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Aug. 11, 2025 - Triggered - Donald Trump Jr
56:25
Exclusive Interview with Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau | Triggered Ep266
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Hey guys, welcome to another huge episode of Triggered.
I hope you all had an incredible weekend.
Time is flying by.
And if you're in Florida, for it may be even the first week of school.
I know my kids are probably not so thrilled about that right now.
But speaking of class and being back in session, that's sort of what it feels like my father's doing every day in Washington, D.C. with the White House Press Corps.
We'll play some clips from his major announcement earlier today, later on the show, plus some big breaking news we're learning about right now.
And let's just say, it's not going to be a great day if you're Adam Schiff.
And we're going to switch things up a little bit today.
To start the show off, we'll have Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau joining the show, and then we'll do the news of the week.
So a little bit of a reverse order from what we normally do with the news rundown coming second, but we got an opportunity to meet with someone who's on the forefront of some of the major things, things that are really happening around the world.
There's so much going on all over the place, and we're just going to get right into it.
Guys, make sure you're liking, sharing, subscribing so you never miss one of these major episodes.
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And of course, don't forget about our brave sponsors for having the guts to support this program, sponsors like the Birch Gold Group.
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And guys, like I said, there's so much happening at home and abroad that we're going to jump right into our first guest who has been doing incredible work at the State Department in pretty much every corner of the globe.
So joining me now to explain in much more and greater detail than I could possibly do, Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau.
Chris, great to have you on the show.
How are you?
Don, I am great.
I hope having me on first isn't like asking your viewers to eat their vegetables first before they get to the fun parts with you later.
Listen, you know, the kids are going back to school, so everyone's going to have to eat their vegetables first this week.
It's going to be a rough week for everyone, but that's okay.
Listen, this is a great warm-up for the other stuff and the breaking news we have later on.
And, you know, honestly, we just appreciate your time almost as much as we appreciate what you guys are doing out there.
Well, it's great.
You know, your dad has given Us freedom to re-examine a lot of the premises of U.S. foreign policy in a way that hasn't been done in decades.
You know, the Cold War ended in the early 90s.
We had a clear foreign policy purpose through much of our young lives, those of us who are in our 40s or 50s, 60s.
We grew up in a Cold War era, and it was pretty clear that around the world we were facing the communist bloc, the Soviet Union.
That ended in 1991.
So more than 30 years ago, basically, for the last three decades, U.S. foreign policy has just kind of been drifting along without a clear sense of what we're doing in the world.
And as you've seen, all your viewers have seen, you know, we kind of bumbled into wars, you know, forever wars in very remote parts of the world without clearly defined objectives.
And I think the American people are sick and tired of that.
I think it's one of the reasons, one of the many reasons that your dad is sitting in the Oval Office now because he tapped into that.
So it's very exciting to be in the State Department and actually saying, you know, the president has enunciated an America-first foreign policy.
What that means is that everything we do in this building has to go to make our country great again.
We're not here for the benefit of other countries.
We're here for us.
And so, you know, that's what we, that's the basis on which we're engaging with the world.
Well, that's a big deal.
And I think you're right.
We were sort of a rudderless vessel for many years.
It's like jumping from one war to the other because people around the DC Beltway made a lot of money doing that, despite what it did to the American middle class, what it did to inflation, what it did to our stockpiles and our morale.
But even relative to the first term, this time around, it also feels different because it feels like everyone's on the same page.
I mean, when I've watched, again, what you've done, what Secretary Rubio has done, everyone's on that page and they're looking to enact the things that he wants to do.
They're not kicking the ball down the road, hoping for this time to pass and we can get back to business as usual.
That's a really big deal.
You know, it's so interesting, Don.
And in a lot of ways, I think having that four-year interregnum gave a lot of us who were in the first administration really time to think about what we did well, what we could do better.
And, you know, frankly, having worked together in the first administration, we kind of figured out who was really on the program with your dad's policies.
I mean, when he won in 2016, basically anybody on the Republican side with foreign policy experience had gained it during the Bush administration.
That turned out to be the most internationalist of probably any since Woodrow Wilson's days.
So, you know, it was a big problem that a lot of people with R's after their names, frankly, did not believe in a restrained foreign policy.
They believed in kind of imposing our systems all over the world.
And so, frankly, a lot of the struggles within the administration took up a lot of our time and energy.
This time, it's totally different.
I mean, we kind of know, you know, from the first administration, you know, who really is a believer in America-first foreign policy.
I was ambassador to Mexico during your dad's first administration.
And, you know, I got a lot of experience on the ground there.
I came into that job from the private sector.
I was a lawyer in private practice for 25, 30 years.
And let me tell you, I learned a lot about the way the bureaucracy works and kind of how you actually can get the bureaucracy to come along.
And, you know, it's all a question of incentives, but you can't just parachute into some of these government agencies and expect people to click their heels and start following orders.
I mean, especially when you're kind of a disruptor and you're not just following business as usual.
