandfather came to
Speaker 1: America on a boat. Okay, my great grandfather came to
Speaker 1: America on a boat. That doesn't mean I now have
Speaker 1: to turn off my moral political reasoning when I look
Speaker 1: at questions of immigration for my country. I'm not an
Speaker 1: Italian anymore, all right. The level of my italianness is.
Speaker 1: I took a little Italian in college. I enjoy Americanized
Speaker 1: Italian food. I'd like to visit Italy someday. That's about it. Though.
Speaker 1: That's about it. I'm not an Italian. I am fundamentally
Speaker 1: an American. That's it. So don't give me this nonsense that, oh,
Speaker 1: you need to have the words of the words of
Speaker 1: the Statue of Liberty. You can bring me your poor
Speaker 1: huddled masses you have to forever and ever because your
Speaker 1: great grandfather came here on a boat, that therefore you
Speaker 1: have to support every maximal liberal accommodationist let them all
Speaker 1: in immigration policy. I just absolutely no, fundamentally no, I
Speaker 1: am not an advocate on behalf of all immigrants, nor
Speaker 1: do I need to be, And That doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 1: a heartless, unfeeling person who doesn't care about the ability
Speaker 1: of other people to come to American make a better
Speaker 1: life for them. So of course I want people to
Speaker 1: have that opportunity. It doesn't mean, though, that you have
Speaker 1: to have unlimited, unrestricted immigration. When we return Elon Musk
Speaker 1: versus Mackenzie Scott, which direction will we go? That's next?
Speaker 1: On the John Girardi Show. For a long time, Republicans
Speaker 1: complained about two things within electoral politics. The one thing
Speaker 1: was we could never get young people to vote for Republicans,
Speaker 1: and the other was that we could never get billionaires
Speaker 1: to support Republicans, like mega ultra George Soros esque level billionaires. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had the Koch brothers, but they were kind of
Speaker 1: the exception rather than the rule. And Democrats have Democrats
Speaker 1: out fundraised Donald Trump all three of his elections. Well
Speaker 1: enter the twenty twenty four election, and what happened. Young
Speaker 1: men shifted massively in favor of Donald Trump. So it
Speaker 1: seems like gen Z voters are, if anything, far more
Speaker 1: conservative than you would expect. And there is a kind
Speaker 1: of conservatizing trend that seems to happen to every electorate
Speaker 1: every generation. I think marriage makes people inherently more conservative.
Speaker 1: Marriage and having a job makes people inherently more conservative.
Speaker 1: So we have this generational shift, but also we get
Speaker 1: all of a sudden falling from the sky seemingly into
Speaker 1: Republican's lap is Elon Musk. Now, I think there are positives,
Speaker 1: as I've been talking about throughout the show, I think
Speaker 1: there's pluses and minuses to this alliance. And this is
Speaker 1: seemingly the alliance that's going to be for Republicans. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has demonstrated he's going to be a massive player.
Speaker 1: This little fight that we had about the Continuing Resolution
Speaker 1: to avoid a government shut down, now we had the
Speaker 1: week before Christmas. Who was the chief player in it?
Speaker 1: It was Elon Musk. It was Elon Musk going on
Speaker 1: Twitter saying, I think the Republicans supporting this continuing Resolution,
Speaker 1: this is terrible and this is a huge, massive bill.
Speaker 1: It's way too much money and we should stop it.
Speaker 1: And Mike Johnson had already gotten it all ready to go.
Speaker 1: It was all laid out, fifteen hundred pages of left
Speaker 1: wing giveaways, and Musk more or less stopped it, replaced
Speaker 1: it with a much through his influence, A much smaller
Speaker 1: bill got passed. It just kind of keeps the government open.
Speaker 1: It doesn't give Trump everything you wanted. I think Trump
Speaker 1: wanted to completely kick the whole debt ceiling debate away
Speaker 1: from his presidency, which that's not happening. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was a much, much, much smaller bill. Musk is
Speaker 1: here to stay. Clearly, he's clearly going to be this
Speaker 1: massive player in Republicans politics going forward. And you're going
Speaker 1: to see the left. Let me just prepare you for this.
Speaker 1: You're going to see the left crying about this like
Speaker 1: crazy and talking about dark money as Musk starts funding
Speaker 1: more conservative leaning nonprofit groups. They've already been crying like
Speaker 1: this about Leonard Leel, the former head of the Federalist Society,
Speaker 1: who's sort of overseeing billions of dollars for different conservative causes.