Yeah, I remember, I mean, we had a conversation during the transition period.
You know, I haven't been involved since then, but since my father took office, but you could have a directive.
You could know what he wanted to do as the president of the United States.
But it almost didn't matter because the bureaucracy could prevent that from actually happening.
Even things that were common sense, even things that were America first, even things that the voters clearly voted for, it didn't matter because they knew better and they knew how to foil whatever plans you guys may have wanted to actually have.
That seems to be a lot different this time around.
It is 100% different.
And look, I think that's one of the reasons why the president is such a grand figure in American political history, that I think we were losing our democracy because essentially, no matter who people voted for, they'd wind up with the same old darn policies, even if you were voting against that policy.
Because frankly, the bureaucracy stayed in place.
And unless you learn how to actually keep the bureaucracy responsive to your agenda, your agenda is going to be thwarted.
And I think the president now is exerting his chief executive constitutional function with more vigor, probably than any president, maybe since Franklin Roosevelt.
It's a beautiful thing to see for those of us who come from a constitutional law background, because I think our system of separated powers had gotten perverted over the years because the executive branch was no longer really accountable to the people who voted for the chief executive because the executive branch was controlled by this permanent bureaucracy.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think every, you know, we talk about it on the show a lot, obviously, you know, the problems of the past, but, you know, again, so many good things going on towards the future.
Obviously, there's just so much going on around the world.
But I do want to start with perhaps your comments earlier today after we learned that Colombian opposition leader Miguel Urebe died after being shot at a campaign event back in June.
This was a political assassination against a rising star who was a voice for freedom and liberty and democracy.
What else can you tell us about what's going on there right now?
First, let me say one thing I think is really important.
In American foreign policy, we are returning to basics and some of our long-standing traditions.
One of those is a focus on our own hemisphere, on this neighborhood.
I mean, American foreign policy for way too long has been focused almost exclusively with Europe and the Middle East, and we have ignored our own backyard.
Again, I saw that firsthand when I was ambassador to Mexico during the first Trump term, that there had been very little attention paid to the Western Hemisphere.
So I think it is very exciting to work with Secretary Rubio.
He's very interested in the Western hemisphere.
I'm very interested in the Western Hemisphere.
My father was a career foreign service officer, and I actually grew up in South America.
So I was born in Spain when he was working at the U.S. Embassy there.
And so I think both of us have a very strong belief that reflects your father's priorities that we need to do more and engage in the Western hemisphere.
So, you know, we're very interested, you know, what happens in places like Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico.
This impacts us directly, obviously for migration reasons, but for many others.
And, you know, it is very disturbing that, you know, conservative right-of-center candidates in many countries, frankly, including our own country, have been the subject of assassination attempts or outright assassinations.
So this was terrible.
This senator was speaking out against the current president of Colombia, who's a former communist guerrilla.
And he was gunned down at close range a couple of months ago.
He managed to hold on for a couple of months and then he passed away last night.
I am heading down to Bogota tomorrow to attend the funeral service to show our intense concern.
But you can't have democracy if basically anybody who's right of center gets, it becomes the subject of an assassination attempt.
I mean, and we saw some of that in Mexico during the last elections.
What was it?
Like 30 potential presidential candidates were killed, I guess, because they weren't on the cartel payroll or weren't going to get all the cartel payrolls.
So rather than just have elections, they just decided it's easier to kill them all.
It's a real danger when you don't have strong rule of law and law enforcement capabilities in a country.
And again, this is absolutely vital to democracy.
In a way, you can't have a functioning democracy unless you have those institutions.
Frankly, having institutions is no guarantee either, as we saw in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Yeah, we have them here and they didn't do much over the last five, six, seven years between Russia, Russia, Russia, all the nonsense impeachments, all the other lawfare.
But I mean, in Colombia, we're seeing it, and it's perhaps even more drastic because I guess There's not even a pretense of objectivity there, but there we're seeing Colombian President Petro and his enablers using lawfare to go after other top political opponents like former President Urebe.
And he's been continuing to lash out and attack my father over his mission to destroy the cartels.
I guess, you know, I guess he's on the payroll and he understands where his bread is buttered, so he's going to defend the cartels.
But we have similar hostilities from the Mexican president.
How can we see them as reliable partners in anti-narcotic efforts at this point, given either their capitulation to the cartels or them seemingly almost acting like a sounding board for them?
Well, it's very challenging.
I think you have to have very clear lines in terms of what we expect on cooperation.
And we have been very clear with Mexico what we expect them to do.
And frankly, what we do on our side of the border as well.
I mean, I think these are issues that, again, have kind of been going on autopilot for a long time.
And I think now, you know, we are starting to take firm, aggressive action or affirmative action on these issues for the first time in many years.
I mean, we just designated a whole bunch of these cartels as terrorist groups, which opens up a new toolbox for us to work with.
We're stopping the flow of money and weapons to the cartels.
And we're making sure that the governments in the region understand that we're not kidding around.