Speaker 1: They're going to start crying like this about Musk, and
Speaker 1: they're going to start calling it dark money, his dark
Speaker 1: money network of organizations designed to support conservative causes. And
Speaker 1: when Republicans do it, it's dark money. When liberals do the
Speaker 1: same thing, I'll describe what this thing is. When liberals
Speaker 1: do it, it's a strategically giving to an interconnected series
Speaker 1: of nonprofits packs and five oh one C four's designed
Speaker 1: to help advance left wing causes in ways that are
Speaker 1: philanthropically sound. That's what George Soros has done. Let me describe,
Speaker 1: let me describe this landscape. What George Soros did was
Speaker 1: he created this interlinked network of nonprofit organizations, so can
Speaker 1: advocate four against different kinds of legislation to a limited extent,
Speaker 1: but more so as advocating for against certain kinds of
Speaker 1: policies and ideas without restriction. It's a nonprofit, so donations
Speaker 1: to it are tax deductible and not publicly disclosed. You
Speaker 1: can deduct the money. So it's a nonprofit, it's not
Speaker 1: a tax organization, and donations to it are tax deductible.
Speaker 1: Then he's got his five O one C fours five
Speaker 1: to one C fours that's right next to five on
Speaker 1: one C three in the tax code. Five to one
Speaker 1: C fours can do unlimited legislative advocacy. They can even
Speaker 1: do some direct candidate advocacy. So with legislative advocacy, that
Speaker 1: means you can use your five one C four to
Speaker 1: be the chief vehicle for advocating for, say a ballot initiative,
Speaker 1: because that's just legislation. Even though people vote on it,
Speaker 1: it's really fun. At the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: just legislation. So for ballot initiatives or for legislation that's
Speaker 1: being debated in state legislatures or in Congress, you have
Speaker 1: your five O one C four. Now five one C
Speaker 1: fours are not subject to tax donations. Two of five
Speaker 1: one C four, though, are not tax deductible. Then you've
Speaker 1: got packs. A pack a political action committee directly gives
Speaker 1: money to candidates and can directly support and oppose candidates
Speaker 1: with no restrictions. Okay, none of the restrictions of five
Speaker 1: to one C four has on direct candidate advocacy. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of what George Soros set up. He would set
Speaker 1: up a lot of different issue focused five one C
Speaker 1: three He's five to one C four's and packs all
Speaker 1: kind of funded with his money, and they were all
Speaker 1: sort of interconnected, helping each other and advocating for liberal
Speaker 1: policies in all these different ways. This guy on Twitter,
Speaker 1: John Lefevre, who's New York Times author, he wrote on
Speaker 1: Twitter about Mackenzie Scott that Mackenzie Scott is getting into
Speaker 1: this kind of space now slightly different strategies from George Soros,
Speaker 1: but this is how he describes it now. Mackenzie Scott,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, is the ex wife of
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. In the divorce, she got nineteen point seven
Speaker 1: million shares of Amazon stock worth thirty eight billion dollars,
Speaker 1: So immediately upon her divorce she becomes on her own
Speaker 1: one of the richest women in America and specifically California.
Speaker 1: And since the divorce, she's given away sixteen billion dollars
Speaker 1: to different nonprofits, but a lot of it are very
Speaker 1: politically oriented, political issue oriented nonprofits of five all one
Speaker 1: C three can do a lot of stuff that isn't
Speaker 1: direct legislative advocacy. It can advocate, it can talk about issues,
Speaker 1: It can talk about legislation without advocating doing direct like
Speaker 1: lobbying to legislators. So she's giving to a lot of
Speaker 1: nonprofits that are having big public policy impact, but giving
Speaker 1: an attax deductible fashion. So she has given away she got.
Speaker 1: She had a fortune of thirty eight point three billion dollars.
Speaker 1: After the divorce, she's given away sixteen billion. But because
Speaker 1: Amazon's stock has increased so much, she herself is still
Speaker 1: worth thirty six billion dollars. So just because of how
Speaker 1: much her leftover money from her Amazon shares, her Amazon
Speaker 1: shares have increased in value so much that she's still
Speaker 1: this multi billion, multi billionaire. So this guy, John Lefev
Speaker 1: writes on Twitter about her. He says her primary causes
Speaker 1: are equity swing, racial division, and supporting illegal immigration. Now
Speaker 1: this is from his probably a bit biased opinion, so
Speaker 1: take it with a grain of salt, But I don't
Speaker 1: think he's that far off. Her method is trust based philanthropy,
Speaker 1: giving sixteen billion dollars in no strings attached grants to
Speaker 1: over twenty five hundred NGOs, non governmental organizations and nonprofits.
Speaker 1: Her primary impact is feeding the NGO nonprofit complex, a
Speaker 1: jobs program for entitled liberals who think their overpriced degrees
Speaker 1: are worth framing, and they embrace fanatical ideaogies to assuage
Speaker 1: their guilt, make themselves fear superior and charitable, and mask
Speaker 1: their hypocrisy. Mackenzie Scott gives millions of dollars to groups
Speaker 1: with that state with stated missions like quote empowering lten
Speaker 1: X immigrants, quote deportation defense, and quote justice and equality
Speaker 1: for LGBTQ immigrants. So liberals have crazy people like Mackenzie
Speaker 1: Scott on their side, giving and give and giving. She
Speaker 1: made a nuh I believe it was a nine figure
Speaker 1: donation to Planned Parenthood just by herself in one shot.