And I think we have just made it clear that there is a diplomatic dimension here, but there's also a law enforcement dimension.
And I don't know if your viewers might have seen, but we just doubled the reward for information leading to the arrest of the president of Venezuela, or the guy who claims to be the president of Venezuela.
We don't recognize his government as legitimate because there was a brazenly stolen election last year.
And so, you know, this is the problem.
You can't really pretend to have a diplomatic relationship with somebody who basically is the leader of a criminal cartel who occupies the presidential chair, right?
Well, Maduro is clearly cozying up to Petro right next door.
I know last week you guys announced a record $50 million bounty on Maduro for his drug trafficking and terror crimes.
I mean, clearly, this is a situation of high urgency.
You're 100% right.
We've neglected our own hemisphere.
We're focusing in places that probably don't even touch the American people.
But I do know that fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year.
That's two Vietnams.
I always say that for perspective, because when you think about over a decade that we are in the Vietnam conflict and we lost 50,000 Americans plus 54,000 approximately, that happens every year times two due to fentanyl.
And that's coming from our neighbors right next door.
So clearly, that is a situation of high urgency that we have neglected for far too long.
What do the next steps there look like in your mind?
Because I think on a day-to-day basis, that affects a lot more Americans than a lot of the other stuff that we've focused a lot more time, energy, capital, et cetera, on over the last few decades.
Well, I think this is becoming one of the key challenges for our foreign policy.
And frankly, that issue is not limited to our hemisphere.
I mean, a lot of the precursor chemicals from fentanyl actually come from Asia, particularly from China.
And so this is becoming a major topic on our relationship with China.
And, you know, the president put tariffs in place early in his administration based in part on fentanyl imports to our country.
I mean, both on China, also on Mexico and Canada.
I mean, this is an incredibly difficult problem, but part of the challenge is we can't just go around saying it's difficult.
We got to start doing something about it.
And I think we have to make sure that these very dangerous chemicals that can make a drug into however potent you want to make it.
And there's really no restraints.
I mean, look, for whatever, 50 years, we had a hard time combating drugs that were grown out in the open organically in fields.
I mean, now this is something that with a few chemicals in a lab, you can do it in a basement.
And I think about five pounds of pure fentanyl can produce, I don't know, 1.4 million tablets.
The numbers are staggering because basically the amount of fentanyl that's the equivalent of a grain of salt or grain of sand is probably enough to kill an ordinary sized adult human.
So the challenge is overwhelming here.
But I mean, this is why we have to say, we're past the talking phase, right?
I mean, we need action now.
And that's why I think the tariffs definitely help get people's attention and they have our attention.
I mean, I think we're in a better place, frankly, now with the whole world that people understand that we mean business.
And this administration wants results, not just high-level gatherings for people to jawbone about problems.
But the president was elected to actually make life better for the American people.
And that's what we are dedicated to doing.
And we're using all the tools in our toolkit.
Well, I mean, you said in a statement that Venezuela's been hijacked by a criminal gang and it's fundamentally a law enforcement matter, not a diplomatic one.
There was an election in Venezuela last July.
Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Carina Machado, who's been on the show, won in a dominating fashion.
So, you know, what is the path to a prompt restoration of constitutional government there?
And do you see Venezuelan opposition as stronger than they've ever been before?
Is that realistic or is this just controlled by a despot dictator at this point?
Well, I think people are going to be seeing some action in this.
I mean, I think, again, the increasing the reward on Maduro's head to $50 million, I think, sent an unequivocal message.
I think the designation of his cartel as a foreign terrorist organization sent an unequivocal message.
I think people will be seeing some more actions in the coming days and weeks that we'll be sending messages.
But ultimately, look, I mean, the Venezuelan people have to rise up and claim their own freedom, right?
I mean, I think one of the problems we've seen in the world is that, you know, if people don't earn their own freedom, they don't appreciate it, right?
We can't go around the world changing governments at our whim.
We can certainly try to take actions to defend our interests and try to create conditions for the people in various countries to take appropriate actions.
But ultimately, I think we have realized that this is one of the follies of Iraq and Afghanistan, that you can't necessarily have the United States jump into another country and sit in the driver's seat, right?
Yeah, regime change hasn't exactly been one of the more successful aspects of our foreign policy for the last few decades.
That is correct.
And so we are very much against regime change in terms of the U.S. basically being the driver.
I think we can certainly work with democratic elements in various countries.
We support democracy, but ultimately, again, just look at our own revolution.
We won our own freedom, right?
And I think part of our creation that makes our country so great is that we knew we want our freedom.
Yes, we had some help from France and other countries.
And again, I think we want to be helpful to the cause of freedom around the world, but I think that is different than coming in like Lady Bountiful and saying, oh, here, foreign country, here's your freedom.
Then they don't know what to do with it because they didn't earn it.
So again, I think that's the challenge.
That's the line we're walking now of working with forces of democracy and free market forces.
And again, recognizing which countries around the world are really critical to U.S. interests.
I mean, we've been talking about Venezuela.
The migration crisis out of Venezuela has been very destabilizing for the whole Western hemisphere.
I mean, I think there's hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in our country, Pendaragua.
I mean, we have suffered a lot of consequences.
And frankly, other countries have it worse.
I mean, Peru, I think Colombia have many, many millions of Venezuelans.
I mean, it's so pathetic.
That country, I think, a third of their population has had to flee these horrible left-wing policies that have destroyed what was once the richest country in South America.
So, again, I think hopefully, I think it was so great that you had Maria Carina Machado on your show.
I mean, she's somebody that I admire tremendously.
And clearly, she won the election last year.
I mean, it was just embarrassing, actually, that they tried to put up a pretense that the government, you know, the people who now sit in the presidential chair, the person who sits there, everybody knows, including him, that he has no basis being there.
That's totally illegitimate.
So, you know, I very much look forward to a day very soon when we have constitutional order restored in Venezuela.
Yeah, because I guess, you know, then you could also head over to Brazil, and we're seeing the same types of lawfare and corruption on full display in the attacks against Yayer Bolsonaro, where a single Supreme Court justice has completely usurped authority and destroyed the separation of powers there.
Recently, the State Department and Treasury imposed sanctions there.
Where does it all go from there?
Because it feels like Latin America is more of a mess than perhaps it's ever been, or at least certainly in recent memory.
Well, I mean, in part, that's thanks to the previous administration here in the United States that frankly put a thumb on the scales to try to help some of these far-left governments come to power in the last few years.
I mean, we saw far-left governments come to power in Chile, Colombia, Brazil.
I mean, these are countries, you know, particularly Chile and Colombia, had, you know, traditionally had very mainstream or, you know, even more conservative governments.
And, you know, they, you know, the Biden administration and USAID and NGO, the whole NGO network, I think, really tilted the playing field.
And, you know, I think the case of Brazil is particularly anomalous because there you have a Supreme Court justice who is really taking a leading role in basically running that country.
Yeah, I mean, it feels like he's got more power and authority than the duly elected president of the nation.
It is a very strange situation.
Again, it actually kind of shows almost like, you know, if you had some of these district court judges who are issuing these crazy rulings in our country actually running the show, you know, what our country would look like.
I mean, I actually think that this is something important for your viewers to think about.
I mean, I think this whole lawfare issue is not just a passing fad.
I think this is going to be one of the big challenges of the 21st century, that a lot of the elites who I think are going to be driven from power in any country with any kind of democratic system are going to try to avoid that by basically censoring the opposition, precluding candidates from running.
And then if candidates are elected, they will try to thwart it, all from the judicial branch saying that they're just upholding the rule of law when they're doing things that are completely beyond the bounds of what any law has ever done before.
They're trying to thwart the will of the people.
And yet when you look at what's happened in America over the last few years, you say, maybe they're just taking our lead.
I mean, that's banana republic stuff that we're seeing, but honestly, it's not that different than what's going on over here for the last little while.
I mean, I think, you know, frankly, this, what happened, particularly to your father and you, frankly, I mean, you have been the recipient of this, Don.
I don't tell you of all people, but, you know, this is something that we're seeing here too.
And frankly, we're seeing it since your father's election.
I mean, the Supreme Court has had to step in, you know, in scores of cases to stop the rulings of really lawless district judges.
I mean, it pains me.
I'm a lawyer, right?
It pains me to see the kind of stuff that's going on that people here, some of these judges seem to think that it is their job to thwart the policy of the Trump administration.
So any crazy complaint is thrown in front of them.
The next thing you know, within 10 minutes, there's a preliminary injunction.
And again, but this is something I think In Europe, in South America, all over the world, we're seeing this lawfare arising, I think, as a very serious threat to democracy.
And what's most insidious, again, is that they cloak themselves in the rule of law and they purport to be defending democracy.
Yeah, we got to run roughshod over democracy to protect democracy.
I mean, it's a little bit wild, but I mean, you grew up as the son of a diplomat.
You've been a diplomat yourself in my father's first administration, still now.
You know the world well, and specifically the Western hemisphere.
Can you give us a broad look at your mission in this critical moment in history right now at state?
Yeah, absolutely.
Look, I think globally, we are kind of changing the, you know, a lot of the traditional, you know, what the State Department has been up to in a lot of countries.
And, you know, in particular, you know, in the early months of the administration, we cast a spotlight on this whole kind of USAID NGO network that was pushing a lot of left-wing ideology out in the world as the foreign policy of the United States.
It had nothing to do with actually promoting American interests.
And this is one of the crazy things.
We had this whole organization called United States Agency for International Development that wasn't doing anything involving international development, was doing kind of nakedly.
Right.
And was also completely at odds with our foreign policy.
So what we have done now is that we have brought most of the functions of that agency into the State Department so they're synced up with our foreign policy goals.
And, you know, I think it's very important, again, to just go back to basics.
Why do we have a foreign policy?
What are we trying to do in the world?