Speaker 1: That is how that's the level we're talking with her.
Speaker 1: So when you start to read articles about Elon Musk
Speaker 1: giving to packs, giving to five to one C four's
Speaker 1: to five O one C three s, which inevitably I
Speaker 1: think you're going to start hearing, you're going to also
Speaker 1: be reading alongside how the troubling influence of tech billionaires
Speaker 1: to you know, influence American polity. Is this a good
Speaker 1: thing for America? That Elon Musk is the richest man
Speaker 1: in the world, is having such an outsized impact? Please, Like,
Speaker 1: this isn't stuff that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and
Speaker 1: Mackenzie Scott and George Stores that they haven't already been
Speaker 1: doing this stuff. When those guys do it again, when
Speaker 1: those guys do it, it's all strategic philanthropic giving. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a real inspiration too different for philanthropists to see
Speaker 1: the targeted ways in which they're trying to make a
Speaker 1: difference for positive changes in the world. In the fields
Speaker 1: of immigration, equity, equality, LGBT rights, blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and the media reports on it as if these are all,
Speaker 1: of course, completely on controversial things that of course every
Speaker 1: human being supports. But when Elon Musk puts his support
Speaker 1: behind a presidential candid, oh it's concerning. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: inevitably wind up dancing with the one who brought us.
Speaker 1: My personal hope is if we can position Elon Musk
Speaker 1: to be something of a pro lifer, it could be
Speaker 1: the most significant thing to happen to the pro life
Speaker 1: cause in a really long time. That is next on
Speaker 1: the John Girardi Show on Right to Life Radio, airs
Speaker 1: every Saturday morning at nine am, Jonathan Keller and our
Speaker 1: producer Colton and I we have this running joke called
Speaker 1: Elon Baby, Elon Baby, where basically we want Elon Musk
Speaker 1: somehow to notice us and give us money donate to Hey, God,
Speaker 1: why don't you donate to write the life of Central California.
Speaker 1: But I will say this about Elon Musk and this
Speaker 1: outsized role he's clearly taken within Republican politics. Now he's
Speaker 1: driving debate right now about H one B visas He
Speaker 1: was the key player in this budget fight that we
Speaker 1: had the week before Christmas about you know, where are
Speaker 1: we going to pass a continuing resolution or an omnibus
Speaker 1: spending bill? What are we doing here? And here he
Speaker 1: is this outsized player. He's going to be head of
Speaker 1: this Department of Government Efficiency organization. Musk is going to
Speaker 1: be a major player, seemingly in Republican politics going forward.
Speaker 1: He's going to donate to a lot of causes and
Speaker 1: previous big time Republican political financiers have always prioritized what
Speaker 1: have they always prioritized? Tax cuts, deregulation, anti labor union stuff.
Speaker 1: It was always And you look at all these different
Speaker 1: major conservative nonprofit conservative advocacy organizations, nonprofits, think tanks, political
Speaker 1: donors for so many of them. Maybe they're pro life,
Speaker 1: but that's not like the big thing they really care about.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, what they're really hoping
Speaker 1: to achieve is something that advances their business interests. They're
Speaker 1: not necessarily altruistic givers. They're looking out for their bottom line.
Speaker 1: I will say this about Musk, I think he's a
Speaker 1: bit of an altruistic giver, a bit of an altruistic spender.
Speaker 1: Of his money. Now he has certain things that clearly
Speaker 1: he's advocating for that are going to be useful for him,
Speaker 1: like this AH one b vis a thing. But let's
Speaker 1: not forget the guy bought Twitter a terrible business decision
Speaker 1: because he seemed to just believe that we should have
Speaker 1: some forum that's more like us, free from highly politicized,
Speaker 1: highly left wing, politicized censorship, where we should be able
Speaker 1: to freely express viewpoints that many people disagree with, whether
Speaker 1: it's about gender stuff, whether it's about Hunter Biden's laptop,
Speaker 1: and that the ideological censorship that we were seeing on
Speaker 1: Twitter and we're seeing on Facebook and now we're seemingly
Speaker 1: seeing less of on Facebook was bad. Musk is becoming
Speaker 1: more and more inclined towards a pro life position. There
Speaker 1: had been a number of tweets, number of stories sort
Speaker 1: of covering this. We've talked about them on Rights Life Radio.
Speaker 1: That is my hope would be if we could have
Speaker 1: a major Republican donor who genuinely actually kind of cared
Speaker 1: about the abortion issue as a genuine concern and not
Speaker 1: just you know, he cares about tax cuts and maybe
Speaker 1: he gives a little to pro life stuff. I think
Speaker 1: that could be a huge development in American politics if
Speaker 1: he was willing to give it away. That was genuinely
Speaker 1: as altruistic as some of his other financial decisions have been.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for John's Lardy Show. See you next
Speaker 1: time on Power Talk.