And again, I think.
And how does it benefit Americans?
That's perhaps the big question that I've wondered for a long time about most of the decisions that we make.
How is any of it good for America and Americans and the hardworking people who pay the taxes to enable these things to happen?
I couldn't agree with you more.
And I always feel, and I ask this question in every meeting, like, why do we care about this?
I mean, there's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on all over the world.
I think the first question is, why is this, right?
I mean, we need to define, as a United States, I think we've gone through a period now where everything in the world is our business, right?
If all of a sudden everything is critical, if the situation in Burundi is absolutely critical, well, if everything is critical, then nothing is critical, right?
We have to learn to prioritize what are our interests in the world and what does actually make our people safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
And particularly, I think the commercial element of diplomacy, which was what the founders cared about.
The founders said we want intercourse with foreign nations in order to bring prosperity to our country so we can engage in trade.
That has been taking the back seat for decades now to political and military imperatives.
And meanwhile, as you mentioned earlier, our industrial base was hollowed out and sent abroad.
And countries have been ripping us off left and right.
I was just talking to some ambassador, one of our ambassadors, who said, we have a fisheries treaty in the Atlantic that I think allows the Europeans to take in maybe 15 times more fish than we do.
Who signed that agreement?
What's that all about?
But I mean, I think for a long time, people have just been missing that basic sense that our foreign policy, again, exists for our country.
We are part of the executive branch of government, right?
There's no State Department foreign policy.
There's one person that the Constitution names in the field of foreign affairs.
That's the president, right?
We are part of the executive branch of foreign federal government, right?
And the Constitution gives the president very broad control over foreign affairs.
So our job in the State Department is to enact the president's agenda.
Yeah, and I think you guys are getting that done.
I mean, you got peace deals between Thailand and Cambodia.
Two weeks ago, I got to sort of be a fly on the wall as some of that was going on when I was with my father in Scotland.
You have multiple that have been going on.
I mean, you had Azerbaijan and Armenia this week.
And Later this week, I know the president, my father, is scheduled to hold a meeting in Alaska with Putin.
What can you tell us about what path towards ending this insane war in Ukraine looks like?
And does that path, what does it look like at the State Department?
Look, I think that you've just hit the nail on the head on a very important point.
I mean, for the last many administrations, no matter who people voted for, we wound up getting involved in more foreign wars.
And I think the president now has the stature and has the willingness to provide the good offices of the United States to actually resolve these conflicts.
Countries around the world are so happy that finally there's somebody who's actually trying to bring about peace.
And the president of the United States, that's a big responsibility.
And finally, after four years of the auto pen, we actually have a human being who actually is exercising the full authority of that office.
And that's a beautiful thing to see.
And that has allowed the United States to be helpful in resolving some of these conflicts.
Obviously, the big one that you just mentioned is the one between Russia and Ukraine.
I mean, it is terrible.
I've heard your father talk about this on many occasions.
I think he is really distraught by just the human suffering that tens of thousands of people are dying there daily and weekly.
And nobody really seems to have a great idea about how to end this thing.
And I think somebody has got to say, folks, come on, there's got to be a way to make a deal here that you are better off instead of just continuing to kill each other, just coming up with a deal.
And it is shocking to me that so many people are attacking him for wanting to be a peacemaker.
I mean, since when is the great irony is he's created more peace than anyone, and he was the guy that was going to bring on World War III, according to the morons.
But I mean, and there's people in, you know, frankly, in the deep state, I think, who are just used to an eternal state of conflict because that kind of justifies the existence of a massive American diplomatic and military footprint all around the world.
I don't think American people want that.
I think people want to get around their own business.
People are not interested in what is happening in countries that they literally have never heard of.
And frankly, it's our job to make sure they never have to hear those countries.
I mean, I grew up at the tail end of the Vietnam War.
I still remember news broadcasts when I was a boy of the terrible things happening.
I was like, what the heck are we doing in that part of the world?
And I remember my brother was of draft age and they had the lottery where they're taking bingo numbers out of the ball, whether or not you're going to have to go to Vietnam.
And we should not be in a situation again where young American men or women, they should know that if they're going to be called up to go into action, it's because critical interests of our country, our national security, are at stake and the homeland is threatened, right?
We are not going to go around the world having young Americans die when somebody in my shoes can't explain to them in one or two simple sentences why they are being sent to die.
If it's something that's very complicated, then you can probably tell then that's not something that we should be involved in, sending our own children to die.
And that's frankly what we've done for 30 years.
So I am very proud to be a part of a peace administration.
And I hope we can convince Russia and Ukraine.
As your dad said, with Israel and Iran, sometimes people are so used to fighting, they just can't, it's like a dog that can't let go of a bone.
I believe the quote was, they don't even know what the F they're talking about anymore.
And there's probably truth to that.
I mean, there's a lot of truth to that.
And, you know, I think, again, frankly, that's even true on our side.
Sometimes people are so used to kind of conventional thinking about something.
What I try to do in my job is bring a fresh perspective to these issues that, frankly, again, people are kind of already thinking inside The box.
And I think it is such a blessing to have a president who says, you know, something, thinking inside the box has brought our country to terrible situations when we have had so many people, you know, die overseas.
Meanwhile, our own factories are being emptied out.
Our streets are being flooded with fentanyl and illegal immigrants.
What the heck are the people running this country doing?
And it's clearly not for the good of the American people.
So, you know, honestly, people are not used to seeing people in my job at the State Department talking about these kind of things.
But, you know, I think this is one of the things that is such a blessing that Secretary Rubio and I, I think, are bringing, you know, we're kind of flinging open the windows of this building to bring some common sense in here and some fresh thinking.
And frankly, I have to say, I think a lot of people in the State Department come up to me and says, like, this is very exciting that actually, you know, we've just been doing the same thing for the last, you know, 30, 40 years.
It hasn't worked.
And, you know, but nobody really talks about it.
Like the Bureau.
Yeah, no, it's Einstein's definition of insanity, right?
Do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
But I mean, I guess speaking of which, can you talk about some of the other major reforms at the State Department in terms of making sure we are making decisions based on merit and bringing in the right people for the right job and at the right time?
I mean, I know that was a big focus for some of the things that you and Secretary Rubio hit right off of the bat.
The deep state and/or the media went nuts, but like the American people were like, no, that actually makes total sense.
Why are we spending $50 million on transgender surgeries in Burundi or wherever the hell it was?
I don't even remember at this point, but we were certainly spending the money there and no one knew why.
Exactly.
I remember that this was one of my worst days as ambassador to Mexico.
And I went over all the government spending that we had as a mission in Mexico.
And we were spending millions of dollars on these programs, environmental and gender-based programs.
I said, this is something, if this stuff is good, then the Mexicans should be doing it themselves.
Why is the United States spending this money?
What's in it for us?
And I was told, oh, no, don't go there.
There's staffers in Congress who are very attached to this program.
You're going to open a hornet's nest.
And that's one of the reasons why I was so honored and pleased to have this job when I can say, look, structurally, as ambassador to one country, I couldn't really turn that ship around.
Now, your father has empowered us and the secretary on down, all of us at the State Department are focused on making sure in everything we're doing, like what is in it for the United States?
How can we defend to the American taxpayer that this is a good use of taxpayer funds?
And I hope it's good for me to be on the show that we are being held accountable by people.
Like, you know, we are doing our best to find all this stuff in the cracks and crevices here.
But what we're trying to do is we're trying to streamline the State Department, make our missions very clear.
I mean, over the years, you know, the organizational chart of the State Department has become this kind of bizarre Rube Goldberg machine where, you know, different lines of authority reported.
We have just done a major reorganization here that the Secretary led and kind of restored the primacy of our regional bureaus that kind of focus on our relationships with particular parts of the world, the primacy of our economic diplomacy.
And we have folded into that a lot of the assistance programs that used to be complete on their own.
A lot of single issue constituencies were given offices in the State Department, which is kind of crazy because when you have a relationship with a country, you don't have a single issue, right?
You can't just say, well, this whole relationship is governed by human rights.
I mean, human rights is one issue in a spectrum of issues.
And it may be for one reason or other, we want to make that a bigger issue with a particular country or not.
But I mean, to say that we have people over here in the State Department that are looking at our bilateral relationship with the country and people over here who are saying we're looking at the human rights with that country, well, you have to have somebody's got to make the hard decisions and the trade-offs, like we're going to focus on this or that.
But you can't do that when those are kind of put on two separate tracks.
And so the Secretary streamlined The whole organization of the State Department and particularly those foreign aid programs to make sure that there aren't things that are run-amok programs.
Again, I think this is all very common sense.
We're kind of going back to the way the State Department was when my father, again, who was a career foreign service officer here from the 50s through the 80s, we're trying to kind of go back to the way the org chart was during his day.
I think it started to get crazy in the 90s after the fall of the Soviet Union when we no longer had a clear set of priorities that everybody started just throwing in kind of a Christmas present with a bow to some domestic constituent group.
And let me tell you one thing, Don, I think the American people need to know.
We now provide to Congress over 670 reports every year from the State Department because Congress has now taken to legislating.
Well, we just want to show our interest in this particular issue.
So we're going to demand a report from the State Department.
Well, basically, it's very hard for us to perform our role as part of the executive branch if we have to spend so much energy actually not enforcing the president's foreign policy, but just writing reports for Congress on various issues.
So we want to work with the congressional leadership to try to slim that down to a more reasonable number.
I just think that situation has grown out of control.
And, you know, every marginal increase hasn't necessarily caused the pain.
But at some point, you have the straw that breaks the camel's back.
You just look and say, this whole system makes no sense.
And Congress, you know, we got to stop this before the whole machine just kind of breaks down.
Of course, as we wrap up, what's the job been like for you on a personal note?
What's been the biggest surprises and some of the biggest challenges that we still face?
Listen, this has been a wonderful job.
I mean, again, I am so grateful to the president for giving me this opportunity to represent our country.
You know, it's been a tough job.
I mean, it's demanding, but days go by quickly when you're enjoying your work.
I mean, I think one of the things that we've been working on, frankly, I didn't really touch on this, but again, making the process more efficient within our government.
I mean, we've only been talking about the State Department, but on top of the whole State Department, then there was the whole National Security Council.
And a lot of those folks were, you know, kind of conducting their own foreign policy.
So we have all these Senate-confirmed people like the Secretary and me here in the State Department, but then you had unconfirmed staffers at the NSC who were, in a sense, conducting a separate foreign policy.
I think it was very important for your father to recognize that that had grown out of control.
And we've been working with the NSC.
That, you know, that was somewhat challenging in the early days of the administration, just structurally.
Like, how do you make it work?
I mean, our government is just so big, Don, that, you know, for instance, you could have one of our domestic departments that might have something to do with foreign relations, like, you know, with airplane travel or with agricultural imports.
And, you know, a real challenge, and I'm sure your dad, you know, can talk about this for days.
Our government is so vast that we have to learn a coordinated way that we can work together as an administration.
And I've always said I view my job horizontally, not vertically.
I view my job as part of a team of people in the Trump administration to accomplish the president's objectives, right?
I don't view my job in a silo vertically as I represent the State Department, right?
I want to reach out and work with people in the White House and the other cabinet departments so that we can have a coherent foreign policy.
We don't have random departments kind of throwing a bomb into our relations with a particular country because they have a B in their bonnet on some issue.
Like I think the challenge of coordinating the bureaucracy and make everybody march in the same direction is not to be understated.
But I'll say, you know, there is just such a pleasure in feeling that we now have the freedom to kind of think back to kind of first principles, like what are our interests in this country?
And, you know, that is something I think very few people in my shoes have had that experience In recent decades.
And I thoroughly enjoy that.
I clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia.
One of the joys of working for them is they would think legal issues back to the text of the Constitution and kind of cut through a lot of the barnacles that had grown up over legal doctrines.
I'm trying to do the same thing along with the Secretary in the realm of foreign policy.
And just let's get back to basics here.
And I think your dad, the president, has set a very kind of clear, you know, common sense vision of what are the basics.
Like, let's make sure that our people are getting, you know, treated fairly in terms of economics and commerce, that we leverage our power for the advantage of our country and our friends, that our friends are rewarded and those who would cross us are appropriately dealt with.
I mean, these are things that are pretty obvious.
And again, it's just shocking that we have not really had that kind of foreign policy for a long time.
Well, you guys have done a great job with that.
I really appreciate all of your efforts.
Deputy Secretary of State Chris Lando, thank you for all your work.
We'll continue to follow all of the latest developments.
And I'm sure as more stuff goes on around the world, we'll have to have you back on to talk about it in great detail.
So really appreciate it.
Thanks for everything.
And we'll talk to you soon.
Take care.
Thanks for having me on.
Be well.
Guys, coming up, the news rundown.
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And now, guys, let's get into all of the top headlines.
Again, we're doing this a little bit reverse order.
Things happening quickly.
Had the opportunity to talk to the Deputy Secretary of State.
So we're a little bit off track, but all good.
We're told more information is soon coming on Adam Schiff's mortgage fraud scam and maybe other deep state schemes to leak classified information during the height of the Russia hoax, which, frankly, as someone who was targeted, probably the number two target of that whole thing, and accused of actual treason, I don't know.
I think it's time for Schiff to face the music.
Adam Schiff is a liar and a leaker, and he's got nowhere to hide anymore, whether it's in Maryland at his primary residence or in California at his other primary residence.
I'm confident there will be much more to come on this.
And recently, Vice President Vance was asked about what's next for all this deep state bad actors.
Check this out.
I think the only thing the far left really responds to is power, Jim, if I'm being honest.
I wish that wasn't the case, but it actually is.
And so, excuse me, the thing that they're actually going to be responsive to is the recognition that there are consequences on the other side.
And this is why it's so important and why the president is so insistent that we actually take legal action against those who broke the law in the Biden administration.
If they get off scot-free, if they're never investigated, if they're never prosecuted when they violated the law, then they're just going to come back and do the exact same thing again.
And there are a few different ways, of course.
So it's the big tech companies that were censoring conservatives.
They've got to know that's not going to be allowed and there are going to be consequences for it.
The banks, the president is really preoccupied with this and rightfully so.
So many conservatives, so many conservative nonprofits who are debanked, they actually had their money stolen from them by these big Wall Street institutions.
You've got to make sure that doesn't happen.
And of course, you've got to pay the lawfare back in kind.
You've got to say to the Comeys and the Brennans of the world, of course, you've got to follow the law.
You can only prosecute people when they actually broke the law.
But we know that a lot of people broke the law in the last administration and they've got to face real justice, not just words, not just getting hauled before a committee in Capitol Hill.
If people broke the law, they have to actually be prosecuted for it.
Because I think that if they do that, if they know that the consequence for breaking the law is going to jail, then the next generation of Democrats, they're not going to try the same thing.
They're not going to try to throw Donald Trump in prison.
Now, on the subject of law and order, today my father declared Liberation Day and is activating approximately 800 National Guard troops and is taking over the Metropolitan Police Department to tackle out-of-control crime in our nation's capital, as well as utilizing FBI federal agents to get violent criminals off the streets.
Check this out.
A member of the Doge staff was savagely beaten by a band of roving thugs after defending a young woman from an attempted carjacking.
He was left dripping in blood.
He thought he was dead with a broken nose and concussion.
Can't believe that he's alive.
He can't believe it.
In June, a 21-year-old congressional intern was tragically killed after being hit by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting.
A former Trump administration official named Mike Gill, fantastic person, was murdered last year in cold blood in a carjacking blocks away from the White House.
We all knew him.
Great person.
Waiting for his wife as she was walking to the car.
A Democrat congressman was also carjacked at gunpoint not far from the Capitol.
And in 2023, an aide to Senator Rand Paul was stabbed in the chest and head by a demented lunatic as he walked down the street just absolutely for no reason.
Horrifically, last July 4th weekend, a three-year-old girl was shot in the head and killed while sitting in a car near the Capitol.
It's becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness.
And we're getting rid of the slums too.
We have slums here.
We're getting rid of them.
I know it's not politically correct.
You'll say, oh, so terrible.
No, we're getting rid of the slums where they live.
Caravans of mass youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day.
There are ATVs, motorbikes.
They travel pretty well.
And for far too long, D.C. crime has been out of control.
Here's just one of the many terrifying stories.
Internship working in Kansas Congressman Ron Estee's office.
He was very excited about the internship.
The future ended Monday night.
Caught in the middle of what police say is an ongoing dispute between two rival groups.
Around 10:30 at night, suspects got out of a car near 7th and M Street, according to police, and shot into a group of people, hitting a 16-year-old boy, a woman, and the 21-year-old Massachusetts native.
Eric Tarpinian Yakim died not long after.
Now, police say investigators found the vehicle used in the shooting in Prince George's County, and they say they're tracking down the suspects.
I was fanning coming back in October, but I'm really going to need to do some soul searching on that.
Following his friend's death, Peterson says the shooting has left him shocked and angry.
Washington, D.C., the shining city on the hill, the place that is where all the laws for the most powerful country in the world that has set forth the path forward that many countries have taken to become great through has really become a failure.
And the fact is that the numbers don't lie, even if the media does.
D.C. had the fourth highest homicide rate in the United States in 2024.
It's six times higher than New York City.
It's double that of Newark, New Jersey, and even comparable to places like Mexico City and Bogota, Columbia.
It's bad.
And under Democrats, it had gotten even worse.
Juvenile carjackings, random attacks, murders, and so much more.
But to the fake news media, the only real crime they've ever seen in D.C. was on January 6th by Trump supporters.
I mean, you can't make it up.
You know they will, but you can't really make it up.
So here's what they had to say.
The most violent moment in recent history in D.C. was January 6th.
And it was an attack on the United States Capitol by a lot of People who were doing it in the name of Donald Trump, and it included the people who were hurt, included members of law enforcement.
As Charlie Kirk wrote in response, these CNN propagandists have so mythologized January 6th as worse than Pearl Harbor and 9-11, you know, the story, that they're going to fight against Trump saving lives.
We've always said it, guys.
If Donald Trump were to cure cancer, they'd come up with something bad to say about it, but they're actually doing those kinds of things.
But those who are on the ground know the truth.
For example, the D.C. Police Union is fully supporting the effort.
Interesting.
I thought everything was fine.
Why would they support it unless they too realized they were in danger and something needed to be done?
President, that crime in the District of Columbia is out of control and something needs to be done with it.
We have to go back to how we got here, though.
In 2020, the D.C. City Council passed an enormous amount of legislation that handcuffed police officers, exposes them to administrative, civil, and even criminal liability, even when they do their jobs properly.
And now, five years later, our authorized sworn strength is 4,000 sworn police officers.
We currently have 3,180.
So we have more than 800 vacancies for the position of police officer.
And the way the department makes up for that gap is through 2 million hours of mandatory overtime every year.
So the fact that we need help from federal law enforcement and maybe even the National Guard shouldn't come as a surprise.
And we agree with that.
I think one of the issues here, though, is that we all know that's going to be temporary.
So in order to fix this problem and make sure that it doesn't ebb and flow and that the feds come in and we lower crime and then they leave and we're left holding the bag, it's very important that people know that there is underlying legislation that needs to be corrected so that we can actually properly staff this police department in order to properly.
Guys, it's a new day in our country and in our nation's capital.
So hope for the change that you all voted for.
Guys, thanks so much for tuning in.
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